Gombeen Nation

The shady world of Gombeen Nation and its funding

2012-01-31T00:01:00.001Z

Sometimes I wish the blog had the power and influence some seem to think it has. Take a comment that came in the other day on an older post detailing Councillor Nial Ring’s opposition to the recent visit by our nearest neighbour’s head of state.

The correspondent had been searching for the good councillor’s contact details, and was rather miffed to come across the bould Gombeen Nation topping the Google search (I tried it myself, but was rather miffed to see Gombeen Nation only came up second). I paste the comment below:

No doubt since I'm not a hater of all things Irish my words won’t get printed. One question I would like to ask is where does the money come from that maintains this bile and hatred? I was just searching for Councillor Rings’ contact details and this is the first thing that presents itself. I know that Google doesn’t provide this kind of exposure cheaply.

I wonder can it be traced back to the British treasury or a British org that promotes their monarchy?

Please note that Councillor Nial Ring was democratically elected by his constituents, which is more than can be said for some!

Padraig Beirne

Conspiracy afoot, it seems. Declan Ganley has nothing on the shadowy world of Gombeen Nation and the money that funds it. Does the dodgy cash come from the British Treasury, or a British organisation that promotes its monarchy? Or maybe it is even bankrolled by those masters of dirty tricks, M15?

No, far more banal than that Padraig, I’m afraid. It’s free to set up a blog. The only thing it costs is time - and the odd headache, from beating your head against the wall all the time.

Ireland is, after all, a place where many cannot see beyond the “bile and hatred” that passes for everyday, orthodox political discourse and opinion. Councillor Ring’s banging on about the Rising, "informers" and The 800 Years being a very good example of the genre.

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Kenny - "people went mad borrowing during the boom"

2012-01-28T19:04:00.016Z

What is it about so many of our fellow Irishmen/women that they can’t face the truth? Our esteemed prime minister, Enda Kenny – who makes a shade of grey seem rather exciting – says that “[Irish] people went mad borrowing during the boom”, and it creates a furore.

But Irish people did go mad borrowing during the boom – or bubble, as it might be more accurately termed. Not all Irish people, mind you, but enough to get the country up to its hoxters in debt. People who are now saying – like Kenny in another context – that "it’s not our fault”.

Bloody hell. Years back, a German/Turkish mate of mine came to visit – just as the bubble was puffing up nicely – and he was shocked by the amount of expensive cars on our roads. He was even more shocked when I told him some of them cost nearly twice as much in Ireland as they did in Germany, thanks to Ireland's Vehicle Registration Tax. All bought on the never-never, when Paddy and Mary were happy to take the money from the banks, bondholders or not.

I remember trying to move house during the boom years, and everywhere I went was swarming with investors. One estate agent – a refreshingly honest young lad – told me how a postman had a portfolio of seven properties on the go. How many did your average solicitor have, I wonder? Given how much easier it was to take care of the legal stuff? Portfolios that now translate into loss accounts for all of us.

The same lad related how everyone in the estate agent’s office, where he worked, laughed out loud when a semi-D down the road “made” a million. But back then, Paddy and Mary thought it could go on forever. Bertie Ahern thought the naysayers should commit suicide. The media talked it up, uncritically, and the opposition benches were quiet about the Ponzai scheme on which the Irish economy was built. If you stuck your head above the parapet and said it was “mad” you would most likely have it knocked off.

And now, even in retrospect - with the supposed benefit of hindsight - the story is the same with Kenny's belated admission.

It's a pity the ostrich is not indigenous to these barren shores. It would make a lovely national emblem.

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Another enforced hiatus ends?

2012-01-27T19:06:00.009Z

Just a quick note to say the blog is in transition from Vodafone to Smart Telecom at the moment and, as seems to be the way of it these days, connecting is proving troublesome.

It seems my nearest phone exchange is over 5km away, and the line consists of copper wire mined by destitute Victorian urchins. Its installation was, I'll wager, overseen by Alexander Graham Bell himself (left).

Until now, I had no connection whatsover since Monday, when Vodafone cut off the old one, hence the lack of posts and delays in getting comments up. Now I have a shiny new modem from Smart (received a few hours ago), so let's see how this goes.

I can't describe how frustrating this malarkey is, especially as there are so many good blogging subjects out there at the moment... the hysterical reactions to Enda Kenny's "people went mad during the boom" statement being one. ENDA TELLS THE TRUTH SHOCK! Facing reality, you see, has never been popular in Ireland.

But that's another story. In the meantime, we'll have a look at this new connection and see how we go.

Thanks for your patience.

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The Irish and the Nazis - Jig Heil!

2012-01-22T11:09:00.006Z

' Oh here's to Adolph Hitler ,
Who made the Britons squeal ,
Sure before the fight is ended
They will dance an Irish reel . '

Sinn Fein Irish Republican 'War News ' November 1940

Further to the last post about de Valera blacklisting Irish soliders who joined the British Army to fight Hitler, here's an interesting documentary which sheds yet more light on Ireland's rather sad history with regard to the Nazis. Big thanks to John for this one.

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Irish WW2 "deserters" seek pardon

2012-01-18T00:00:00.014Z

An interesting message from a reader dropped into the inbox recently. It brought attention to a campaign which seeks to pardon some 5,700 Irish soldiers who "deserted" to join the British Army during the Second World War in order to fight Nazism.

A letter writer in Tuesday's Irish Times, Ciaran Mac Aodha-O Cinneide, might sum up the attitude of some who simply insist that desertion is desertion, no matter what - and such an ovine attitude is characteristic of many in Ireland..

Ironically, they miss the point Captain Peader Cowan - who defended two such soldiers at their court-marshall in Ireland after the war - made when he defined “desertion” as “leaving a post of danger for a post of safety”.

In the case of these men, they did the exact opposite, with many dying on the beaches of Normandy, the bloodbaths of Arnhem and elsewhere, as their stay-at-home comrades played cards during the "Emergency", as Official Ireland referred to World War Two.

Non-pedants will contend that these soldiers, who rejected the delusional attitude of Dev and the Irish establishment, should have been honoured for their bravery and initiative in helping to topple one of the most awful regimes the world has ever known, despite the opposition of their own government.

Dev, we know, was a slippery chancer who could bend his so-called principles when it suited him. Instead, he chose to play hard-ball with these brave souls when they returned home in victory. The man who pursued a spineless policy of neutrality, and commiserated with the German ambassador on Hitler’s death, put the soldiers on a “starvation” blacklist to ensure they could never again attain employment in their own country.

Yet more maliciously, even the children of some soldiers concerned were condemned to incarceration in Ireland's industrial "schools" as a result of the policy (Irish Times – “Time to Pardon Soldiers who Left to Fight Hitler” 14th Jan 2012). The Gestapo themselves would have been impressed.

As an example of bitter, petty spite, it is hard to beat. But then again is it surprising? During the war, when the modus operandi of the Nazis was apparent, it is believed that a substantial number of Irish people wanted Hitler to triumph. Motivated solely, as was their nationalism and Dev’s, by "bein' agin the Brits".

What is harder to understand, even by de Valera's very low standards, is how he and the Irish authorities still enthusiastically adhered to their policy of blacklisting the ex-soldiers when the full extent and scale of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis shocked the world in the years and decades after the war.

The treatment of these men and their families is up there with the worst of the many scandals in this sorry State's history.

BBC4 documentary on the Irish “deserters” who fought Hitler

Irish Soldiers Pardons Campaign

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HSE worker gets 60k pension after 18 years' sick leave.

2012-01-15T18:28:00.009Z

Sorry, the longer I do this blog the more I feel like I'll be getting a shouty column in the Oirish Daily Mail very soon.

But bloody hell, there comes a point when you have to ask what is going on in the seemingly parallel world of the Irish public service?

According to an Irish Times editorial "Grandstanding on Property Tax" (19th December), our public services (including pensions) cost €1.3 billion a month to run.

But even in times such as these, when our rotten little kip is being kept afloat by IMF and EU money (we cannot afford to borrow on the bond markets), there is still a residual attitude that public money - borrowed as it is at present - is a limitless resource.

Have a look at the following extract taken from, not the Mail, but the Irish Examiner of January 14th. And apologies to any productive hospital workers I might know!

Hospital worker gets €60k to retire despite spending 18 years on sick leave

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A HOSPITAL worker was given almost €60,000 to leave the HSE under last year’s "cost-saving" voluntary retirement and redundancy schemes — despite being on unpaid sick leave for 18 years.

Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner show the unnamed employee was one of 61 HSE South staff paid to leave despite not being on the state payroll. Twenty people had been off it for five years or more. The figures are detailed by an HSE internal audit examination of the exit schemes.

According to the 26-page document, 232 of the 2,003 people who initially took up the national programme to cut health service payroll costs were based in the HSE South. But 61 of those had not worked in the system "for an extensive period". They included a former worker who had been on unpaid sick leave since 1992, when his paid sick leave had expired.

The audit said despite concerns over this person’s eligibility under the scheme, it was decided that under the Redundancy Payments Act he was entitled to almost €60,000: two weeks’ pay per year for 1992 to 2010 (€33,354); an undisclosed bonus week payment; a €23,664 ex-gratia payment and €1,130 "in lieu of notice" to leave under the cost-saving measure.

A similar internal review of exit scheme take-ups in the HSE Mid-West found that one applicant was incorrectly given €10,000 in taxpayers’ money.

The raft of internal audits released under the Freedom of Information Act includes details of:

* How doctors at the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar cost the taxpayer millions of euro by failing to fill out private inpatient paperwork, some from five years ago, and saw costs written off as "bad debt".

* Concerns over how "acting up" payments for staff to cover more senior posts are used for longer periods instead of finding full-time employees to fill the roles...

It really is hard to reconcile all this nonsense with the fact that, but for the bailouts, the country is bankrupt, and recent tax increases are unlikely to see any boost to the exchequer as people have been bled dry at this stage. 23% of nothing is much the same as 21% of nothing, after all.

No matter what Kenny says - and his record for false promises is second to none - another bailout looks likely, and that is bound to come with conditions... which is probably just as well.

'Tis a great little land.

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Shortall's minimum price booze boost for Newry

2012-01-13T08:20:00.010Z

You are in a bookshop, you plonk five hefty tomes on the counter and hand over your money. The assistant then gives you your change and receipt before asking “do you want a bag?”

A few years back, the government of the day introduced the plastic bag levy, and Irish retailers must have been delighted. The levy was ostensibly about saving the planet, but shop owners saw it as a way to save money by not supplying free plastic bags to customers.

Some switched over to paper bags, but were very miserly about handing them out. So now the country is full of people walking the streets with armfuls of merchandise. The above is an excellent example of using a worthy goal - saving the planet – to further supplement the greasy till.

And now Labour’s Roisin Shortall wants to pull the same stunt on a larger scale. She wants to introduce and enforce a minimum price at which alcohol can be sold, under the pretext of combating under-age drinking by preventing the sale of “cheap” booze to them... and everyone else.

Publicans have been whinging for years about supermarkets and off-licences selling alcohol for lower prices than they charge in their pubs, so they will be pleased with this one. You would swear Fianna Fail were still in power, with Shortall serving the same old vested interests – albeit camouflaged by the supposed noble goal stamping out under-age and problem drinking. Many a pickled liver will rejoice, no doubt.

A Department of Health spokesperson recently stated that government’s “real concern” prompting the proposal was the accessibility of alcohol to young people and under-age drinkers. Surely, though, If retailers are selling alcohol to those who are under-age, they should simply be prosecuted?

Ironically, supermarkets - the real target of the vintners' lobby, are perhaps the most stringent in terms of enforcing age legislation, with every item of alochol sold needing "approval". (As an aside, how come “young people”, students and other assorted brats seem to have so much disposable income to piss up the wall in times such as these, anyway?)

And please, let’s explode the “cheap booze” myth. A couple of years back, the blog mentioned how cheap, compared with Ireland, alcohol was in Spain, with a bottle of vodka to be had for four euro and a half-litre can of San Miguel for just over 50 cent. Yet the streets were not full of pissed-up Spaniards making a nuisance of themselves and clogging the A&E departments.

No, Ireland’s alcohol and anti-social problems need more focused targeting than Shortall’s proposal, something she herself concedes by acknowledging the need for an "holistic approach"... while taking the blunderbuss approach anyway and raising the price of yet another consumable for the public. Can't she see that people feel shafted enough as it is?

Should she get away with it, despite EU competition law, expect the Newry tills to start ringing again and Irish retailers hear the sound of tumbleweed in the aisles .

And the pubs will still be no busier.

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Mary Raftery dies aged 54

2012-01-10T16:16:00.007Z

Ireland is a country that has never benefited from a surfeit of conscientious, campaigning journalists. People who dedicate their careers to fighting injustice and speaking out for the most voiceless and vulnerable.

Mary Raftery was one such rarity, however, and her death at the age of 54 signifies a sad loss for journalism and Irish society in general.

The following is taken from BBC news:

'States of fear' journalist Mary Raftery dies

Journalist Mary Raftery who was instrumental in challenging the Irish state and Catholic Church on clerical child abuse has died.

She was best known for her 1999 ground-breaking "States of Fear" documentaries.

They revealed the extent of abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and institutions managed by religious orders.

It led to taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologising on behalf of the state.

Her work also led to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which reported in May 2009, and to the setting up of a confidential committee which heard the stories of victims of institutional abuse.

Speaking about her findings to the BBC in 2009, Mary Raftery said: "There was widespread sexual abuse, particularly in the boys' institutions.

"Extremely vicious and sadistic physical abuse, way off the scale, and horrific emotional abuse, designed to break the children.

"We had people talk to us about hearing screams... the screams of children in the night coming from these buildings and really not knowing what to do.

"They didn't know to whom they could complain because the power in the town was the religious order running the institution."

Following the documentaries, the government set up the Residential Institutions Redress Board which has compensated about 14,000 people to date.

And her 2002 documentary "Cardinal Secrets" with Mick Peelo for RTE led to the setting up of the Murphy Commission into clerical abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.

Ms Raftery worked for RTE from 1984 to 2002.

She wrote a column for the Irish Times and taught at the Centre of Centre of Media Studies at NUI Maynooth.

RTÉ Director General Noel Curran said her journalism was defined by determination and fearlessness, and that she had left an important legacy for Irish society.

Seamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said her death was a "significant loss".

"She will be mourned by all who knew and respected her as a fearless journalist who was always willing to ask awkward questions, to seek out uncomfortable facts and to shine a light in the darkest corners of Irish society," he said.

"Mary will be best remembered for her ground breaking documentaries, 'States of Fear' and 'Cardinal Secrets', but her contribution to Irish journalism was multi-faceted.

"Her passion for social justice informed Mary's journalism at In Dublin, in Magill and in RTÉ. Her work was always challenging, always provocative yet always sensitive."

Summing up her work in a newspaper interview last September, she said: "The most important thing you can do is to give a voice to people who have been silenced. And …what else would I be doing?"

Mary Raftery is survived by her husband, David Waddell and their son, Ben.

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Water sign of the times

2012-01-08T17:22:00.001Z

We all know there's a recession on, and the present government is nearly as inept as the last one with its 2% VAT hike, but are things really so bad that supermarkets have to put security tags on an 85c (or €1.10 for two) bottle of water?

Spotted in Tescos, Tallaght.

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Irish education system - must do better

2012-01-04T00:01:00.007Z

There has been some talk recently of reforming the education system in Ireland – something that is long overdue.

As far back as the 1920s, the fledgling State’s rulers were more taken with the idea of using the education system as an instrument of Gaelic revivalism, promoting a spurious homogeneous Gaelic, Catholic identity. Then, at some point, it was decided to teach all primary school children through Gaelic… a language the majority did not speak nor understand.

Those who controlled the education system, the politicians, the Catholic Church and the Gaelic League did not care that such a policy would result in children leaving school early with no education, other than a cowed deference to authority – which had been beaten into them.

I remember people going on about how great the Irish education system was when I was part of it in the 1980s… when even to a young participant it was anything but.   Our school had a sizeable complement of incompetent teachers: some violent, some clueless, some psychotic, and some plain mad.

But whatever about the past, an article on the subject of schooling in Ireland by Emer O’Kelly in the most recent Sindo made some pertinent contemporary observations, such as these below:

"Those who didn't actually leave the education system without being able even to read and write (23 per cent of the adult population) were, apart from the very few of exceptional ability, products of a numbing system of rote learning which prevented provocative thought, intellectual exploration and critical analysis. They were uneducated, taught what to think, not how to think."

"Early retirement packages have been offered to teachers, allowing them to live extremely comfortably from their mid-50s onwards. And quite a lot of our "dedicated" teachers -- whose unions spend their time telling us of teacher selflessness, commitment, and risibly low salaries -- rushed to apply for the package. (By the way, how is €69,500 for a job that ends at four in the afternoon and has three months' holidays "risible"?)."

