Who can forget the April 2019 scenes from Notre-Dame Cathedral on fire against the inky Parisian midnight sky? The next day, newspapers around the world published the photos on their front pages. It was, unknowingly, a prescient metaphor for the crisis that would hit the West (and much of the rest of the world) in the first half of the 2020s, when restrictions on liberal democracy would be tested by the rise of populism over a series of years. local and national elections; while Russia would put pressure on Europe through its invasion from Ukraine; and as a pandemic would ravage the social contract and expose governments.

As the last embers of the fire died down in 2019, Emmanuel Macron said: “The fire at Notre-Dame reminds us that our history never ends and that we will always have challenges to overcome” (does he also predict lottery numbers?). “We will rebuild Notre-Dame, more beautiful than before – and I want it to be done in the next five years. We can do it. After the time for testing comes the time for reflection and then action,” he added. The building seemed beyond repair to many. And five years, a ridiculously ambitious deadline, before we even knew that Covid-19 would shut the world down a year later.

And yet, at the start of the month – according to the schedule desired by Macron – Notre Dame has reopened “more beautiful than before”. The interior is bright and its colors saturated; the care taken to preserve the building’s heritage, as described by New York Times architecture correspondent Michael Kimmelman, will likely never be fully appreciated by the public. But one of the great symbols of Western religion, civilization and Europe’s long history remains – proof, says Kimmelman, “that calamities are surmountable” and that people will work to save things that survive for a long time to themselves.

This is not just a reminder of the power of citizens working “together.” This is a lesson: effort is a powerful tool, and stagnation entrenched by bureaucracy and committees is neither inevitable nor necessary. The project to save Notre-Dame was not carried out alone with such efficiency and care. Instead, the French Parliament passed a law exempting the process from the usual regulations that would have slowed its completion (and perhaps even stopped it). As an Irish tech entrepreneur Ciaran Lee put it on X: “It’s almost always possible to build things quickly.” People simply choose not to do it.

I’m sure that, just like me, your mind has wandered to the new children’s hospital (an idea first proposed in 1993!). And while we’re at it, what about plans to build a train or tram to Dublin Airport? We know that Ireland is facing a dangerously hostile threat. housing market. Plans upon plans and committees upon committees say we need to do something about this. But I can’t help but think of Lee’s universal truth: It’s possible to do these things quickly, and for whatever reason, we choose not to.

Bureaucracy is a clever mechanism that allows everyone in the system to avoid accountability for inaction on important and ambitious projects. It is the fault of an unsigned letter, of a difficult official, of an old irreversible regulation, of a truculent local politician, of a petition from residents. Unfortunately, these things will exist as long as the world exists. Fortunately, Paris and Notre Dame prove to us that they all have a lot less power than we give them credit for (for whatever reason). We need to stop confusing a complete lack of ambition in planning and construction with reasonable care and following the rules. This makes the entire government look like snotty nerds.

( Ireland needs its own Joe Rogan, someone to challenge liberal orthodoxiesOpens in a new window )

A column about St. Stephen’s Day generally shouldn’t be so far-fetched. And it’s unlike me, even at the best of times, to care so much about regulation and infrastructure (I’m still roughly in my 20s – I should be thinking about things like Charli XCX and Virginia Woolf). But I can’t help but let myself be influenced by Notre Dame. The specter of one of the great symbols of Western civilization in flames moved me at the time just as much as its beautiful restoration moves me today. It is possible to save things. And saying that something is difficult, or complicated, or takes time, or is too expensive, that’s all well and good. To solve this problem – I guess – just note that all of these things are true and try anyway.

I might leave 2024 the same way I leave a standard weekday: despairing at government incompetence, furious that my train to take me home didn’t arrive on time, wondering if anyone one considers how to remedy the cosmic ineptitude that is embedded in public service. But I don’t feel any of that (I’m not a pessimist or a miser). Notre Dame’s return to life comforted me and reminded us all that difficult things are possible to accomplish once we are not afraid to be ambitious and once we are not afraid to seem like we care.