Happy Scary Halloween

Window display, Tempted, Raheny, Oct 2009

Blog Action Day - Wrap

Below is a list of the blogs which gave Ireland as their country when registering for:
Blog Action Day

Irishlibertarian
Style By Numbers
Miralize Design
Jean O'Brien: Design Portfolio
CheapEats
Oxjam Ireland - the DIY Music Festival
Donagh Mc Sweeney
Blog action day – climate change and elearning
Blather
Human Rights in Ireland
Arusha Fair Trade
Pedreschi Electrical & Alarms Ltd
Complete lack of morals
Sara In Le Petit Village
Petticoat Rebellion - The Anna Parnell Story
Eamonn Fitzgerald
Trocaire - Working for a Just World
StyleByNumbers
The Political Environment
A Life in Northern Ireland
the mortgage blog
Crisp Apple...
olgafromthevolga
Whoopsadaisy!
chrismehigan.tumblr.com
davidkelly.ie
rising to the challenge
Stony River
SLUA
Scary Ideas
Brens Shorts!
Morrígan Reborn
pienso luego critico
class inequality in ireland
Human Rights World
Concern Blog
Organic Yum Yum
Arusha Fairly Traded Gifts
Climate Change Blog
Shanes World Wide Blog
Holistic Interior Designs Blog
Stitch and Bear
Unix Tutorial
okgetreal
An Cnagaire
Photopol

Climate Change

This year's theme for Blog Action Day is Climate Change. Previous themes have been Poverty and Environment and my previous posts on these are also relevant to Climate Change: poverty; environment.

As far as climate change itself is concerned, I can do no better than direct your attention to a number of tools for understanding the issue which are cited on the Blog Action Day site.

1. Google has built a site where you “explore the potential impacts of climate change on our planet Earth and find out about possible solutions for adaptation and mitigation, ahead of the UN’s climate conference in Copenhagen in December.” They’ve got a Google Earth mashup, a introductory video featuring Al Gore, and more. Visit: Climate change in Google Earth

2. Climate change is a human issue. It isn’t just about saving the planet and communities around the world face serious threats from the climate crisis. The TckTckTck campaign has created a great tool for learning the stories behind the human face of climate change. It’s called the Climate Orb and it is an animated interactive tool housing first-hand stories searchable by country, keyword and timeframe. Explore the Climate Orb. If this does not load properly you may need to update your Flash Player from here. I must admit, however, that I just can't get this link to work no matter what I do.



3. There’s a lot more to solving the climate crisis than just sitting back and leaving it to world leaders and policy wonks to figure everything out. Need inspiration? Meet Alec Loorz, the creator of Kids vs. Global Warming. He describes it as “group of kids that educate other kids about the science of global warming and empower them to take action.” The site shows that everyone really can play a role in tackling climate change.

4. Just the facts, that’s what some people want—as long as there are lots of cool charts, graphs and clear explanations of course. That’s what’s great about the Pew Center for Global Climate Change’s “Facts and Figures” site, it is filled with all the charts and graphs you need to get a much clearer picture of what causes climate change and what effects it has. If you want even more information you can also check out their entire Climate Change 101 series.





5. At this point you’ve probably heard of “carbon footprints” and you might have even used an online calculator to figure out what yours is (and thus what your impact is on climate change). The problem is that there are just so many calculators out there now it can be hard to figure out which one to use. Thankfully you can learn about your options from MNN’s 15 Best Carbon Calulators survey.

6. OK, but how will climate change affect you? What are the consquences that are mostly likely to impact your day-to-day life? Take a look at this list of The Top 100 Effects of Climate Change. From “Say Goodbye to Pinot Noir” to “More Bear Attacks” to “Malaria Spreading in South America” to “More Stray Kitties” it seems like climate change is going to have a lot of consequences, some big, some not so big.



7. On the other side of the coin, you might want to be a little more optimistic and review the science behind “10 Solutions for Climate Change” which details what we can actually do to solve these problems personally and as a larger society.

8. Finally, don’t forget that people all around the world are getting involved and taking action. Next week, on October 24, 350.org is organizing the International Day of Climate Action. You can visit their site and see what people all around the world are planning to do next week to demonstrate their commitment to stopping climate change.

Right Order !

I spotted this sign in my local newsagents recently.

Having repeatedly criticised the perverse incentives built into our financial/economic system, I was glad to see this example of an incentive which, for a change, would make a positive contribution to the social order.

Serious Sub-editor

Gardai investigating discovery of body in Dublin
I have often given out about sub-editors who invent sound byte headlines, or whose headlines sometimes say the opposite of what is in the body of the report.

However, here is a sub-editor to admire. S/he successfully resisted the temptation of the cheap soundbyte headline.

The anniversary of this piece is approaching. All you sub-editors out there, please pay homage to this serious practitioner of your trade.

Standards, please.

Bring out your dead

The above was one of the posters in the previous Lisbon referendum campaign which invoked the support of the Republican dead for a NO vote. I was very surprised that the YES side let them get away with it, and I still don't understand this lapse in the YES campaign. This invocation is powerful stuff and it must surely strike a chord in the majority of those who were educated up to the 1980s at least. Why then did Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party, in particular, not respond in kind.

I remarked at the time that it was a pity the YES side did not include a similar approach in their postering. That they did not is surely an illustration of the nation's emerging ambiguity towards the 1916 Rising, and this, embarrassingly in the run up to the 100th anniversary in 2016.

When the whole rebel thing got serious after 1969, the IRA's anti-civilian bombing campaign put "constitutional" nationalists on the spot. They could no longer invoke the glorious armed struggle which led to (or just preceded) the foundation of the State without appearing to support the bombing campaign. And Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party, was badly split over the Arms Trial in 1970.

The result was that the IRA appropriated the Republican regalia, including the tricolour, for the most part, and the Wolfe Tones appropriated all the rebel songs, which up to then had been unthinkingly sung by one and all. Jack Charleton eventually clawed back the tricolour through the success of the Irish soccer team but the ballads are still floating around out there in a sort of Republican/IRA twilight.

I can only think that it was these ambiguities which prevented the YES side from attempting to equally claim the Republican dead to their cause, with possibly fatal results.

This time round the NO side have already put Pearse's head on the lamposts, but there is no sign, so far, that the YES side have learned the lesson.

I often wonder how well the YES side actually understand the fundamentals of the EU, at least as originally conceived. When Ireland joined, it was enough to know that the Common Agricultural Policy would break the British stranglehold on Irish agriculture and that industry would have access to a huge market, if it could get its act together. Then there was the Regional Fund, which we milked very successfully. Elections were won and lost on the size of the loot we could extract from those horrible guilt-ridden Germans.

Now we are about to become a net-contributor to the EU in cash terms and we have priced ourselves out of the market by our recent profligacy. Without these earlier tangible benefits, and in the absence of a general commitment to its aims, the EU is becoming a harder sell by the day.

The scare tactics of the NO side last time round are being matched by those of the YES side on this occasion: Ireland needs the EU. A humiliating come down from the hubris of the last round. We are safer in Europe. Safer from what? Our own self-destruction?

If the YES side want to hold their heads high and tackle their opponents head on, they could do worse than trot out their Republican dead, for starters at least.

Backhanded Compliment?

I was ploughing through some linguistic sites/blogs recently and it got me reflecting on the complexity of language and the way in which it carries baggage which may be peculiar to a region or a group of people.

I had always been impressed by François Sagan's description of herself as a Catholic Agnostic, not so much by the description itself as by the subtlety of the baggage.

Agnostic by conviction and Catholic by upbringing. So you have Jewish agnostics, Anglican atheists etc. It is a very useful distinction and saves a lot of time, pain, and misunderstanding.

But my reflections took me back elsewhere.

I had written a speech on, inter alia, Third World Debt for a Minister at an IMF/World Bank AGM.

On hearing the Minister deliver it, a very senior colleague turned to me and said, "That sounds like Bono wrote it".

I didn't know whether to be chuffed or angry. If it was a comment on the substance of what was said, then irrespective of this person's opinion of Bono, I would take it as a compliment. If, however, it was equating me personally with the greatest debt reliever of all time, I would be seriously insulted.

Now, Saint Bob would be a different matter entirely.

What do you think?

(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not related to Bono, this side of Adam and Eve, as far as I know and pray.)

RTÉ = RTÉ = RTÉ

RTE changes name – spot the difference
Irish Independent
Monday July 20 2009

Radio Telifis Eireann is changing its name to Raidio Telifis Eireann.
...

Spot the difference, indeed. This must be one of the most careless and ignorant pieces of writing in recent times. There are three mistakes in the rendition of the old name and four in the new.

The Independent cites as its source for the new name the new Broadcasting Bill. In section 2 of the Bill is the following:

“RTÉ” means Raidió Teilifís Éireann;

All they had to do was check out the Bill to get the new spelling,

Raidió Teilifís Éireann

and check out any of the many existing RTÉ documents on the net to get the old spelling,

RADIO TELEFÍS ÉIREANN

Just as well we're not talking paper of record here. Bad as that paper is, this one has been the dregs for years (with the exception of a few notable correspondents). The same paper would be lamenting the decline of the Irish language in the morning. Small wonder when this is all the respect that is paid to it. It's called having your cake and eating it. And making money out of the process.

They offered me a job as a Sub in 1963. Maybe I should have taken it.

Flying Enterprise

I just came across an account of the last days of the Flying Enterprise in 1952.

Apart from its own inherent drama, this was one of the greatest radio events of its day. At eight years of age, I followed the story every day on my granny's old Philips valve radio. The ship was in trouble, listing and about to sink. The few passengers had been evacuated. The captain refused to leave his ship. The Tug Turmoil secured a line and began to tow the crippled ship from the west Atlantic to Falmouth. Unfortunately the ship broke up before reaching land and the gallant captain had to take to the sea.

This, and Ronnie Delany winning a gold medal at the the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, are my greatest memories of radio.

My own radio recollections and contemporary newspaper pictures of these events are etched in my mind as firmly as any modern TV coverage.

Hopefully, radio will always remain a great medium of communication. It has not been eclipsed by TV, Cinema or Internet, so far.

Radio enthusiasts are inclined to promote radio on the basis that "the pictures are better". In other words, the pictures you conjure up in your mind in response to sound radio are better than those brought to you by the visual media. I heard a new one the other day, when an advocate of radio praised the medium as it "taught you to listen". Now, this is a much needed attribute in today's crowded world of clips and soundbytes.

Mickey Dazzler

The first time I heard my mother use the term "Mickey Dazzler" I nearly died of shock. She used it completely unselfconsciously. I was at a loss. To me it sounded like a description of a "flasher", but, apparently she was describing a particular kind of corner boy spiv.