"As things stand, a teacher aged 54 with 34 years' service, based on 2009 arrangements, will receive a pension of €28,322. It will be accompanied by a gratuity of €88,655. That's if the teacher goes in February."

Interesting stuff, eh?

Now look at the following equation, ye at the back!

23% illiteracy +   €69,500 teachers' salaries = Teachers fail miserably.

Think about that near ninety-grand retirees will receive.    The very time-servers who have done our children such a disservice should be seen off by means of a size-12 foot up the collective hole, rather than through a golden handshake. That won't happen though, as they are unaccountable, so we just have to be happy we are getting rid of them at last - albeit at great expense.

To replace them, restrictions on foreign teachers working here – and many indigenous ones - through a Gaelic proficiency requirement, should be ended. Even as things stand, and ignoring the qualified-elsewhere teachers barred from employment in education, there are 2,000 non-permanent teachers to replace the 1,000 expected to take the money (according to O'Kelly). So let's re-educate them in any putative shake-up.

And then let's slaughter some Dev-inspired sacred cows. Compulsory Gaeilge and extra payments for teachers teaching it,  must end immediately. As should extra points for students sitting exams as Gaeilge. Both help to perpetuate the industry within education around the subject, and the latter distorts students' results as well as causing resentment.

Teachers should be made accountable - their jobs should be seen as responsible ones and treated as such.

Finally, rote learning and regurgitation of facts should be replaced by an approach which enables pupils to actually understand the subjects they are being taught.

It might mean that, a few generations down the line, we would eventually have a populace capable of rational and critical thinking.

But then again, do our authorities really want such a thing?

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New Year resolutions... who is going to keep them?

2012-01-01T18:33:00.010Z

So it's 2012 – a new year - and it’s going to be even more miserable than the last.

You will pay an extra 2% on top of practically everything you buy, road tolls will increase, yet more revenue-raising fixed penalty motoring offences will be enforced, rail and bus fares will go up and you can be sure the utility companies will have their slice of the action too. It's all so predictable.

Like this morning. I was driving through the Phoenix Park on the way into town – an act that takes an eternity as they have been re-surfacing its main road for months now. I was one of the poor unfortunates who had to work today, so wasn’t in the best of form.

Even so, I couldn’t suppress a hearty guffaw when I observed the legions of joggers about – as plentiful as the faithful at the Pope’s gig in the dark(er) days of the Seventies.

Who were they kidding? They’ll be sat on their arses watching daytime TV as soon as their resolutions dissolve into indolence – just like happened last year. So enough of the New Year optimism nonsense, puh-lease!

The only ones who will hold true to their resolutions are the Government, its state and semi-state companies, and the authorities.

And they’ve resolved to shaft you even more.

Happy new year!

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Eircom Customer Support… not!

2011-12-30T00:01:00.008Z

Or Eircom – a shower of useless shites...

I had a pop at Vodafone in the last-but-one blog post, as my Internet connection is giving credence to the idea of the "www" initials standing for World Wide Wait. Thing is, I now believe that the fault lies with Eircom, who supply the phone line to the house.

You may recall that an engineer, or technician - whatever they like to call themselves – paid a (second) visit before Christmas?

He first mistook a scanning device for a phone, and was puzzled when he couldn’t hear a ringtone. After that inauspicious start he pressed a button on some meter he had, and informed me that the line was “100% fine”.

What he never even bothered doing was taking a look at my ancient phone point – or whatever the genuine 70s object you see in the pic above is. Take the cover off this old yoke and you are confronted with a veritable Medusa of messy wiring, which doesn't look like the stuff of a "100% fine" phone connection (below).

If the lazy shite had updated this antediluvian box with a modern one when he troubled my threshold, I’ll wager that my Internet connection would be functioning properly now.

Vodafone are trying to organize a third visit from Eircom, which they hope will rectify the problem.

Let’s hope they send someone who can at least recognise a phone when they see one.

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Ho ho woes of the Santa lookalikes

2011-12-25T11:53:00.001Z

Something festive for you now: an amusing video which describes the plight of some not-so-jolly gentlemen who look like a certain red-besuited denizen of the North Pole.

Funnily enough, one of the characters in the video used to work in my place and I often remarked on the resemblence myself. Thankfully I never expressed it...

Happy Christmas all.

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Vodafone Customer Support... Not!!!!

2011-12-22T17:49:00.009Z

This morning, I found myself passing Glasnevin Cemetery on the way to work and thinking "hmmm, that looks quite comfy".

Why? Well, over the past week or two I have been dealing with Vodafone customer care; in tandem with the devilspawn, illegitimate offspring of State-owned Telecom Eireann, Eircom.

If you are wondering why there have been so few blog posts lately, look no further than this desperate letter I sent to Vodafone today.

Dear Madam/Sir. 

I am sending you this email as I do not know where else to turn at this point. 

My wife and I moved house two weeks ago and are Vodafone customers (phone and broadband).    Since we moved to the new address our broadband connection has deteriorated to that of a 1990’s dial-up equivalent. When we phone Vodafone customer support (which we have done many, many times) the representative invariably confirms that there is a problem with our broadband, and resolves to have the line checked.

The day before yesterday someone from Eircom came out and checked the line (at Vodafone’s instigation), before confirming it was in working order.   We still continued to have problems with our agonizingly slow connection so, again, we got back onto Vodafone Customer Support.  Again, they confirmed the connection was not correct and said they would send someone to check it.

This morning, a totally disinterested Eircom technician came out to check the line.  After first picking up my wife’s shopscan handset – mistaking it for a phone – he eventually concluded the line was “100% OK”.   He added that our internet connection was through Vodafone he could do no more. 

You can guess the rest...   When we tried our connection again it was still the same.   Vodafone customer support ran a series of tests and confirmed there was still a fault.  They said someone (I presume from Eircom) would come out to check our line tomorrow. 

It is beginning to resemble some Kafka-esque Groundhog Day at this stage, and I now fear we will be without a proper broadband connection all over Christmas. 

If the matter cannot be resolved tomorrow (December 23rd), we would like to cancel our account on the grounds that the service we are paying for is not being provided to us by Vodafone.

I hope you, the person reading this email, can do what no-one else has succeeded in doing so far, and get our connection sorted for us. 

Yours

***** *********

Let's see what happens then, shall we?  

Or not. 

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Speeding Biker does 150 mph (240 km/h) on Donegal regional road

2011-12-19T12:09:00.008Z

Do you remember racing motorcyclist Barry Sheene? He had many crashes and spills during his illustrious career, so many in fact, that much of his body was held together with nuts and bolts by the time he hung up his leathers.

Once, he lost control of his machine when he inadvertently drove over a slug while banked into a corner. It doesn’t take much to make you lose control of a motorbike, as you only have two small patches of rubber keeping you in contact with the road.

Then throw in a lot of power and the fact that two wheels – unlike four – are inherently unstable. Leave a motorbike standing upright and it will fall over – it’s just your balance and the wheels’ gyroscopic effect keeping you perpendicular when in motion.

It would make you wonder what the guy (as I assume it was) who made this onboard video from his Yamaha R6 was thinking. You’ll notice the road, in Donegal, is rather narrow and is riddled with junctions and gateways to boot – each one offering the potential for a car or a tractor to emerge.

Look, I’m no Gay Byrne. I’ve driven a car with four fat ZR-rated tyres at 250 clicks on a quiet, unrestricted Autobahn. Believe me, that was hairy enough, and it takes a bit of time to stop from that speed, should you have to.

I wouldn’t like to guess the braking distance of a Yamaha R6 at 240 km/h on a bumpy rural road...

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Moving house IS stressful...

2011-12-17T19:34:00.016Z

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do, along with coping with a bereavement, being made redundant, getting divorced, or phoning Vodafone customer support.

Moving house, I can vouch, is extremely stressful. Not the actual moving bit, like packing all your possessions into boxes and helping the man with a van transport them.

People make a fuss about that, in the same way as some folks do about making Christmas dinner… why? Put the turkey in the oven, drink several units of alcohol, take it out, place it on the table. Sorted.

The worst thing about moving house is the financial worry of it all. Especially if you buy first, then sell. If you tell an estate agent you have to sell your existing gaff when make an offer on another one, they will laugh in your face. Chains are no-nos, you see.

So, after securing a millstone mortgage on the new place, I had a personal news blackout (as well as a few beer-induced ones) as I hoped the buyers of the old manor were doing the same thing. I mean, think about it. The Euro is on the verge of implosion, and the Shinners think closer union with Britain - in the light of its veto on closer fiscal governance for the Eurozone - is the way forward. Strange times indeed.

Then you have other Little Irelanders talking about a return to the Punt, for pity’s sake. Do that, and our money – those of us who have any at all – would be as valuable as confetti at a League One footballer’s wedding. Ibec would love it, as exports would be cheaper. We would hate it (even its current advocates) as everything would be more expensive. It would be like Weimar Germany all over again, as people filled up their wheelbarrows with currency before heading off to the shops for a loaf of bread.

These were the thoughts filling – and wrecking – my head as I waited for the sale to close on the old house. That and the image of someone being swept out to sea in the mother-father-and-grandparents of economic rip tides, watching the safe and familiar shore disappearing forever, as the financial gap between buying and selling widened, with house prices sinking still further. Not nice.

Thankfully, it all worked out in the end. Oh… and the broadband is back.

Happy days, despite it all.

Santa attacked at IKEA store in Ballymun

2011-12-13T20:32:00.008Z

A Yuletide story for you now.

I spluttered on my Weetabix earlier when RTE’s Morning Ireland reported that Gardai (Irish police) were investigating an attack on Santa that took place in Dublin yesterday.

It seems that ex-builder turned Father Christmas, Kevin Shiels, was doing his Santa slot in IKEA, Ballymun, when he was set upon and punched by two-fourteen-year-olds. An elf was at hand, fortunately, to call security.

Things are getting more surreally bizarre in this country every day, they really are...

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Political tee-shirts

2011-12-10T14:11:00.001Z

Wear your political tee-shirt, with sacred college scarf; discussing the world situation, but just for a laugh.

The Specials, Rat Race.

Not that we have much to laugh about here, paddling deep in the ordure due to political shysterism and incompetence. Or should that be "incontinence"?

A friend of mine has started up a cottage industry making political tee-shirts that are very heart-felt indeed. No showy studenty semantics here, these ones call a spade a f***king shovel.

See for yourselves.

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Enforced hiatus

2011-12-07T17:12:00.001Z

Sounds painful, and it is.

The blog is undergoing an enforced hiatus at the moment, due to a house move. Its seems that it can take up to 15 days to sort out your broadband with my provider, which seems a pretty long time. Granted, not as bad as when you had to personally know a politician years ago, in order to secure a phone from the P&T (Department of Post and Telegraphs), a forerunner of Eircom.

I have now been assured that a shiny new broadband line will be in place next week sometime, unless some dastardly conspiracy is afoot (well, it is the Internet after all!).

Meanwhile, it's a case of only getting to a connection once or twice a day for now... so sorry that comments on the previous posts have been taking so long to appear. Thanks for your patience... please bear with it for a little bit longer.

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Teachers, poets, have much to answer for in Ireland...

2011-12-04T19:42:00.019Z

"They think they have foreseen everything, but the fools! the fools! the fools! they have left us our Fenian dead; and while Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace."

Well… we’ve been “free” now for nigh-on 90 years, and we’re still not at peace. In fact it’s arguable that we are relatively worse off since blood-sacrifice headbanger Patrick Pearse made his signature oratory at the graveside of O’Donovan Rossa in 1915.

There are people out there, perhaps in the majority, who still think those oft-quoted words constitute a profound statement. The patriot living tend to recall the following, penned by the same author, less frequently:

Little lad of the tricks,

Full well I know

That you have been in mischief:

Confess your fault truly.

I forgive you, child

Of the soft red mouth:

I will not condemn anyone

For a sin not understood.

Raise your comely head

Till I kiss your mouth:

If either of us is the better of that

I am the better of it.

There is a fragrance in your kiss

That I have not found yet

In the kisses of women

Or in the honey of their bodies.

Lad of the grey eyes,

That flush in thy cheek

Would be white with dread of me

Could you read my secrets.

He who has my secrets

Is not fit to touch you:

Is not that a pitiful thing,

Little lad of the tricks ?

Pearse, conveniently, was a schoolteacher – as was Dev himself (see pic above, kindly sent in by a reader). Quite a few other of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, with its two invocations to God, were self-proclaimed poets... as most poets are.

Then you had once-socialist-internationalist James Connolly (who had seen Esperanto as the future lingua franca of a liberated proletariat... language being a barrier to international unity and understanding) getting all disillusioned after the failure of the 1912 Lockout and the slaughter of the First World War, throwing his lot - and his Citizen Army comrades - in with the vanguard nationalists, Catholic supremacists, and Gaelic Leaguers of the emerging Irish bourgeoisie.

Is it any wonder things worked out the way they did?

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Children's allowance to be cut by 10 Euro?

2011-12-01T18:36:00.009Z

A few years back – I think I mentioned it before – I played bass guitar in a rather mediocre pub/wedding covers band. It was an interesting enough experience, in its way, and brought me to such glamorous venues as the Drake Inn (Finglas), Hartstown House (yup, Hartstown) and The Furry Bog in Whitechurch, Rathfarnham (and if you think that particular part of south Dublin is the epitome of faux middle-class respectability, I dare you to check out Whitechurch).

They were the rougher ones. Some smoother places were The Tram, near Guinness Brewery in town, and the Clonsilla Inn. Even Tramco, Rathmines, brim-packed with 500 semi-naked young ones – an awful distraction altogether – was graced with our dubious presence one Paddy's Night. But the more coveted gigs were to be found on a certain day every month, namely the one when the children’s allowance money came in.

There has been much moaning, groaning and gnashing of teeth lately with the rumours that said allowance might be cut by €10 a pop. And no wonder - that’s two pints of beer or a 20-pack of John Player Blue and a packet of peanuts. Parents have a right to be indignant when the "mickey money" is under threat - "mickey" being a quaint Hiberno-English colloquialism for "penis".

In times such as these, however - when we are looking at a 2% VAT increase, yet more taxes for the motorist in a country with a desperately inadequate public transport system, another raft of “green” taxes and all the rest – why shouldn’t a cut in children’s allowance be countenanced? Especially when it is questionable how much of it is actually spent on children?

Having experienced a childhood of Frank McCourt-style poverty myself, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else – but surely, in the present climate, is there not an argument for at least means-testing the children's allowance? And maybe distributing it in such a way that the little brats themselves are the beneficiaries - by means of vouchers or something similar?

Or is this another Irish sacred cow that nobody can even question?

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Where Were You? Garry O'Neill's book comes highly recommended.

2011-11-27T19:25:00.009Z

Those who like to ponder, or pontificate, on matters of “culture” could do worse than peruse Garry O’Neill’s “Where Were You? Dublin Youth Culture & Street Style 1950-2000”.

I have always had a healthy respect for people living in Dev’s Ireland of the 50s and 60s, who rejected the state-sponsored insularity and anti-modernity of the era, and swapped ideals of poker-arsed comely maidens jigging about at every crossroad in exchange for twisting, jiving and locomotioning to alien influences. Some might call it being defeated by cultural imperialism…. if so, I’m grateful for it.

The book goes beyond that however, and covers the period 1950-2000, right up to punk, the mod revival, and on to the more recent trends that I wouldn’t be so au fait with. You won’t see an Aran sweater anywhere, thankfully.

What you will see, is young Dubliners bucking the local trend by donning drapes, drainpipes, tonic suits, parkas, leather jackets, safety pins and other apparel that Dev and the Irish powers-that-be would have condemned. I’m sure brave souls outside the capital did so too – and they deserve even greater respect.

Anyway, have a look. You never know who you might see.

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Darren Scully and Kevin Cardiff - a Comedy for Europe?

2011-11-24T00:01:00.005Z

The Fine Gael mayor of Naas, Darren Scully, resigned his post last Tuesday after stating in a radio interview with Kildare FM that he “would no longer represent black Africans”.

He apologised “unreservedly” for his comments, saying “I realise now that my remarks were open to an interpretation that I did not intend. I abhor racism in all its forms”.

Bloody hell… what kind of a place is it? An elected representative, a mayor no less, saying he wouldn’t represent a particular grouping of constituents on the basis of their nationality and skin colour. What other kind of interpretation was there? And how could someone occupying such a position say something so obviously stupid, and think it was OK?

The last person I heard making such a statement was Derek Beacon, of the British National Party, prior to his council election in London’s Isle of Dogs back in the 90s. Scully, however is a member of the senior mainstream party in Ireland’s coalition government. But he’s not a racist, OK Ted? Apparently there were people phoning daytime radio programmes (not at work then?) to voice support for his remarks.

