Ireland.com email service discontinued - new email address

I have known about the above for weeks but did absolutely nothing about it until today.  

Suffice to say, the Ireland.com email facility is no more, so I had to find a new email client.  

From henceforth, Gombeen Nation's email address is gombeenman(at)dublin.com 

I tried to set up an auto-response on the old email to let people know that the address has changed, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Nothing's ever straightforward, eh?

Thanks for your patience, and please update your contacts list accordingly!

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Gabriel Byrne slams "The Gathering 2013" scam

Some of you may have heard about "The Gathering"? 

It is a  Father Ted-esqe ruse planned by the Irish government and Tourism Ireland to attract gullible idiots to our bankrupt hell-hole in 2013.

Exploiting the "Irish diaspora" and all that. 

"Exploiting" is right, even after the poor bastards, or their parents and grandparents, made the wise decision to get out of the kip way back when.    If they do actually come here, maybe they deserve to get ripped off? And, sure as shite, they will.

"Actors are the only honest hypocrites" said William Hazlitt. 

In a country that produces hypocrites by default, it's refreshing to see the following quote from an actor, Gabriel Byrne, on "The Gathering 2013"... 

Nice to see a bit of rare honesty.

Gabriel Byrne slams The Gathering

Irish Times, Mon, Nov 05, 2012

The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne has dismissed the Gathering 2013 initiative as "a scam."
Byrne, who previously served as the cultural ambassador for Ireland in the US, said many who left Ireland for the US feel abandoned by the Government - and that the bridge between Ireland and its diaspora is broken.

He also said Irish-Americans are not receptive to being "shaken down" for money.
The Gathering is a tourism initiative to entice people with Irish connections to visit the country during 2013.

Speaking on The Last Word on Today FM today, which was broadcast from New York, Byrne said the Taoiseach’s speech launching The Gathering was "slightly offensive."

"People are sick to death of being asked to help out in what they regard as a scam," he said

"I wish The Gathering the very best of luck but they have to understand that the bridge between the diaspora and the people is broken and I tried to fix that for two years and it’s still broken.... Most people don’t give a shit about the diaspora [in Ireland] except to shake them down for a few quid."

"The diaspora has a very powerful spiritual connection to the island of Ireland. I remember when I was growing up in Dublin those buses would pull up and those people in Burberry coats would be laughed at because they’d say 'here come the Yanks looking for their roots.' Well, as far as I’m concerned one of the most sacred things you can do is look for your roots."

"The other day I was talking to a group of people. One of them was an illegal immigrant. His father died, he couldn’t get home. He feels abandoned by the Irish Government. He feels an alien. He can’t go back. Then I talked to two kids, a girl and a boy who were forced to emigrate because there are no jobs. And they blame the incompetence and the gangsterism of the Government for being forced to emigrate.‘

Byrne stepped down as Ireland’s cultural ambassador at the end of last year.

"It was a tremendous achievement what we did in two years. I was really disappointed the way all those contacts, all that hard work was just dropped and it really made me disillusioned and disappointed with this Government who go on about their love for culture for arts and actually really don’t give a toss about it."

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Going bananas in Wicklow

The lure of the Military Road enticed yours truly up into the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains yesterday, the pic above taken at the stretch just before the Sally Gap, going south.

But note the artwork on the rock to the right...  a screenprint-esque banana.

Andy Warhol was long departed, even before Ireland's artists' tax exemption was capped, so it can't have been him.  

And suitable as the image might be to replace the shamrock and harp as our national emblem, I just can't see us being that honest.

Maybe it is a political activist making a statement about the many crooked, rotten, slippery customers who inhabit our little land - more than you would find in a Fyffes' warehouse?

Or what about a  viral advertising attempt?  Gombeen Nation a hapless host for the marketing types' Chiquita campaign, going forward?

Or an art student who takes to the hills and paints bananas on the scenery?  As they do. 

Whatever the origin, it's nicely done, and a-peeling in its own way. 

Beats "Anto was here" in any case.


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Right Price - wrong spelling

Most of us are guilty of the odd typo now and then - anorak wearers have even spotted one or two on this illustrious blog over the years - but a ratio of 1/7?

Wasn't there a spell-checker availeable?


Snapped at Right Price Tiles, Fonthill, Clondalkin.



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Irish Rail announcements and the Brussels experience

Between one thing and another, I've had reason to spend a lot of time in Brussels over the past three-and-a-half months.  I doubt  I will be back again, as it happens.

But being here has given me time to see how a genuine city - as opposed to an overblown village like Dublin, surrounded by a vast swathe of housing estates - should be.

Brussels is relatively clean, has a good transport system (see pic above, with metro trains arriving every four-or-so minutes).


It is also interesting to observe a truly bi-lingual city/country. Belgium - composed of two mutually distrustful linguistic groups, the Flems and the Walloons - came about because... you can wiki it if you are really interested...  I can't be arsed.


