Eirigi, the Queen's visit, and the Dublin-Monaghan car bombings

Having the laptap and wi-fi on holiday can be a disadvantage.  Like checking out the RTE news to see the Nationalist Socialists of Eirigi and their rent a (very small) crowd protesting at the visit to Ireland of the Head of State of our closest neighbour.

Lizzy even laid a wreath for the fallen boyos of 1916 – more than I’ve ever done, so why are these crackpots kicking up such a fuss?

Were they throwing stones through stained glass windows when the scale of Church abuse in our rotten little republic became evident?  The eventual disclosure of the Magdalene Laundries?  Did they threaten the physical integrity of Bertie and his FF cronies who ruined the country?

No, they didn’t – Irish institutions, you see... and they don’t attack those. It’s the Brits that are responsible for all our ills in their minds. “Britain out of Ireland!!!!”. "Saoirse Anois" ("Freedom Now").  Half wits.  

Then we had the spectacle of Gerry Adams laying a wreath at the site of one of the Dublin bombings on Parnell Street. Gerry Adams? Bombings?  How many wreaths has he got?

Now, while I have every respect for the relatives of the 33 people murdered by no-warning UVF car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, in May 1974, it sticks in my craw to see Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein using their plight to their advantage. The relatives of those who died have every right to get answers, but they should not be dependent on the likes of the Shinners and Adams to push for them. Goodness knows, they have enough blood on their hands themselves.

I was a kid when the bombings occurred, and only for there being a bus strike at the time I, or my family, might well have been in town on the day. I have seen a Yorkshire Television documentary on the bombings and read a book on it many years back. The concensus was that there had to be collusion of some sort between members of the British armed forces in Northern Ireland and Loyalist terrorists... at the very least. 

And it is not hard to imagine it. At that time, like a deadly Venn diagram, there was an obvious intersection between the Ulster Defence Regiment, the UDA and the UVF. Some of its members could not resist bringing their guns home with them for a spot of extra-curricular Taig murdering.

But we have moved on from there. Adams – now a politician in the Dail – eventually sat round a table and jaw-jawed with Trimble. McGuinness and Paisley became the Chuckle Brothers. Pity it took them 20 years to do so.

Sure, the relatives of the victims of the “Troubles” need to find out what happened in instances of collusion, even when a man who denies ever being in the IRA is stepping forward to champion their cause. They should have a representative of greater integrity than that.

And even if they get answers, you can be sure the likes of Eirigi will still linger in our midst like a particularly smelly fart.




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Judge criticises critical defendant who alleges public service excess

I never cease to be amazed by the apparent stupidity of people in positions of power and privilege in Irish society. Two extracts from Indo articles follow, please read:


"A DISTRICT Court judge has told a public court sitting that his income has plummeted by €2,000 a month.

Judge Sean MacBride made the announcement in response to a man who the court heard had verbally attacked public sector workers.

Cavan District Court heard this week that it was "an insult to say that civil servants are not paying their way in the current economic climate".

Judge MacBride's comments were made after he heard evidence of how a farmer arrested for dangerous driving told investigating gardai that "my taxes are paying your wages and had they nothing better to do than waste my time".

In response Judge MacBride said to the man: "How dare you insult civil servants like that."

The judge told the farmer that his own income was down by €2,000 a month due to the introduction of the Universal Social Charge and other levies.

Sharply criticising some national media reports, which he said suggested judges were not taking pay hits, Judge MacBride said the vast majority of his colleagues had suffered pay cuts and levies.

District court judges appointed post-Budget 2010 earn a salary of €132,300, while those appointed before the Budget earn just under €148,000.

The discrepancy arises because the Government is constitutionally unable to cut the pay of existing judges... "

 How dare an overpaid public sector employee (albeit a judge), with a job for life, be so distracted by the facts of a case before him by a simple observation on a issue crucial to the future of the country.   How out of touch can they be? 

For the the good judge's information, private sector workers also pay the USC.  Even farmers pay it.  It is probably, when you think about it, the only such income tax the country has ever had.  Private sector workers have also been contributing to their pensions for years.

Now read the following extract from yesterday’s Sindo:

"Greed and recklessness of fat cat elite has gone on long enough


Unless we end public sector excess Europe will become more hostile


By DANIEL McCONNELL CHIEF REPORTER


The Government's smash and grab of €470m a year from private pension pots is being done, they said, because there is nowhere else to get the money. Of course, that's not true.

In truth, here in Ireland, there exists a fat cat public sector elite, allowed to develop over decades, which has so far -- for numerous, often dubious, reasons -- remained largely unscathed and sheltered from the impact of this country's worst-ever recession.

Much of the criticism of Ireland from Angela Merkel's Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy's France and David Cameron's Britain doesn't just relate to our banking problems but to the incredible levels of excess in terms of salaries and pensions enjoyed by many at the top of our public sector.

Today, we examine a number of key areas where real savings can and must be made, if Ireland is to restore its reputation, credibility and most importantly its sovereignty.

Judges in Ireland are, along with their British counterparts, the best paid in the world.

Leader of the judges in terms of pay is the chief justice John Murray, who takes home €295,916 for every year he works.

Because of the Constitutional guarantee that they are to remain totally independent from the political system, the Irish judiciary were exempt from public sector pay cuts announced by former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in 2009.

A High Court judge earns a basic pay of €243,080, plus lots of allowances (which are tax free). Compare this to the salaries of their counterparts in Spain, who are paid €107,000 a year, and their German equivalents, who receive €108,000 a year, according to official figures obtained by this newspaper.