It is hard to believe some of the stuff that goes on in this place. Between that and the senior civil servant in the Department of Finance who presided over the economic collapse of the country, and couldn’t account for €3.6 billion in his own Department, being nominated by the Government to the European Court of Auditors - with the full backing of supposedly new broom prime minister, Enda Kenny.

When Labour MEP, Nessa Childers, spoke out against Cardiff’s nomination she was told to shut up by fellow Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa. She received dire warnings that she “could be sued” for Cardiff’s loss of earnings (a six-figure sum) should he fail to get the post. It sounds like something from the Haughey years, but this time the threats came from a smoked salmon socialist of the Labour Party against this own colleague.

Embarrassingly for the Government, and De Rossa, Cardiff’s nomination was last night rejected by a European Parliament Committee. Did they not see it coming? Or are standards so low here, that they expect the same to apply elsewhere. Or were they just trying to provide some kind of comedy act to lighten the mood in these times of crisis?

In some other countries both Scully and De Rossa would be expelled from their respective parties. But here?

Best take that next breath when your face starts turning blue.

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An Coimisinéir Teanga to be merged with Ombudsman

2011-11-22T00:07:00.018Z

The Irish language lobbyists were up in arms (again) last Friday, protesting outside the Irish parliament on Kildare Steet. “What was the subject of their ire this time?” I hear you cry.

Well, make sure you are sitting down for this one, as this is serious shit. It seems that - hang on ‘til I check the spelling - An Coimisinéir Teanga (The Irish Language Commissioner) is to be absorbed into the Office of the Ombudsman in Dublin.

Now. What do you think of that bombshell?

Never mind the Universal Social Charge, never mind 23% VAT, never mind the carbon tax, never mind the health cuts, never mind… you get the idea. This is the most shocking news since Lenihan announced the bank guarantee. It is catastrophic. We might as well all flee for the hills this very minute.

What is going to become of the country? What? An Coimisinéir Teanga was set up to enforce Eamon O’Cuiv’s (who has the blood of Dev himself coursing through his Gaelic veins) 2003 Official Languages Act.

An Coimisinéir Teanga does work that is tremendously important. For instance, if a Gaeilgeoir hobbyist notices that the letters making up “Guinness Brewery” on a Dublin tourist signpost are printed larger in English than in Gaelic, he/she can complain to An Coimisinéir Teanga. Or if the Gaelic translation of the words is not placed above the vernacular version. Then, Dublin City Council can tear down all the existing signs and replace them at considerable expense.

Or if a language hobbyist observes a bedraggled queue of people standing at a bus stop, looking for real-time information on when the next bus might arrive, he/she can complain to An Coimisinéir Teanga and have the signage delayed until they show the information as Gaeilge (first of course) and English alternately. It doesn't matter if this takes a decade or so.

A language hobbyist can also apply to An Coimisinéir Teanga on the subject of automated train announcements if he/she feels that Gaeilge is not being given enough prominence. Thus, we can all enjoy interminable bi-lingual (with Gaeilge first, of course) announcements from the minute we get on the train until we get off.

Or if a government or local authority document has not been printed as Gaeilge, our language hobbyist can get onto An Coimisinéir Teanga and make sure thousands fly off the presses. Even if not one is bought by the public.

An Coimisinéir Teanga fulfills a vital role in Irish life, and my heart goes out to its dynamic, visionary staff who will have to vacate their lovely shiny building in Spiddal, Galway, to share a crumbly premises in Dublin with Office of the Ombudsman time-servers.

Shocking news.

There is no doubt about it. We are staring into the abyss.

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Less fees more gees: the lofty aspiration of middle-class Irish students

2011-11-19T00:01:00.010Z

While the Irish middle classes have no problem paying fees for little Oisin and Roisin’s secondary education, they feel that third level should be “free”. That is, the ubiquitous “taxpayer” should stump up for their brats’ passport to economic advancement.

When third level fees were abolished in 1996, it was trumpeted as an initiative that would open further education up to all classes. It didn’t, of course, as a report by Dr Kevin Denny, in May 2010 found:

“..while all taxpayers, including those on lower income, end up paying for free education for third-level students, it is the children of the better off who literally cash in, getting their ticket to a better future and a higher income for free...
Meanwhile, disadvantaged students still enter third level education at the same dismally low levels."

Plus ça change.

It seems that third level education in Ireland will remain the preserve of the better off, given the lack of targeted, properly means-tested initiatives to increase the participation - and cultivate the innate intelligence - of those who don't traditionally make it to campus.

But we are in safe hands, as the future elite - as currently constituted - is certain to rescue the country from its present sorry state.

Witness the thought-provoking placards you see here, with legends such as DOWN WITH FEE'S and LESS FEES MORE GEES.
("Gee" being "vagina" in Hiberno English, for the benefit of the uninitiated).

Or perhaps it is time to simply put more resources into decent primary and secondary education?

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Ireland 1, Estonia 1 (5-1 to Ireland on aggregate). Memories of Euro '88 come rushing back...

2011-11-16T00:00:00.004Z

I remember what I was doing when the Republic of Ireland qualified for the European Championships in November 1987. I was hurtling down Stapleton Hall Road near Finsbury Park, London, on my Kawasaki GT750. I had the radio on – the aftermarket FLF fairing fitted contained such a luxury – and was listening to the Bulgaria v Scotland match on Radio 5.

If Bulgaria won, they would finish one point above Ireland, clinching qualification to Euro 88 in Germany. What happened, however, was Scotland’s Gary MacKay scored in the 87th minute. Ireland had thus qualified for a major tournament for the first time ever. I’m sure anyone walking down Stapleton Hall Road that evening would have been startled by my incredulous roar of celebration. One of those moments you never forget.

As readers will know, yours truly is hardly the most patriotic of people. The only time I come near to it is when football is concerned; and that is more about wishing well for the beautiful game in Ireland over the institutional distraction of the GAA… an organisation that forbade its followers even attending “soccer” matches up until the 70s. It only finally allowed the game to be played at Croke Park in 2005, when the ban on "foreign games" was lifted. (As an aside, soccer is the only form of ‘football’ that is played primarily with the feet, not the hands, so is most deserving of the description).

To make things more difficult for the world’s most popular ball game, Irish schools tend to promote either GAA or rugby – at least that was the case in my schooldays. Where I attended, soccer only officially got a few weeks towards the end of the term. It was, however, the game of choice in the schoolyard all year round… a succinct commentary in itself.

So, nice to see Trapattoni’s men qualify for Euro 2012. It should be a nice boost for the game and maybe, who knows, even the country?

Altogether now - olé, olé, olé, olé…

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Chapters of Parnell Street - a worthy Irish institution

2011-11-12T00:56:00.011Z

All right, the blog is often accused of "knockin' Ireland".

That's not altogether true, of course, as only the things that are deemed bad about our little land get "knocked". Admittedly there are many such things.

One such thing that isn't, is Chapters on Parnell Street. Never mind its indigenous competitors Easons, Hodges Figgis, and Hughes & Hughes - or Waterstones from the land o'er the wave. Chapters is the best bookstore in Dublin.

I should point out at this juncture that I don't have shares in Chapters, nor have I received any dodgy brown envelopes, either real or insinuated. But if you're looking to get a couple of gifts for Christmas - and you're one of the unfortunate souls who gets drawn into all of that - or if you are just looking to get a couple of good reads for yourself, like moi, I really can't think of a better place.

As an example, I will cite the "Ultimate History of Porsche" hardback above. 208 colour glossy colour pages containing a comprehensive history of the German car manufacturer, whose founder gave us the famous - and once ubiquitous - VW Beetle, from whose rather humble lions spurted the present-day Porsche 911 Turbo S, with its 0-60mph time of 2.6 seconds (Road & Track Magazine test). Yours Sir/Madam, for €6.99. The book, I mean.

If you're not into automotive history - and I imagine many of you aren't - the store has plenty to offer by way of world, European and Irish history. R.F. Foster's "Modern Ireland 1600-1972 " found its way onto the Gombeen Nation recommended reading bookshelf, and Tony Crowley's "Wars of Words - The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537 - 2004" (Oxford University Press) can be picked up for a very democratic price there night now... one of the best books I have read in some time.

Even more so than the first-mentioned tome on Ferdinand's best. And that's saying something, for me.

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Compulsory Irish - a parent writes

2011-11-09T00:01:00.003Z

Interesting article in the Irish Times on the subject of compulsory Gaeilge in our schools (a subject covered elsewhere on the blog). It comes from a feature on the Education Today pages called TBH - To Be Honest, a slot that aims to "give a voice to those within the education system who wish to speak out anonymously".

As a practical demonstration of the nonsense of compulsory Gaeilge - with its roots in late 19th / early 20th century Gaelic revivalism - which has been a failed policy for 89 years or so, it is hard to beat.

'Wasted hours' on learning Irish

A parent writes : I can’t believe that children are still being forced to learn Irish in school. I spent thousands of wasted hours in primary and secondary school learning this language and now I can’t speak a word of it. If only, if only, that time had been spent learning maths, science, a modern language or even spent running around the yard I think it would have better served me in later life.

I often look back with dismay at all the time I spent banging my head against this difficult and useless subject that any reasonable education system would relegate to a minority elective for those with the specific interest and motivation to learn it.

Now I have children of my own. One of them, in particular, is having real literacy problems. We are slowly and painstakingly bringing him up to speed with the rest of the class in his basic reading and writing skills. We’re getting there, but as his classmates are moving ahead to read independently, he is still struggling to get through the most basic readers aimed at younger children.

Now he’s coming home with Irish homework. He’s grappling with whole new families of sounds and spellings, just as he was starting to get a grip on his mother tongue. For him, learning to spell and pronounce Irish words is like unlearning all the rules we’ve been working so hard to get into his head. I can see the poor child looking at me with utter confusion as I turn everything we’ve learned about letter sounds and spelling upside down.

And for what? To learn a language he will never use. Even if he wanted to use it, he won’t have the competence because Irish taught in the classroom is a complete waste of time. This is a child who desperately needs as much time as possible spent on basic literacy and numeracy. Instead, he is now spending his time on a confusing, pointless and empty exercise largely designed to keep Gaelgoirs in jobs.

When he comes home in the evening with his frankly impossible Irish homework I help him as much as I can. In fact, I’m well able to help him because believe it or not I was actually good at school Irish. I did honours for the Leaving Cert and got a B.

But there’s a big difference between learning for the Leaving Cert exam and actually being able to use a subject in the real world. Despite my honours Irish, I cannot even walk into a Connemara pub and order a bowl of soup.

What hope has my son, who is already two classes behind in basic English, in getting grips with, never mind making use of, this minority language?

Good luck to people who want to keep the language alive. Let them take their kids to classes after school or send them to Gaelscoils. Let the rest of us learn for the real world, please.

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Alexandra Trotsenko fundraiser. Artist who had fingers cut off by skanger needs money for operation.

2011-11-05T18:49:00.014Z

If you wanted to breed an underclass of superskanger, you could not have planned it better than the Irish authorities did.

Informed as they were by the Catholicism of the founding fathers which - along with Gaelic revivalism - was a key founding component of the 1922 state, they ensured that contraception remained an alien concept to the Irish up until relatively recently.

As a result, people popped them out like there was no tomorrow. Being able to provide, or notions of parental responsibility, did not crop up at all. Consequently, vast swathes of sink estates sprung up around the country's larger urban centres, as the nation's denizens were encouraged to breed without forethought. Or foreplay, as that was presumably sinful.

Then the state provided some generous incentives to perpetuate the paroxysm of procreation. You could only get a corpo place, for instance, if you had enough verminous devilspawn to form a football team. Childless? Forget it... Two or three kids? Not enough, keep trying!

If you have a bit of imagination outside the bedroom department, you might be able to see how this social policy did not encourage responsible parenting. In turn, it might explain how we have some of the most vicious scumbags and skangers in Europe, despite having one of the most generous social welfare systems.

Here is an example. In 2009 a scumbag by the name of James Kenny (pic above) broke into the Finglas apartment of a talented artist, Alexandra Trotsenko (pic left). He assaulted her with two knives, cut off several of her fingers, and left her for dead before robbing her and making off with her cash cards.

Kenny was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment last week. Just for the record, he had previously attacked and stabbed a couple, in their fifties, in their own home back in 1998. He had received a four-year sentence for that. He had "form".

I could be making a very big presumption here, but it is quite likely that Kenny is not a diligent worker - unlike Ms Trotsenko, who was illustrating for a book around the time she was attacked. I will even push the boat out and make the assumption that Kenny came from Ireland's underclass of permanent "unemployed". If anyone has other information, please feel free to correct me.

Trotsenko, in contrast, came to Ireland to work. Incredibly, however, it seems that the Irish healthcare service will not provide her with prosthetic fingers to replace the ones that Kenny hacked off, as they are "very expensive".

The Adams Art Gallery in Blackrock is holding an auction of works donated by artists on November 27th, in order to raise the necessary finance. RTE Liveline has also set up a helpline, where people can donate. See link below.

Alexandra Trotsenko fundraiser

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Nama pays failed developers €200,000 a year salaries - bonuses extra, of course

2011-11-02T00:01:00.002Z

When Brian Lenihan ushered Nama (National Assets Management Agency) into our lives in 2009, he – and others in authority – denied it was a bailout mechanism for failed builders and developers.

Nama, for those of you who might have been on an Antarctic expedition over the past year or two, is an official scam whereby the “bad” bank loans of Irish builders and developers where bought (with taxpayers’ money) for a sum that they might possibly be worth some time in the future. But won't be.

It means that stupid, greedy developers and speculators – with the collusion of dodgy bankers – who gambled and failed, will be rewarded by the public purse, rather than find themselves begging with no arse in their trousers beside every city centre ATM, as they might in the US for instance.

That is not the Irish way, oh no. The Irish way is to pay them a “salary” of €200,000 a year. Here is a list, cogged from Daniel McConnell in the most recent Sindo, illustrating how we do things in Ireland.

HOW NAMA HAS BECOME A BUILDERS’ BAILOUT

Nama is paying at least two developers €200,000 and up to 120 others between €70,000 and €100,000 a year in salaries.

Nama admits it is now realistically only chasing the amount it paid for loans – €31 billion – and not the original €78 billion amount.

Nama is now willing to pay bonuses, potentially worth millions, to developers on all “profit” made above what it paid for loans.

Nama has allowed €2bn to cover legal and other advisory fees during its 10-year lifespan.

Nama is currently paying about €100,000 a day on financial and legal experts according to its latest report.

Nama remains a secret society, and is not accountable under the Freedom of Information Act.

122 senior people at NTMA/Nama are being paid more than €100,000. Nama CEO Brendan McDonagh’s salary is €430,000.

The difference is we’re Irish, as the slogan goes.

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Patrick Nulty wins Dublin West by-election: capital now a Fianna Fail free zone.

2011-10-30T00:01:00.000+01:00

Nice to see that Dublin is now - until the next election anyway - a Fianna Fail free zone.

The party of chancers and cultural nationalists that gave us de Valera, his grandson O'Cuiv, Haughey, Lawlor, Ahern, Callely and numerous other shysters at national and local level is without a TD in the capital since... well, ever since its foundation, I should imagine.

That's good to see, so we should enjoy it while it lasts.

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Irish presidential election ballot paper - Hobson gave better choice

2011-10-28T10:49:00.005+01:00

Yesterday you will have voted for the presidential candidates you felt were less offensive, in order to keep out the ones you felt were more offensive.

It's a waiting game now, with the first results expected in the early evening. Let's hope you made the right choice, such as the choices were.

You know who they are...

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Sean Gallagher for president now, is it?

2011-10-25T00:05:00.000+01:00

You may be surprised to learn that my inaugural baby word was “muttonhead”. Yes, most infant first utterances are “mummy” or “daddy” or the like, but mine was “muttonhead”. Apparently it was a favoured refrain of my old dear’s.

Now this might sound slightly uncharitable, but whenever I see presidential hopeful Sean Gallagher, I think of that phrase. If I was in charge of casting for a film, whose lead character was a muttonhead, poor old Seanie would be the main man.

To be honest, when I heard he was running for president I just laughed. “Not a chance”, I thought. I think I looked at two episodes of Dragon’s Den (recounted elsewhere on the blog) and formed the view that Gallagher was by far the most bland, most uninteresting dragon in it - amid a cast of bland, uninteresting dragons.

Once, I remember, he berated a participant who had hoped to sell locks of leprauchans’ hair as making fun of Ireland. Yet the party Gallagher supports and organised fund-raisers for, Fianna Fail, did more than any O’Carroll’s Oirish souvenir shop to make fun of dear old Erin.

How is this guy top of the polls? I can only assume that people think of him as a friend because he appears in their living rooms on that awful RTE programme. But surely not that many people look at it? It might also be because he isn’t an actual politician as such, a much distrusted breed at present.