Anyway. Belgium's bi-lingualism is very real (it is officially tri-lingual, including the German-speaking bits to the east). Ireland's official bi-lingualism, as opposed to its true bi-lingual communities who speak our English along with Polish, Latvian, Cantonese or otherwise, is a State-sponsored sham by contrast.

 Funny then, when you are on a metro train in Brussels, one thing that is immediately noticeable is the unobtrusive nature of the recorded announcements. "Vandervelde", "Josephine Charlotte" and so on. Just enough information to let visually impaired people who step on the train know where they are going, or what station is coming up next.

 In Ireland, an officially faux bi-lingual country, people are subjected to whole tracts of Gaeilge-only announcements on our commuter trains – the DART crowd would never stand for it, despite the sizeable Gaelscoil-for-educational-advantage supporting minority amongst them.

 On the Maynooth line, it is possible to step on a commandeered intercity carriage and have a Gaeilge-only announcement tell you where you are going. It is quite funny to watch the consternation of tourists who must disembark at Broombridge Station, having listened to a welter of gobbledygook since they left Connolly, only to realise that they are heading west instead of north. Welcome to Ireland. And watch out for the muggers. Next train back to Connolly - sorry, "Stáisiún Uí Chonghaile" -  in an hour or so.

There was some controversy about the inadequate nature of the announcements on Irish Rail trains there a while back. Apparently they are inaccurate much of the time, but little was said about the intrusion of Official Ireland Gaelic and its contribution to the confusion.


If you ever take the 18.10 train from Connolly to Maynooth you will find the announcements are in a language most of us do not understand. Due to the incompetence/indifference of CIE personnel the Gaelic announcements on the inter-city trains have not been abridged to take account of the shorter journey times between stations of a commuter train.

 So we get interminable announcements – Gaelic first of course, thanks to the obnoxious heap of shite that is Eamon O’Cuiv and the whole parliament of genuflecting gobshites who could not stand up to him – which do not allow the vernacular to get a word in.

But this is Ireland.

If you are visually impaired, best make sure you are a Gaelic hobbyist before travelling on the Maynooth line with Ionars...Iarnord...Inroaad... Irish Rail.

Otherwise, make sure you have nothing in your pockets when you disembark at Broombridge.

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Fish farms planned for Galway Bay

Years back, I did a one-week, live-on, keelboat sailing course around the west Cork coast which played havoc with my lower back.  Headroom 5 feet + height 6 feet = lower back agony for weeks.  

 

One day, when I wasn't bent double in pain for about 10 minutes,  we dropped a fishing jig into the ocean.   As a reward, we got platefuls of wild mackerel for our dinner, cooked on board.  Lovely. 

 

I was warned by Andreas (the instructor), however, to avoid - when I went back to my landlubber life - the mussels of one particular bay.  Farmed, he said, not far from a sewage outlet.  Seasoning, I suppose. 

 

Things are seldom done properly in Ireland, so perhaps we should pay heed to the sender of the email below, who warns of the consequences of two massive fish farms in Galway Bay.  The fella seems to know what he is on about, and has - as far as I can see - no vested interests, other than to stop the place from being destroyed.

 

 

Dear GM,

I am very concerned about the plans to create two salmon fish farms totalling 456 hectares in the Galway Bay area. The long term potential negative impact on Ireland's environment and the dire consequences for angling and tourism in the vicinity are all too clear to many -except the Minister responsible - Simon Conevey TD

This issue first hit the national press again in August this year - see http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2012/0904/1224323573364.html

Despite the clear outline of the damage salmon farming operations do to the environment, Simon Conevey has pressed ahead with his plans to create up to 350 jobs in the new proposed farms. No account seems to have been taken by him of the potential jobs that will vanish in the angling, tourist and hotel industries when people stop coming to fish because there are no sea trout and fewer salmon.

Some might ask why salmon farming is such a threat to native species. It is quite simple. The young salmon and sea trout follow the coast on their outward journey to feed at sea. When they reach where the proposed Salmon Farms are to be situated, they will stop, munch on the pickings and then get infested by the amazing numbers of sea lice that are attracted to these farms. Weakened by the parasites, the next generation of stock will lose strength and die. And then people will ask " Why are the salmon and sea trout not running this year?" Bookings will drop away, hotels will fail and the entire edifice will come crashing down. There will even be a reduction in income from Salmon Fishing Licences. But the Minister will say, "Hey, I have created jobs and helped produce food"

It is a bit like having a nuclear power station on your doorstep to keep the peat fires burning. The immutable Law of Unintended Consequences will have done its work again.

I know times are tough and jobs are hard to come by but surely Ireland deserves better than having these Salmon Farms on its doorstep with all the proven risks etc. It is not as if there are no precedents for the devastation caused by Fish Farming. Scotland, as ever, leads the way in grandiose job creation schemes which wreak havoc on the environment Anyone interested can easily research the issue by Googling as follow : Scottish west coast + west coast + sea trout stocks devastated.

