Letter from Lisbon : The Portuguese are not a covetous race, but in their eyes the Irish have been favoured with two blessings they cannot help but envy. One is an economic miracle, the other is rain.
To Irish visitors, many of them pilgrims to the shrine of Fátima, the azure skies and almost uninterrupted sunshine Portugal has basked in for the past five months must seem like a gift from above.
But Portuguese farmers are lamenting one of the worst droughts they can remember. In the white-walled villages of the Alentejo, the region of rolling pastures and oak forests to the south of Lisbon, priests are leading churchgoers into the fields to pray for rain.
Scientists are also turning to the heavens, using Portuguese Air Force planes to drop chemicals into the clouds in the hope of starting a downpour.
The weather experts say Portugal may still have to wait some weeks for abundant rain. But, whether in answer to prayer or artificially coaxed from the skies, it will fall by April, they guarantee.
When it comes to an economic miracle, however, no one is making any promises. José Sócrates, whose centre-left Socialists won a landslide victory in last Sunday's general election, wants to copy the success of Ireland, Finland, Denmark and Spain, countries he sees as having led the way along a road Portugal should also travel.
There is a long way to go. The economy is only just beginning to emerge from the deepest recession in the European Union. Unemployment is at an eight-year high of 7.4 per cent. Productivity is less than two-thirds the EU average and half the US level. The wage bill for an inefficient army of 700,000 state employees soaks up 15 per cent of GDP.
Voters have given Mr Sócrates (47) the majority he asked for to push through difficult reforms. For the first time since the overthrow of the Salazar-Caetano dictatorship in 1974, the Socialists won more than half the seats in parliament - a rare feat in any country with proportional representation.
No one contributed more - unintentionally - to the left's victory than Pedro Santana Lopes, the former mayor of Lisbon, who took over as prime minister last July when José Manuel Barroso stepped down to become European Commission President. His centre-right coalition government proved so chaotic, gaffe-prone and media-obsessed that only five months later Jorge Sampaio, Portugal's Socialist President, took the unusual step of dissolving parliament and calling the election a year early.
Mr Sócrates, a former environment minister, promises a "technological shock" to create up to 150,000 jobs in four years. This involves doubling state investment in research, paying for science and management graduates to work in companies and teaching children English from primary school onwards.
This, he believes, is the only way to emulate the success of other peripheral EU economies.
Ireland, in particular, is country to which many Portuguese have been turning wistful eyes. Facing the Atlantic together on the western edge of Europe, both countries are small, Roman Catholic and peripheral.
Until late into the 20th century, farming dominated both their economies and waves of emigrants sought better lives abroad.
Both their histories have been marked by a difficult relationship with a powerful neighbour and both joined the European Community as poor relations. Since the 1980s, however, the paths have diverged.
While Ireland has achieved some of the the highest growth rates in Europe and seen average income per person sail past the EU average, Portugal is forecast to take at least another 20 years to catch up with its European peers, falling behind instead of making ground during the past three years as economic growth fell below the average EU level.
In measuring themselves against the Irish, the Portuguese are perhaps indulging their love of self-reproach. Lisbon economists point out that Ireland had a head start, joining the European Community nine years before Portugal. The English language has also made it a favoured destination for US investment, they say.
Above all, the Irish did not suffer, as the Portuguese did for 48 years, under a miserly dictatorship that feared education as a political threat. In Portugal, the low level of past investment in education is seen as the crucial disparity between the two countries.
Despite these differences, Mr Sócrates sees the successes of Ireland and Scandinavia as beacons to light the way forward. His goal is a blend of business competitiveness and state welfare he calls "Nordic social democracy".
Most voters clearly share his aspirations. Rain aside, however, they would probably prefer to stick to their own climate.