Despite the voluntary sacrifice by many judges of about 10 per cent of their salary, a number of judges have declined to make any sacrifice to the national cause.

Worse still, most are granted a full pension after 15 years.

This means, according to pension experts, that the pension of a High Court judge is worth approximately €121,500 and this would require a funded pension of approximately €4.86m.

Experts say that a fully- funded public sector pension, when all add-on benefits are included, is worth about 40 times the annual amount received by the pensioner.

That means, if a High Court judge gets a full pension after 15 years, s/he gets an annual salary of €243,080 and a nominal tax-free pension contribution of approximately €333,333 per annum.

Judges are one of two groups of state employees who get special tax-free exemptions on their allowances and expenses. The country's judges racked up €1.6m in expenses last year. Figures showed 149 members of the judiciary cut their claims by almost a third over the last two years, from €2.4m in 2008..."

 If the current Fine Gael / Labour coalition has no appetite to tackle the problem of a leeching, out-of-touch, upper-echelon public service (and I know this blog has many public service readers... though I assume they are not judges) the best thing we can hope for is continued economic crisis to force their hands. 

And jobs-for-life judges paid above European norms, so easily distracted and so out of touch, should be the first to be hit.

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The Spirit of Ireland Watch, from the Bradford Exchange

I have a penchant for thrashy mags such as Full House, That's Life, Real People and all the rest.  They act as warning for what is actually out there. Forearmed and all that.

Take the back page of the current issue of Full House, with its tacky ad designed to appeal to headbanger, Erin go Bragh, Irish patriots.  Now, I've oft puzzled at the concept of patriotism in general, but to be an Irish patriot in the current climate takes a particularly finely honed, uncritical, stupidity.

The Bradford Exchange, with a PO box in Stoke on Trent, is wise to such weaknesses. It offers an Irish patriot's watch that features:

• A 22 carat gold-plated Celtic cross on the face
• Irish national flag depicted in a chronograph dial
• Irish harp and pivotal dates in Irish history engraved on the reverse
• "Sworn to be free" etched on the side of the watch
• "Ireland forever" alongside its Gaelic translation "Erin go Bragh" on the small dials

The ad then goes on to quote the opening lines of our godawful national anthem, written originally in English but hastily tranlated into Gaelic by Dev's men  for added authenticity:

"Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland; Some have come from a land beyond the wave.  Sworn to be free, No more our ancient sire land Shall shelter the despot or the slave".

Stirring stuff, I'm sure you will agree.

Those marketing folk at Bradford Exchange have done their reasearch, it seems.

Osama in the Highest. Departed Al Qaeda chief nominated for mass by Howth parishioner

No doubt Osama bin Laden is, at this moment, happily frolicking about in Paradise with his quota of virgins.

If he cares to take a break from his orgy of deflowering, however, he might like to contemplate the good Christian of Howth who is in mourning for him.

According to The Journal (thanks to C for bringing it to our attention), it seems that the deceased Al Qaeda leader’s name appeared in the newsletter of the Church of the Assumption, Howth, among a list for prayers to be said for the souls of recently departed.

When quizzed on the matter, the parish priest  attributed bin Laden’s inclusion to someone hurriedly putting the list together:

“That was requested by a parishioner but it is not fully decided. Normally we put in the mass names but when the name was requested that was the name that was given..it’s an official mass at 10 o’clock. Somebody came in and requested it and it was probably written down in a hurry”, he is reported to have told The Journal.

Bin Laden was subsequently deleted from the prayer list after “uproar and outrage” among parishioners.

And there's me thinking it was some new-found spirit of Christian forgiveness and tolerance... 


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What a wonderful country

Got up out of the scratcher this morning, full of the proverbial joys. Pulled back the curtains, took in the view, and thought “what a lovely country. No wonder people get so patriotic about it”..

As you may have guessed, I am on holidays – some tiny little place between Bordeaux and Toulouse that only my Garmin has heard of. How did we ever manage without these things before? I can’t imagine how many marriages have been saved by them.

Anyway, you can see a pic of the pool where I do all my doggy paddling whilst taking in views of southern France.There is even wi-fi here. I have to say, it’s very pleasant.

Today the car’s (admittedly wildly optimistic) thermometer reported 27.5C. I’m sitting here with a few lovely bottles of Leffe – Belgian beer being so contrarian in France – and looking at this vista before me, thinking how, how, how, but how, could any self respecting Pierre or Pascale go on holidays – or even worse, go to live – in Ireland?


I suppose, like most countries, France’s only real problem is its inhabitants. But the country itself is beautiful. If I had a bit of French and a job I would be over here in a flash, full time, before you could say “bonne chance”. 

There is no VRT here either, which means you would be able to buy a car fast enough to keep ahead of the most idiotic French driver - a Bugatti Veyron perhaps?   Maybe they are trying to read my number plate, or make out what “Baile Atha Claith” means, which is compulsorily embossed there, but they are terrible for driving up your arse.


Now, before you condemn me as one of those thick eejits that sits out in the motorway overtaking lane, blocking the progress of others, think again. I’ve driven at over 155mph (on an Autobahn) and am happy to drive a car that does 0-60 in 5.9 seconds, with a top speed of 160mph. You young people can translate.   I am an unreconstructed, unrepentant petrolhead.