It's not rocket science - it's aquaculture and false job creation or as Uncle Anagram puts it so nicely - Quarrel, obfuscation, ejaculate.

Come on Ireland, you deserve better and so does Mother Nature.

Tell Simon Conevey where to get off on this one. Who's creature is he, anyway? Those who enjoy what Ireland has to offer the visiting angler or the Boardroom of Marine Harvest? A company who, incidentally, seem to be adept networking with policiticians across the globe. Check out their track record in Peru where many communities were devastated by similar Fish Farming set ups.

Finally, I have left the Chemical bit to the end - how do the Fish Farms get rid of the Sea Lice from the Salmon in the Cages? Yes, that is correct. Chemicals. Stronger and stronger ones as the parasites become more and more resistant. Fancy a (sheep) dip, anyone? Farmed Salmon? It is enough to put me off my chicken nuggets.

 

TB

 

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Irish patriotism. Best not to think about it.

Bloody hell. What a reaction that last post on the pipe band  provoked? I haven't had so much fun in... well, a few days anyway.

With that in mind, it's time for another rather trivial post, which little Irelanders are invited to take offence at as much as they like.  

You see, any criticism of things "Irish" - as ordained by the ruling class that took power in 1922 -  is met with some rather extreme and bizarre reactions by sections of the Irish population.

You can't question things in Ireland.  It's unpatriotic. 

Even if you noticed your little Seanie walking back bandy-legged from his altar boy stint at St Marys in 1980, complaining of an inexplicably sore bottom, while the local priest was reputed to be "fond of the boys", you would not say anything.   You would not even think about it, for thinking would be unpatriotic.  

The corruption and stroke-pulling engaged in by much of our political class was also ignored.  Indeed, it was admired.  Ask anyone who voted for Dev, Haughey, Lawlor, Ahern and many others too numerous to mention in a blog post confined to about half-an-hour's gestation.    It was because these patriot politicians had an inherent contempt for due process  - a legacy of disdain for past British rule.  That's what it was. 

Likewise, we were supposed to feel a surge of patriotic pride when Irish builders and developers were buying up London landmarks - on tick, of course.   Revenge for Cromwell and The Famine and all that .  The 800 years and all the rest.  Jasus, it's great to see an Irishman sticking one up to the Brits!

Now we are paying off their loans, in some form or another, while crooked builders and solicitors have fled the country.    We have swapped absentee landlords for another variety of shyster.   

But they are Irish shysters, so it's OK.  

Doesn't it bring a patriotic lump to your pants?

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Clew Bay Pipe Band - their part in Ireland's downfall.

Ouch!

1-6... it could nearly be a GAH score, except in this case you had to get the ball past a goalkeeper into a 17.86 metres space.  

Awful.  

I wonder what part the Clew Bay Pipe Band played in this debacle?    

 Pipes, whether the windblown or armpit perpetuated type, are intrinsically annoying instruments.   They were the only things that stopped the Romans from invading Jockland.  Fact.

 Just before the Ireland v Germany match started, you could see the Germans bristling as their national anthem was debased by the squawlings of the pipers.  

 Pipes, you see, don't seem to consider octaves.  Either they are within one register, or at the point  just north of where human ears mercifully give up, and dogs take over.   

I have never heard such a debased version of the German national anthem, nor the Irish one  -  but we are used to that kind of parody. 

The Germans aren't.  They were out for revenge, and justifiably got it.

Whatever about all that, if we are to progress as a (world) footballing nation, we need to get rid of Trapattoni.  He was well past his sell-by date, even when appointed. 

It will cost John Delaney, head of the FAI.

He might have to ask some questions of the the Clew Bay Pipe Band, or even more painfully,  take a cut in his overblown salary to pay Trap off.

Ouch!










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Gleann Riada. Our little statelet in microcosm - it should never have been allowed

Perhaps if you never lived anywhere else in your life, you will think the following is quite normal? Run-of-the-mill even?

It is an RTE news report telling us how residents of a Longford housing estate - Gleann Riada - cannot light fires in their living rooms due to the possible inconvenience of a very large explosion.

Other residents, who are mortgaged way over their heads for what they once thought were their dream homes, are suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and have had to evacuate the place.

It seems that the estate was constructed in rather a slapdash fashion during the Government-sponsored property bubble. It seems it was also built on a floodplain, and the foundations on which the sewers were laid are cracking to pieces, resulting in the widespread emission of "noxious" smells and gases throughout the dwellings.

The phrase "where else would you get it" is a very well-worn one here on the blog. But really? This is bizarre and grotesque even by Irish standards.

But not maybe not unprecedented, as those who bought houses during the bubble on other floodplains, or in crumbling estates riddled by pyrite, might testify.