The president of Ireland is a nothing role really, so any talk of job creation or any of the rest of it is nonsense. We simply want someone who is presentable, urbane, and articulate, and who does not have past baggage - be it murdering people or organising Fianna Fail fund-raisers.

Sean Gallagher? I don’t think so.

But that's who they are going to vote for.

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Out and about at Kippure

2011-10-22T19:19:00.008+01:00

The Military Road has featured before on this blog, namely as a route used by Yours Truly to get away from it all since the days, long ago, when a Vespa PX125 (bored out to 180 cc) was the means of propulsion.

The road, built by the British military under the guidance of Charles Cornwallis between 1800-1809, is one hell of a feat of engineering. Parts of it lie over more than four metres of peat bog.

According to Michael Fewer's "The Wicklow Military Road", the road was - in such places - constructed by first excavating, then "laying down a bed of timber logs, on top of which layers of stones were compacted, and the surface finished in gravel". Fewer cites a local sheep farmer who saw the road opened up some years ago to a depth of 4 metres, and observed that its base was filled with tightly packed bundles of rushes. It has stood the test of time, though.

The Military Road is still a great way of getting out of the big shmoke, and although the PX has long gone to the great scooter scrapyard in the sky, and Cornwallis' access route is a lot busier than it used to be in the (19)80s, it is not bad for something right on Dublin's doorstep.

The (very arty, I like to think) pic above shows Kippure, complete with RTE transmitter, which marks the boundary between Dublin and Wicklow.

A good place to switch off.

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Problems with "Blogger" comments

2011-10-20T21:24:00.006+01:00

Sometimes I wish I'd picked Wordpress when I was starting the blog, I really do. But no, I picked Blogger.

Blogger is the tool that puts the "blogspot" behind Gombeen Nation, but it can be very flakey. I've had emails from readers saying they can't select a profile to comment (even anonymously), yet some others have been able to do so.

The only explanation I can come up with - not being a techie at all - is that some browsers will get around a problem Blogger is experiencing and others won't. Looking at the blog's log, it seems that those using Firefox, for instance, can do so without problems.

After looking in the (very busy) "Blogger Help" forum, it was suggested that one way of getting around it is to do away with the embedded comment window that usually appears under Gombeen Nation posts, so I have done that.

Now, if you comment, you should get a separate window opening up, with the current comments to the left. It's not as neat a version we are used to, but hopefully it will - at least - allow comments from all browsers to come through.

So if you've been trying to comment without success (and don't fit under the "spamming / trolling / nutters" category) that is the reason why. I hope that you might be able to do so now.

This should apply to previous posts, hopefully - though moderaton is enabled so there will still be a delay as before.

Sorry about the inconvenience!

GM

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"Hey!" say teachers, "leave those pensions alone!"

2011-10-19T09:05:00.010+01:00

A couple of weeks back I turned on the radio to hear a teachers’ union representative gnashing her teeth at government plans to reform public service pensions, including linking pension payments to average - rather than finishing - salary, along with the linking of post-retirement pensions to inflation, rather than pay.

It sounded like a good deal to me, considering the protection enjoyed by public-sector teachers due to FF's Croke Park Agreement. Perhaps others in the private sector who have been paying into contributory pensions for years, the eventual value of which remain doubtful, thought so too.

The teachers’ representative, of course, called the proposed reforms “larcenous”. She cited claims from some teachers who said they "would end up paying more into their (defined-benefit) pensions than they got out”. Laughable... and no wonder mathematics is a subject we do not excel at, with half-wits like these out in front of our classrooms.

The interviewer than asked if they would prefer to swap their pension arrangements for those in the private sector. Predictably, the “ we don’t want a race to the bottom” argument came out. Sure they don’t. Interestingly though, they weren’t campaigning to raise the standards enjoyed by those on “the bottom”.

They want those very bottom feeders in insecure jobs and ill-defined benefit pensions – where they have any at all – to continue to subsidise their unsustainable ones. Pensions enjoyed, not uncoincidentally, by retired TDs, gardai, judges and top civil servants.

The thing is, there have to be enough such private sector bottom feeders working to pour money into the black hole of such pensions (not to mention all the various other unworthy bail-outs for banks, investors and developers).

Maybe they should consider the plight of those turning up at Aviva today to see if they have jobs at all, and use their educated minds to make some kind of connection with the reality that exists outside their staffrooms.

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Oooh ah, up the Ra? Slow learners alert.

2011-10-16T00:01:00.003+01:00

Pictured on the Carpenterstown Road, Dublin 15. Far away from the "Troubles" of not so long ago. Good Friday Agreement, anyone?

Here's a joke, and a bit of light relief:

Q "What's the difference between Dana and Martin McGuinness?"

A "You can't remember Dana's hits".

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Martin McGuinness - "the people's president"? Please, please no.

2011-10-13T00:01:00.008+01:00

Don't worry, Gombeen Nation hasn't come over all Shinnery. This came in the door earlier, addressed to my alter ego.

It is a leaflet for Martin McGuinness, publicising his bid to become "UACHTARAN NA nDAOINE" ("The People's President" as Gaeilge - a language he doesn't speak himself, of course).

But that is typical of the cultural-nationalist bollocksology of Sinn Fein, who are really nothing better than Fianna Fail in embryo. The difference being that as long as the Shinners are in opposition, they can be "radical" grandstanders.

They profess to be socialist, yet they don't support a woman's right to chose a termination in her own country - a basic tenet of left wing parties.

They didn't have a nationwide policy on the bin charges, but left it at local level to take an opportunist stance when it suited.

They are "nationalist and internationalist" according to their website - or at least they were the last time I looked.

According to a recent Irish Times MRBI poll, McGuinness' strongest support comes from younger working class male voters... his vote being three times stronger among the unfairer sex.

The point has been made that this is the very demographic most affected by the downturn, and most likely to fall for those making the loudest noises from the far benches. Then you have the whiff of old cordite into the bargain, which some find more alluring than the roar of an Impreza STi.

More of the same. Just another "Republican Party" attached to a narrow, neo-Gaelicist, vision of Irishness. A vision that started with Dev, and has been an abject failure for 89 years.

And a waste of another generation that might otherwise have opted for change, given real alternatives.

De Valera - Ireland's Hated Hero

2011-10-09T17:31:00.007+01:00

Big thanks to John for bringing our attention to the documentary below, which is well worth a peek.

It is a rather unflattering look at Eamon de Valera, and alleges that the granddaddy of Irish nationalism actually refused Churchill's offer of a united Ireland in exchange for the use of the three Treaty Ports which Chamberlain - the master of appeasement - had relinquished in the face of a looming world war.

It seems that de Valera felt that taking in the Protestant/unionist population of the north would lead to a blurring of his vision of Ireland, which was an exclusively Catholic and Gaelic one. As an illustration of the inherent bankruptcy of Irish nationalism, it is hard to beat.

It also deals with his opportunism around the issue of the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921, in which he stitched-up Collins and the other plenipotentiaries who agreed to partition. His rush to express his condolences to the German ambassador on the death of Hitler, when the rest of Europe was horrified by footage from the Nazi death camps, also gets an airing.

Get yourself a mug of coffee/cup of tea/can of beer/bottle of whiskey and have a look (preferably when you are not at work).

DeValera - Ireland's Hated Hero

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Taking Racism Seriously report - attitudes don't tally with Irish self image

2011-10-06T12:19:00.003+01:00

We’re great, we Irish, so we are.

We survived the 800 years of oppression and the Famine, so we have an inbuilt affinity with the underdog. The whole world recognises this, of course, and all true lovers of freedom love the Irish.

So the Irish patriotic delusion goes. But patriots' delusions everywhere should be challenged, and in many other countries that process has taken place. Jingoism is seen as distasteful and foolish.

Not in Ireland though, where patriotism is a continuation of the same unquestioning blind faith that the Catholic Church enjoyed for so much of the state’s history. And the other side of exclusive patriotism and narrow nationalism is xenophobia, racism and an unhealthy attitude to “outsiders”.

The following is from the RTE website report last Tuesday.

The Immigrant Council of Ireland has said that racism is an everyday fact of life for migrants in this country and people must do more to challenge those who engage in racist behaviour in public settings.

The Council has launched a research report entitled 'Taking Racism Seriously: Migrants' Experiences of Violence, Harassment and Anti-Social Behaviour in the Dublin Area'

It worked with Dublin Bus, Veolia Transport (which operates the Luas), gardaí and the Integration Office of Dublin City Council in producing the research report.

Focus groups were held with African bus-drivers, Luas revenue protection officers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and Asian healthcare workers, all of whom had lived in Ireland for between six and ten years.

Many of those participating in the focus groups were naturalised Irish citizens.

The vast majority had experience of racist incidents, varying from long-term harassment and violent assault to anti-social behaviour that resulted in victims having to flee their homes.

ICI Chief Executive Denise Charlton said what was striking about the report is that the people interviewed believe racism is more prevalent in Ireland than in many other countries in which they have lived.

She said some of those they spoke with have lived in the UK, Holland and Sweden, but said they never felt as unsafe as they do in Ireland.

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Eamon de Valera Crescent, anybody?

2011-10-04T19:53:00.004+01:00

Just an amusing snippet from an Irish Times letter writer in today's paper:

"...My father used to say that the reason that nobody had named a street in Ireland after de Valera was it had proved impossible to find one that was long enough or crooked enough."

I liked that one, I have to say.

Funny how the most enduring patriots in the Irish popular consciousness are the ones who died gloriously, before they had a chance to live on and mess things up.

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Tesco's incorrect pricing policy - Maynooth an exception?

2011-10-02T00:45:00.000+01:00

Years ago, the Irish customer was far from royalty. Dunnes Stores, for instance, did not even have changing rooms... I kid you not. It was only when BHS (now gone), M&S and the rest came in that they felt they had to supply such luxuries.

Until then, you simply held your diamond patterned jumper up in front of your chest before the mirror - thoughtfully supplied - and made a rough calculation. Dunnes had to catch up when the British chains came in.

Similarly, Tescos introduced a policy whereby anyone who was overcharged got the product concerned for free, plus their money back. There were signs in their shops clearly stating this, and once again indigenous chains were left in the ha'penny place. Superquinn only offered someone to pack your bags wrongly. An irritating role some eejit collecting for the Grab All Association now does for Tescos, and whose services you politely - or maybe not so - demur.

Now, it seems, things have changed. Tescos Irish website does not carry any details of its policy in this regard anymore - at least not anywhere obvious that I can see... try it yourself. My understanding though, from talking to people, is that they now offer "double the difference". That is, if you were charged €5 for something marked €4, you would get a "refund" of €2.

Just try that in Tescos Maynooth. Now Tescos is a pretty profitable company, so far as I know. But if you buy something on, say, a "two for €4" offer, only to find you are charged €5.10 at the checkout, and then proceed to the customer service desk - which is the longest queue in Tescos Maynooth - you will have to fight tooth and nail.

We went up to the desk, showed the receipt and the advertised price, and were told by the assistant "I will just go and check". She came back and said "no, the wrong prices were put on them. They are really €5.10".

Natural forces know, shop assistants have pretty tough jobs. They work all the hours there are for relatively poor pay, which is being further attacked since judges ruled against compensation for workers who are subject to unsocial hours (judges are not).

But bloody hell, how can a shop assistant, on the customer service desk, not be informed of company policy on overcharging? Eventually a manager arrived, like the cavalry to the scene, and all was resolved.

As dark Internet conspiracies go, this might be a bit low-rent... but does Tescos Ireland now only carry out its not-so-clearly-stated policy on refunding overcharged customers, if they make a fuss?

Government to tax online gambling

2011-09-29T00:01:00.011+01:00

Last week the Government announced it was "examining changes to taxes that could yield up to €100m annually from online gambling and betting shops". (Irish Examiner 22th Sept). The same Examiner article also quoted the Rutland Centre, a Dublin addictions clinic, which reported a "30% increase in people presenting for help" with gambling addictions.

I met a family some years back who had lost everything they ever had because the father, who was also the breadwinner, lost it all through gambling. When you think about it, it is possibly the most ruinous of addictions because of its insidious and limitless nature.

Even with alcohol addiction, you can only drink so much at one go. Footballers like Paul McGrath and Tony Adams even managed to have careers at the top of their sport while being alcoholics. There are pop stars who have come through decades of drug abuse alive, though with no recollection of what they were doing at the time.

Alcohol and drug addictions are awful - don't get me wrong - but you can only physically drink so much before you fall over and go unconscious. You can, of course, always die from liver disease or overdose, too. I am just saying there is always the potential to wake up, having hit a particular low, and get sorted. There is only so much damage you can do at one sitting, so to speak - particular excess and hard drugs excluded.

With gambling, however, the depths you can reach through steady financial ruin are unplumbed. With the recent advent of online gambling, losing all your money has never been easier. There is no waking up the following day and saying "I think I'll scrub that lot I lost on the credit card last night and start afresh". You can even lose what you don't have... in a way.

Which is why we should be wary when we hear the Government looking to increase its tax take from the industry. Already the Irish horse racing industry is subsidised - bizarrely - by the taxpayer, with the Exchequer contributing "more than €31million to the [the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund] in 2009, and a further €28 million in 2010”. (Sunday Business Post, 1st May).

If our Government has such a vested interest in gambling, it is hard to imagine it doing much to protect its citizens most damaged by the industry, despite promising to introduce a "levy for help and education services" as part of the tax reforms.

What are the bets such promises don't make it past the first furlong?

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McGuinness can count on the Cyclops vote

2011-09-27T00:01:00.015+01:00

There was an interesting article in The Sunday Times last weekend, dealing with Martin McGuinness's bid to be president of Ireland and head of its official armed forces.

McGuinness, you may have heard, has stated that he left the IRA in 1974. Intelligence sources disagree, however, as do former comrades-in-arms, who claim he was the top man right up until the ceasefire negotiations and beyond.

According to the article, McGuinness dismissed those who question his paramilitary past as "west Brits”.  And in Shinner logic that deals the whole uncomfortable issue a knockout blow. Anyone who disagrees with the Shinners' brand of national socialism is a “west Brit”, of course. There are worse things though - like being a leading light in an organisation that killed protestant and catholic workers alike, if it deemed them to be “legitimate targets”.

I know the IRA were not the only ones – there were also the sectarian murder gangs of the UDA, UVF and the rest. There were bigots like Paisley stirring it since the late 60s civil rights movement, and making a career out of it.   Now they are all peacemakers - having got it out of their systems - and we should all fall over ourselves in gratitude to them.   And how many younger people who have no recollection of what things were like during "The Troubles"  will be rushing out to vote for Sinn Fein's candidate?

How many will vote for him because he is the “Ya-Boy-Ya!!!” candidate? You know the type? The barstool republicans who have blighted every Irish generation since 1922, lemming-like in perpetuity, cheering on the boyos from a safe distance with their lumpen nationalist bollocksology.

That other hopeful candidate, David Norris - a man being hounded for far less serious past transgressons - might wistfully recall The Citizen from the Cyclops chapter in Joyce’s Ulysses – a character that summarised the above type so well.

He hasn’t gone away, you know.   He'll be out voting for Martin McGuinness on the 27th of October.

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BNP seeks common ground with Irish fellow racists

2011-09-23T00:01:00.014+01:00

Back in the late 80s/early 90s I had a stint in London AFA (Anti Fascist Action). The reason I joined was not out of any desire to make the world - or London - safer, nicer or fluffier; but purely out of self interest.

I knew of someone with red hair and freckles who was beaten up after straying into an Isle of Dogs hostelry around the time of the Canary Wharf bombing. The local assailants assumed he was Irish with his funny accent spouting contrarian views. As it happened, he was from the north of England with a funny accent spouting contrarian views. Nationalists, eh?

Then there was the local Irish Centre in Stratford, east London. At a loose end, I called in and mentioned this story to them, thinking the fash only had to get lucky once, and I did not want to be The One. But the Children of Lir Society, or whatever they were called, appeared to be more interested in bodhran playing, Irish language lessons and set dancing. In other words, the very shite I had been trying to get away from all my young life. Nationalists, eh?

It does not matter what franchise of exclusive cultural nationalism is in question, nationalism is like religion - it is something we need to evolve beyond. I see this especially now in Ireland, where even the anarchists are patriots.

But is is funny to watch the ex Paddy-bashing (along with Paki-bashing, of course) BNP-ers in England try to reconcile their new "we're all white - all right" policies with their actions of the past. Thanks to F of Lancaster Unity for the following report:

Simon Darby, the BNP’s media spokesman, spoke to The University Times about his party’s connections with Ireland ahead of Nick Griffin MEP’s visit to the College in October.