But even I, going around the rocade at Bordeaux in a queue of traffic overtaking in the outside lane, will look in my rear-view mirror to be treated to the sight of Pierre, in a bockety, white, 1980’s Clio, trying to intimately explore the innards of my exhaust pipe.


And then there are Audi drivers. OK, this blog is anti racist and against all forms of prejudice, but if I ever got into power I would simply line every Audi driver up against the wall and shoot them dead. Now that might sound a bit extreme (and there are exceptions to every rule of course, if any of you dear readers drive an Audi) but it is justified. But a French Audi driver? Oooh la la. I’ll say no more.


Thing is, wherever you drive you get an education. I’ve seen a baby blissfully crawling on the Brussels ring road - like it was a playground - after it had fallen out of a people carrier.  I’ve had a French motorist change lane carelessly out of an exit and bounce off my front bumper when I was driving around Lille (luckily, I was in a big truck which I’d hired for a few days).  I’ve seen a motorist attempt to kill a motorcyclist on a motorway in Spain (for which I had to testify), and I’ve even been on the M50 a few times. All scary.


But one mystery remains. Given that French cars are notoriously unreliable (check the statistics) – how come there are so many of these little white Citroens, Renaults and Peugots that are over twenty years old and capable of such relatively grande vitesse?


I don’t know what they are putting into their tanks, but it must be some rare old vintage.


PS. Normal service giving out about Ireland will continue as usual.


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Dublin park open only three hours a day after 150,000 Euro facelift due to (fear of) anti-social behaviour

Flicking through a copy of the Northside People, I chanced upon an article that dealt with a public park which had opened in the markets area of town. Sort of.

You see, the park - refurbished by Dublin City Council at a cost of €150,000 - is only open between the hours of 12 noon and 3pm.

The reason? It seems the authorities fear anti-social behaviour.  This, despite the fact that the Bridewell Garda station is not even 100 metres up the road from the park.

What does it take to make the Irish authorities carry out their responsibilities?

It seems rather than deal with any instances of anti-social behaviour, the powers-that-be simply close down public facilities.  It is the same if you go for a drive in the Dublin Mountains, car parks are simply shut and people must leave their cars on the narrow roads.   Again, “anti-social behaviour” is the reason given.

So, we can conclude one of two things:

1) We have a super-strain of scumbag in Ireland, that no power on Earth could contain.

or

2) The relevant authorities – be they local councils or the civic guard – are simply not doing their jobs.

Tempting as it is - at first glance -  to plump for option one,  the second option is the only logical choice.  

If you are in any doubt, try counting the number of police on the beat in any of our known socially troubled areas some evening.   Or, less seriously, try parking your car in a (locked) public car park in the Dublin Mountains on a summer afternoon - while the shellsuits are still in bed only dreaming of forthcoming anti-social activities.

"With power, comes responsibility", the saying goes.   

Not if you are in a well-paid position of public "responsibility" in Ireland, it doesn't.

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Irish property prices - further 30% drop predicted, while 5% of mortgage brokers remain defiant

Mark Keenan’s “The Market” column, which runs in the Sunday Times'  “Home” supplement, is always worth a read. 

Keenan remembers how, in 2003, The Economist ran an article suggesting that Ireland’s property market was overvalued by 20%. There was a massive backlash, with one Irish newspaper quoting “evidence” from the director of an estate agency to “prove” the estimation was blatant scaremongering.

The same estate agent  later threatened to pull advertising from the Sunday Times if it did not amend its market coverage more positively.

“The Market” column asked, at the time, if it was considered a form of heresy to express anything other than a positive outlook about our property market – pointing out that most of the “evidence” quoted against the Economist article only highlighted that Irish buyers continued to buy.

(And now we are all paying for it.)

Keenan said that current prices equate to those of the first quarter of 2002, and are still dropping by “a percentage point and a bit” each month.  Meaning that if they continue to do so until the end of the year, the Economist’s 20% less of 2003 values will have been spot on. If however, he concludes, they keep falling into the following year, the Economist will have been guilty only of understatement.

I, for one, would love to know what the same Economist analyst would have to say about the Irish property market now… I imagine the price-drop forecast might be revised downwards still.

Certainly, that seems to be the view of Martin Walsh, ex head of lending of EBS between 1988-2003.  He predicted in April 25th's edition of The Irish Times that prices could still be overvalued by 30%, and ran two graphs to illustrate -  one showing price trends in Germany and Ireland (with an index set at 1996) and the other showing the ratio of house prices to average industrial earnings in Ireland since 1953.  Walsh set the "average pre-bubble" ratio at 5.3%. 

A picture, they say, speaks a thousand words.   Is a graph not yet more verbose?



Both graphs from THE IRISH TIMES

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X-Ray Spex' Poly Styrene, aka Marianne Joan Elliot-Said, RIP.

Bank holiday weekends are usually relatively quiet ones on the blog, so we try not to get too theoretical and wordy, as Damo and Ivor (previous post) will attest.

So perhaps it's a good time to celebrate original punk band X-Ray Spex, featuring the unique vocal talents of Poly Styrene.  Poly was a true punk and founder of her pioneering band, who were unusual in terms of their genre in having a prominent saxophone sound. 

Sadly, Poly died of cancer last Tuesday, aged 53.  I was in my early teens when she was in her pomp, but when I heard my first X-Ray Spex record (The Day the World Turned Day-glo / I am a Poseur) I knew I hadn't heard anything quite like it before.

I'm going to have to make some kind of tenuous Irish connection in order to put this one up on Gombeen Nation.   So, erm.........