What a madhouse.

HSE calls for urgent assessment of Longford housing estate

RTE, Tuesday, 9 October 2012

The HSE's National Director of Health Protection has said that all remaining houses on the Gleann Riada housing estate in Longford are unsafe to live in unless urgent assessments are carried out.

Dr Kevin Kelleher was speaking after a meeting with residents in Longford this afternoon. He said the HSE did not have the power to evacuate the remaining 79 houses in the estate.
However, he said there was clear evidence of the effect of carbon monoxide, methane and hydrosulfite in the area and the gases from the sewers were dangerous. Dr Kelleher repeated his warning that residents should not light open fires in their sitting rooms.
He said he has been told by residents they were suffering from symptoms, such as headaches and nausea, and there was an urgent need for each resident to have an assessment carried out on their home.

Dr Kelleher said he will pass on the information to Longford County Council.
In a statement, Longford County Council said it is constrained in what it can say due to legal proceedings undertaken by some of the residents.

However, it said all residents should ensure adequate ventilation in the house, do not light open fires, install carbon monoxide alarms in each house and maintain water traps in all toilets. It said the council will continue to work closely with the HSE in relation to this issue.
Meanwhile, the HSE primary care centre for Co Longford has been located on a site adjacent to the Gleann Riada estate.

The developer behind the primary care centre, Frank Kelly, told RTÉ News that even though the centre is built on the same floodplain as Gleann Riada, he is "100%" satisfied there will be no issues with gases or smells.

Mr Kelly said he has replaced the entire sewerage pipe network in the building. He said that even though the primary care centre would use the same mains network as Gleann Riada, he was certain there would be no adverse effect on the residents who were experiencing noxious smells and gases. Mr Kelly said Gleann Riada had been developed by a separate company. 

The HSE began an investigation into levels of noxious gases in the area after an explosion at a house in the estate. Engineers have blamed it on serious faults discovered in the foundations of the sewers, which have resulted in high levels of methane and carbon monoxide.

The initial explosion in the estate blew out a front window of one house and caused major internal structural damage. After a second incident on Friday, an engineer representing over 30 residents called for the development to be evacuated.

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Autoworld Brussels - not a place for crusties or Young Shinners

Ireland has never been a motoring nation.  Apart from bolting together VW Beatles which arrived in crates from Germany between 1950 and 1980.  That was Ireland's car industry.

Cars have always been treated with suspicion in Ireland, a place whose inhabitants still - subliminally or otherwise - hanker after donkeys and carts, piebalds and sulkies.  I think it goes back to Dev and the rest of the statelet's founders, who treated urbanisation, technology and modernity as threats.

When young American guys were motoring off to the drive-in movies with their broads by their sides, young Paddy and Mary could only aspire to a bit of chaste stick-fighting, bogball or camogie at the local crossroads. Strictly segregated, and supervised by a priest.

It is no surprise that the only car assembled in Ireland - as far as I know, but am open to correction on this detail - was designed for a nationalist dictator whose vision (if not his interest in technological innovation) was a reactionary myth-based one.  Just to clarify - I am talking about Hitler here, not Dev.

I had a look at one of the Irish Internet forums recently  - Boards I think - on which a debate about VRT raged.  VRT is the government's punitive "vehicle registration tax" which makes we Paddies pay over 40% more for our wheels, in some cases, than our lucky neighbours up north.

Some arsehole young Shinner (for they are young, and they are the future of this little shithole, natural forces save us) on Boards defended the tax on the basis that money spent on cars was "money flowing out of the country spent on luxuries".

 I'm sure Dev would have approved.  I hope the same poster uses public transport or, if he lives in the majority of places in Ireland with no such thing, uses his sturdy Gaelic feet to move about the crust of dear old Erin while denigrating the trappings of modernity and materialism.   Gobshite.

Anyway.  I've just come back from a visit to Autoworld in Brussels and have a few nice pics from automotive history for your delectation.  

Young Shinners, crusties and Devonians look away now.

 

 

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Real life v "pro life"

Back in 2009 ,12 women a day travelled from Ireland to the UK to have crisis pregnancies terminated.

 4,422 patients gave an Irish address to UK clinics in that year,  with 142,060 women thought to have travelled to Britain for abortions since 1980 overall.

It would be interesting to hear if such people's voices are being heard in Ireland's latest abortion rights "debate".   Somehow I doubt it.


One of the best things I have read on this heated issue appeared in the Irish Times last month.  Well worth a read:

Real life demolishes absolutist stances on abortion

DAVID ADAMS

The Irish Times, Thu, Sep 13, 2012

I FIND the debate on abortion in this newspaper fascinating, not least for the personal reasons that I outlined in a previous column.

In line with a basic human inclination, both sides to the argument are guilty of trying to reduce an extremely complex issue to black-and-white absolutes, where principles seem to be of more importance than the people affected.