On looking further I see the phrase is used by O'Casey in Juno, so it must have been common currency in Dublin at some stage.

Context is everything, however, and the mickey has now come to mean only one thing. Checkout this extract from Joseph O'Connor's "Death of the Irish Male". It certainly had me in stitches when I first read this passage in the book.

Then there is the, still common, phrase "taking the mickey" out of someone. Wikipedia has some wisdom on the origins of this expression.

Anyway, the common or garden mickey now appears to have become a serious embarrassment in some quarters. For example, Clare Byrne, on the early morning Newstalk breakfast show, always says "taking the mike". While this may have a different and particular resonance in a radio show, I don't think that has anything to do with the matter. Granted, "taking the mick" is also used as a variant on the original, but I never heard either of the two aberrant versions in Dublin until the radio went posh, or PC, or whatever.

My own favourite incidence is in the (schoolboy?) translation of the Dublin suburb Stillorgan into Irish.

Mickey Marbh

Like father ...

My doorbell rang in mid-afternoon today. When I opened the door I saw an apparently mild mannered man, of about my own age, who was distributing political fliers.

He introduced himself as the father of Terence Flanagan. The name rang a bell. Terence had been a Fine Gael candidate in my constituency in the 2007 Irish general election. In fact I had included Terence in my images from that election on my home page at the time. Terence's sin had been to drown the whole area in mega-decibels on election day from a Tannoy mounted on top of a vehicle which travelled every inch of the estate.

How this brash anti-social behaviour was to garner him votes was a mystery to me. The principal result, as far as I was concerned, was to deprive a very sick patient of a much needed rest in the middle of the day.

I told the father at the door to keep his fliers, that his son had been guilty of the disgraceful behaviour, described above, and that I had complained the son to FG party headquarters at the time.

"Well, he got elected didn't he!" said the father with a sneer, and then gratuitously added "You voted Fianna Fáil. I speak to lots of people, I know you did".

I reminded the father that I had, over the course of a lifetime, voted for every party in the State at one time or another.

The father then turned on his heels, and went away muttering "You voted Fianna Fáil".

I shouted after him that he had no business telling me who I voted for.

The point of my posting this incident is to illustrate the degree to which Irish politics is still tribal to a large extent. I hadn't voted for the Fine Gael tribe, so I must have voted for the Fianna Fáil tribe. Or was it just that the most insulting remark the father could think up was to accuse me of having voted Fianna Fáil. If it was his aim to provoke me in this way, he certainly succeeded.

When he had gone, I was kicking myself for not telling him that, in the course of the same election campaign, I ran Michael Woods, the Fianna Fáil candidate, from my gate with what would have passed for a chainsaw at the time.

The father was wearing a cream shirt. Perhaps this was an undercover operation.

New Head

I was passing Fairview Park some time ago when I saw a man with no head. A statue in the park had been decapitated, or had it just fallen off? I decided to investigate.


The remaining body belonged to Seán Russell, a controversial figure in early 20th century Ireland. Surely one of the most hardline republicans of his age. He fought in the war of independence and the civil war and became chief of staff of the IRA in the 1930s, initiated the UK bombing campaign at that time, collaborated with Nazi Germany, and died in a Nazi submarine while on a subersive mission to Ireland with Frank Ryan, in 1940.


I was staggered. This guy was definitely not on my school history curriculum.

The statue was erected in 1951, in Fairview Park, near to where Russell was born. Mary Lou McDonald, Euro MEP and the quintessence of Sinn Féin sex-appeal, spoke at the monument in 2003. The following year, the statue was decapitated by an alleged anti-fascist group, and, for the following four years, it led a headless existence.

The National Graves Association had vowed to replace the statue with a harder-to-decapitate bronze version. And there the matter rested.

I was passing Fairview Park the other day and, lo and behold, I noticed the return of the head.


True to their word, the Association had replaced not only the head but the whole body as well, and in the promised anti-fascist-resistant bronze.

The jacket has been replaced by a long-coat and the copy of An Phoblacht (which surely it must have been) has been replaced by an irregular hat. I can't comment on the facial expression as I never saw the original.

This version of the statue is, however, reminiscent of that of Thomas Davis in College Green. Stubbornly clunky and aesthetically way ahead of its predecessor.


You can read a potted version of Seán Russell's life here. The Wiki version is now out of date, so, if there is anyone out there with experience of updating Wiki, they might do so on the basis of this post.

Click on any of the images above for larger versions.

Bricking the Camel

I was at an economists' conference, in Trinity College, Dublin, yesterday, on the present economic and financial crisis.

In introducing his presentation, Patrick Honohan used the image of the camel. I thought he was going to dwell on the traditional view of the camel as a horse designed by a committee, and then go on to point out the many shapes the proposed NAMA might take. But no! CAMEL is an acronym of the headings under which banking performance is assessed.

Nevertheless, this poor unfortunate animal may well be an accurate representation of where we are now at. We don't have a unique solution to the current problem. Economists are offering varying elements towards one, but nobody seems to have a complete handle on the wider picture.

It's a case of onward and upward, per ardua ad astra, brick the camel and set out to cross the desert regardless.

For those not familiar with the process of bricking the camel, I should explain. You take two large bricks, one in each hand, and when the camel is drinking in his supply of water, you apply the bricks to his testicles in one sharp clap. The resultant intake of breath, and consequently of water, ensures the camel is adequately provisioned for the long journey ahead.


Honohan's presentation can be found here (4MB pdf) and links to the other presentations and papers here.

All for Europe

This poster caught my eye the other day. I did a sort of a double take.

FOR EUROPE?
I had heard that one of the Libertas team had changed sides but this was really something. Caroline Simons has been an assertive spokesperson for Libertas right through the Lisbon campaign and beyond. Had she changed sides?

Then I realised I was looking at a Libertas poster. Then I remembered that Libertas were FOR EUROPE, as Declan Ganley never tired of telling us all through the last Lisbon campaign. They were for Europe but against Lisbon. Not necessarily an inconsistent position, I have to admit. I am for Europe and I was tempted to vote NO in the last Lisbon referendum as a reaction against the complacent arrogance of both our own and our European "leaders". Caroline's poster is in support of her candidacy for membership of the European Parliament in the forthcoming European elections.

Then I heard Naoise Nunn on the radio. He was the guy who had changed sides (and joined Fianna Fáil). He was now FOR LISBON. Pushing the NO campaign had been just a job, like working for Ganley (or now Fianna Fáil).

It's going to be a very confusing European election, and that before we even get withing smelling distance of a referendum.

UPDATE (21/5/2009)

This is the latest tarted up version. Subtle shift away from FOR EUROPE to HAD ENOUGH OF THAT SHOWER. Normally this would be taken as referring to the current national government. We have apparently progressed from a vote for Europe to a vote against the Government. Forget the local or European elections. What next?

Logoland

I am often told that I write in too compressed a style and that I assume my readers can read my mind. "Spell it out" I'm told. "Take the reader through all the stages of the argument." "Don't presume knowledge on the reader's part."

Well, that's all fine, but when we enter the world of logos the opposite logic applies. Logos distill the essence and deliver the message in mutely shrill tones. I "love" this or that, or here or there, where the "love" is simply denoted by a red heart.

But what if it's a cat? What the hell is the above poster trying to tell us?

"I scratched my cat's face off so she couldn't nick my Whiskas?"

Give us a break!

Anarchic Market

I was tickled pink by the above poster. "I must do a post on this" I thought. And here I am doing it.

But just what was it that really tickled me about this? It was some stray thoughts that I'm finding it hard to put into words.

Do people queue at such a fair? Do they pay for the books? Do they grab a pile of books and run out the door? Do they blow up the fair premises? And, can you really learn anarchy out of a book by doing what someone else tells you to?

I should mention also that this particular poster was outside Leinster House, seat of the Irish parliament.

Something in that muddle of thoughts made me smile when I saw the poster.


You can check out the event for real here.

Celtic Rendition

I was passing my local traffic lights control box the other day when I spied the above poster stuck to the side of it. I was not aware of rendition flights from Dublin to Lithuania, though in a world where nothing is as it seems, nothing is impossible. I took a photo and resolved to chase up the item.

It appears that the Lithuanian authorities arrested an Irishman (Michael Campbell) in a sting operation in January 2008, involving MI5, the Garda and the Lithuanian police. He has been held without trial since. Meanwhile the Lithuanian authorities have applied to extradite two further Irishmen (including Michael's brother) in connection with the case. The two men are currently in custody here following the extradition requests. A campaign is currently underway to stall any extradition before the case against Michael is clarified, and probably indefinitely in light of conditions in Lithuanian prisons and police stations.

You can catch up on this at the Breton Press Agency and at Mathias Vermeulen's blog

I have been to Vilnius once. I was told I would need a visa which I could get at the airport on arrival. This was issued by the military on the spot. The only glitch was that, having stamped my passport, instead of entering my name in the ledger they entered my sons' names from the passport. So theoretically my sons who have never visited Lithuania are still there. In those days Lithuania was still working off the old Soviet infrastructure and the hotel I stayed in had gazillions of direct telephone lines, one to each room. I thought this very inefficient until it was pointed out to me that it was in fact very efficient, when viewed from the perspective of the local police station.

Fortunately, I did not get to sample police hospitality during my short stay.

Leaving their mark ...

Since I retired my vision has improved enormously. I don't mean my eyes are working better, quite the reverse. But I am now using them differently. When I was working in the centre of Dublin city I saw nothing as I flitted between meetings, totally preoccupied with the inside of my head. Now I stroll the streets and see everything. And there are some amazing things to see.

I have already drawn attention to the beautiful roundels, commemorating Gullivers Travels, on a new public housing complex in the vicinity of St. Patrick's cathedral.

Well, I was walking up Gardiner Street early yesterday morning when my eye caught a similar looking plaque at the top of the Custom Hall apartment development. However this one was not immortalising any fictional or literary character. The plaques atop this complex immortalise the developers (Cosgrave Bros.) and the architects (Ambrose Kelly).

My initial reaction was that these plaques now look like gravestones, highlighting the current plight of the property developers whose more recent acquisitions have turned to dust and who look like saddling the taxpayer with a huge debt via the banks and their bailout by Government.

However, when I got back home I checked out the development and it appears that it was this project which kicked off the regeneration of Gardiner Street. Dubliners will remember that this street had turned into an appalling slum prior to the regeneration.