Mr. Darby highlighted the “great deal of concern” he felt existed in Ireland at the moment over the issue of immigration. The number of recent radio interviews Nick Griffin had done with Irish broadcasters, he said, evidenced “the interest the Irish people have in the issue”.

He was also keen to point out the “considerable amount of people of Irish extraction” who had voted for Nick Griffin in the recent European elections. Mr. Griffin MEP represents the North-West England constituency, which includes Manchester and Liverpool, two towns with long-standing connections to Ireland. Mr. Griffin finished fifth in 2009’s election, behind Britain’s three largest parties and a UKIP candidate, polling 8% of the vote.

The BNP have traditionally included the Irish among their classification of the “indigenous British”. In an interview with the BBC in May of 2010 Mr. Griffin said, “We are certainly not going to shut the doors to the Irish, because the Irish, as far as we are concerned, are part of Britain and fully entitled to come here.”

This drew a rebuke from Jennie McShannon, chief executive of the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain. “We do not recognise the portrait of ‘White Britain’ painted by the British National Party,” she said. “When the Irish arrived in Britain in the 1950s alongside immigrants from the West Indies, we were met by boarding house signs reading ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No dogs’. The racism stirred up by Nick Griffin’s predecessors created a climate of fear with lasting damage to the physical and mental health of both communities. In today’s Britain, we recognise the contribution of generations of migrants to the diversity of our shared culture. As Irish people we wish to be included and our Irishness celebrated, and so, too, we extend this support to other communities.”

Mr. Darby was keen to clarify the BNP’s position on the ethnicity of the Irish, saying that they “did not regard them as British as such.” He also sought to tackle the “quasi-imperialist” impression he felt had been given by the reporting of the BNP’s suggestion that Ireland be re-incorporated into a union with Britain.

“We don’t want British rule in Ireland. What we mean is a loose federation, a loose collection. It would be rather like an emasculated version of the European Union, but just for the British Isles.”

Speaking about the possibility of the BNP hosting a rally in Ireland or seeking to make contact with similarly minded Irish political groups Mr. Darby said that this was “another matter” that was best “not confused” with the debate.

“We are aware of the existence of a number of groups. But there simply isn’t anything tangible there at the moment. There is nothing I would like to see more than an Irish National Party representing the interests of the Irish people.”

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Stolen Irish level crossing gates cross the line

2011-09-20T12:04:00.006+01:00

I remember when reading "Teems of Times and Happy Returns" by Dominic Behan - an original 1961 hardback version found in Greene's - the author recalled that anything not nailed fast in his Rutland Street childhood stomping ground, was likely to be stolen. It seems light-fingeredness is a national disease, whether the lowlives are clad in shellsuits or Armani. Or maybe Louis Copeland, this being Ireland.

Even in Britain, the scousers - many of whom have strong Irish connections - are the ones who get most stick on the subject of thieving.   Whether there is any truth in it or not, or if it is because parts of Liverpool are particularly poor, I do not know.

I meant to put this post up last week, but between one thing and another, I've been pretty much up to my eyes and never got around to it.   Blogging is a time-consuming business, and it is no wonder that so many long-running bloggers are packing it in these days.   So, in the excerpt from "Breaking News" below, read "Sunday last last" for "Sunday last". Yeah, not-so-breaking news on Gombeen Nation.

Iarnród Éireann says that seven level-crossing gates were stolen in the early hours of Sunday last between Ballymote in Co Sligo and Boyle in Co Roscommon.

Two gates were stolen at Cloonloo and five at Culfadda, according to a company spokeswoman.

She said Iarnród Éireann moved fast to secure the train lines for the safety of livestock and the public.

Cabling had been stolen in the past but level-crossing gates, which can be up to 14-foot high, had never been taken before, the spokeswoman said.

Gardaí in Ballymote and Boyle are investigating.

Given the petty gain for one individual, against the very real safety implications for others, I suppose you could say a line has been crossed in selfish stupidity

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Phoenix Park Station, all change for Navan Road Parkway.

2011-09-17T10:38:00.003+01:00

Ever since Irish Rail's Phoenix Park Station - which serves the Maynooth line - opened in January 2008, the few pedestrians visible in its proximity have been puzzled tourists and day trippers standing around scratching their heads.

You see, Phoenix Park Station is nowhere near the Phoenix Park. Ok, it is nearer than, say, Limerick Junction; but in the acceptable sense - the sense acceptable to everyone other than Irish Rail - it is not near the Phoenix Park.

If anything, the preceeding station, Ashtown, is nearer. Even then it is a bit of a ramble if you manage to get across the Half Way House roundabout alive. But such is the state body we entrust to transport the nation.

Irish Rail (Iarnrod Eireann to give its official Gaelic name) has finally bowed to the inconvenience of reality, and given into public demand for a name change. Henceforth it will be known as "Navan Road Parkway", as it has a park and ride facility and is situated on the Navan Road section of the N3.

Not to be confused with the M3 Parkway further up the line after it branches off for Dunboyne...

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Chaos at Gombeen Manor

2011-09-15T00:01:00.008+01:00

It has been a bit chaotic at the Manor lately, between one thing and another.

Nothing too hectic, such as serried ranks of torch-bearing, hurley-wielding Gaelian fundamentalists outside the door (that was last year, see left). Far more mundane stuff, but enough to have prevented a post going up since Monday.

I mean, it's not like there hasn't been anything to blog about.

Hope to resume abnormal service within the next day or so.

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Travellers' slavery racket, JLCs, RAI and 490 new restaurant jobs

2011-09-12T13:20:00.011+01:00

Morning Ireland today reported on five Irish travellers being arrested in Britain in connection with an alleged slavery racket.

24 men, recruited from soup kitchens and UK benefits offices, were allegedly held captive on the site and were required to work while living in subsistence conditions.

Ironically, the next item on the programme had supposedly respectable Irish restauranteurs waxing lyrical about a recent High Court ruling which found legislation that protected workers in the retail and hospitality industry "unconstitutional".   The same court system that maintained judges’ pay and €800,000 senior civil servant and banker pay-offs.

The scrapping of wage legislation safeguarding the poorly paid (called JLCs – Joint Labour Committees) had resulted in “490 new jobs” being created since the start of July, gloated the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI).

Really? What quality of jobs then?    Interestingly, MacDonalds, who recently took on 150 new staff, said its new jobs were nothing to do with the scrapping of the JLCs. They had been planned long ago.

By the way, it was *Eddie Rocket’s, Supermacs and Burger King who took the court challenge to attack their workers' conditions. Something to bear in mind if you are wondering which brand of trans fats to plump for...

What the court ruling did was give unscrupulous Irish restauranteurs carte blanche to exploit already exploited workers even further - many of them foreign nationals doing work the Irish would not give up their benefit payments for.    And really, if they can’t pay the wages, these so-called entrepreneurs do not have viable businesses anyhow.

And now a final thought.   Years ago a mate of mine worked in the kitchen of a prestigious Dublin hotel. He told me some of the things that went into the soup of the day, and you really do not want to know what they were.

Put it this way - you definitely don’t want disgruntled workers preparing your food.

* What is Eddie Rocket’s about anyway? Burgers with knives and forks at twice the price?

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The making of the Gaelic Catholic State

2011-09-10T20:19:00.001+01:00

I came across the following extract from an American educational publisher called Thomson Gale - an interesting, elucid account of how our rotten little republic came into being. Well worth a read...

Gaelic Catholic State, Making of

Independence was followed by few institutional or social innovations—the main exception was the increased prominence given to traditional Irish or "Gaelic" culture and to the Catholic religion in public life. Given the extent to which the independence movement was inspired by ideas of cultural and religious identity, this was understandable, but the result was apparent state adherence to an exclusive interpretation of "Irishness" that embraced only the majority community.

Gaelic symbolism was extensively used in the formal and ceremonial aspects of government and traditional forms of art and entertainment were encouraged, but the greatest effort was devoted to the cause of reviving the Irish language. Language enthusiasts believed that the best hope for this endeavor lay with the primary (or "national") schools. Beginning in 1922 the government implemented a policy of requiring all instruction of infant (elementary) classes to be in Irish. In the higher grades, as much instruction as possible was to be in Irish, and every incentive was offered to increase the total amount of Irish taught. Fianna Fáil Minister for Education Tomás Derrig was dissatisfied with the rate of progress in the national schools, and beginning in 1934 he reduced the time allocated to other subjects. Secondary schools were not subjected to the same requirements, but Irish was given significant prominence. In 1925 it became necessary to achieve a passing grade in Irish in order to pass the Intermediate Certificate, an examination usually taken at age 16. In 1934 the same regulation was applied to the final school examination, the Leaving Certificate. Secondary schools were also assessed for state grants according to the amount of instruction in Irish.

By the 1940s, teachers' organizations had become critical of the fact that there was little educational development other than that motivated by language revival, but the public and their representatives rarely discussed dissatisfaction. This may have been due to a commitment to the cause of language revival, or more negatively, a reluctance to be seen to be antinational. It may also have been because many jobs in the public service were reserved for Irish speakers. The one significant source of discontent was the Church of Ireland, whose members often felt culturally alienated and practically disadvantaged by the language policy. It was not easy for Church of Ireland schools to find teachers competent in Irish, and the general decline of educational standards made it more difficult for students to gain admission to universities or to secure jobs outside Ireland.

The state's commitment to the Irish language was largely confined to the schools, but the influence of Catholicism was more pervasive, if in some ways more subtle. Cumann na nGaedheal, the party in government from 1922 to 1932, had a close relationship with the Catholic hierarchy, which had contributed to establishing the government's legitimacy during the Civil War. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Fianna Fáil was no less anxious to display its Catholic credentials. Notwithstanding the formal separation of church and state, state occasions were imbued with Catholic ritual, and Catholic moral and social ethics had a profound effect on social policy. The state had inherited a denominational education system and all political parties accepted that they should not interfere with this arrangement. Catholic social teaching of the period was deeply suspicious of the power of the state, particularly in areas of education, health, and family welfare. Successive Irish governments were content to minimize their involvement and to permit the development of a concept of social services that was heavily dependent on voluntary organizations. This arrangement led to a destabilizing conflict of interests when these services were reorganized in the postwar period.

Perhaps the most obvious and controversial influence of Catholicism was in the area of public morality. In 1925, after consultation with the Catholic archbishop of Dublin, the government took steps to circumvent the power to grant divorces that had devolved on the Irish parliament from Westminster. Given that courts were not empowered to grant divorces, either, this meant an effective ban on divorce in the Free State. Though some Protestant clergymen and lay people supported the measure, others argued that because divorce was permitted by their churches, the measure represented the removal of an existing civil right. The matter provided the occasion for a speech in the senate by the poet W. B. Yeats in which he famously set out the achievements of the Anglo-Irish community, claiming that "we against whom you have done this thing are no petty people" (Brown 1985, p. 131).

Yeats and many of his fellow writers were also in the vanguard of opposition to the Censorship of Publications Act of 1929. This act was not draconian in its inception—it was intended mainly to prevent the free circulation of publications relating to contraception, an international concern at the time. However, the zeal of the Censorship of Publications Board established under the act led to the prohibition of many of the greatest works of modern Irish and world literature. These included Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Samuel Beckett's More Pricks than Kicks, and James Joyce's Stephen Hero. Until its liberalization in the 1960s the severity of Irish literary censorship was internationally notorious.

Cumann na nGaedheal failed to address two of the greatest sources of anxiety to the Catholic hierarchy: the widespread growth of unregulated dance halls and the question of contraception. In 1935 Fianna Fáil responded to these concerns with a regulatory Public Dance Halls Act and a Criminal Law Amendment Act that absolutely prohibited the importation and sale of contraceptives. It was a measure that was widely applauded, but one that also drew criticism from those who believed the power of the state should not be used to enforce Catholic values in matters of public health and private conscience.

The creation of a Gaelic and Catholic state reached its apogee in Eamon de Valera's 1937 constitution, which established Irish as the first official language of the state and recognized the "special position" of the Catholic Church "as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens." The Catholic ethos of the constitution was not purely symbolic: The text was deeply imbued with Catholic social theory and traditional values. The family was recognized as the fundamental unit of society, entitled as such to protection from the state. The family was also recognized as the primary educator of the child, and the state was relegated to a secondary role. In the context of family values the constitution recognized the support given by woman "by her life within the home" and stipulated that no law permitting divorce would be enacted.

In the 1920s and 1930s opposition to the increasing identification of the state with Gaelic and Catholic culture was muted, sporadic, and unorganized. It is inaccurate to regard these measures as motivated solely by a desire to establish an exclusive national identity; nonetheless, that was one of the results. Perhaps the most overt example of the confusion of nationality and majority culture is found in the preamble to the constitution, which acknowledges "all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial." This was not simply a statement of Christian piety, but an understanding of the nature of the state in the context of a specific historic tradition.

That, folks, is what the past 89 years have been all about...

A bad idea from the start.

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Talk Talk redundancies - 575 jobs go walk walk

2011-09-08T13:23:00.004+01:00

It is pretty bad form when you find you are being made redundant through Facebook, but it seems that is what happened to workers at UK telecommunications company Talk Talk's branch in Waterford. The company is simply upping sticks and taking its call centre operation to Asia, where people can afford to work for as little as €2,400 per annum. Without warning.

No doubt Ibec will have words of non-wisdom to say on issues of "competitiveness", wage costs and all the rest. The fact however, is that we in western Europe cannot compete with such salaries, as our cost of living is much higher. I can't imagine much demand for €500,000 houses in Delhi, for instance. I certainly didn't see much evidence of such during the two occasions I visited, anyway.

Talk Talk also cited Eurozone fluctuations - but such things are transient, and other companies that do not work through Sterling still manage to operate here. And are the Indian Rupee or the Philippine Peso tied to Sterling?

So really, you have to look at Ireland's over-dependent strategy of basing employment on the multinationals... It might have worked in the past, thanks to the fact that we are mother-tongue English speakers and the avoidance opportunities offered by Ireland's corporate tax laws, but it is something other countries can do now - for far cheaper.

It is not multinationals alone, however. "Outsourcing" is a buzzword these days, and indigenous Irish companies indulge too. In Britain, even those in jobs they might have considered immune to such a practice - journalism, for example - have been hit.   Reuters outsourced parts of its operation to Singapore in 2004, and the Daily Mirror did the same in 2006.

Indeed, if you think about it, it is hard to imagine any job which does not require a physical presence at the point of sale that could not, theoretically, be outsourced.

And where does that leave us all? Companies end up cutting into their own domestic markets because we are all on the dole, our jobs having gone east.   Maybe companies that readily outsource might not notice the disappearance of their Irish markets, but they would if the same were to happen in the larger EU economies.

Countries like India widely use forms of protectionism, in the form of tariffs, to develop their own economies.   Perhaps it is time that we in Europe did the same for multinational companies operating within the EU, at least in the form of an obligatory code of conduct?

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Irish property crash - lessons have not been learnt?

2011-09-06T00:01:00.002+01:00

Two posts ago we considered how once in a blue moon one might see a letter worth reading in Dublin’s freebie Metro Herald.

That post was prompted by an unusually intelligent missive to that publication, from someone called Bruce who articulated on what he saw as Ibec’s (the Irish employers’ union) hypocrisy.

Let us see the other side of the coin now, and a letter from somebody who lacks the grey matter quotient of our friend Bruce. It seems the lessons of the boom and bust in Ireland have been lost on this particular character, who signs him/herself off as “Another Concerned Citizen”. Witness the following excerpt:

“… I am a very responsible person with a young family and I made five property transactions during Bertie’s Tiger – some on private residences and a couple for Buy to Let.

It was people like me, and thousands of others, who drove this economy and had confidence in it to spend on property. The tax we paid to the Government on property-related earnings was huge. So I think people genuinely struggling need help and deserve to get some of the tax we generated back…”

Can you believe the stupidity of this person? And what about the projection of “Bertie’s Tiger”? Nothing to do with him/her. Most of these fools were voting for Bertie not that long ago. My ears are bleeding from hearing the cock crowing, they have denied him so many times.

Speaking of ears, when I lived in London for nine years some time ago, if anyone told an (anti-) Irish joke within shot of mine they would have been cruising for the proverbial bruising. But now I am beginning to wonder if Bernard Manning, for instance, wasn’t just terribly perceptive? I jest – he was an ignorant racist bigot – but you take my point.

There seems to be a serious disconnect between cause and effect, reality and fantasy, in Ireland. You see it manifest itself in many ways – the denial of divorce rights for so long to people who were separated; the pretence that abortion does not exist here, because Irish women are forced to travel abroad for it; the joke that Gaeilge is our first national language, even though the majority of us do not speak it.

Then there is the property disconnect. This letter writer cannot make the connection between his/her – and “thousands of others property investments” and their requisite borrowing requirements – and the massive debt the country now finds itself in.

It seems that no lessons have been learnt

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Fats Domino at the Crystal Ballroom - a guest of the nation?