Yet each decision on whether to terminate a pregnancy is taken in isolation from all others, and is predicated on a human tragedy that has arisen from a particular set of circumstances. Most people on the “pro-life” side argue that abortion is always wrong, irrespective of extenuating circumstances: that such an act may even be on a par with murder.

Within this stricture, one can only presume, fall rape victims (including girls barely out of childhood and victims of incest); women and girls whose mental and/or physical health could be irreparably damaged by giving birth; foetuses so malformed that the baby’s chances of survival outside the womb would be negligible; and children who might survive but have only a short lifespan with little or no quality of life.

I sometimes wonder how a typical fundamentalist’s pro-life position would fare in a head-on collision with personal experience. Would it remain intact even if, for instance, instead of abstract woman it was oneself or a wife, daughter, mother or sister left pregnant by rape, or found to be carrying a hopelessly malformed foetus?

On the other side of the debate is the equally trenchantly held view that a woman alone should have the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, regardless of the wishes of the prospective father. So vocal on this point are some pro-choice advocates, one might easily imagine that if they had their way the first question every just-informed father-to-be would be compelled to ask is, “Are you going to keep it, my love?”

It is worth bearing in mind that, even in countries where abortion is readily available, for the overwhelming majority of pregnant women the issue never arises. Abortion is only ever a last resort. Despite what many anti- campaigners like to suggest, no woman regards abortion as a means of birth control. And no one who has ever been privy to the traumatic after-effects of the termination of a pregnancy could possibly believe otherwise.

Should it be for a woman alone to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy? I would argue that, all things being equal, it shouldn’t be. But that position is rendered meaningless – merely rhetorical – by life’s realities. No woman in a loving, stable relationship would consider not consulting her partner before having an abortion. For those not in a stable relationship the decision falls by default upon the woman alone.

What if loving partners fundamentally disagree on whether an abortion is the least-worst option? Then, I’m afraid, no matter how strong the relationship, it has little hope of enduring, regardless of who finally acquiesces to the wishes of the other, as one partner will be left bitter and resentful.

For me, logic dictates that, in the event of a disagreement, it should be the woman’s wishes that prevail. It will be she, after all, who is left with the baby or the emotional scars.

The above does nothing to address the plight of a youngster or person with learning difficulties who has fallen pregnant. All one can hope in such an instance is that any decision taken by parents or guardians will reflect the wishes of the expectant mother, which might include a desire to carry the baby to full term and/or raise her or him.

Of course, most “pro-life” campaigners are driven by religious conviction and, outside of personal circumstances forcing a change of mind, they are unlikely to be swayed from their position. The churches and believers in general have as much right to their views as anyone else, and are as entitled to try to influence decision-makers as any other members of society.

However, while we all have a right to be heard, no one is under any obligation to act upon what we say. It isn’t even as though the Catholic Church, the most vocal opponent of abortion, is entirely at one on “sanctity of life” issues. Until recently, it was totally opposed to any use of contraceptives. However, this didn’t stop missionary nuns and priests who had to deal daily with the realities of HIV and Aids from distributing condoms in developing countries.

The church’s official position is now confused on the use of condoms, proving that even with religion, nothing is set in stone. As The Book of Mormon, a musical by the creators of South Park apparently puts it (in reference to a change in Mormon teachings that allowed non-white people to be priests): “I believe that in 1978, God changed his mind about black people.”

Perhaps He will change his mind again, in response not to clarion calls, but to the human tragedies that sometimes make abortion the only viable option.


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The streets of Dublin - full of stupid, snarling scumbags

Working in town, and putting an evening shift in every third Sunday or so, you get a good picture of Dublin, especially at night.   And do you know what?  It's not a very nice place.  

In fact, Dublin is scary  on a weekend evening if you do not have a bellyful of beer to buoy you up and give you a false sense of security.  

I just popped out for a kebab around 8pm and the streets are full of roaring, snarling scumbags whose inarticulate utterances would embarrass a family of apes.  

The only people you will see on the streets who are endowed with any tint of a civilised demeanor are the foreign workers and the tourists.  And the occasional stunningly handsome gent picking his way over to Abrakebabra.  

It really looks as though evolution has kicked into reverse in Ireland, though that can't really be the case, can it?  More than likely, it is because the Irish continue to breed like promiscuous rabbits - as if the world actually needs any more of their leprous devilspawn.  

It is also because Ireland has an education system which fails to instil any real education, or any sense of civic responsibility, into many of the people who are processed by it. 

Rote learning continues, with large periods of time devoted to nonsense subjects such as religion and Gaeilge.   Many maths teachers are not qualified, and many graduates take bullshit arts subjects and their third-level participation is more a reflection of their privileged social background than any intellectual abilities.  