McDonald and Sheridan describe this area in their recent book on The Builders:

Custom Hall, in Gardiner Street on the north side of Dublin, is a humdrum piece of neoclassical pastiche, with five-storey blocks of smallish flats standing on stilts above basement car parking; but it took a lot of courage to build in Gardiner Street in the early 1990s. The junction with Sean McDermott Street was known as "Handbag Corner" because of the dexterity of local thieves in snatching bags from cars while women drivers were stopped at the traffic lights. Custom Hall pioneered the regeneration of Gardiner Street, changing the image of the area.

The Cosgraves' next effort was just across the road. The building which was once my grand uncle's pawn shop was demolished and became part of Gandon Hall with further Custom House resonances. My personal connection with Gardiner Street goes back to my teaching innings in the Central Model School which backs onto this street.

So, while these early regeneration projects undoubtedly made some contribution to the centre city, the enduring function of these plaques may well be as gravestones given the parlous state to which the nation has been brought by the combination of politicians, bankers and developers.

An Irish Apollo

I observed this sign in the sky recently on the Northside. Perhaps someone took the hint in my previous post and has catapulted a few bankers/developers into outer space. From what I read they have been shaping up for a trip anyway. I was going to say it would be more worrying if it had been the Cabinet but that might equally solve a few problems.

Unfortunately it will more likely prove to have been just a test launch. If the North Koreans can do it so can we.

Journey into Space

This large gantry was recently observed outside Government Buildings and the Department of Finance in Dublin.

There has been much speculation as to what is going on. Some are of the opinion that it is to launch an escape rocket to carry the Government to the relative safety of the Van Allen Belt. Others speculate that it has already launched the Tánaiste into deep space to prevent her from goofing the country into bankruptcy. Yet others insist that it is in fact the initial stage of a guillotine, to be used for the public beheading of Bankers and eFFn FFers, for the edification and entertainment of the masses over the Easter weekend .

No doubt the truth is more banal.

Happy Easter anyway.

Hung out to dry

Readers of this blog will be familiar with my preoccupation with the upside-down flying of flags. A particular favourite is the EU flag, which most people do not realise can actually be flown in this manner - we are not talking stars of David here, after all.

I pointed out that the flag was being flown upside-down at the French Embassy in Dublin on the day of then EU President Sarkozy's visit in July 2008.

Two months later I noticed the same thing at the Hungarian embassy in Dublin (picture above). I did inform them by email and intercom but when I passed the way again a further two months later nothing had been done about it (picture below). In fact the flags at this embassy looked as though they were never lowered since they were first raised.

It was only after the full extent of the Hungarian Financial crisis became known that it struck me this might have actually been a cry for help. So I forgive them, I think.

However, if that had been the case you'd have thought the Hungarians would have flown their own flag upside-down, an option not available to the French.

The subtleties of all this are giving me a headache.

Man the Lifeboats

What the hell ...

I might as well go along with the spirit of the day.

If you want sound and action, click here, and don't blame me.

Calling the Pot black ...

This is Pat Kenny, one of Ireland's highest paid broadcasters, who, on RTÉ radio, recently challenged the perks being availed of in FÁS, Ireland's state-sponsored employment agency.

Apparently he himself, has had a free BMW from that motor company until this was exposed in the national media. He is now said to be buying the car. Hardly on the HP one imagines.

As an Irish Times reader pointed out today (16/3/09), RTÉ made these people and it is about time they unmade a few of them.

This Day

I make no apology for leading with this pathetically evocative symbol on this, international women's day.

The disgusting practice of Female Genital Mutilation is a reminder that women still have a long way to go to achieve full human rights in many parts of the globe. Their fate is even worse in war zones where rape is increasingly being used as a weapon of war.

At home too, they still have a long way to go, despite substantial progress in the last half century. More often than not they are still the residual partner when it comes to pursuing careers, or, they are obliged to leave home for the labour market to pay a joint mortgage and children are farmed out to crèches.

This is a mad mad world and the struggle for equality still has a long way to go, no matter where you are.

And let us not forget the men!

This day is also the anniversary (43rd) of the toppling of Nelson from his pillar in the centre of Dublin city in 1966, in the run up to the 50 year commemoration of the 1916 rising.

There is an obscure link between these two subjects. After his fall, Nelson's head was used in a fashion shoot on Killiney beach. The height of female progress at that time seemed to be a "nautical outfit with midriff portholes".

Perish the thought.

Text me, Jesus!

This notice at Findlater's Church, Parnell Square, Dublin, caught my eye the other day. If it was for real it would put a distinctly different complextion on this photo in my Flickr photostream.

However, I have the impression that whoever composed the notice is not really a texter as the terms are non-standard and the mix of upper and lower case letters would defeat the purpose of the abbreviated texting notation, minimising keystrokes on the mobile phone.

Free lunch?

This is the sort of advertising that drives me nuts. You would think from reading it that the company was providing a public service for free. Where is the regulator? These guys should be shackled in the brackets they omitted from the ad:

Chasing down numbers
(& texting them back for free).

Advertising is becoming increasingly misleading and dependent on small print to obscure the lies. It is even worse on radio where the reader's word-speed per minute accelerates to the unintelligible as soon as they hit the compulsory disclaimers.

If I had my way I would force advertisers to provide the misleading services they advertise at no additional cost to the consumer. I would also insist that radio ads be read at a uniform speed. The choice would be theirs as to whether you found the whole ad unintelligible or understood both the message and the disclaimers in equal measure.

Don't Bank on It

"The liquidator's report to the High Court said bluntly that the bank had been 'operated and run by the directors with scandalous disregard not only for the Companies Act but also for the Central Bank Act'. According to liquidator Paddy Shortall, possible offences included bribery, conspiracy, corrupt transactions, falsifying or destroying books, publishing fraudulent statements, making false returns to the Central Bank, concealment of property and obtaining credit by false pretences. On foot of his report the Garda Fraud Squad was called in but no further action was taken against Gallagher in this jurisdiction"

The Builders, pps 32/3

Sounds familiar, but it is not about Anglo Irish. This was Patrick Gallagher's Merchant Banking which collapsed in 1982, twenty six years ago.

And there has been no shortage of other implosions over the years, both in this country and abroad, which underlined the need for rigorous, conservative and cross-border supervision. ICI (1985), Savings and Loan crisis (1980/90s), BCCI (1991), Enron (2001), to name but a few.

But the country was becoming bewitched by the Celtic Tiger and it's hubris knew no bounds.

The Celtic Tiger, insofar as it represented genuine economic advancement, was the product of a number of sensible polices over previous decades, including investment in education, strict (albeit intermittent) control of the public finances, joining the EU, attraction of multi-national industries from abroad, and developing an indigenous entrepreneurial sector.

Unfortunately, the financial sector, or at least a large proportion of it along with property developers, lost the run of itself. It was subject to "light regulation" and was, inter alia, advancing megabucks to speculative developers and 100%+ mortgages to ordinary housebuyers. The state itself was becoming accustomed to a lavish income stream, much of it generated by excessive property values and ultimately dependent on mega-loans from abroad.

The country was firmly in hock to the bubble. The system could only continue to work as long as property values kept rising at a sufficient rate to keep householders in positive net equity and to sustain the enormous gambles being taken by the developers and the banks.

Now that the bubble has burst, the country is burdened with repayment of these loans at a time when "private" real estate values have tumbled and public sector income is massively reduced.

And the public sector is stuck with servicing a settlement pattern which has been effectively determined by a crowd of cute hoors rather than sensible long term planning. The Kenny Report (1973) made recommendations aimed at taking the corruption out of land zoning and ensuring that any increase in land values as a result of zoning accrued mainly to the community. These recommendations were sacrificed on the altar of the absolute rights of "private property" by successive governments hiding behind the constitution. It cannot speak well for our democratic system that one party (FF) has been in power for 80% of the last half century.

Some of these thoughts flashed through my mind the other day when I noticed the sign on the pillar of the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland in Baggot St. I wondered if, in its current straitened circumstances, the bank might ultimately be obliged to take down the sign and lease the space for the very activities it now prohibits.

God forbid.




Previous posts:
Blogging against Poverty Bloody bankers et al.
Blogging for the Environment Perverse incentives in the economic system.
Crock of Gold Pardon the somewhat optimistic conclusion!

Paper of Record

I have noticed for some time now that standards are slipping in the Paper of Record. I was tempted to start an Irish Times Watch, but the volume of material would probably get me down and I have better things to do with my time.

Instead I thought I'd just draw attention to the occasional snippet for the delectation/depression of my readers.

---

Mr O'Neill identified Mr Mackin as the man who shot Mr Burns and then shot him.
(final sentence of report)

Question: of the three men mentioned above who survived the encounter?

---

Parents of boy with autism seek meeting with Cowen on his education

Question: Whose education?

---

Elan net loss falls 82% on rising Tysabri sales
07:18 Pharmaceutical company Elan has reported a fall of 82 per cent in its net loss for 2008, helped by a strong fourth quarter performance and rising sales of its multiple sclerosis treatment Tysabri

Comment: Sub-editors should always avoid double negatives, even in the heat of breaking news. The item, when subsequently fleshed out for the real paper, read more sensibly:

The group said a deferred tax benefit of $236.6 million in the United States helped it record a net loss of $71 million last year versus a $405 million loss in 2007.

At least it made it clear that we were talking about a smaller loss, but, unlike the earlier upmarket version which attributed the improvement to a strong fourth quarter performance and rising sales, the later version attributed the major part of the improvement to a deferred tax benefit in 2008.

---

Satellite error caused delay in search for boat

Comment: Impression is given that the Satellite was at fault. In fact it was a clerical error by a human operative on the ground.

---

Limited consequences for ex-board members Former Anglo non-executive directors Senior Business Correspondent

Comment: What in God's holy name does that headline mean. Read the article and see if you agree with the Sub who composed the headline.

---

Chevalier de l’ordre Nationale de Merité
(3rd last para)

Comment: My early years in school predated the "cló Rómhanach" version of the Irish language. In order to cover ourselves in homework and exams, we used to introduce the "wandering buailte", a sort of a dot over a word that could be invoked as a lenition sign for any consanant which might subsequently prove to have needed it. The "errant fada", however, is a completely new one on me. And in French, no less. As for the possessive "de", this is always a problem for non-French speakers. Capitalisation is another matter entirely. Meanwhile the grammar defies exegesis.

---

The Irish Nationwide spokesman said last night he had received no response from the building society to a list of questions e-mailed to the mutual society by The Irish Times.

Comment: Surely it is the Irish Times which is expecting a response to its questions?

---

Digging Deep

In these days when the public service is being criticised for being full of lazy cossetted layabouts, it is refreshing to see at least one institution display commendable thoroughness in the pursuit of its mission statement.