Let's have a song called Identity -  a subject close to the Irish heart and something that led us to see many a crisis in our history.

Well, I did say it was tenuous.

RIP Poly.

xxx

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Everybody's Drinkin' by Damo and Ivor. And not a Pioneer in sight.

"Pioneer trail ends as cash dries up" read the headline of yesterday's Metro Herald.  It seems that the Pioneer Total Abstinance Association, an organisation of devout non-drinkers formed by a Jesuit priest in 1898, may have to call time on its continuing existence due to "falling membership and a lack of funding".  

You would have to feel for them, wouldn't you?  If the worst comes to the worst,  they won't even have the option of drowning their sorrows.

Page three of the same Metro Herald carries a story about Everybody's Drinkin', the latest serving from Damo & Ivor, the alter-egos of Andy Quirke of Skanger Me Banger  fame. It seems the ditty has raced to the top of the iTunes chart, displacing the likes of Black Eyed Peas and Snoopy Dog - sorry, Snoop Dog - on the way. 

Drinking or not drinking  -  we just don't do compromise, do we?  

Hic!

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Norton technical support phone number for Ireland? Don't ask Nathan.

I had intended to get a blog post up today, but instead spent all of yesterday evening trying to get a technical support phone number for Symantec (Ireland), one of the many US multinationals that benefit from Ireland’s undemanding (for them) tax system.  They are just down the road in Ballycoolin, I think.

I  updated a version of Norton 360 a while back, but had inadvertently clicked on a trial version for something else which I could not subsequently cancel from my account.

They already had my credit card details from ordering the full version, so I got a bit nervous when I started reading terms like “opt-out trialware” in relation to some of their products. This means you have to physically cancel the order or they will “opt” to charge you for it.

Anyway, I was probably being a bit paranoid, but thought I would give their support line a shout and be sure that they cancelled the trial version of the software I did not want, or assure me I wouldn’t get hit with a charge for it in the next week or two.

I spent the rest of the evening looking for a phone number. Nothing.

On one occasion, I jumped through a whole series of virtual loops – in the shape on online forms – to get a promised phone number with a enquiry tag which purported to alert the techies of queries in advance.

After what seemed like an eternity, and the onset of repetitive strain injury in my wrists and fingers, I got a phone number.   Beside it, there was a picture of a plasticky looking guy with an insincere smile.  His name, apparently, was Nathan.

All that was bad enough, but imagine how I felt when I realised that Nathan's number was some kind of special-rate US one? One that you could not call from this country, despite me having obtained it through the Irish support "facility"?  

What a bloody joke. These organisations make “faceless” seem like intimate carnal knowledge.  Nathan's smug, JPEGed, countenance is the nearest you get in that regard. 

I’m still none the wiser after spending the whole evening farting around on my PC.  But rest assured, I will be taking an extra interest in my bank statements over the next week or two.

Only problem there is, who do I call if I find my bank account is 80 Euro lighter?  Nathan won't be any help.

Maybe just as well, you just know he’d only say  “Sorry, we really value your custom, sir, but we can’t help you. Have a nice day.”

Blow it out your ass, Nathan.



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Rangers v Celtic and the Neil Lennon parcel bomb

Rangers v Celtic, Celtic v Rangers, is always a fascinating fixture - even if you (like me) have no real interest in the perpetual two-horse race that is the Scottish Premier League. Obviously, the standard of football skills on display is hardly an attraction either, but there is no question about the commitment and excitement.

Even when the teams are largely composed of players from beyond these islands, there is a frenetic edge that you just don’t get anywhere else in Europe – with the possible exception of Barcelona v Real Madrid. Even Shamrock Rovers v Bohemians, Manchester United v Manchester City, Arsenal v Spurs, and Everton v Liverpool are in the ha’penny place.

And speaking of Liverpool, one of that club’s former managers, Bill Shankly, once said that football wasn’t a matter of life and death… it was “more important than that”. It is a quote that Celtic manager Neil Lennon might appreciate, having been attacked in the street, had live bullets sent to him by post, and had threats against his own life and that of his family’s.

More recently Lennon, who was capped 40 times for Northern Ireland, and was its first-ever Catholic captain, received an explosive device by post (as did his lawyer and a former Scottish MSP who had worn a Celtic shirt on her last day in the Scottish Parliament).

Lennon was forced to end his international career when he was subjected to abuse by a sizable section of the Windsor Park faithful after he made the move from Leicester City to Glasgow Celtic. He even received a phone call from somebody purporting to be from the LVF (Loyalist Volunteer Force) saying that he would “get seriously hurt” if he turned out for Northern Ireland’s match against Cyprus in 2002.

Even living here in Dublin, it is very hard to get your head around such fanatical bigotry. Lennon was not the most skillful or quickest of players, but he was the kind of combative, determined midfielder that any team would have been happy to call on. Someone you would really want playing on your side. For a “supporter” of any team to boo and barrack such a player – their own player – simply because he is a Catholic who plays for Celtic is breathtakingly stupid. But to threaten his life too???

Not surprisingly, since Lennon withdrew from international football, many Catholic players who were born in Northern Ireland have opted to play instead for the Republic of Ireland. And who can blame them?

Ironically, the Old Firm are like Yin and Yang - they could not exist without each other. Nobody outside Scotland could be bothered looking at an SPL match without them, if only out of guilty fascination with the anachronistic nature of the fixture, with its overtones of historic and religious antagonism, and the displays of bigotry on the terraces.