Then there are areas where people simply do not go to university - ever.   These people make up Ireland's very large underclass - undercaste might be a better word - who will never have the opportunity to break out of their sink estates and make something of their lives, so self-perpetuating is the cycle they are trapped in and so complete is their exclusion from sampling the fruits of middle-class Official Ireland, such as they are.

Then again, as a fifth-generation Dubliner (at least), my own parents were from tenements in the inner city, and lived in such unglamorous spots as Fatima Mansions and Sean McDermott street.  But they were not ignorant, and nor were they scumbags.  Real, old Dubliners - the likes of whom seem to have died out.

As some of you may know, I've had reason to make a few trips to Brussels in the past three months, and it is another world.   No roaring gangs of scumbags staggering the streets, hurling abuse at people.  Pavements unsullied by copious deposits of phlegm, vomit, and spat-out chewing gum.   Plentiful litter bins that are actually emptied by the authorities.   It is, as I said, another world.

I'm going to sound like a right old fart now, but what is it with this upcoming generation of loud, ignorant morons?   And it seems to be a cross-class thing as well - say it loud, they're ignorant and proud.   Maybe those thrashy American TV programmes like Jackass and so on, where the object of the participants seems to be to behave as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, are partly to blame?  Or is there a post-bubble factor, with a generation many of whom were used to being spoilt rotten by their credit-swamped parents? 

Empty vessels make the loudest noise and all that.  

And Dublin's lamplit streets are full of them. 

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Senators oppose abolition of the Senate shock

The picture on the left  is not  of Enda Kenny.

Not convinced?

For proof please read on...

Group opposed to Seanad abolition seeks reform
RTE, Wednesday, 26th September, 2012

The Government plans to hold a referendum on the future of the Seanad.
A group of members of the upper house has published the report, saying its aim is to stimulate debate about the chamber's future.

The group includes Seanad members Katherine Zappone and Feargal Quinn, former senator Joe O'Toole, political commentator Noel Whelan and former justice minister Michael McDowell.
The report was prompted by Government plans to hold a referendum on the abolition of the Seanad.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Senator Zappone said the Seanad had, for many years, not maximised the role envisaged for it in the Constitution.

She said it could play a "deeper role" in scrutinising laws from Europe and creating legislation at European level.

On the cost of running the Seanad, she said: "The kind of figures that are thrown out in relation to how much does the Seanad cost are exaggerated."

Ms Zappone said it costs around €10m a year.   She said that with the calibre of people in it and the changes they are promoting, it could be very good value in terms of the future.
The Seanad is to debate the document, perhaps as early as next week.

Kenny wants to Enda the Senate shock
Gombeen Nation, Tuesday, 20th October, 2009

Enda Kenny may well have the personality and charisma of a newt, but he deserves credit for his proposal to abolish the inherently undemocratic body that is the Senate (or Seanad).

Kenny has shown an ability to surprise in the past, such as when he called for Gaelic to be made a non-compulsory school subject – attracting predictable howls of protest from Ireland's powerful Gaeliban (Irish Language lobby).

So let’s look at the Senate, the chief purpose of which – like the British House of Lords – is concerned with giving privileged, but otherwise insignificant, blusterers some kind of nominal function and Gormenghastian status.

Eleven of the sixty blusterers are appointed by the Taoiseach (prime minister) of the day. One example being Sunday Independent bore and waffler Eogan Harris, who was rewarded with a senatorship by Bertie Ahern for defending him and his dismal Government on the eve of the last election… just when some sections of the electorate where showing faint signs of getting wise.

A further six are “elected” by the graduates of TCD and NUI. Naturally, given the self-perpetuating nature of the entrenched class system and third level education in Ireland – populated as it is by the middle-class brats of the well-off (whose fees are paid by the taxpayer) – this too helps ensure an innate conservatism.

Finally, 43 blusterers are elected by “Vocational Panels”, which for the life of me, I cannot figure out. But let’s just say it involves sitting Dail members, selected council members and others, arranged by “vocational interest”. And some people here had the neck to give out about Lisbon and the EU??

Today’s Irish Times reports that the salary of a senator is €70,135, topped-up by a further €45,000 in “unvouched expenses”. They sat their privileged bottoms on the Senate benches for only 93 days in 2008, and the whole charade costs us a whopping €25 million a year to run.

Kenny is talking about calling a referendum to abolish this elitist talking shop. Bring it on.

Note the disparity between The Irish Times' €25 million to run the Seanad and the senators' group's €10 million estimation. "Only €10 milliion" we are supposed to think, I suppose. And what about the self-declared "calibre of people" boast?

Kenny has a history of backing down when faced with powerful lobbies. He renaged on his promise to make Gaeilge non-compulsory for the Leaving Cert when fronted by Conradh na Gaeilge, Irish Language teachers, Gael Linn, those who run Irish language colleges in the Gaeltacht, and those who run student accommodation there. Expect him to back down yet again on this one. 