I was tickled to see from my tracker that the State agency charged with advising on the disbursement of monies in dormant accounts have been getting their hands dirty (so to speak) in real field work. These accounts, which have lain dormant (unclaimed and inactive) in banks for a certain length of time, and where the banks have had the use of the money, have been appropriated by the State and the money used for purposes more in line with national priorities. Should the original owner of the account in the bank appear and wish to reactivate it, the money is returned by the State to the bank.

The above tracker entry shows this State agency burrowing in Mount Jerome cemetery.

Google led them to a post of mine on Eibhlín's funeral. I had found this ceremony a most uplifting experience. I hope the agency was equally uplifted on reading the post.

Incidentally, I thoroughly recommend StatCounter as a tracker. It offers both free (basic) and pay for (de luxe) versions.

Par Carking* - Spreading the Burden

* par = equal, carking = worrying

Car parking space is becoming increasingly limited, not only in the centre of Dublin city, but also in the suburbs.

One solution would be to cut down on the use of cars and make greater use of public transport. For this two things, at least, would be required: (i) a public transport system with wide coverage and which ran on time, and (ii) large parking areas for "park and ride" (or "kiss and ride" as it is amusingly called in the US of A).

There is a DART station in Raheny which does not have any such parking area provided by the transport authorities. DART commuters therefore took advantage of existing car parks in the local supermarket complex, the RC church and the local public library.

The shops in the supermarket complex got pissed off that this space was consequently not available to customers. So it introduced a 3 hour maximum parking time with clamping. This didn't work because it wasn't enforced, so, instead of enforcing it a one hour maximum was introduced. The complex houses a supermarket, restaurant, bank, post office, chemist, hairdresser, newsagent, video rental store, health clinic and lawyer. You could be queueing for the better part of an hour in some of these.

Anyway parking pressure shifted to the church where the substantial car park was then always full. Pressure also came on the library, which had a limited number of spaces for library users.

The library was the first of these two to take action. They disposed of office worker DART users by closing the car park outside of library hours (8pm to 10am Monday to Friday). The library authorities feel they can't go any further than this blanket action as a more selective system would cost money and staff resources. While this action dealt a death blow to daily DARTers the spaces are still abused by those going to the gym and those banking across the road. I recently had to avail of nearby pay and display parking to use the library. This has roused my usually supressed vigilante instincts and some day I'll stake out the library car park for a day and see what happens. Hope I don't meet too many of my neighbours abusing the system.

The church, after many years deliberations, has now finally moved on the matter. This park has recently gone pay and display and a notice circulated to parishioners has assured them that they will not be charged while attending church services. I wondered myself for a good while whether it would be possible to implement such a system and more or less gave up. But the church has clearly solved this problem to its own satisfaction. Perhaps it has organised the inspectors/clampers to discreetly stay away during church services. No doubt the removal of charges on Saturday evening after 5pm and the
whole of Sunday will cater for the once a week mass-goers.

The point is still, however, how the DARTers and bussers are to be catered for. If the authorities want the public to park and ride they will have to provide appropriate car parking space and, certainly as far as the busses are concerned, get them running on time. I am still looking at alternating long gaps and convoys on the bus routes.

Are these people really serious? Cutting bus services because the country is broke is only going to make it more broke and cause a lot of misery to the very people who can't afford private transport.

We've had enough of the cosy relationship with the developers and builders. The authorities now need to stand up to the private car users and provide a proper public transport service.

Porkies

The image above is Irish chicken filets purchased from Tesco. Proud to be Irish. Indeed, 100% Irish. No problem with chickens, then.

The image below is Irish pork purchased from Lidl. Proud to be Irish? Not on your nanny. Enter a little trace of toxin and suddenly the Irish pork has a new passport. The meat is revealed as not Irish at all.



And lest you think I have it in for Lidl, here's an Olhausen's packet of sausages. The primary label proclaims the firm to be "Irish since 1896" so you might expect Irish pork. But the subsequent label makes it quite clear the product is "Non-Irish Origin".



And this despite the folksy reverse label.



I'm thinking of starting a new movement called Toxins for Truth. Any takers?

Sick transit

I took this shot in April 1966 when the ICMSA were protesting outside the Irish Parliament in Kildare Street, Dublin.

The protest was illegal because it was being held in close proximity to Leinster House (the national parliament building). Almost 200 ICMSA members were arrested in the course of the picket.

I passed the way again this week. The ICMSA picketers had been replaced by a crowd of IFA sheep, who were happily bleating away under the watchful eyes of their shepherds and of the Garda.

An arresting sight indeed, but nary an arrest in sight.

Now there's progress for you!

UK Paper of Record

I don't really want to get into the argument between Sarah Carey (Irish Times, formerly The Times) and Frank Fitzgibbon (The Times) over the relative biases of the two papers in the Lisbon Treaty campaign.

I have criticised falling standards in the Irish Paper of Record in a recent post. I would now like to make a critical remark about the Irish online edition of the UK Paper of Record.

Having read Frank Fitzgibbon's apologia online I wanted to make a comment. I duly filled up the comment box, including all the required fields (a number of times). The online acknowledgement consisted of the following:


Indeed. No doubt The Times, being what it is, is inundated with comments. Imagine my surprise when I then saw that only three comments on the piece were reflected online:


I wonder how many comments does this suggest were spiked?

Over to you Frank.

Smokers die younger

I was waiting for a DART in Westland Row (sorry Pearse) Station the other day when I spotted this sign.

Now, I am sure this is a sign of the concern Iarnród Éireann has for its nicotene addicted passengers. And you have to admit that it is pretty ingenious.

Westland Row Station has a roof over it and is, no doubt, classified as an enclosed space under the No Smoking Act. So the company remind you that, if you go right to the eastern extremity of the platform, you can smoke with legal impunity, be it basking in the summer sun or suffering a wet brass monkey freeze in mid-Winter.

So it's a toss up between accelerated cancer or pneumonia?

It just brought home to me how the life expectancy of the smoker has been curtailed, throughout the country, in the interest of prolonging that of the non-smoker. I hope the non-smokers among us appreciate Minister Martin's trade-off and light the odd candle next-door for our still smoking brothers and sisters.

Remembrance

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd wear a poppy.

I was brought up on an attitude that is totally incomprehensible to the population of the island of Britain: that the poppy is a potent current political symbol and not simply a record of a contribution to a benevolent ex-service persons' fund.

I refused to buy a poppy from an armed British soldier on the Strabane/Lifford bridge in the 1970s.

I recently started tracing my family history and discovered the full story behind my uncle John's death on the Somme in September 1916. He lost his life in an ill-advised offensive, which, while it succeeded, involved an enormous and unecessary loss of life. The local commander was subsequently scapegoated for an operation he advised against. His judgment was not vindicated until seven years after his death. A complete SNAFU.

So, this year, I decided to wear a poppy, for two reasons. To commemorate my uncle and to reclaim this potent symbol from the Northern Unionists who had politicised it down the years.

Funny enough, my first problem was to find a poppy in Dublin. I eventually tracked down a source to the British Legion in South Frederick Street. Protestant friends have since told me that they are available in some Protestant churches. This is an interesting comment in itself on the current state of Irish society.

Then came the act of wearing it. I have to admit I was very uncomfortable wearing a poppy. I felt very acutely the "fault lines" in my ancestry. My attitude was very self-consciously defensive.

The experience was, neveretheless, an interesting one. I experienced no hostility. Quite the contrary, many of the people who raised the issue with me were completely in sympathy with the statement I was making. Some of them even said they wished they had the courage to wear one themselves.

If Mary McAleese can bring the WWI dead, and the survivors, down from the attic into the light of day, then this is clearly a cause worth supporting.

Jack Charlton reclaimed the tricolour from the Provos. Let us reclaim the poppy from those who politicised it.

No, I do not support the war in Iraq. Yes, I abhor the excesses of the British Army in Northern Ireland. But I'm damned if I am going to dump this guilt posthumously on my uncle.

For a sane view see Canon Comerford. And for background see Wiki

Walk & Talk

Dublin City Council has been making efforts in recent years to relate better to the people of the city. In some cases, such as involving the local population in the regeneration of the Liberties, the jury is still out. In others, such as the extension of the range of local library services to include wifi and access to digital newspaper and maps archives, the benefits are already being delivered and the range of services is being expanded all the time.

One interesting innovation which seems to be catching on is the Walk & Talk series of guided city walks which introduce the city's inhabitants to a wide range of scenery, cityscapes and history.

One element of this programme is entitled "New Shores - Ancient Footprints" and it aims to introduce Dubliners to the contribution to the city's life of communities originating from abroad. Numbers on the two walks to date in this series were way above expectations.

New Shores - Ancient Footprints


The first walk in this series explored Jewish Dublin. This covered "Little Jerusalem", including the Jewish museum, and culminated in a presentation in Taylor's Hall which reminded us of the particular Jewish contribution to both the Mansion and Leinster Houses, and to industry, commerce, financial services, literature and the fine arts.

---

The second walk in the series explored the Italian contribution, ranging from architecture through the ages to the ubiquitous fish and chippers. Some other tenuous links were thrown in as the walk wended its way from Parnell Square to City Hall where connections from Bianconi to Marconi were highlighted and the sound of Italian opera filled the marble foyer.

One fascinating link on the outdoor part of the walk was the Dublin version of Leonardo's last supper in the centre of the new Italian quarter on the north bank of the Liffey at the Millennium Bridge.

This community was also able to lay claim to a Lord Mayor of Dublin.

---

Historical Walks



There is also a series of historical walks based around particular areas of the city. The one illustrated above covered the Phoenix Park (part) and the Irish National War Memorial Gardens. The tour included the Wellington Monument, dedicated to a man who was embarrassed by his Irish origins, and the Memorial Garden, which commemorated those who gave their lives for their country in WWI.

---

You can keep up to date with the full programme of walks here.

Room @ the Inn

In 2001 the then Fianna Fáil Government extended universal (non-means tested) entitlement to the medical card (a passport to free health care) to all those over 70 years of age.

It was an expensive concession. It was announced before it was firmed up with the doctors who subsequently held the Government over a barrel and extracted maximum fees for their participation. Many of the doctors saw this as a legitimate redressing of the inadequate fees being paid for the treatment of the bulk of their existing medical card patients.

In its recent undignified scramble to balance the recessionary books, the Government, inter alia, withdrew this universal entitlement and subjected it to a means test equivalent to that for other social welfare benefits. This was a breach of trust for the many over 70s who had made life decisions in good faith based on the future availability of this facility.

The over 70s erupted with such vehemence that the Government went into a tail spin. Deputies saw their Dáil seats at risk, county councillors ran for cover. The Government bled and came up with a succession of elastoplast revisions of qualifying thresholds which they claimed now only excluded 5% of the over 70s from benefit.