Celtic has its “Boys of the Old Brigade” contingent, whereas some Rangers fans' favourite ditty celebrates a sectarian gang that went about Glasgow slitting the throats of random Catholics (The Billy Boys). The same club had an official policy of not having Catholics on its books until relatively recently.

But even against that backdrop, sending a parcel bomb to a football manager is a new low in backwoods, hick, stupidity.

It finished 0-0.

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Nyberg banking report finds Irish banks, regulators, politicians, media and investors culpable - but no names

A Finnish economist and banking expert, Patrick Nyberg, who was commissioned by the last Government to look into the causes of the Irish banking collapse, published his report on Tuesday. 

For readers of the blog, there will be no surprises.  Ireland's economic hari-kari was caused by the collective greed, madness and - it has to be said - stupidity of the great Irish public... individuals and institutions alike.   They are not Nyberg's exact words mind, but that is the gist of it.

The report cited "a tendency to group think" resulting in "contrarian views" being "ignored or suppressed".   "Large parts of Irish society were willing to let the good times roll on until the very last minute".   The main cause of the financial crisis was "unhindered expansion of the property bubble" aided by loose Government policies and light touch regulation.  

'Irrational forces" along with "a national speculative mania... centred on the sale and acquistion of property" also get an honorable mention, with "culpability" for the collapse extending to politicians, media (who cheered it along) and... wait for it... investors.  

All this may come as news to those sections of the political left and right of Irish society, and those from the middle, upper and working classes, who are busily united in contending that the boom, bust, and resultant bailouts have nothing to do with the Irish public at all.  

On the contrary, it seems they had everything to do with the Irish public.   Sure, some of us who didn't get caught up in the herd's property stampede can say that we - individually - were not culpable. 

But the Irish public in general?  From whose ranks then, did the swarms of investors who "flipped" newbuilds off the plans come?  And was it not members of the Irish public who mobbed every pokey show apartment on Saturday afternoons, tripping over each other to put down their deposits?   Indeed it was.  

And we all know here - only too well - how little the great unthinking mass of the Irish public appreciate "contrarian views", don't we?  

We even had a prime minister who wondered how the few of us who did "moan" about the economy at the time did not "commit suicide".  

Says it all, really.



FULL COPY OF NYBERG REPORT HERE

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The Easter Rising - the blood sacrifice that changed Irish politics forever

There were, arguably, two pointless blood sacrifices in the early part of the last century with a special relevance for Ireland.  One was the First World War and the other was the Easter Rising.

It is probable that there would have been some form of Irish independence without the Rising, and the sharp divisions it introduced into Irish politics.

It is also probable that any independent state that emerged would have been more pluralistic, as it would have had to carry the support of the unionists/Protestants of the island.

The following article is by Stephen Collins, and appeared in Saturday's Irish Times.  Thanks to C for bringing it to our attention.

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

The murder of PSNI constable Ronan Kerr on the eve of Easter by people who describe themselves as Irish republicans should prompt deep reflection on the legacy of the 1916 Rising and the plans for the commemoration of its centenary.

There is no shirking the fact that the people who planted the bomb that killed Constable Kerr regard themselves as the heirs of the 1916 tradition, and would claim that their inspiration came from the Rising.

It is easy to dismiss such claims; much harder to recognise that they have a perverted logic that requires us to examine 1916 in an open-minded and honest fashion.

The central problem is that the Rising has been taken out of context and elevated into the supreme founding event of the modern Irish state when, in fact, it was one event in a series between 1912 and 1923 that changed the political structure of the country.

Taken in isolation, the Rising can indeed be interpreted as an endorsement of violent and anti-democratic action. What is so little understood in the popular version of Irish history is that with the passage of the third Home Rule Bill in 1912, Ireland was going to have its own parliament one way or another. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Party, had mass popular support, and it was generally accepted that he would be the dominant force in a Home Rule parliament.

All those assumptions were swept aside by the Rising and the events that followed. The precise powers of an Irish parliament and the area over which it would have sovereignty were changed significantly by the Rising, but the central principle that the people of Ireland would have control of their own affairs was already established in 1912.

Two events that followed precipitated the Rising. The first was the establishment of the Ulster Volunteer Force as a mass movement designed to block Home Rule by violence. The support of the opposition Conservative Party for its illegal methods gave it enormous and sinister force, which prompted the formation of the Irish Volunteers as a nationalist counter reaction.

The second event was the outbreak of the first World War. It not only changed the political context, it gave respectability to the concept of blood sacrifice and political martyrdom promulgated by Pádraig Pearse. His beliefs, which appear very strange to most modern Irishmen and Irishwomen, have to be seen in the context of the bloodbath that engulfed the European continent.

If it had not been for the violent opposition to Home Rule, or for the war, Ireland would in all likelihood have continued on a path that would have led to independence, probably along the lines of Canada or Australia.

The Rising transformed the political situation utterly, but what cannot be overlooked is that it was an undemocratic project of a minority within a minority and was far from a popular revolt. The destruction of Dublin, the courage of the rebel leaders and, most important, the executions that followed, turned the tide of public opinion.

It marked the end of John Redmond’s authority as the political leader of Irish nationalism and triggered a violent approach to the achievement of nationalist aims. As the Times of London noted, the Sinn Féin movement “from the first was directed as much against Mr Redmond and the Nationalist Party as against Great Britain”.