Kenny is a spineless character who has failed to deliver on his many election promises. 

Apologies to newts in the earlier blog above.

They, at least, have backbones.

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Another tale of casual cruelty and scummery in Ireland

Another day in Gombeen Nation and another tale of casual cruelty and scummery, as you will read soon.

You really have to wonder what kind of a generation is being foisted on us, with stories like the one below being so commonplace that they provoke little outrage or public debate on the nature of our society, and the units that make it up.

What kind of "teenagers" are these, and what kind of parents have they?   What kind of scumbags with what kind of values will they themselves reproduce?   

And reproduce they will, as that is the Irish way.  We are popping out more babies than anywhere else in Europe, and a sizeable proportion of them are rather wretched samples of humanity that the world, never mind Ireland, could well do without.

This might sound a bit right-wing, but how about some kind of compulsory sterilisation programme?  Call it neutering if you will.

 Or at least some kind of demonstration from prospective parents that they can bring their offspring up in a fashion that makes them fit for civil society?  

Thugs feed family cat to dogs in front of children

By Ralph Riegel
Irish Independent, Thursday September 20 2012

A MOTHER of five wept yesterday as she revealed how teenage thugs fed her beloved 17-year-old cat to their dogs.

Kathleen O'Brien sobbed as she said two of her children witnessed the horrific attack that left the family's pet cat Boots mangled and blood-soaked outside their front door.

Mrs O'Brien, who lives at Fairfield Meadows in Fairhill in Cork, said that the savaged cat died minutes after they rushed him to the local vet.

"We had Boots for 17 years -- he was just sitting outside our front door. The next thing, I was in the kitchen and I heard a load of banging on my front door and my windows," she said.

Kathleen emerged to find two of her children deeply distraught -- with Boots lying mangled in a pool of blood.

Kathleen was horrified to learn that Boots been spotted by a group of teens as they walked greyhounds and a large hunting dog.

One of the teens walked over, grabbed the cat and threw it to the dogs to be mauled.

The cat had been savaged before Kathleen's children could intervene. Immediately afterwards, the teens ran off laughing with their dogs.

Kathleen contacted both Gurranabraher gardai and the CSPCA about the incident, amid concerns it might be linked to similar attacks which saw a kitten and a rabbit torn apart by dogs.

Gardai are investigating.

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Ireland as a dysfunctional family in denial?

Interesting op-ed article in today's Irish Times, by Brendan Logue, former Central Bank Registrar of Credit Unions and head of the IDA Financial Services Division.

It makes some good points about the delusional nature of Irish society and its doctrinaire - and largely manufactured - sacred cultural references.

On the other hand, it seems to fall into the popular Irish comfort-blanket trap of partly blaming a sinister "Frankfurt regime" for the mess we are in,  which to me is rather like the imagined "prolifigate parents" blaming the moneylender for their own greed and stupidity.   The real blame lies closer to home, I think.

Oh... and the Central Bank.  That fine regime had no say in regulating our financial institutions and controlling bank lending during The Bubble, did it?...

Leadership needed to mend our sorry state of delusion

BRENDAN LOGUE
Thu, Sep 20, 2012

OPINION: IMAGINE YOU belong to a dysfunctional family. The parents are profligate, incompetent and reckless. They tend to be corrupt, lazy, dishonest and self-serving.
The children (other than certain favourites) feel oppressed and neglected. Many of the favourites exhibit ruthless self-interest and greed.

The parents are under pressure from the moneylenders to whom they have had to turn as a result of their profligacy. So dysfunctional is this family that they have had to be taken under the care of outside agencies, which are struggling to bring them under control.

Many of the children abuse alcohol, drugs, religion, or alternatively delude themselves about their true situation, in order to ease their pain.  Others flee the family home at the earliest opportunity, or resort to suicide. They abuse and exploit each other and are in a perpetual state of inter-sibling rivalry.
The concept of family wellbeing is almost unknown among them.
Such a family mirrors the national situation.

Self-delusion is a characteristic of Irish society. In the old days we were told things about ourselves that in retrospect seem laughable. We were morally superior to other races, O’Connell Street was the widest street in Europe, the Shannon was going to be drained, the country reunited and the Irish language restored.

Such was the pathetic nature of the society that it tended to grasp at any idea, no matter how absurd, seen as positive to our warped sense of nationhood.

Those who were literary figures and who attempted to hold up a mirror to the Irish to reflect the weirdness of the society were generally derided, abused, saw their work suppressed and were forced to flee the country in despair. Abroad they often achieved due recognition.

That is not to say that individual Irish people aren’t as capable, creative and energetic as other peoples. But the damaged and deluded culture of our society often drags them down. Despite this, some groups and individuals have managed to overturn the deadening effects of Irish consciousness, but they are the exceptions to the norm.