A negligible saving then, as many of this 5% would not have claimed the card in the first place. So why not simply abandon this proposal which was a major breach of faith with one of the more vulnerable segments of the population. Pride and stubborness and a finger in the dyke. Weakness here could unravel the budget.

Pensioners took to the streets and jammed the switchboards of radio talk-shows in an unprecedented outburst of frustrated anger. They travelled from all parts of the country (free in many cases) to face down the Dublin Government. And they had an effect, even if this was limited to what was required in the short term to buy off the votes of those TDs necessary to scrape the measure through parliament.

So why have I a photo of a church at the head of this post?

Well, the hotel where the pensioners were to assemble was not big enough to accommodate the vast crowd that arrived.

Parish Administrator, Fr. John Gilligan, seeing so many elderly and infirm people overflowing into the street in cold weather, made a snap decision and offered St. Andrew's Church, Westland Row, to house the meeting.

He had the foresight to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the church to forestall any likely criticism. This criticism was subsequently directed at the misuse of a sacred place for secular/political purposes, the "unrestrained" anger of the old folk, and the denial of the right to speak to a junior Government minister who arrived to plead the Government's "case". None of which criticism is worthy of comment.

Remember the Good Samaritan. Remember who Christ threw out of the Temple. Remember his anger.

No mere stable for the old folks this time round, full accommodation at the inn.

Not exactly liberation theology, but socially progressive, nevertheless. This is a city centre parish and it does date from the time of Catholic Emancipation.

To paraphrase another person, I am very glad to see this church, which poured water over me and called me names, and in which I have not been since, put to another constructive use. Long may it continue.

Blogging against Poverty

Last year we were blogging for the environment. This year it is against poverty. I would still take as my starting point my post of last year.

There I concentrated on the perverse incentives that were built into our economic system which needed to be corrected in order to protect the environment in the long term.

This year we have seen that similar perverse incentives are built into our financial system and are likely to lead to increased poverty for many all over the world. And these incentives have left a hoard of "top layer" financiers walking away with the family jewels while others sink into poverty, or deeper into poverty.

In the longer term, the distiction between the policies required to ensure the elimination, or minimisation, of poverty, the protection of the environment, and the pursuit of happiness all merge. The world is a seamless garment.

JFK hinted at this in his acceptance speech and the world forgot. As long as "I'm alright Jack" nobody wants to, or has the courage, to tackle the downside.

The net effect is a complete loss of confidence in the current economic and political system. Citizen loyalty is taken for granted and abused until it is too late and it is finally realised that this loyalty is an essential element in the system.

The motto of Dublin City Council (Corporation) has long echoed this sentiment: Obedientia civium urbis felicitas; which roughly translates as "the joy of a city is the obedience of its citizens". You could take this cynically, but at your peril. All systems of governance ultimately depend on the endorsement of a majority of those subject to them.

This implies that the system should be fair to all (or most) and not allow plunder by a few opportunists. This has been lost sight of, not only at national, but at world level.

A recent example would be the USA when the Iron Curtain fell. A form of capitalism was then exported from the USA to the USSR, for which it was unprepared, and vast numbers of citizens suffered while resources were looted by the oligarchs.

A more immediate example would be the current financial system meltdown, where a few of the pirates managed to abandon ship with the loot, while the rest of the crew stared into a watery grave.

There is now an unanswerable case for more democratic control of world systems, greater transparency and more rigorous regulation.

It's back to the often despised "social market economy".

Many a slip 'twixt cup and lip

I passed by the offices of the (Irish) Instute of International and European Affairs, in North Great George's Street, this morning and some little thing caught my eye.

I went back for a look and saw that some concerned citizen had removed a banana skin from the footpath and placed it harmlessly on the base of the railings.


Would that an equally concerned Government had spotted such a skin before the Lisbon referendum and quarantined it as efficiently.

Hardly a First

Irish Times, 19 April 1952

When, in 1952, a rumor was spread through Dublin by an afternoon newspaper that the Irish National Teachers' Organization, the chief teachers' union, was beginning to think about the possibility of a public-school system for Ireland, the general secretary of that organization published an anxious denial, which the Irish Times embodied in a headline worthy of the New Yorker: "NO SUGGESTION OF NATIONALISING THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS." (The only adequate parallel I know is a banner displayed in a Dublin street during the 1932 Eucharistic Congress: "GOD BLESS THE TRINITY.")

Paul Blanshard in The Irish and Catholic Power (1953)

And now, 55 years later the same Irish Times can tell us:

First State-run primary schools to open today

Better late than never, I suppose. I think, however, I would take issue with the Irish Times in crediting this as a first. Surely the model schools were national schools run by the State. The fact that they were few and far between and unlikely to multiply is beside the point.

I have explained some of the background to Blanshard's book and how it came into my life on my site and my reaction to a more recent reread in an earlier post.

Encore Sarko

This is the French Embassy Residence, in Ailesbury Road, Dublin, where today (21/7/08), President Sarkozy met NO campaigners and some of the social partners.

He stressed that he had not said the Irish should have another referendum. He is also quoted today as saying "I said that at some stage or another the Irish had to be given the opportunity to give their opinion" and "perhaps I can help Brian out of it because this is precisely the difficulty that I was up against in my own country".

These statements may seem contradictory but on closer analysis they add up to this.

A referendum is not a suitable means of ascertaining the people's wishes on such a complex issue. My predecessor, for reasons of his own, put the issue to the French people and they said NO. I, on the other hand, have obtained the consent of the French parliament. Parliament has been elected by the people. Therefore, this time round, the French people have said YES.

The implicit advice is therefore to take the matter out of the direct hands of the people and let their representatives decide.

There are, however, two particular considerations in the Irish case. At the end of the day it is up to the Supreme Court to decide if a referendum is needed on the specific content of the current, or a modified, Lisbon Treaty, and it is not clear what their view would be. Also, having said NO once, and given the practice of deciding these matters by referenda, a practice introduced at the behest of the Supreme Court originally, the Irish people might not be too happy to accept the delegation of the choice in this matter to their elected representatives.

Indeed, these representatives might be very hesitant to take on the responsibility of saying YES on behalf of a reluctant populace, if they want to stay elected next time round. It could certainly make for a very interesting next general election.


Despite all the talk, the matter was clearly not solved today, nor is it expected to be during the current French EU presidency.

Perhaps that is why the EU flag was still flying upside down in front of the Embassy residence long after Sarko had departed.

Previous posts:
Les pieds dans le plat
La Poupée qui Fait Non
27-1=0
Lispin Liospóin

Les pieds dans le plat

Here we go again. You can't get away from it.

"Ye did the wrong thing and it needs righting."

And his forthcoming visit is shortening by the hour to the loud sound of closing doors.

For a louder sound yet check out the inauguration of the ultimate anti-French device.

This one has been around for over 200 years and seems to have proved effective first time round.

Last Chance Saloon

Readers of this blog will know by now that I have a soft spot for St. Andrew's church in Westland Row, in the centre of Dublin city. After all, this is where, at a very tender age, I first joined the Mystical Body.

Readers will also know that there is wide international interest in this church and that I have responded to this interest by uploading some pictures of St. Andrew himself on his lofty perch.

Well, I passed the church again today and saw the sign in the above photo.

"Aha", I thought, "the universal church has seen the error of its ways in allowing that scurrilous rag ALIVE to engineer the rejection of the Lisbon treaty and it is now praying to the Lord to give the people of Ireland a second bite at the cherry. Not only that, it is invoking the biggest gun in the church's armoury, the mass, to this end."

So I decided to call into the parish office to test my divine theory. Imagine my surprise, and disappointment, to be told that these masses were a regular fortnightly occurrence and were simply a chance for those who had left the church to return to the fold.

So be warned - this is your last chance to square up your account before you are run over by the proverbial bus.

"Rubbish", I hear you think, "In this gridlocked city? No chance!"

But beware the QBC. Bus Átha Cliath are way ahead of you on this one.

27 - 1 = 0

It's just as well an upside down tricolour (the normal distress mode) is not noticeable. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the EU flag!

What was the Lisbon Treaty?
It was essentially housekeeping to allow the Union to function effectively with 27 Member States. However, it also involved some changes which were significant enough for the Government to opt for a constitutional amendment in Ireland.

     Significant changes

• rotation of Commissioners
  
• voting base/shares in Council
  
• move to QMV (integration of 2nd & 3rd pillars)
  
• new procedure for amending the Treaty
  
• incorporation of Human Rights Charter
  
• strengthening of EU's legal personality
  

    Not in Treaty

• abortion
  
• direct tax harmonisation
  
• mutual defence pact overriding "neutrality"
  
• conscription
  
• undermining of minimum wage
  

Who is to blame for Ireland's NO

Successive governments since 1972 who presented the EU as essentially a cash cow - from Paddy Hillery's "de CAP and de LONG RUNS" to de Nortside Teeshocks "LOONEYS 'N' LOO LAHS". It was too much of an effort (intellectually and otherwise) to communicate the broader motivation behind the project: prevention of war; more rational use of resources at a European level; counterweight to the USA; spread of democracy and rule of law within and without the Union (eg by promise of membership to the east), etc.

No surprise then that when a new Treaty doesn't bring more cash, and when we are turning into a net contributor rather than a net beneficiary, the people have no further use for the project.

The EU is frequently blamed for unpopular government decisions, instead of the rationale for the decision and its place in the overall project being put forward. We have, explicitly or implicitly, had a hand in every decision taken since we joined and it is irresponsible, and counterproductive in the longer term, to "blame" others. This contributes to the "them foreigners and us Irish" attitude which led to such posters as "No to Foreign Control" during the campaign being taken seriously. Divil the bit of "pooled sovereignty" in evidence when we're giving out about EU decisions!

There has surely been a serious "democratic deficit" in Ireland's involvement with the Union but most of this has been within the country and under our own control. In Council negotiations, for example, the Danes have for years been entering "scrutiny reserves" - these effectively meant that they were witholding consent to whatever proposal was on the table until they (government and parliament) had a chance to digest it and come to a considered view on it.

The Treaty was actually tackling what remained of a "democratic deficit" at the European level.

The YES campaign started too late. Instead of presenting a negotiating triumph to the public and forcing the opposition to challenge it, they let the opposition sow the seeds, largely unhindered, and were then on the backfoot defending the invisible.

The YES parties did not get the vote out. Much of the NO vote was, no doubt, an informed NO, but there were a lot of people who voted NO on the basis that they did not understand what was involved and were not prepared to commit to the unknown. The lackluster and defensive campaign of the YES side, combined with the usual complacency, meant that many of the potential YES voters stayed at home. Some voters stayed at home on the basis that the issues had not been sufficiently explained to enable an informed decision to be made. One of my intelligent relations fell into this category.