For all the violence of 1916 and later years, the independence movement did not discard its democratic roots. The fact that an independent Ireland is one of the oldest continuous parliamentary democracies in the world is a tribute to the roots planted by Redmond and his predecessors, Parnell and O’Connell. Redmond would surely feel at home in the Dáil chamber, even if his oratory was of a higher quality than that usually on offer in Leinster House. By contrast, it is hard to believe that leaders of the 1916 Rising who seized control of Irish nationalism from him would be quite as happy with how things turned out. Modern Ireland is hardly the Gaelic-speaking, devoutly Catholic, anti-materialist nation dreamed of by Pearse. Neither is it the dictatorship of the proletariat envisaged by James Connolly.

The distorted version of history that traces Irish independence solely to 1916, and the Fenian tradition from which it sprang, has provided ideological cover for the minority in successive generations who have tried to destroy it. In his pioneering reassessment of 1916, written in 1966 for the journal Studies but only published in 1972, Francis Shaw pointed out the layers of contradiction inherent in the popular myth of modern Irish history. He was particularly concerned that it “asks us to praise in others what we do not esteem in ourselves” by disowning democratic values in favour of the cult of the gun.

In the Dáil this week, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams he would establish a consultative group to plan a commemorative programme in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of 1916. This would reflect not only the military history but the principles and vision that inspired the movement to achieve independence.

Kenny could start by ensuring Redmond and the Irish parliamentary tradition are properly commemorated next year, the 100th anniversary of the Home Rule Bill. In recent years Irish governments have accepted the need to appreciate the unionist tradition on this island. Surely we can acknowledge the role of constitutional nationalism in the creation of an independent Ireland.

If we want to take a mature look back, we could even go one step further and acknowledge that it was not just rebel gunmen who died for Ireland. The first casualty of the Rising was a 45-year-old unarmed policeman from Co Limerick, Constable James O’Brien. He was standing at the entrance to Dublin Castle shortly before noon on Easter Monday when a volunteer cycled up to the gate and shot him dead.

If we are now “mature” enough to respect the unionist tradition, surely we have also grown up sufficiently, and endured enough pointless violence, to honour the ordinary Irish policeman like O’Brien who died trying to preserve the peace.

Stephen Collins, Irish Times, April 16th, 2011

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Allsop's auction... a fable for the Irish property market?

"So many people turned up for an auction of distressed properties in the Shelbourne Hotel today in Dublin that it had to be suspended amid Garda concerns for safety.  Some 80 lots, ranging from a Ballsbridge mews to a collection of cut price flats in Portlaoise, were offered to the highest bidders.....    Such was the interest in today's sale that crowds spilled out of the hotel and onto the street."  (Irish Times).

"So, is the time finally right to buy property?...........  The success of the Allsop Space auction at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin yesterday suggests that the housing market could be at -- or close to -- bottom, with the prices achieved averaging approximately 55pc of what similar properties sold for at the peak of the market." (Irish Independent)

"Almost €14.5 million of repossessed properties were sold over five hours at the packed auction yesterday where bidding occasionally became frenzied — with one successful bid even coming from the street outside.........  Over 1,000 people packed into the ballroom of the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin .... "   (Irish Examiner).

Reading yesterday's  reports you might think newspaper property editors thought the bad old days of the property boom had done a Lazarus.  

Rather than debating rich men and their chances of passing through the eyes of needles, however, the big question at Allsop's auction seemed to be how many cash-rich bumpkins you could fit into the hall of the Shelbourne Hotel.  It seems the organisers underestimated.

Properties went for more than 20%+  above their reserve prices, but still about 50% below those asked at the peak of the bubble.  Looking at some of the Dublin ones however -  which I would be familiar with -  it is hard to see if there were any real bargains.    A €550,000 mews on Raglan Lane might be considered "cheap" by some, but there was a detached mews in the same spot on MyHome with an asking price of €620,000 last year.  OK, it's cheaper... but, what isn't?

Likewise, two Churchtown properties are thought to have sold for near, or thereabouts, the current asking prices in the area.  Some apartments were sold in the city centre, but nobody - nobody - is buying apartments in town at all these days, due to oversupply. 

So what did Friday's auction tell us?

It told us that there are still plenty of individuals with spare cash in their pockets, despite the austerity imposed on the rest of us.  It told us if you cram enough of them into an enclosed space, in response to a hyped event, they will recreate the bidding frenzies of the property boom in microcosm. 

But as a barometer of the Irish economy, the current postions of prospective purchasers on the ground, and the property market in general?

I don't think it told us anything.

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Nama attempts to provide mortgage finance to maintain high prices, while banks moot debt "forgiveness".

The repossession cases that appear, in a constant trickle, before the courts these days make interesting reading.

Recently there was a case of a couple who took out a mortgage in 2003, but had not paid any repayments on it since 2006. Bear in mind it is now 2011.

Then there was another one a couple of weeks’ back. The borrower was up for mortgage arrears on 29 investment properties, and had to promise the court that he would put some of them for sale on the market. 

The above examples beg the question: what do you have to do in Ireland to have a property repossessed?  

It seems that the principle of moral hazard that applies in other countries does not figure here, as the attitude is that someone else – that is, the taxpayer – will pick up the tab for your recklessness.  We have been forced to do it for the institutions thanks to Lenihan’s bank guarantee, now must we do it for individuals as well?

It is not too far an imaginative leap to forecast how people who could pay - but are unhappy with negative equity - could elect not to, on the basis that they won’t suffer any consequences as a result.   The rest of us will bail them out, and they can continue to live in the dwellings they outbid us on during the market madness.