2011-09-03T00:01:00.013+01:00

In my parents' time Ireland was monochrome. Forty shades, perhaps - but monochrome.

It never really occurred to me - until after they were long dead - how even more awful the place was back then, when I read an MIR called "Stealing Sunlight" by Angeline Kearns Blain some years ago. If you think the country is bad now, just try to imagine how grim it was in the forties and fifties - and even the sixties - in orthodox Dev Ireland.

It must have been a big thing when The Beatles vistited the Adelphi Ciniema in Dublin back in 1963 to play "She Loves You" and a few other ditties only to be mistaken, by some, for upstarts ripping off The Royal Showband. But being "with it" in Ireland was not easy at the time.

I was just looking at YouTube earlier and came across Fats Domino. My old dear (natural forces rest her) was well hip back then and was a big - real time - fan. As a young wan she used to frequent one of Dublin's two relative hotspots... a place called "The Crystal" off Grafton Street.

Not too far from Kildare Street and the Dail.

But that was another world completely.

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Ibec on workers' absenteeism and that organisation's own part in our downfall

2011-08-31T00:01:00.002+01:00

Once in a blue moon you might see a letter that is worth reading while flicking through Herald Metro on your way to work.

I'm not joking, it's one of the few things I get to read these days between one thing and another.

Maybe Ibec would consider setting up a special O'Stakhanov Award for model workers such as my good self, who work all the hours natural forces send - increased hours with pay cuts - and had only had one sick day in the past two years or so?   And all without complaint. Actually, scrub that last bit.

But what about Ibec - the logical successor to William Martin Murphy's ideal of organised employers?   It was whinging last week about the alleged high rate if absenteeism in Irish workplaces, and how it was crippling the country.

Which brings us back to the Metro Herald and the following letter from Bruce.   I haven't been able to check any of the figures he quotes - too busy working Ibec, you see - but it looks as though he has put a bit of thought and research into what he has written.

Duvet days? I like the sound of that...

I see Ibec has been harping on about absenteeism costing employers €1.5 billion per annum with employees missing 5.98 days per year, stating the issue “affects the wider economy through loss of potential output and increases spending on social security.

Well that’s a bit rich, given that Ibec members made a run on the Irish banks last year - leading to the tune of €78 billion in corporate deposits leaving the country and leading to the bailout in November. To cover this, the Irish State borrowed €60 billion and used the State Pension Reserve to balance the rest.

Interest has been reduced on this amount to 3.5 per cent, which equals interest alone of €2.1bn to the taxpayer and €4 billion in capital repayment, meaning the actions of Ibec members in 2010 will cost the taxpayer €6.1 billion in 2012.

Add to that the €270 million interest the State would have earned on the Pension Reserve Fund, bringing the total close to €6.3 billion. Based on 1.8 million people still working in the Irish economy, that works out at approximately €3,500 per working person, per annum, in taxes to pay off the bailout.

Given that this organisation is calling for increases in spending on education and the cutting of pay to make us more competitive, while campaigning for the 12.5% corporation tax to remain the same (in other words, everyone else pays except them), they are hypocrites of the highest order.

We taxpayers should have 25 ‘duvet days’ to cost them as much as they are costing us.

Bruce (having a lie-in today)

Well, Ibec. Pot? Kettle?

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"Debt forgiveness" for some mortgage holders? Genuine need or putting on the poor mouth?

2011-08-29T00:01:00.001+01:00

What is behind the current media-fuelled hysteria around the trumped-up topic of debt forgiveness?

Last Thursday The Irish Times published a letter from an MP MacDomhnaill of Tralee, which is pasted below:

A NEW TORMENT - HUNGER

Sir, – As I write this letter I am hoping that sleep can provide me with some escape from the anxiety and pain that the economic situation is wreaking on me and my family.

Until recently I have been able to meet my mortgage repayments and provide for my young children. At this juncture, seeing as the part-time work on which I depended has entirely ceased, I have found myself and my loved ones having to cope with a new torment – hunger.

Today I have had nothing to give my children only bread and cereal. My dole payment is completely servicing my mortgage and my savings have run dry on essentials. I dread what each day will bring.

The wolf that I have been keeping from the door has finally moved in. – Yours, etc.

Then on Friday, the same paper carried a piece by Rosita Boland, featuring extracts from a telephone interview with the letter writer, in which he described how his wife noticed one of the children was reduced to eating bits of (Lidl brand) Cornflakes packet in order to stave off the hunger.

Sorry, but I can't swallow this - no more than I would some bargain brand cereal packaging.

The idea of hunger and famine is a recurring one in Irish discourse, and the image of a child eating bits of cardboard to stay alive, in order for mum and dad to pay the mortgage, is one that will wring many a tear from the uncritical folkish eye. It is the hungry grass all over again, with the prospect of eviction (read repossession) thrown in. It is like a Flann O'Brien parody.

There is no reason why anyone who lost their job should be paying all of their mortgage payments to go without food. As far as I am aware, there are mortgage interest supplements for people in such a position, and the banks have been readily restructuring mortgage repayments for some years now.

Conor Pope, in the same edition of the paper as Boland's piece, made the observation that many of the "new poor are resolutely middle-class" and might find the idea of looking for help or advice in the shape of the Money Advice and Budgeting Service "a degrading step and one which is beyond them".

But to read yesterday's alarmist articles in the Sunday Independent you would swear that starving families are being turfed out of their homes all over the country, with the residue of cardboard-tainted saliva encrusted on the mouths of their ragged children.

This is simply not happening. Even last Wednesday's Irish Times editorial pointed out that "there is abundant evidence that debtors and creditors are themselves working problems out on a case by case basis" and the number of home repossessions in Ireland "remains small in absolute terms or in comparison to Britain, where economic conditions are far more benign than here".

Ironically, much of the current debate was triggered by Morgan Kelly's recent comments on former high-rollers who took out unsustainable mortgages of one and more million euro. Professionals who "could barely afford to buy you a cup of coffee now".

Given the way things work in Ireland, and how those from the more privileged classes always come up smelling of roses - even after enduring a temporary dip in the manure - one wonders are these the movers and shakers fueling the media agenda?

Not so much starving kiddies as dentists, architects and, erm, perhaps journalists, who took out silly loans during the property boom madness and are now - horror of horrors - in negative equity?

Sure. They can have debt forgiveness if they are prepared to walk away from their aspirational properties and hand in the keys - otherwise it should be a matter of renegotiating terms with their lenders. The same should apply to their buy-to-let portfolios.

Meanwhile genuine cases - such as ordinary people down on their luck and making an effort to pay something back - should be afforded the necessary latitude to restructure. Which is exactly what is happening at present.

Blanket "debt forgiveness" should not be a facility for those who can pay, but won't, to wriggle out of their commitments - while keeping the assets they outbid the rest of us on as they pushed prices skywards during the boom.

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Partizan Belgrade v Shamrock Rovers.

2011-08-26T22:09:00.006+01:00

Congrats to Shamrock Rovers for reaching the group stages of the Europa Cup, where they will compete against teams as elevated - and well remunerated - as Spurs. As far as I am aware, they are the first team from the League of Ireland (and possibly the Irish League too) that have managed to do so.

My old man and his old man, mind you, were Shelbourne through and through. The old man took me to the Shels games in Tolka Park and Harold's Cross as a kid. I, of course, preferred the glamour of Match of the Day and Leeds United, one of whose midfield generals was a certain Johnny Giles.

Turncoat that I was, and much to the old man's disappointment, I spent quite a few Sunday afternoons on the Glenmalure terraces with the kid bro after Giles wound down to become manager of Rovers back in the late 70s.

For a long time Rovers were homeless after their owners sold off their ground in Milltown to build apartments. Eventually, and after much bitter opposition from a local GAA club, they succeeded in getting their own ground in Tallaght.

So, I hope they make a mint in the Europa Cup, and strike a blow for world football in Ireland... or the "garrison game" and the "corner boys game" as the backwoodsmen of the Christian Brothers, the GAA, and their ilk labeled it.

And what an equalising goal at 1:43.

Johnny Giles himself would have been proud.

Partizan Belgrade v Shamrock Rovers video uploaded by TaLaHoOp . Big thanks.

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Bishop Boyce claims Catholic Church attacked by secular and Godless culture...

2011-08-24T09:21:00.004+01:00

"Catholic Bishop of Raphoe Dr Philip Boyce has said the Catholic Church is being attacked by the arrows of a secular and Godless culture.

Dr Boyce also said it was rocked from the inside by the sins and crimes of priests and consecrated people.

An independent review of diocesan files relating to child abuse allegations against priests is nearing completion in the bishop's Donegal diocese.

He has promised to publish the findings of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church when he receives them, which is likely to be next month.

Bishop Boyce made his remarks last Saturday but they were not released to journalists until yesterday evening.

He told worshippers at the Novena at the Marian shrine in Knock, Co Mayo that they were living through a testing moment of history and a spiritual dark night now engulfs the church.

The bishop urged Catholics to act hopefully and with patience and predicted that the church would rise again."   (RTE news, this morning).

Well, it is just a pity that a "secular and Godless" culture did not exist in Ireland when the abuses perpetrated by the powerful, State-influencing, Catholic Church were in full swing.

When the bishops whispered into the ears of elected politicians who twiddled their rosary beads in their pockets as they genuflected to do the church's bidding. As did much of the Irish population who sometimes even colluded in sending children off to the Magdalene Laundries or the industrial schools, as they tugged their forelocks before the unholy trinity of priests, police and politicians.

I am not quite convinced that a "secular and godless" culture exists even now in Ireland, but public attitudes are not quite so unquestioning and prostrate before the still-powerful Catholic Church, which continues to run 90% of our schools.    Yet, a 2009 poll by the Iona Institute asserted that 65% still go to mass at least once a month, while the Irish public attitude to abortion rights continues to be misinformed by Catholic ideas of conception.

Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn, will begin negotiations with Catholic Church representatives next month in an attempt to get them to pay half the compensation bill to those they abused.

It might be timely for him to insist that schools, in our supposedly secular and Godless society, are finally taken out of the Church's control.

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The road to nowhere at the Phoenix Park Racecourse

2011-08-22T11:06:00.004+01:00

Spotted this one while out for a scenic walk down the Navan Road during the weekend.

You will see the sign saying "local access" to denote a road to the northern section of the Phoenix Park Racecourse development which was never started, let alone completed. You can get a better idea from the aerial shot below, taken from the chopper this morning while on the way to Spar for a carton of milk. No, that's sooo 2006 - it was Google Maps, actually.

The Irish Follies Trust quotes Mariga Guinness as claiming that Ireland had "more follies to the acre than anywhere else in the world". I think she might have been referring to the decorative variety of building, without any obvious utility, many of which were built to provide employment for the poor during the famine years.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines such buildings thus:

"A costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park."

Here is an example of one at Leixlip:

Then there is the alternative definition, perhaps more appropriate for Irish follies such as the development above, and the numerous ghost estates blighting the country:

"Lack of good sense; foolishness: A foolish act, idea, or practice"

We definitely have more of those than anywhere else in the world.

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Solheim Cup accommodation - Irish investors seek gullible fools

2011-08-19T09:23:00.004+01:00

The following article (in green) by Conor Pope appeared in yesterday's Irish Times. It demonstrates that the gap between reality and fantasy in the mind of the Irish property investor can still be measured in microns.

In a nutshell, those who bought investment apartments and semi-ds in godforsaken hellholes in the commuter belt of Dublin are looking to rent them out to golfing enthusiasts due to visit our little land for something called the Solheim Cup.

Apparently Paddy and Mary think unsuspecting, cash-rich (and no doubt colourfully dressed) foreigners will give them up to €5,100 for the privilege of staying in their two-bedroom apartment.

Hilarious. The idea of someone forking out 5 grand to forgo their villa with indoor swimming pool in Munich, in order to live in a pokey Irish investor apartment for a week, displays an incredible stupidity on the part of would-be Irish letters. They have no idea of standards elsewhere.

I hope Morgan Kelly is not talking about debt forgiveness for these idiots.

THE OWNERS of houses and apartments across Co Meath, which normally rent for less than €1,000 a month, are attempting to cash in on next month’s Solheim Cup golf match between the US and Europe in Killeen Castle by offering them for rent for as much as €15,000 for one week.

Anyone hoping to make a quick buck out of the prestigious golf tournament is likely to be disappointed, however. Local auctioneers and tourism officials said yesterday there was “absolutely no way” people travelling from overseas for the event would pay anything close to the amounts being sought.

A “modern, spacious two-bedroom apartment” in Ashbourne, Co Meath has a price tag of €5,100 for the week, while a three-bed house in the same town is available for €9,000. A four-bed house on the outskirts of Navan is up for grabs for €11,000, and a five-bed house in Trim is €15,000.

The prices are reminiscent of the Ryder Cup, which took place in Co Kildare in 2006. At that time, relatively modest semis and bungalows within a 40km radius of the K-Club were being advertised from €600 up to €30,000 for a week or two-week period. Take-up at that time for private lettings was also pretty slow.

This week there were close to 100 apartments and houses listed on a site which is unaffiliated with any tourism authority or the competition organisers. It is charging people €95 for each listing.

Local auctioneer Maureen Rafter said the chances of anyone being able to command anything close to the prices being quoted for their properties were remote. “Bless their little hearts but these prices are totally aspirational,” she told The Irish Times.

“We have been approached by several people with lovely houses which they want to put up for rent. They are asking if we have any potential clients, but the reality is we have yet to be approached by anyone looking for accommodation,” she said.

James Brennan of Meath Tourism said: “We don’t believe there is a market for these properties at all. It is mad stuff and we have nothing to do with it and the Solheim Cup organisers have nothing to do with it.

“There is still accommodation available in the county, and hotels in the county are at 80 per cent occupancy now,” Mr Brennan added.

“If something looks too good to be true then the chances are it is too good to be true and that is the case here. We would be very disappointed if anyone paid these kinds of prices.”

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Micheal O Muircheartaigh for president now, is it? Bring on Terry Wogan.

2011-08-17T00:01:00.001+01:00

Just as one RTE “personality” - in the highly irritating form of Gay Byrne - reveals to an expectant nation that he won’t be running for the Irish presidency, another appears on the scene.

This time it is ex-GAA commentator Micheal O Muircheartaigh. 80 years old, Gaelic-speaking, GAA-loving, and a familiar voice to the faithful over “the wireless” for decades. Bloody hell… they will be exhuming Dev next.

And what is it with these RTE “personalities”? Morning Ireland gave O’Muirchearthaigh an indulgent interview yesterday, during which he pondered aloud whether he would put himself forward for nomination. What kind of news was that?

Furthermore, what kind of a public broadcaster feels it is newsworthy to interview its old boys on the subject of the presidency at the drop of a check cap? Maybe RTE feels that its “personalities” have been in our faces for so long that we'll think nothing of another seven years. Assuming they have another seven years in them.

Tell you what. If we must have an Irish broadcaster as president we might as well have Terry Wogan. At least he is articulate, intelligent, and was talented enough to be a big fish – in a successful broadcasting career spanning decades – outside of the little pond that is Ireland.

How many from the Montrose spawning-bed of mediocrity could have done the same?

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Dana for president? Takes all kinds of everything, it seems.

2011-08-15T00:01:00.004+01:00

While we are talking about the presidency - and breathing a sigh of relief that Gaybo is not going to run for the Aras (Irish president's house) after all - now we can concentrate on Dana.

Dana, younger readers might not know, won the Eurovision for Ireland back in 1970 with a song called "All Kinds of Everything". It was considered a great achievement at the time by the powers that be, rather than an embarrassment. See below.

If Dana had stuck to singing twee songs, it might just have been forgiveable. Since 1970, however, the Derry warbler has metamorphosed into a right-wing, anti-choice, Catholic "values" conservative. She did not manage to get a nomination for the last election, in 2004, and only got 13.5% of the vote in 1997.

A reader, John, sent in this link which shows Dana singing on a far-right US religious channel called EWTN. In the video - which is probably the most excruciating I have ever seen - Dana intercedes in a duet with a rather portly Jesus, playing the role of a woman who has had an abortion. It is so bad, musically, that Andrew Lloyd Webber might be envious.

Dana, of course, believes Irish women should not have the option of termination in their own country, and should be compelled to get on the boat/plane to England or Holland. That way she - and her ilk - can delude themselves that abortion does not exist in Ireland.

Have a look at this video, but have a sick bag handy.

More worryingly, John also sent a link to a site called protectthepope.com which features a Facebook campaign by an 18-year old who supports Dana's presidential campaign on the basis that she will "bring this country back to its golden age"-

What??? With 18-year-olds like that, what does the future hold?

Tomorrow belongs to them.

They are welcome to it, the arseholes.

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'President' Gay Byrne - "we are being run by mad people in Brussels."