Other leaders across the EU who showed, or were reported without challenge as showing, their utter contempt for the democratic process, boasting of the obscurity of what was being put to the people, and, in some cases implicitly criticising the Irish decision to put the matter to a referendum.

All the elites for their complacency about Europe and their craven obeisance to an increasingly paranoid and immoral USA. The EU was supposed to be a counterweight to the USA in more than just economic terms but it seems to be knuckling under to the wilder demands of the current neo-con régime.

The actual loonies and loo lahs who blatantly lied their way through the campaign in a way reminiscent of the red scare tactics of the establishment in my youth.

At the beginning of the campaign I had more or less made up my mind to vote NO based on a sense of outrage at the sometimes dismissive and sometimes threatening attitude of those who would be leading us under this project if passed. On reflection, having read up on the Treaty (to a certain point), and given my broader empathy with the European project, I decided that voting NO would be cutting off my nose to spite my face so I voted YES.

There is an arrogance at the heart of the project which needs to be fought from within. It should not, however, put us off a project which is worthy in itself.

What are the consequences of the NO vote?

    for Europe

If matters remain as they are now, the project, in the longer term, stands a good chance of paralysis and increasing acrimony and even disintegration. It is worth remembering here that the gap between the elites and those they represent is widespread throughout the community. The French and the Dutch rejected the constitution. Other countries are not having referendums on the Treaty but the opinion polls do indicate a significant gap.

Alternatively, and most likely, some form of enhanced cooperation between the willing will emerge and the project will inch forward with Ireland on the sideline.

    for Ireland

However much we may try to console ourselves that we took a stand against the behemoth in the interest of the small folk, any political capital we had accumulated in Brussels, and further eastwards, and there was a lot, is now gone and we are likely to be increasingly effectively marginalised.

The rules as written will be observed, but as we often point out ourselves when boasting about how we punch above our weight, the real world also works on influence and alliances. We may now see that more clearly in operation from the outside. We have effectively deprived our oft lauded diplomats of that edge which they have used so well up to now on our behalf.

One of the first causes to suffer will be the ridiculous Irish language project which I have commented on earlier. This depended on goodwill, not only from the Commission, but from all the Member States. Stádas will now simply become Stad, cut off in its primeval prime.

This will likely be the least of our worries, however. The Government are now being sent back by the people to Brussels to "renegotiate a more favourable Treaty". It is hard to see how this can be done when all our concerns were actually covered in the one we have just rejected.

This is more than the rejection of a single treaty. It is a flock of political chickens coming home to roost.

I am reminded of an ancient German proverb which I was introduced to in the 1960s when we were still knocking at the door of the Common Market trying to get in. My failing recollection and ungrammatical German renders it thus:

Das Leben ist wie eine Hühnerleiter, kurz und beschissen.

Time to fly the coop!

Gulliver remembered

It's not exactly street sculpture but these roundels set high in the walls of some newly constructed public housing on the corner of Bride St. and Golden Lane, depict scenes from Gulliver's Travels, and preserve the link between this area and Jonathan Swift who was dean of the nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral.










Elegant public housing on the
corner of Bride St. and Golden Lane.

Old Troupers

This is another tasteful piece of Dublin street scupture, albeit a lift from Hollywood.

There are clearly a lot of old troupers missing. But then you have to get them while they are still alive.

Maureen, John B and Luciano have died since and, of course, characters like Jimmy O'Dea never stood a chance as they left us aeons ago.












Update 14/01/09

Towards a New Theocracy?

Catholic Ireland's dead and gone,
it's with John Charles in the grave.

I have just finished reading two books.

The first is a book I read in college many years ago. It was a sort of a banned book. You needed a licence to read it (yes, in a university — a Catholic university, that is). It was called "The Irish and Catholic Power" and was an intellectual "Catholic Irish for Dummies".

It was written by Paul Blanshard, partly in response to an assertion that the Ireland of its day represented the perfect marriage between the civil power and the Roman Catholic Church, and partly as a means of explaining their Irish Catholic heritage to Irish Catholic Americans.

For those of us brought up in the repressive and closed atmosphere of Ireland in the fifties and early sixties, it was a shocking read, and while I found it an education, I was not impressed by what I took to the be the author's style of bitter diatribe.

On a recent re-read I was, on the contrary, very taken with its restrained presentation and the academic robustness of its argument.

And the banning? Well the book was available in the University library but was kept in a special location and to get hold of it you needed a letter from your tutor stating your "bona fide" reasons for needing to consult it as part of your studies. Thank you Maurice Manning.

Incidentally, the copy I acquired recently originally belonged to the library of the Southern State Teachers College, Springfield, South Dakota. They seem to have acquired it in 1955 and it was in circulation (once every few years) until 1975 when it appears to have been withdrawn. Whether this was from lack of sufficient demand to warrant the storage space or whether there was any other ulterior motive involved I don't know. That institution has since been assimilated into the University of South Dakota, but enquiries to that source have so far elicited no response.

The second book is a biography of "John Charles McQuaid - Ruler of Catholic Ireland". John Charles was Archbishop (RC) of Dublin from 1940 to 1972 and by far the most influential Irish churchman in this period as he strove, by hook or by crook, to mould Irish society to his image of Christian living. It is written by John Cooney, a former religious correspondent with the Irish Times. It draws extensively on the recently released papers of John Charles himself. It is a gripping read, at least for those of us who lived through this period, and you can sense the author just barely keeping his temper in check throughout the book.

I did not set out to read these two books together. I decided recently to try and get a copy of Blanshard and re-read it to see what would be my reaction from the perspective of today when so much has moved on and so much has stayed the same. Then a priest cousin of mine, who was reading Cooney's book, expressed surprise at how all-pervasive had been John Charles's control of Irish society during his Archbishopric.

Reading these two books close to one another really brought me back to the fifties and sixties. You can very easily forget how repressive things were then, particularly as we have now swung, probably a bit too far, in the opposite direction.

The Nation

To understand the background, you must remember that the Irish, or at least a certain influential proportion of them, have long considered themselves an oppressed race and most, if not all, of their woes and deficiencies were the fault of the English oppressors. Being the first country to achieve independence from within the British Empire (1921) was no mean feat and shaped the Irish psyche from then on. That this independence was intially only partial and that it provoked a bitter civil war is neither here nor there. The main point is that we were newly independent and the psyche was delicate and prone to paranoia.

The second thing to remember is the role of the Catholic Church in all of this. While the institutional church frequently condemned Irish rebels to hellfire, particularly if it saw them as a threat to its own position, the church on the ground was, more often than not, sympathetic to the rebels and at times even led the revolution. So there was a strong identity, and coincidence of interests, between nationalism and catholicism.

No surprise then that the State, when set up, was Irish and Catholic. What is surprising is the extent to which these two strands were interwoven, the repressive and stunting effect this had on Irish society and the self confidence of the nation, and the ruthlessness with which the Catholic Church set out to exterminate all other religions and enshrine Catholic teaching in the law of the land.

You can't help thinking "Sharia" as you read these books and you would have to admire the sheer diabolical efficiency of the Church which succeeded, for a considerable period, in moulding Irish society to the dictates of Rome and the "informed" Catholic conscience. I have already touched on this theme in an earlier post.

These books are recommended reading for all budding Ayatollahs. This is how it's done lads.

The Protestants

What really shocked me on reading these books from today's perspective was the sheer ruthlessness with which John Charles set about exterminating the Protestants. That this extermination was of the religion rather than the people themselves makes the word no less appropriate. Protestants were, after all, heretics, mired in subversive error and a blot on the nation's newly polished escutcheon. You (me, a Catholic) were almost not allowed to talk to them for fear they would contaminate your faith. You were forbidden, on pain of mortal sin (eternal hellfire), to debate religion with them (except to convert them and then you needed another licence), or to enter their churches, or to attend their services (including your next door neighbour's funeral). Like the state in the final triumphant phase of communism they were supposed to wither away, and wither away most of them did. Had they been ethnics this would have been ethnic cleansing on a grand scale. And don't mention the Jews. Having crucified Christ what could they hope for from this new theocratic state?


The Catholics

Some Catholics stood out against this. For the most part these were literary people and were banned, and banned again, for their trouble. John Charles was effectively a co-author of the 1937 Constitution though he did not always get his way and on occasions de Valera either ignored him or defused his point with a gesture. But, make no mistake, this was a Catholic Constitution for a Catholic people. It enshrined the "special position of the Catholic Church" in what may have been intended as a gesture with no legal effect, but this provision informed the way people thought and, sometimes, the way the law was applied.

Most Catholic's, went along with this. Some out of fear, others from conviction. One institution which shamefully proved to be the handmaiden of the Archbishop, or as we would say today the Archbishop's poodle, was the University. No, not Trinity College, with its charter from an English queen, the bastion of Protestant proselytism in Ireland. Yes, University College Dublin, where you needed a licence to read Blanshard, where Noël Browne was banned from speaking, and where most of the chaplains and the philosophy professors were spies for the Archbishop.

A particularly close eye was kept on the L&H (the Literary and Historical Society) which was a major potential subversion spot in the intellectual and religious life of the capital. Speakers were regularly banned at the common behest of Palace and President.

In looking back now, I am a bit surprised that my own contribution in 1967 passed divine muster, or maybe it was that nobody knew who I was, nobody had seen the script, and the influence of the Palace was on the wane - though John Charles was nominally in charge up to 1971. His influence at this stage was diminishing and in the light of the nation's gradual coming to terms with the changes following Vatican II, he was probably proving an embarrassment to his colleagues. Still, it is nice in retrospect to have gotten in while the shutters were still down.

Tomorrow

Taken together these two books evoke an era which is way beyond the ken of today's younger generation. Try and explain it to them and they would think you were off your head.

It would be nice to forget all about this aberrant era but, unfortunately, there are signs it may not have entirely gone away. The gradual backsliding from the enlightenment of Vatican II, combined with the perceived challenge of Islam, may yet see a resurgence of the theocratic state.

If you find the above depressing, or beyond your ken, go here and have some fun, at the church's expense.

Editor's 50th Anniversary

My cousin, Fr. Gerry, sent me a cutting he found in family papers which reminded me that it is now 50 years since I edited the Shanganagh Valley News in Ballybrack.

The paper was short-lived but served a useful function in the community and was very popular. In addition to its many features, it carried local news snippets and sports results. It had a worldwide circulation as people sent it to family members who had emigrated, in order to keep them posted on the latest happenings at home.

You can get a flavour of it on my website.