The thing is, someone has to pay.  To me, it seems most logical that whoever ran up the debts in the first place – investors in particular – should be obliged to do so.  They won’t be able to repay them in full of course, as they paid way over the odds,  but fire-sales of their bad investments would at least repay some of the debt and establish the true worth of property in Ireland today.

The banks and Nama will not do that though, as they have an interest in keeping property prices artificially high.   Indeed Nama, the Government creation that bought the developers and banks’ debts at a high price, is even talking about providing mortgage finance to the very same banks.  It has €1 billion on its balance sheet, according to its chairman Frank Daly, speaking to a “group of property professionals"  last Tuesday, according to The Irish Times.  (April 13th, “Nama may provide mortgage finance, Barry O’Halloran).

So let me see.  Nama, the “bad bank” that took on the bad loans of the bust banks, is now looking to "change the legislation that established it" so it can provide loan funds to the same banks it bought the bad loans from.    All in order to “generate sales in the market”, as Daly puts it, with the rider that “sales would have to be at prices people would pay”.   Where else would you get it?

And therein lies the problem.  Ireland is the basket case economy of the EU, a country kept from insolvency only thanks to the bail-outs, yet house prices are still higher than in many other European countries (have a look at The Irish Times "Take Five" feature every Thursday).  That does not add up.

And neither does Nama’s attempt to further prevent the slow dawn of reality in the Irish property market.

Brussels had better keep an eye on this one.

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Blogging and all the rest of it

Gombeen Nation is fortunate with the calibre of its comment writers.  If you look through previous posts you will see that most comments are either well-informed, amusing, clever, on-topic, and - for the most part - those who post them generally are civil to each other, even when there is disagreement.  

The vast majority of published comments add value to the blog, and are a great credit to those who take the trouble to read it and support it.

Most blogs, however, are moderated  -  and it is a necessary evil.   I remember someone once remarked that the idea of moderating comments seemed, to them, a touch "undemocratic". 

When you think about it though, it is not an awful lot different to writing to a newspaper letters page.  Some get printed, some don't, and there is always a subjective element.   A given newspaper might be happier to push a particular line on a particular topic, or a letter writer's opinions might chime more harmoniously with the paper's own editorial tone.

In blogworld, you'll find that you end up going over the same arguments over and over again... sometimes even in the one post.   This blog used to publish all comments.  Then, however, so much blogging time was spent arguing with detractors points that had already been covered that it became necessary to be more selective.  Sisyphus would have had an easier time of it. 

Then there is stuff that is potentially libelous.   I've left some comments unpublished simply because it was not possible to air them - even when it was quite likely they were true - due to a lack of supporting evidence.  Ireland is a litigious place... even for an "anonymous" blogger, so sorry to anyone who posted in that regard.

All the preceding is well and good, and is to be expected.  But what about the serial snipers?  You know, people who hate the blog and all it stands for, yet seem to have a fatal attraction towards it? Bunny boilers, I presume.  

Now, it could be fairly claimed that writing a blog is a pretty sad, solitary, Quixotian activity - and it is.   But how sad is it to be a compulsive reader of a blog you do not like?  Really, you'd be surprised at some of the nasty, spiteful comments that don't see the light of your VDU.   They nearly make a sad old blogger feel vindicated.

But to the rest of you, thanks for your valued input.

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How dare they criticise our litter!

Remember the furore when German Ambassador, Christian Pauls, made some accurate observations about Ireland back in 2007?  

He described it as a "coarse" place where junior ministers were paid more than the German chancellor, where 20% of the population were public servants, where hospital waiting lists were "chaotic" and "would not be tolerated anywhere else".  A country where doctors rejected €200,000 posts as paying "Mickey Mouse" money. 

He was spot on about most things, of course.  Now, one economic implosion later, the natives are slowly, painfully, drawing the same conclusions. Too late, of course. 

You've heard the adage "a prophet is never welcome in his own country"?  Well, there's nothing more likely to raise the hackles of the Irish than an "outsider" telling them a few home truths.  Take an Aussie who wrote to the Metro Herald, Dublin's freesheet, to complain about litter in the city:

"People of Dublin, do you enjoy living in your own filth?  Or do you believe your mammy will come along behind you and pick up your litter?"    Confused Aussie.

Here are a couple of the reasoned responses he/she attracted:

"Confused Aussie,  do you enjoy coming from a stolen land?  I must say though, it's nice to see a confused Aussie for a change instead of the usual narcissistic one (sic)".    Paul.


"Confused Aussie do you really believe people appreciate your rudeness?  Being Australian is no excuse for ignorance.  If you hate Dublin that much, don't let the door hit you on the way out".       Proud Dub.

Such retorts are only too typical of discourse here.  Someone makes a valid point on a subject  -  be it the economy, society, culture, healthcare, or even litter - and they are told to "like it or lump it".

If the attitudes represented by the poorly punctuated missives (which, to me, point to a younger demographic) of Paul and Proud Dub are anything to by, it is no wonder the place is in such a mess... and not just litter-wise.

Sadly, it seems that Ireland is chock-a-bloc full of people who can't think critically on any issue, and hate anybody who can.

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Gardai "joke" about raping Shell to Sea protester - recorded conversation

Here is a recorded conversation between some gardai (Irish police) who are having a good old laugh and a joke about the idea of raping a suspect in order to obtain her name and address. 

The officers concerned had earlier been associated with the arrest of two Shell to Sea protesters in Mayo and had left a video recorder,  taken from one of the women,  switched on in the back of their squad car.