2011-08-13T00:01:00.003+01:00

Or - do we really want a mad person from RTE as president?

I turned on the news the other day to be greeted by the crabby little face of Gay Byrne fielding questions on his possible candidacy for the Irish presidential election.

“We are being run by maaad people in Brussels” he opined, as property developer, Harry Crosbie, made a beeline towards him to pledge his support.

“Maaad people in Brussels”. Is that right, Gaybo? Well, there's me thinking we were run by maaad people in Ireland – run into the ground. Don’t go blaming the EU for the mess our dodgy political class, their developer/builder cronies and the fools who voted for them, made of the country.

It was not the EU who introduced the tax shelters and incentives and kept them going right through the property boom years. It was not the EU who cut capital gains tax from 40% to 20% after we joined the Euro. It was not the EU swarming like files around shit at every new apartment launch in a bid to get further and further into debt.

Sure Gay, it can't have been nice watching your bank shares plummet and your pension take a hit - but maybe you should direct your bile at targets other than the EU? Your own bad decisions perhaps? Speaking of which – don’t run for president... the whole thing is an awful enough joke as it is.

Sure, the idiot Irish public might well vote you in – which, in itself, speaks volumes - but it really would be a bad idea. Just enjoy your retirement, and let us enjoy it too.

It might be more frugal than you anticipated, but you’ll still be better off than many.

Next up: Dana's presidential bid.

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London's Burning - riots carry a special resonance for Irish who lived there

2011-08-10T00:01:00.011+01:00

"London's burning", as the old Clash song went. It might have taken 34 years for that statement to come true, but it certainly has.

So there goes that stereotype of the "reserved", law-abiding Brits and the "rebellious" law-deriding, Irish then.  If there is anywhere in Europe that people should be out in the streets, chucking Molotovs around and making the coppers work for their overtime, it's here in Ireland, rather than across the water.

But dropping the facetiousness for a moment, it really is alarming. The first riots followed several hours after a peaceful protest in Tottenham which centred on an armed suspect being shot dead by police in the area, but after that it just seemed to take on the qualities of a craze - with a bit of looting thrown in, of course.

The strange thing, looking from here in Ireland, is that some relatively affluent areas have been affected - Ealing for example. Then there's Wood Green - a place I have fond memories of, as I passed my driving test there.

But what about Peckham? That place was scary 25 years ago when I went to do a 9-year stint in London as an economic migrant. Mind you, I was in a squat for several weeks with these middle-class types from lovely comfortable homes in Dublin who were slumming it for a bit - I'm sure they had their poor mums and dads climbing the walls.

For my part, I'd had enough of living in bad housing all my life as a kid (violin music here please) so I was only too keen to get out and get some decent surroundings for myself. An incident whereby we were chased from a squat when its rightful owners came to move in - it had been allotted, unbeknownst to us - probably hastened that decision.

Eventually I got a flat in Streatham before deciding that South London was not for me. So north of the Thames it was for a one-and-a-half year stint in Finsbury Park, before spending the best part of seven years in Stratford, East London, in the Borough of Newham - one of London's poorest. That's where they are holding the Olympics next year, so that is nice to see - assuming the whole lot doesn't go up in smoke first.

London was good. People were not as parochial there as in Ireland and they were friendly enough, considering the size of the city. I worked with local yokels and most of them were sound as pounds. I even had a season in the Sunday League as a crap central defender in a crap team that got beaten 7-0 every week.    So watching all that is going on over there carries an extra resonance.

Let's hope they can get a lid on it soon. Ordinary Londoners - native and otherwise - should not have to suffer their city being destroyed around them.

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Morgan Kelly - property market "very far from bottom"

2011-08-08T08:51:00.003+01:00

Morgan Kelly, UCD Professor of Economics, has been given the sobriquet of "Doctor Doom" by sections of the Irish media. While other economists were predecting "soft landings" for the Irish property market - and the wider economy - Kelly was predicting 70% price drops.

As things stand, it looks like he was right on the money. So far from being Ireland's "pessimistic" economist, he is its most realistic.

Another thing about Kelly is that he is not tied to the interests of any commercial or financial group. His only motivation, I should imagine, is to get his predictions correct - therefore confirming his own competence and analysis.

So what he has to say is always worth a read. Such as the following in today's Irish Times.

"Irish property prices have yet to hit bottom and as a result the final bill for bailing out the banks is likely to be in the region of €90 billion to €100 billion, economist Morgan Kelly said last night.

In his Hubert Butler Lecture to the Kilkenny Arts Festival, Mr Kelly said: "we are very far from the bottom" of the property market and added it would take a decade for the economy to recover from the fallout.

While prices had fallen by 50 per cent, he said “almost no transactions were taking place at that price” and with unsold properties starting to accumulate, Mr Kelly said “we are very far from the bottom of the market”.

He also estimated Ireland’s national debt would rise to between €240 billion and €250 billion by 2015, far higher than the current Government estimates of €200 billion. He said that there was no way the country could repay this.

The UCD economist said the Irish economy would require a decade to recover from the current crisis.

Addressing the extent of property price inflation, Mr Kelly said that by 2007, “we were building half as many houses as Britain which is 15 times our size”. A consequence of this building boom was that the price of an average Dublin home cost “15 times the average industrial wage”.

Mr Kelly also said banks had become aware of the problems in the Irish property market in 2006 when there was a fall in the number of people taking out mortgages. Despite this, he claimed many bank economists were telling people at the time that there would be a “soft landing” so they would continue buying houses.

Mr Kelly described the bank guarantee that followed as “Cowen and Lenihan’s idea of shock and awe,” which, designed to frighten speculators, turned out to be “shocking and awful” for the country.

He said the real mistake, however, was not passing the guarantee, but sticking with it.

The economist said Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan could have walked way from the deal but decided that the losses were manageable.

Mr Kelly said the next problem Irish banks were likely to face was “organised opposition to repayment” with the possibility of some “Michael Davitt-type figure” emerging.

Referring to the euro zone debt crisis, Mr Kelly said: “I think eventually it will be solved” as it was in Germany’s benefit to remain in the euro.

Predicting “very large ECB loans to Ireland, Spain and Italy,” Mr Kelly said even if Ireland were to receive favourable terms the country faced very deep problems.

Mr Kelly described as “catastrophic” the recent US spending deal that allowed the debt ceiling to be raised, but avoided raising taxes to try and plug the widening deficit, and said "as the US goes under that will hit Ireland very, very badly."

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Dublin Speed Bumps to be "repaired" for €210,000

2011-08-05T00:01:00.011+01:00

A reader, Sam, emailed me the above clip from the Herald which reported on Dublin City Council's bill of €210,000 to "repair" speed bumps it blighted the city with between 6 and 12 years ago. Apparently there are 156 of these things in their domain, though it seems like a lot more to me.

Is it not ironic, that when there has been a big hoo-haa about South Dublin County Council working in conjunction with FixYourStreet to "respond" to complaints of potholes within 48 hours, that the half-wits of Dublin City Council are looking to actively restore road imperfections in the city, at considerable expense?

Look DCC. Don't bother on my account. I will continue to slow down to a crawl for your speed bumps no matter what their state, before dropping down to first gear and revving my engine up to 7,200 RPM - engine howling like a diving Stuka - in order to reach the next one rapidly before slamming on the brakes, therefore killing polar bears and annoying the local residents* in the process.

With feet hammering on the pedals like an especially manic Michael Flatley, I will employ said tactic simply to shake off the driver up my arse who goes over these things like they don't exist... regardless of their condition.

So save yourselves - or us, to be accurate - a bit of money and just let them erode.

* Apologies to the polar bears.

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David Norris quits the presidential race

2011-08-03T00:01:00.003+01:00

The whole David Norris business is a disappointment, in so many ways.

Disappointing, for one, as it will come as a godsend to those who were opposed to an openly gay man standing for the Irish presidency. Interestingly, however, despite Norris’s difficulty in getting the required nominations from his fellow politicians, he had been the public’s leading choice according to the polls.

The real problem occurred when it was revealed that Norris wrote to an Israeli court in 1997, seeking clemency for an ex-partner who had had sex with a 15-year-old. I think the term is known as statutory rape, the reasoning being that a minor is not legally at an age to consent to sex.

Norris, it seemed, wanted to help his ex-partner in some way. I suppose we would all try to help someone we cared about no matter what they had been accused of – but to do so on Government headed paper was his big mistake.

Having said that, Fintan O’Toole, writing in yesterday’s Irish Times, brought attention to the culture of politicians interceding on behalf of constituents in similar serious matters.

For instance, he cites a case in 2002 “when it emerged that junior minister Bobby Molloy intervened in a much more serious way on behalf of a child rapist, Patrick Naughton, the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, defended him on the basis of ‘that’s what politicians do. A TD is a public representative and you make representations’ ”

That’s the kind of attitude we expect from Fianna Fail. And there’s the rub… we expect those who are not from that dreadful party to have higher standards. Norris does, I am sure, have higher standards. I think he just got personally caught up in events.

Once this story broke from all those years ago, however, his presidential ambitions were always going to be distinctly past tense.

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The decline of blogging and missing links

2011-07-31T17:37:00.009+01:00

You would wonder what has happened in the Blogosphere. Fellow bloggers are dropping off like flies from a Vapona stick and even the aggregators seem to be on the way out. Then some of the bigger, more successful, blogs have become too high and mighty to give the rest of us poor plebs links from their sites any more.

Fewer links mean lower page rankings. This blog recently went from PageRank 4 to PageRank 3 in the last Google cull. Even Bock The Robber - a bigger, more successful blog with a massive number of hits every day, went from PageRank 5 to PageRank 4.

When I look at where visitors are coming from my main sources these days are from old reliables like the tenacious Bernd's Irland Inside - Gombeen Nation's first ever blog link. Fellow German language blogger Harald has dropped the cudgels, for now anyway, and a lot of the bloggers you'll see on Gombeen Nation's links page have not posted in yonks. If there are any others of you still left out there, don't be shy - ask me for a link swap.

Even Irishblogs.ie, the blog directory/aggregator, had its last update as long ago as May 18th. That was a massive source of links and brought in many visitors to us all. It's very regrettable really, making the unpaid work of the blogger an even sadder activity than it already is.

But feck it... we've nothing else to do.

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Irish Gaelic Tattoo Book

2011-07-29T00:01:00.004+01:00

I'm sure some of you have been there.

You're wondering how best to proclaim your Irishness, and finally settle on the idea of a permanent tattoo. That way you will have an indelible mark on your epidermis proclaiming to the world that you are a son, or daughter, of dear old Erin.

What's more, you will also have to undergo a certain amount of pain and suffering too. A touch of martyrdom into the bargain - what more could you ask for?

What is it to be? A nice shamrock? Or maybe a Celtic cross? Or one of those dogs painted on the side of the Bus Eireann coaches? "No", you think, "not Irish enough".

At length you settle on some kind of phrase in Gaelic - preferably in some bockety old script similar to the sort Dev used for this 1937 Constitution. Perhaps something that Cuchulainn might have roared while going into battle or while belting his bronze hurley ball about, several billennia before hurling was even invented.

There is one problem though. You don't actually speak any Gaelic other than 'Can I go to the toilet Miss/Sir?"

Fear not. Help is at hand, in the form of the "Top 50 Irish Gaelic Tattoo Ideas" book from the USA ($12.95). As the blurb that comes with it says:

Don’t spend a small fortune on a permanent Irish Gaelic tattoo until you truly understand what it is you’ll be proclaiming to the world for as long as you live.

And, more to the point, don't spend a fortune on skins grafts if you suddenly discover your Gaelic slogan says something like "God Save The Queen", "Cromwell Forever", "Padraig Pearse Was A Paedo" or "What Was All That Fuss About The Famine, Anyway?"

You have been warned! Further info here

Big thanks to C for telling us about this one.

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Red Letter Day... the end of Section 23s?

2011-07-26T00:01:00.002+01:00

Readers will know that the subject of property-based tax reliefs has been covered before on the blog, particularly their effect in inflating the real estate bubble and driving house and apartment prices to stratospheric heights before reality intruded in late 2006.

The way it worked was investors bought a property in a “designated area” – and the rationale for choosing areas to be designated seems to have been nebulous – and they could write off all their rental income against tax. This meant that apartments in godforsaken shitholes were going for Beverly Hills money, purely as a tax dodge.

Now it seems that proposed changes will allow tax relief only on the Section 23 property itself – and, needless to say, investors are up in arms.

Witness the following extract from an advert, placed by the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers. The advert is styled as a letter to Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, asking him to preserve the existing tax shelters. A selection of the "letter", below, is in green. My own thinking-aloud obversations are in red type.

“The people affected by these changes are tax compliant [never mind that such reliefs were created to avoid paying tax… legally of course] ordinary individuals, like me, who were encouraged to invest in schemes in specific areas in order to rejuvenate these areas [never mind rural areas blighted by empty apartment blocks and unwanted holiday home schemes.]...

..Like many others, I responded to the incentives introduced and paid a premium to acquire the tax relief attached to the properties although the project itself yields low rental income…. The withdrawal of these reliefs will mean that I will now suffer great financial distress….

….The proposed changes will further depress property prices, will increase repossessions by financial institutions, and will bankrupt investors thereby increasing the financial burden on the already stressed taxpayer..."

Nice to see tax-shy investors expressing such concern for the taxpayer, eh?

Given the number of solicitors and creative accountants who jumped on the Section 23 bandwagon, it can’t be long before they make a legal challenge, can it?

And like all powerful interests who have their day in the High Court – as they can afford it - we can be sure any changes to property-based tax shelters will be found “unconstitutional”.

Just wait and see.

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Speed bumps... how to take them without a Marauder.

2011-07-23T20:21:00.008+01:00

I am sick of “speed” bumps, I really am. They do not work.

Put it this way, they do nothing to deter dozy, unobservant, inattentive drivers... and isn’t driving without due care and attention one of the more serious charges that can be laid at a driver’s door sill?

I have lost count of the times that I have taken a bump with due care and consideration for my chassis’ transgress over said obstacle, with my rear-view mirror full of Renault. I have lost count of the times I have had to have my wheels re-aligned to make them safe for road use as a result.

So now I have two choices. I buy a car with sufficient go-anywhere capability and ground clearance to negotiate a Darndale-style speed bump without slowing down, or I develop a new technique.

The car in the picture above is called a Marauder. Although it only has a top speed of - at most, 115km/h - it can take speed bumps as though they do not exist, as it has enough ground clearance and under-body armour plating to distance itself from your average Taliban mine. The local council, nor the polar bears, do not have a chance. Nor does anyone who blocks you in when you are shopping (see pic). However, most of us do not have the best part of half-a-million Euro to spare, after Irish VRT.

Most speed bumps were installed after some nosey, interfering neighbour requested them at a local residents’ committee meeting – which the vast majority of residents do not attend. Possibly scandalised by the sound of “boy racers” driving slow Fiat Puntos with noisy exhausts, he/she – after a long spell of curtain twitching – decided to push the council to stamp out the menace in the interests of “safety”. Never mind the fact that road deaths are at an all-time low.

Here is my advice - though I am not saying I do this myself, garda:

When you come up to a speed bump that a residents’ group has demanded, simply change down to first gear and blip your throttle generously. Then, in order to put some distance between yourself and the idiot behind you who takes no notice of road conditions, mash your foot to the floor and rev your engine up to the maximum. This should give you sufficient momentum to piss off the locals who are keeping up to date with life by watching “Fair City” in their front-facing living rooms. It will also prevent you from being rear-ended.

Sadly, this means that you are forced to drive faster – and more noisily too - in areas with speed bumps, in order to distance yourself from such unwanted automotive intimacy. It entails more air and aural pollution, but it will keep the residents happy

At least the ones on the committee.

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Irish Credit Union survey says one in four have €20 to live on

2011-07-20T00:06:00.003+01:00

A recent survey by the Irish League of Credit Unions found that one-in-four Irish people had less than €20 a week to live on, after they had paid their bills. Now I don't know what the methodology of the survey was, nor the sample of people interviewed, but it certainly is a shocking statistic.

Then Superquinn went into receivership on Monday, only to be snapped up by wholesale giant Musgraves - a development greeted with a sigh of relief by the chain store's workers. Job losses, however are still to be expected.

Nothing, of course, to do with weekend and shift pay entitlements for poorly paid workers; but everything to do with bad property-based investment decisions made by Superquinn during the boom. A flagship store in Balfgriffin, for instance - now a ghost estate.

Lately, we have been treated to a steady drip-feed of job announcements from the coalition Government. Fine Gael / Labour have been playing it quite well - Enda Kenny's Roscommon Hospital Cockup aside. They certainly know a bit about choreography, and are making the most of the fact that they are not Fianna Fail.