Shoots, Leaves and Branches

It's time again to report progress on growing the family tree. I have been solidly hacking at it now for almost two years and am amazed and fascinated by what has emerged in that time.

I was relatively (no pun intended) ignorant when I started out. I had met some family members and had bits of paper and photos relating to others, but in the overall I was very vague on the whole thing. I now know a lot more about the family, including more about the members of some of the far flung branches than they know themselves. Tricky that.

There are now over 500 people, between living and dead, entered in the tree. At some points it spans 9 generations and the earliest births are around 1800. I should really be concentrating on going back further, at least as far as my own ancestors are concerned, but I have found so much fascinating material on the way that I have allowed myself to be seduced into filling out the blanks on those I have already discovered, and moving sideways rather than backwards as my curiosity about some of these people is aroused.

Occurrences
In the tree generally, and not confined strictly to ancestors, I have 3 drownings, 4 generations of coopers (5 coopers in all), 4 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, 3 British Army (including one who died on the Somme in WWI), and for balance one rebel sentenced to death by the British, commuted to 15 years penal servitude, released within months on the signing of the Treaty, took up arms against the new Irish Government and spent most of the rest of his life interned by his own.

I have 3 native Irish speaking ancestors.

The tree now covers 18 of the 26 counties and among the 70 separate occupations identified so far some of the more esoteric are: Attorney General, Alderman, Blacksmith, Barman, Dance Instructor, Detective, Fireman (railway steam engine), Lock-keeper (Grand Canal), Neurosurgeon, Pawnbroker, Royalette (Theatre Royal dancing chorus), Signalman (railway), Timekeeper (?), TD (Member of Irish Parliament) and Silkweaver.

Some deaths are memorable: in one case a mother and two daughters-in-law died from the same kidney complaint which can be caused, inter alia, by mercury poisoning; in another case the death certificate records the cause of death of an 89 year old female ancestor as old age - without dementia. I'd say she gave the Lord a run for his money when she turned up on his doorstep.

I have also met family members I didn't know I had. One of these found me when he put his Granny's name into Google and got one hit - my website, where his past was all laid out before him, like one of those TV chefs taking a dish out of the oven which they just happen to have put in earlier.

Background
Pursuing the tree has given me an interest in subjects which passed me by in the past:

• the functions and history of Dublin Corporation (now Dublin City Council). The Council has a long and chequered history, including in relation to the national struggle, and I had an Alderman relation on the Council during some of its most turbulent years in the early 20th Century, when it was even abolished for a number of years.
  
  
• the history and geography of Dublin city. This includes urban planning in general and, in particular, water supply and sewerage systems in which James's St. was central for a period. There are plans underway for regenerating the Liberties, including the old harbour and basin area behind James's St. and I have been following, and participating in, the recent the planning consultations for this project.
  
• Guinness has been a significant player in the development of not only the area around James's St., but of Dublin in general as far as employee social welfare and housing were concerned. The company has opened its personnel archive to interested parties and I have got the employee records of three out of the five coopers so far.
  
• the RIC, while operating as a native police force, was also the ears, eyes and arms of the Crown and many of its members found themselves in tricky situations as a result.
  
• WWI had more or less passed me by until I found that an uncle had died in a botched operation on the Somme and a grand uncle, while injured, had survived the war and returned to hard times in Dublin.
  
• Catholic Emancipation more or less passed me by in the history class in school, but in real life it may well have opened up opportunities for my ancestors and their relations and I can't get away from Glasnevin cemetery (the dead centre of Dublin) where many of my relatives are buried. Daniel O'Connell got this non-denominational cemetery established to facilitate Catholics (mainly) who were subject to a certain amount of harassment at funerals to Established Church graveyards.
  
• my faith in the Divine Database has unfortunately been shattered by this exercise. The system where you had to produce a recently issued baptism cert to get married and where the marriage was then entered on the original baptism register, looked, on the face of it, like a beautifully closed system which protected against bigamy. However, when you factored in human behaviour the system proved to be full of holes. Pity, it looked great on paper, so to speak.
  
• I have also learned the irrelevance of administrative boundaries when it comes to settlement. People may get very attached to their county football team, and you may be lucky to live under a County Council which provides a better service than others, but when you are tracing back family origins and attempting to disentangle the cousins from one another, such boundries are irrelevant. For example, East Limerick and North Tipperary are all the one, genealogically speaking, and it is sometimes not even clear which county a particular village is in, or at least to which it owes its primary allegiance.
  

Techniques
The exercise has also put pressure on my own technical competence, in a very constructive way:

• I can be a bit scattered so I was using a free family tree computer programme to store, manipulate and report my findings. I was getting so much material and my ambitions for presenting it were increasing at such a rate that I invested in a more advanced programme which is great but where I am still on a sharp learning curve.
  
• I have always enjoyed taking photos and this venture has put me, my new digital camera, and my photo processing package through our paces.
  
• I originally put up a page on my website to carry family material and this has now grown to over half the site. I can practically talk HTML in my sleep at this stage, but the presentation of the material still continues to be challenging and puts pressure on me to master new techniques. I have also enlisted the help of Feedblitz which emails interested parties when I update the site, and have managed to tweak the system so as not to send out alerts for trivial updates.
  
• and finally, the most recent technical addition to my armoury - Google maps. I had intended, from the beginning, producing a map showing the geographical spread of the family, particularly in Dublin city itself. However, hardcopy versions become quickly outdated and are not scaleable. Enter Google maps and a little bit of code-nicking and hey presto!
  

Sources
I have had great fun following up sources and squeezing them dry. I exaggerate - so far I have only creamed the surface. I have pored over indexes of births, deaths and marriages and then over the certs themselves. I have read wills that would make you weep. I have visited graves that would bring tears to your eyes, both of sadness and anger, and sometimes even a wry smile. I have got eyestrain from the small and often fudgy print in newspapers, not to mention the microfilm version of them. I have cursed the sloppy digital archiving of newspapers and despaired at the wanton destruction of housing rent records and photo-archives. I have enjoyed picking up on oral history from family members, both old and new. And I look forward to the promised unveiling of the 1911 Census (Dublin) online in the next few days.

You can catch up on all of this, as well as staying in touch with future developments, here.

More of St. Andrew

Another view for afficionados of St. Andrew atop Westland Row Church.

And a reminder that my original question has not yet been answered.

POSTSCRIPT: My question on the DOM inscription above the church has now been answered. The terms "beatus" (blessed) and "sanctus" (holy) are used interchangeably in this context and not in the sense of "blessed" as a stage in the progress to sainthood as used elsewhere. Thanks to JO'B for this clarification.

Another Irish Solution

I have blogged on Irish Solutions before and I couldn't resist adding this very current one.

At present there are some 400,000 drivers in Ireland on provisional licences. This means they have either not taken or have failed a driving test.

Those on their 1st, 3rd and later provisional licences are supposed to be accompanied at all times by a fully licenced driver. The exception for 2nd Provisionals is presumably a concession to the big back log in driver testing.

The Minister has now announced a new régime which will effectively mean (i) enforcing the existing law for those currently on 1st, 3rd and later provisionals and (ii) introducing the accompaniment condition for those on 2nd provisionals - ALL AT A FEW DAYS NOTICE.

While the change is entirely logical and worthy of support, its abrupt introduction is unfair to many who depend on driving to get to work, or to ferry patients to hospital or children to school.

The authorities have to take some responsibility for allowing a situation to develop where there are 400,000 people driving around unaccompanied on provisional licences.

The current waiting time for a test is 6 months and expected to be down to 2 months by next March (ie in 5 month's time).The changes in the law, and in enforcement, should have been announced sufficiently in advance for all concerned to have had an opportunity to take the test after the announcement but before it came into effect. The deadline of days in this case is very much shorter than that offered to those who availed of the tax amnesty!

In response to the public backlash the Minister has now said the Gardaí will implement the changes with discretion. Another Irish solution to an Irish problem. The Government simply passes the buck to another institution. The more usual case is where the Government fails to legislate and cravenly leaves it to the courts to sort out the mess.

The present débacle puts the Gardaí in an impossible position. It's all very well being part of the solution, but ...

Nevertheless, it is just as well we live in a democracy and politicians have to have some regard to the views of the people. Imagine what they would be up to if they were left to their own devices!

A Prophet in his own land ...

In the course of my family history research, in Dublin's Coombe area this afternoon, I was trying to pin down the exact location of 15 Donore Avenue where Old Nick Fleming lived around 1898. I had it figured and was just about to take a photo when I noticed three tiny gurriers, who'd been trying to kick in a shuttered window, drift over in my direction.

One of them shouts at me

"Hey Mista, ya can't take photographs here".

"Feck off" sez I.

Then, "Go back to your own country!" yells another.

"My people were round here before you scutties were even thought of" sez I, followed by a menacing glance at which they scattered and from a safe distance they delivered a stream of standard Dublin invective:

"Speccy four eyes!", "F*** you!"

Irony or what?

Upsidedown World

As an economist I have long had an interest in the incentives for behavioural change which are built into the economic system. In fact much of the study of economics assumes the reactions of a "rational person" to these incentives.

When it comes to the environment the reactions are indeed rational but, unfortunately, the incentives are for the most part perverse.

How did we end up in this pot of poo?

When I first entered economics in the sixties there was a recognition that a large part of the resources on which we depend are finite and that, at some point, they would simply run out. Therefore, any system that encouraged over-consumption or waste of resources should be avoided or at least modified.

Hence the "polluter pays" principle which, for a brief period, looked like being adopted by all. The idea was simple. The use of non-replaceable resources, whether of raw materials for production or of the environment through pollution, should be priced into the system. The price of goods and services should reflect their true cost - which must include environmental. People's rational response to the new set of incentives would then also be in line with the long term interest of the planet. Like many of the blindingly obvious reforms proposed in the 1960s, this one was by and large ignored.

Reflect for one minute on the perversity of much current behaviour and the incentives that give rise to it and sustain it against all "reason".

The disposable culture

Today we fix almost nothing. If something stops working we throw it away and buy a new one. This is partly an attitude of mind, but it is more than that. Even if we wanted to fix things rather than throw them away we couldn't. In the first place they are not made to be fixed. Even the simple plug is now most likely to be moulded to its flex. And even if things were in some way fixable, to do so would not make economic sense as the price of the labour required would far outweigh the cost of a new product.

The problem is not really the high price of labour - higher wages are a benefit - but the cheapness of the replacement product. It is cheap because its price does not reflect its true cost of production. Furthermore, the true cost of the disposal of the broken product is not priced into the system.

Fuelling the flames

Fossil fuels is another area where we have got ourselves into trouble for lack of proper eco-pricing from the beginning.