What, exactly, are they laughing at?  What is funny?  That's what gets me.

It is hard to imagine a gang of the most disadvantaged navvies deriving comparable mirth from such an ignorant, back-of-the-truck  discussion -  never mind our guardians of law and order supposedly going about their duty.





Big thanks to Ciancool for recording

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Modfest, the murder of Ronan Kerr, and the slow learners of the "dissident republicans"

Last Friday and Saturday found me at the “Modfest” in the Village, Wexford Street. The bands playing were The Purple Hearts, Secret Affair, The Lambrettas, and From The Jam (which featured one member – Bruce Foxton – of the original three-piece punk/mod pioneers, The Jam). 

I was mad into The Jam in my younger days, and liked a quite few songs from the other bands mentioned, who were all involved in the mod revival of the Eighties which, in turn, came out of punk.  

 I had the lot. The parka, the suit, the Fred Perrys and, of course, the scooter – a Vespa PX  (Jimmy's one - of Quadrophenia fame, left - is a Lambretta).  

 I even had a piece of masonry thrown at me once, which bounced harmlessly off my helmet. But on the plus side, dismissing such brickbats set me up nicely for doing the blog in later years.

Anyhow, the Friday and Saturday gigs were all very enjoyable, and I woke up on Sunday morning with my ears ringing and the radio announcing that a PSNI officer, Ronan Kerr,  had just been murdered by “dissident republicans”, most probably because he was a Catholic.

The lumpen logic that informs the slow learners of the Real IRA and their like, means that they deliberately target Catholics joining NI's new police force in order to discourage balance between members of the two communities within it.   Then in a few years' time, they can claim it is a sectarian force.   Then they can kill and maim some more in pursuit of their "united, 32-county, Ireland'.  You know?  26+6=32 and all that.   Einstein it isn't.

The ironic thing is their actions, informed by their deep cultural exclusivism, makes their ideal of a united Ireland even ever less likely.  Do they think the unionist community is just going to up sticks and leave them the place, even after all these centuries? 

Funny.  Last weekend at the event I attended there was a large turn-out of mods and ex-mods, old and (I was surprised by this) young.  There were people from all over the place, there was a party of Italians, for goodness sake. 

 There were those of us - like me - from Dublin, along with enthusiasts from Galway, Limerick, Cork and any number of places in between*.  There was a big group from England, and a very large contingent from The North / Northern Ireland, whatever you prefer to call it.   Many of them, I suspect  from my experience back in the Eighties,  from a "Protestant" background.   And we all had a great night. 

I suppose the 32 County Sovereignty Committee - political wing of the Real IRA - would have called it "cultural imperialism".

Pity those boys and girls - or at least the ones pulling the strings - didn't get involved in the mod scene instead, back in the day.

We might all have benefited.



* Maybe even Kerry, BH.



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Ireland facilitates multinational tax dodging... with a begging bowl in both hands.

It's a bit of a hard landing, isn't it?  From being the cocky "we'll tell you how to run an economy", new-money braggarts of the EU we are now back to being the beggars of Europe. 

Now, however, we can't find a begging bowl big enough for the bail-out our domestic banks need.  Banks our Government guaranteed.  Banks that  ran up massive debts on the back of Irish individuals' and institutions' stupid property speculations.

But we can still hang on to that comical sense of overblown pride, as we are "business friendly".  We won't mention the reverse state socialism of Nama, Bank bail-outs and investor mortgage moratoriums for now.

You will hear a lot of misguided comment on  "imperialism" in Ireland, usually in relation to Cromwell and the 800 years (yawn).  Well boys and girls, tug your foine Oirish forelocks to your new masters - USA Inc, and Ireland's role in facilitating multinationals to evade tax.

A recent report called Driving the Getaway Car? Ireland, Tax and Development  published on behalf of  Afri, Christian Aid, Comhlamh, Oxfam and Trocaire found the following (Cian Nihill, Irish Times, March 30th):

"Irish legislation is jeopardising the 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate while aiding the robbery of tax from poorer countries according to a report published on behalf of six leading global development organisations.

Speaking at the launch of the report this morning in Dublin the report’s author, Dr Sheila Killian of the University of Limerick, said that some multinational corporations are illegally diverting profits to Ireland from abroad in order to pay less tax and damaging Ireland’s international reputation.

Dr Killian maintained that by being perceived as a tax haven, Ireland will find it increasingly difficult to attract multinationals that are conscious of their global image.

She also pointed to the difficulties that have arisen recently between Ireland and other EU countries in negotiations to keep our corporate tax rate at 12.5 per cent.

The report advised that by becoming a leader on a fairer international tax system, Ireland would be in a better position to negotiate on the 12.5 per cent rate.

It claimed that a small but significant minority of companies, with vey little presence in Ireland - in terms of employment and manufacturing – are sold goods and services by foreign sections of the parent multinational. By subsequently selling on the produce from Ireland, these multinationals can avoid the higher tax rates in the country of origin. By doing so, they deprive the original country of its deserved and often much needed tax revenue."

Ireland's 12.5% tax rate has come under criticism recently, but the real issue  that companies  with shelf operations in Ireland channel their profits through it to avoid their tax obligations elsewhere...

So there you have it.  We are the scammers, leeches and guttersnipes of Europe, with not a gramme of self-respect. 

Which is why some form of  Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base is the only thing that will stop Ireland facilitating unscrupulous, tax-dodging conglomerates.

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