So (comparatively) slick are they, that I would not be surprised if they get a reduction in Ireland's bailout interest rate soon, as part of a new overall EU-wide deal, if recent pronouncements by Olli Rehn are any guide.

If they do, however, it will not mean the scrapping of the Universal Social Charge and the postponement of a raft of extra taxes and charges in the next Budget. It will just mean Enda and the boys and girls can look good about it all.

The one-in-four people struggling for life's basic necessities are unlikely to notice much difference.

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The Euro Crisis Song (courtesy of The Guardian)

2011-07-18T00:01:00.001+01:00

This is great. So many suggestions and leads are dropping into the Gombeen Nation mailbox that I hardly have to write blog posts any more! At least not when I'm pushed for time or (whisper it) am feeling a bit lazy. So......

What with cash-rich Irish investors paying over the odds - on occasion - at Allsops, and Olli Rehn giving the Government a pat on the back for being able to push through austerity measures without a whimper from the great Irish public, you would think we were on the way back to 2006.

Today's Indo is telling us that house prices "have reached the bottom" only for the fact that the banks are not lending. What? Does that not mean they haven't reached bottom then? Or are they seriously suggesting that the banks should - even if they could - go back to their old habits of handing out money as though it was confetti?

Then we've been treated to a continuous drip-feed of stored job announcements from the Government. And exports are up too, you know! Enda and the boys and girls have really turned it around, it seems. Or so they would have us believe.

But we can believe what we like - its how people see us, and our economy, from outside that really matters.

Don't mention Moodys. Don't mention impending job losses in the financial sector. Don't mention interest rate rises. Don't mention the next budget.

And don't mention the Euro Crisis Song from UK newspaper, The Guardian. Big thanks to Gavin for this one.

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Irish public cop the Cloyne Report - so why the Angelus?

2011-07-16T00:05:00.003+01:00

It is nice to see that the great Irish public has finally accepted that child abuse by the Catholic Church - and the State that entrusted it [why the past participle?] with running its schools - is wrong. No flies on this lot, eh?

And let us not forget the Garda (Irish police force) which ignored complaints - I'm sure they now agree it is wrong too, even having kissed the clergy's ring for so long. See pic.

We now also have a cross party consensus questioning the role of the Vatican in Irish affairs! Great. Took a while - 89 years - but we're there at last.

One pillar of Dev's Official Ireland finally gone. It's a start - albeit a very slow one. Let's count another 89 years for the next. "A haon... a do... a tri..........." Now, there's a clue.

And with that awful thought, here's the Angelus.

Not the official version still aired by Ireland's State broadcaster RTE, mind; an entity that people of all religions - and none - are compelled to support with a licence fee.

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Mick Wallace and the Miss Piggy remark

2011-07-14T00:01:00.004+01:00

Left-wing TD, Mick Wallace, runs the risk of being labeled a muppet after referring to Dail colleague, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, as "Miss Piggy". Doesn't he know that such terminology is ideologically unsound?

The Wexford ex-property developer socialist (where else would you get this?) is renowned for his rightful disregard for dress codes. However, as the Fine Gael TD entered the chamber, Wallace could not resist commenting on her choice of wardrobe to fellow Independents Shane Ross and Ming Flanagan.

In fairness, it seems that Ross didn't have a clue what Wallace was talking about, but Roscommon crusty-wannabee Ming (Keep Irish Compulsory) Flanagan jumped in with "The Mary Mitchell O'Connor one. The one who drove off the plinth."

Of course Flanagan seems to think that boasting he is/was a pot smoker is the height of rebellious cool... maybe it still is in Roscommon? Anywhere else you would have to go back to the Sixties.

Wallace, at least, has apologised for his Fozzie moment: “I’m not trying to defend myself. I’ve said I’m sorry. I was completely wrong. What can I do. Of course I shouldn’t say something like that. I have no right to say that. I have to learn from it.”

They're a funny lot, the Irish left.

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Government's "comprehensive review of expenditure"

2011-07-12T00:12:00.006+01:00

The Government is asking the public to suggest ideas on where savings can be made in regard to State spending. Specifically, what practices the great Irish public consider to be "wasteful".

Given the interest generated by the post "Complaints to Irish Language Commissioner continue, regardless of economic reality" - and it was substantial - perhaps readers might have some suggestions?

Mind you, when you click the link below there is no dedicated category that deals with the wasteage and bureaucracy surrounding O'Cuiv's Official Languages Act. The "Eilifint" in the room.

If you choose "Other" - you can nominate your own.

For all the good it might do.

http://per.gov.ie/comprehensive-review-of-expenditure/

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Man bids against himself at Allsop Irish auction.

2011-07-09T19:55:00.014+01:00

Those folk at Allsop, the UK auctioneers, must be delighted with themselves having tapped into the Irish “fire sale” market. It has been said before on the blog, but get enough cash-rich Paddies still infected with the lethal property-buying bug of a few years back, and it’s “going, going, gone!!! (to the half-wit at the front). Congratulations, sir!”

Witness the scene at the July 7th auction, again held at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. One bidder was so eager to bag a pub with a reserve price of €50,000 that he got a little bit carried away by it all. After some lively interest in the hall, with the price rising apace, he made a bid of €260,000. He then went one better and upped it by another €10,000.

It seems that this provoked some hilarity in the room, and the bidder got a bit thick with the auctioneer when he – in fairness – told the punter he was bidding against himself. “I want a bit of respect from you!” he is reported to have told the gobsmacked gavel-bearer. Sorry, respect is something you have to earn. It went for €270,000.

Where else would you get it, honestly? It seems that Allsop personnel have reported higher sale rates in its two Irish events – higher than at auctions held in England. They must think they’ve really landed on their feet coming over here.

Witness a property featured on Gombeen Nation’s last Allsop report. Although it had a reserve price of €360,000 it actually went for €710,000. At the time of the auction there was another house on the same road with a private treaty asking price of €445,000 on My Home (see below). Go figure.

You also have to wonder – given the high proportion of cash sales at these auctions – what kind of a rotten little country Ireland is?

Lowly paid workers are being hit with wage cuts after wealthy judges found their pay negotiating mechanisms to be “unconstitutional” (while using the Constitution to protect their own salaries) yet you have people with – evidently – about two brain cells in their heads bandying large wads of cash about at events such as this.

Maybe it is time for Revenue to finally get out of its PAYE comfort zone?

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"Complaints" to Irish Language Commissioner continue, regardless of economic reality

2011-07-07T00:01:00.009+01:00

Not long ago, plans to provide Dubliners with real-time signage indicating when buses were due had to be put on ice after complaints were made to An Coimisinéir Teanga (I think it means “The Language Kommissar”… there is no English translation of the title on the website).

This particular quango was set up to enforce Eamon O’Cuiv’s Official Languages Act, which stipulated that public signage and documentation must be in Gaelic as well as the spoken language of the country, English. Gaelic must appear first of course.

As a result, crank complaints from Irish language careerists and hobbyists must now be taken seriously, and bus-using Dubliners must stand at stops in ignorance of when their transport will arrive. The system, planned 10 years ago, would have used existing GPS data to inform those long-suffering customers of just how late their buses were running.

Now the HSE and the National Museum have also been reported as “being in breach of statutory language provisions” to the same quango (Irish Examiner, July 5th). What the breaches are it does not say. Maybe, in the HSE case, “Accident and Emergency Department” signs being too prominent in our hospitals?

I am sick of this, I really am.

A few years back ASH, the anti-smoking body, complained that forcing manufacturers to print health warnings in Gaelic and the vernacular would lessen their impact, as of necessity smaller point sizes would have to be used.

The Gaeliban – boosted by its very own Ayotollah O’Cuiv – is not interested in the practicality of signage as a means of communication though. It is interested in using State legislation to increase bureaucracy so it can further bolster its own industry.

The same Examiner article also mentions that “a report outlining suggested amendments to a review on the official languages act has also been published”, but no mention of what those amendments might be.

How about a complete repeal of the wasteful Official Languages Act, at a time when we can scarcely afford such an extravagance of Official Ireland nonsense?

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Save Ireland and win an iPad

2011-07-05T00:01:00.002+01:00

It has been said here before - the spirit of Irish entrepreneurship never really developed beyond opening a pub, or stowing a bit of cash in some dodgy offshore account. Or maybe getting leverage on a few shoebox apartments in 2006, which seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Maybe what was missing was some kind of incentive to evoke that "can-do spirit" hitherto so demonstrably absent from our caste of movers and shakers? The Dublin Region Higher Education Authority Graduate Education Partnership might have the answer. It is offering a prize of €500 and an iPad2 (16GB) for the PhD student who can come up with a plan to save Ireland. It is called "Future Voices: How Ireland's PhDs will Enable National Recovery". See below:

"PhD students registered to any of the institutions in the Dublin Region Higher Education Authority Graduate Education Partnership (UCD, TCD, DCU, NUIM, DIT, ITT Dublin) are invited to submit an abstract and poster outlining how their research will influence national recovery.

The research can be in any disciplinary or interdisciplinary area and the PhD student can be in any year of their doctoral education."

If you are a student, and you think the solution to dear old Erin's woes is worth an iPad2, please submit your ideas through the link below:

Save Ireland for an iPad Competition

Big thanks to Fergus for telling us about this one.

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DUP.ie Time to think the unthinkable?

2011-07-03T16:23:00.010+01:00

Big thanks to a reader for bringing our attention to this one.
Anyone out there still want a united Ireland? Maybe the spoof site DUP.ie has the answer?

Ireland is bust - It's time to think the unthinkable.....

"...For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. "
Jonathan Swift

SO, IN THE WARM AFTERGLOW OF THE VISITS OF THE DALI LAMA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND QUEEN ELIZABETH IT IS TIME TO GRASP OUR DIFFICULTIES BY THE THROAT AND SAY YES WE CAN TO.............

More cutbacks and taxes..... More borrowings.... More houses being repossessed... More unemployment... More emigration... More Fire sale of State assets.... More corruption in the establishment... and eventually National Bankruptcy........

Em.... this is not really what we had in mind is it?

Our eighty nine year old independence experiment from the United Kingdom has failed.

We could have used those years to build a true republic, based on the ideals and intent of the founding fathers.

Instead, we have created a bankrupt country, once dominated by a cruel and sadistic catholic church, now dominated by a talentless, self serving, corrupt establishment of gombeen politicians, unaccountable civil servants and self promoting hangers-on.

Unless someone, somewhere, has a better idea, Reunion of this island as part of the United Kingdom provides a clear path towards prosperity for our state and happiness for our people. We do NOT believe our politicians have any idea how to get us out of our financial crisis much else have the vision and courage to ensure Ireland has a viable future as an independent country. We are doomed to the status of a bankrupt County Council of Greater Germany, somewhere off the coast of an uncaring Europe.

Sign up to our newsletter today and find out how we at the Democratic Unionist Party of the Republic of Ireland intend to build a better future for the next generations of Irishmen and Irishwomen.

B. O'Neill

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Wicklow County Council and "closed" car parks on Military Road

2011-07-02T00:01:00.003+01:00

Much as I give out about the place, there are some things I have always liked about Dublin and, well, Ireland.

Not many, mind, but the ability to get out of the city relatively easily and into the rather grandiosely titled Wicklow Mountains is one – and all thanks to Alexander Taylor’s Military Road (R115), built between 1800 and 1809.

Although it is rather bumpy and bockety in places – I think its foundations are wood on bog, and maintenance is infrequent - it is a lovely road with great visibility due to the lack of hedgerows and trees. It has seen service as a Circuit of Ireland Rally stage, and it is easy to see why.

If you are coming out of Dublin, and do a right at the Sally Gap, the R759 is a lot smoother on its undulating descent towards Blessington and Kilbride. It is worth staying alert though, as the picture of the bridge across the infant River Liffey (above), and its sharp left turn, shows. You can see a small car park to the side of the road… an increasingly rare sight.

It seems that Wicklow County Council has taken to depositing piles of gravel in other car parks in the vicinity (see pic right).

It did it a couple of years back with the car park at Lough Bray on the Military Road - which is full of gravel to this day. Now it has done the same with the one just to the left as you approach the Sally Gap (pic was taken coming from the other direction).

Given that there are no visible road improvement works – at least I did not see any – is it a council ploy, in conjunction with Failte Ireland, to prevent people (and I’ll even include tourists here, gullible fools that they are) stopping their cars and admiring the views?

Why create car parks and then fill them up with gravel? Anti-social behaviour? Well why not deal with that rather than closing off every bloody car park and viewing point in Wicklow?

Once again, it seems we are back to our lazy authorities, whose enthusiasm for effort stops as soon as they have taken our taxes from us.

Just as well Alexander Taylor was not as work-shy.

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Elitist Gaelscoil movement rejects educational reforms

2011-06-30T00:04:00.014+01:00

Is the green carpet about to be pulled out from under the cosy feet of the Gaelscoil movement?

Its adherents loved telling us how popular the medium of Irish language education was, and how De Language was undergoing a "renaissance". Even, it seemed, among parents who did not speak any Gaeilge, but were happy to send their little Oisins and Roisins to a school that taught through a medium they themselves did not understand. Why?

Factors behind the alleged "surge" in popularity:

1) Misguided types who saw Gaeilge as the badge of authentic Irishness (rather than the badge of our corrupt State and ruling political class who jumped onto the Gaelic League cultural nationalist bandwagon of the late 19th century).

2) Those who saw the potential of bonus points for their progeny in Leaving Cert results (worth an extra 10% for answering "As Gaeilge" in some subjects).

3) Shinners (cultural nationalists, see "authentic Irishness" above).

4) Those who wanted to send their children to a school where they were less likely to share a classroom with "foreigners" (this cropped up a few years back in a Sunday Business Post article, but I have heard people express the same sentiments myself since).

5) The fact that it was very easy for a well-organised interest group to get a school set up..

To date, in order to establish a primary school all that was required was for 17 pupils to be "identified". That is, a well-organised lobby group such as the Gaelscoil movement only had to collect some signatures, preferably with a few fadas, in order to establish a case for a school in a given area.

Now it seems that the DoE - if it acts on a report submitted from the Commission of School Accommodation - will require greater numbers of potential pupils, along with three class streams for each year. In addition, before a new school is established in a given area, a thorough survey will be carried out in order to establish what type of school best reflects an area's needs.

Predictably, those in the Gaelscoil movement don't want this. To quote a report from the Indo last May (Katherine Donnolly, May 3rd):

"Letters of objection from Gaelscoileanna Teo and An Foras Patrunachta have been published as appendices to the report.

An Foras Patrunachta chief executive Caoimhin O hEaghra claims the report "places an obstacle to the provision of all-Irish education to the children of the country".

He said it was likely that those looking for an all-Irish education would be in a minority at first, so a parental survey would not meet their needs.

Gaelscoileanna Teo acting chief executive Nora Ni Loinsigh agreed it would be difficult to establish an all-Irish school on the basis of a survey of parents."

Which would support what many of us on Gombeen Nation have believed for years. Some of those in the Gaelscoil movement have been pushing to establish themselves in areas where there is no real demand for - and can be no benefit from - their brand of schooling. If not, what is the problem with an extensive area survey?

Let us hope the DoE belatedly sidelines this particular lobby group - in the best interests of education, social cohesion, and the future.

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NI Life and Times survey - 52% of Catholics want to stay in UK

2011-06-28T00:01:00.008+01:00

One of the central arguments for a united Ireland used to be demographics. The idea was that the supposed higher fertility rate of Catholics, in comparison to Protestants, in Northern Ireland would lead inexorably to an eventual Catholic majority and, QED, a united Ireland. Sounds terribly stereotypical, doesn't it?

Crude breeding prejudices aside, a Life and Times survey - carried out between October and December last year using a sample of 1,205 interviewees - found that only 33% of Catholics want a united Ireland, with 52% wanting to stay in the UK.   Nine out of 10 Protestants wanted to keep the union with Britain. Overall, 73% of all those surveyed, irrespective of religion, wanted the status quo to remain.

In the same survey back in 1998, the year of the Belfast Agreement, only 19% of Catholics were in favour of staying in the UK, with 49% wanting a united Ireland. That's some shift in only 13 years, and shows how much the peace dividend has paid off in that time... despite the best efforts of lumpens on both sides to turn the clock back to the days of the Troubles.

It also makes you wonder if many of the respondents who would have considered themselves nationalist 13 years ago have been looking at the shenanigans taking place down here, during and after, the Celtic Cod years?

How many are now contemplating the economic hardship ordinary Irish citizens will have to endure for their entire lives - all thanks to stupidity, cronyism and bad government? Maybe they have concluded that the 90-year independence experiment has been an abject failure?

They are lucky. It is hard to see things changing for the better any time soon down here - at least those Northerners can be thankful they are not part of it.

I think the demographic number crunchers might have some wait yet.

Life and Times Survey, 2010

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