The negative effect on Irish society of the Catholic Church is deep-rooted. Its doctrines have tended to produce a populace that is superstitious, apathetic and fatalistic. The progressive exposure of some of Catholicism’s true characteristics has left many of its loyal adherents confused and disillusioned.

The main institutions of the State – government, church, banks, the judiciary, the professions etc – are regarded by many Irish people with loathing, but many are also envious of those who belong to these interest groups. Most people feel powerless to attack these groups, who seem exempted from any corrective process that could limit their ruthless pursuit of self-interest.

In a normal democratic society a dissatisfied populace will overthrow an abusive regime, given time. However, in Ireland this has not happened.

The Republic of Ireland has never been truly independent. This could be because the best and the brightest were and are the most likely to emigrate, leaving behind the more deferential, insecure and apathetic people. British rule was overthrown in this part of the country in 1922 only to be replaced by an equally abusive system controlled from Rome.

This itself is in the process of being gradually overturned, but is being replaced by a regime controlled from Frankfurt, whose intentions are, as yet, unclear. Unless something fundamental changes in the public psyche, Ireland seems doomed to endlessly repeat its history of failure and to be a society that is deferential and provincial in outlook.

One possible benefit of the present financial, economic and social crisis may be that the Irish may begin to awake from the dreamlike state of delusion into which they had long ago fallen. To emerge from this nightmare will require leadership. Straight talking such as has never been heard before in this country needs to be the hallmark of a future leadership. This will be a painful process but could provide healing.
This State must never again allow itself to be humiliated and disgraced in the eyes of the world. The Ireland that has up to now been regarded internationally only in a semi-serious way as a country, must be reformed.

No more corruption, no more incompetence, no more alcohol abuse, no more self-delusion, no more abusive religion, no more secrecy, no more deferential forelock-tugging.
Unfortunately, leadership is absent just now in a way never before experienced. Neither politics nor religion, neither law nor commerce are fit for this purpose as they themselves are central to the country’s problems and act in a self-protective way to preserve the status quo.

What is left to undertake this gargantuan task? Maybe the media is up to it – who knows?
It is nearly time Robert Emmet’s epitaph is written – but not just yet.
Not until this society is fully cleansed of the rot that pervades it.

---

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Maths and technical subjects lose out to Irish and religion in our schools

An interesting article appeared in last Wednesday's "Journal", see extract here:

Irish pupils taught over twice as much religion as OECD average

THE AVERAGE IRISH primary school pupil spends a tenth of their time in religious tuition – over twice the average of other developed countries, a new worldwide study has claimed.

The OECD’s ‘Education at a Glance’ report says the average 7 or 8 year old in Ireland spends 10 per cent of their time in primary tuition being taught religion, while the average among the countries surveyed is 4 per cent, and the average among EU countries is 5 per cent.

The report says Irish pupils – assuming they are taught the correct number of hours demanded by the Irish primary curriculum – spend only 12 per cent of their time learning maths.

The average among developed countries is 18 per cent – with the difference in maths tuition accounted exactly for the amount of time spent on religion.

The major report, surveying conditions in 30 of the world’s developed countries, shows that Irish students also spend less time studying technology and practical subjects than their worldwide peers – and less than half of what the average student in another country might spend on Physical Education.

This is reflected in the extra time spent on ‘modern foreign languages’ – which in Ireland’s case includes the teaching of the Irish language...

The Irish answer to the problem, however, is to distort results with bonus points for maths rather than addressing the poor standards of teaching - many maths teachers are not even properly qualified.

Then there the years of teaching time wasted on nonsense subjects such as religion and Gaeilge.  It is no wonder we are producing, yet again, a generation of half-wits whose educational attainments are largely irrelevant to to the needs of the modern world, and even the requirements of Ireland's main private sector employers, as the following report from the Indo (August 16th) contends. 

It seems the time spent teaching "modern foreign languages" firmly places the emphasis on Dev's First Official Language rather than modern, living ones..

Fears over skills shortages in key science and language subjects

By Katherine Donnelly

Thursday August 16 2012

STUDENTS may have scored record success in higher-level maths this year -- but now there are worries of possible skills shortgages because of a poor uptake in science subjects and languages at second-level schools.

And the situation is expected to get even worse from this year as teacher cuts force schools to consider dropping these key subjects.

As the boost to maths performance among this year's Leaving Certificate candidates was celebrated yesterday, the new concerns were highlighted.

The 56,000 school-leavers receiving results yesterday included almost 11,000 awarded 25 bonus points for achieving a minimum D grade in maths at higher level...

...Subjects such as physics and chemistry are also taking on a new importance, with growing demand from employers for graduates with such skills.
And languages are in unprecedented demand among multinational and domestic export companies operating in a global economy.
There has been an ongoing slide in the number of Leaving Certificate students taking physics.
Numbers fell a further 2pc this year to 6,373 -- less than one in eight candidates -- while almost a quarter of schools don't offer it at all...

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