As a result of the availability of relatively cheap fuels people have settled in places where they regularly have to commute long distances (usually by car and in some countries by conspicuous gas guzzlers). And we can't start resettling millions of people to live closer to their jobs, shopping centres and so on.

Also the availability of cheap power has enabled large numbers of people to live in what would otherwise have been inhospitable environments. Think of the resources required to air-condition Houston, Texas, for example.

And to cap it all, we are encouraging people, through cheaper and cheaper fares, to regularly fly long distances for holidays and even for shopping (!).

Jesus wept - or did he?

Many of these problems have developed from a lack of courageous leadership from politicians and the rewarding of short term greed.

Politicians were concerned with getting the votes of their existing constituents and the Churches were more concerned with saving souls than saving the planet.

Reverse gear

If we make the heroic assumption that it is not already too late and that we really do want to do something about it, what exactly should we do? What can we do? Well, first we need to change the rules.

Eco-pricing for everything. The real cost of the resources we consume must be reflected in the price we pay. This will mean the "free" market will support rather than act against our long-term interest. Up to now the market has not done this because we have not set the right rules for it.

This solution would involve massive cutbacks in "living standards" and massive redistribution of income within and between classes, countries and continents. But no more so than the eventual results of doing nothing. If we do nothing we face extinction.

Complementary action would involve

• cutting back demand for energy/resources (recycling, using public transport, shanks mare, woolley jumpers, buy local, stay at home)
• using alternative energy sources - renewables and, for all its problems, probably nuclear (though this option is probably only postponing the inevitable if the waste disposal problem is not solved)
• conscious redistribution of income to mitigate the effects on the (new) poor

The challenge is to get everyone on board in this effort. No one group is going to stick its head above the parapet. Hopefully today's Blog Action Day will help.

Otherwise, as they used to say in the "Guide in the event of a Nuclear Attack", put your head between your legs and ....

Bertie's Office

I was approaching Government Buildings, in Dublin, from Fitzwilliam Lane, when it struck me that I was seeing an unusual but interesting view of the buildings. There they were, in the distance, vying with the rear end of some Georgian buildings and the renovated entrails of the "back lane". They looked less imposing but more at home.


Anyway, it was a change from the usual view presented to the tourists where the front arch towers over you and the main building is safely ensconced behind its massive railings and automatic gates.

The building took 18 years to complete, from 1904 to 1922. The engineering college occupied the central domed section from 1911 and the complex was conveniently completed in 1922, just in time for the new Executive of an independent Ireland and several new Government Departments to move in.

It was originally intended that the wings of the building would house the existing British Government Departments of Agriculture and Local Government. The figures below the urns hold scrolls to this effect.

The buildings are now occupied by the Taoiseach's (Prime Minister's) Department in the centre section, the Department of Finance in "South Block" - the left wing as you face the building - and the Attorney General's Office in "North Block" on the right.

The centre section was extensively renovated in 1989-90, after the UCD College of Engineering moved out of town to the Belfield campus. You can catch up on the full story here

Rome Rule

Obedientia Civium
urbis felicitas
It may be very difficult for people today to undestand the symbiosis between the Irish Civil Authorities and the Roman Catholic Church in 1930s.

The image above, which shows the Lord Mayor of Dublin welcoming the Papal Legate to the city for the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, encapsulates it all for me.

Check out the Address of Homage which the same Lord Mayor presented to Pope Pius XI on behalf of the citizens of Dublin, the following year (1933) on the occasion of his visit to His Holiness. The extract below gives the flavour:

"Impelled by filial love, we, the members of the Dublin City Council, humbly prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, tender, through our Lord Mayor, the homage and the unalterable fidelity of the Citizens of Dublin to the Apostolic See."

and if that were not enough, the Lord Mayor, in a private audience with the Holy Father, and referring the Eucharistic Congress of the previous year, averred:

"that the Congress seems to have given to the poor and the unemployed fresh vigour and courage to bear with resignation their poverty and their trials, and thus bring them nearer to God, and to find in sorrow an instrument of attaining to the riches of eternal life."

How far from liberation theology can you get? Who were the Ayatollahs here? Is it any wonder that the Southern State scared the bejaysus out of our Northern Brethern.

By the way, I am not having a go at Alfie Byrne here. He was operating in a particular context, and it is the context that I want to illustrate.

Saoirse nó Daoirse

Tar éis na blianta blianta tá cuma ar an scéal go bhfuil stádas oifigiúil bainte amach ag an Ghaeilge, ní hamháin ina tír dúchasach féin ach san Aontas Eorpach freisin.

Mar sin féin, táthar ag gearán nach bhfuil Rialtas na hÉireann dáiríre faoi seo agus go bhfuil Coimisiún an Aontais ag gníomhú in aghaidh an stádais Eorpaigh céanna.

Is fiú breathnú ar cúpla firic bheag a léiríonn, domsa ar aon nós, cé chomh deacair, agus cé chomh dodhéanta is atá sé lán athbheochan na teanga a bhaint amach sa bhfad téarma.

1. Níl an Ghaeilge á húsáid mar ghnáth theanga laethúil ach ag mionramh an bheag de mhuintir na hÉireann. Agus fiú acu siúd féin bíonn réimsí den saol a chaitear trí mheán an Bhéarla. Féach ar thorthaí an staidéir is déanaí ar stad na Gaeilge agus na Gaeltachta mar léiriú ar seo.
   
2. Cé go bhfuil Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla anois i bhfeidhm tá sé soiléir go bhfuil fadhbanna trádála agus iomaíochta i gceist a léiríonn fíorchostas na hAthbheochana, agus níl sé pioc cinnte go bhfuil muintir na hÉireann sásta iad seo a íoc.
   
3. Ní ghá ach breathnú ar na comharthaí bóithre agus ar ainmneacha na sráideanna as Gaeilge agus tuigfidh tú nach raibh meas madra ag na hÚdaráis ar an dteanga le blianta fada anuas.
   

Tá éileamh saorga/oifigiúil á chothú i leith na Gaeilge trí Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla agus an stádas nua Eorpach. Cinnte cuirfidh sé seo roinnt jobanna ar fáil do Ghaelgeoirí, agus aistritheoirí mar mé féin ina measc, ach bainfidh sé de stádas iomaíoch gheilleagar na tíre.

Feachtas an Lae
Tá feachtas seafóideach ar siúl ag an nuachtán "Lá" ag cur i leith an Choimisiúin Eorpaigh go bhfuil sé i gcoinne na Gaeilge agus go bhfuil sé ag iarraí an bonn a bhaint de nua-stádas na teanga san AE. Ach smaoinigh, tá job dodhéanta tugtha don Choimisiún.

Nuair a bhí an Rialtas ag plé leis na hÚdaráis Eorpacha faoi stádas na Gaeilge, de réir mar a thuigim é, chuireadar ina luí ortha gur stádas fiortheoranta a bhéadh i gceist - roinnt míle leathanach den reachtaíocht reatha agus ateangaireacht chomhuaineach ag cruinnithe áirithe. Glacadh leis an stádas ar an mbonn seo agus rinneadh tasca an Choimisiúin a mhaoiniú dá réir.

Anois tá suíomh idirlín á éileamh - na mílte leathanach? - agus níl an Rialtas sásta, nó, níl sé d'acmhainn acu, an "acquis Communautaire" a aistriú iad féin.

Séard atá san acquis ná an reachtaíocht ar fad ar glacadh léithí ó thús an chomhargaidh. I 2002, b'ionann seo agus 70,000 leathanach d'Iris Oifitiúil an Chomhphobail maidir le reachtaíocht phríomhúil agus reachtaíocht thánaisteach. Caithfear a chur le seo thart ar 15,000 leathanach de bhreithiúnais na Cúirte Breithiúnais agus cá bhfios dúinn cad eile.

Conus is féidir reachtaíocht as Gaeilge, ag leasú reachtíocht phríomhúil agus tháinisteach, a phlé nó a fhoilsiú muna bhfuil an bhunreachtaíocht féin ar fáil as Gaeilge i dtosach báire?

In ainm Croim, an ag magadh atá muid? Tá an scéal seo ina mhéis cruthanta agus is deacair réiteach a shamhlú.

Ar aon nós, maidir le hiomaíocht eacnamaíoch na tíre, bréagnaíonn sé an seana mhanna "Éire Saor, Éire Gaelach" (sic). Is é is daoire a bheimíd dá bharr.

Agus san go léir ráite, b'fhéidir go mbéadh suim ag daoine ins na leathanaigh thíos, a bhaineann le cúrsaí na Gaeilge, ar an suíomh idirlín agam.

Deasmhumhain
Uaisle
Iarsmaoineamh
Is fearrde thú an deis
 
 

Phone Tapping

I was directed to Matt Blaze's blog by Ockham's Razor's posting of Security Bingo, which is a hoot in itself.

There is a lot of unsecured stuff out there and people can be very naive. The web is a jungle and it is full of hostile creatures. You should not venture out without your sun protection and your beekeepers netting and all the relevant anti-viral injections.

But it was not Matt's general material on security that caught my eye but his recent involvement in evaluating California's electronic voting machines. He effectively found a load of incompetent rubbish that needed to be reinvented from scratch. Apparently the code was so riddled with holes that you didn't even need someone with malicious intent to subvert the process; it was already compromised. And add to that the whole distributed hardware system and you're into serious primeval chaos.

It remains to be seen how successful California (and the rest of the USA) will be in bringing this renegade system to heel. In this context it was very disturbing to see our own Taoiseach ashamed of the pencil and paper method which has served us so well in the past, and which has, at least, some semblance of transparency and traceability so sadly lacking in the sophisto e-versions.

I'm all in favour of using computers where they take the drudgery out of repetitive tasks, or enhance our lives generally, but I would stop far short of endorsing something as being superior to the old methods just because it was electronic.

But what provoked me do this post was this reference of Matt's:

"I was at a conference recently where everyone was asked to recall their first moment of thinking "I rule!" over some technology. It's a surprisingly revealing question; experience the exhilaration of hacker empowerment at a sufficiently impressionable age and you're hooked forever. A disproportionately large fraction of the answers seemed to involve telephony. (Mine was when I discovered you could dial a phone by flashing the hookswitch. I think I was too young to have anyone to call, though)."

Forget your crack cocaine and your heroin. This was the sort of high you got when I was young and it was all positive. Part of the learning process!

He refers to "flashing the hookswitch" - for us is was simply "tapping the phone". Don't forget this was in the days of pulse and not tone dialing. And you really needed some concentration to tap the zeros - ten fast uninterrupted evenly spaced taps, or you had to start the whole process all over again. And you could make international calls. And if you pressed button B you might even get the previous idiot's uncollected refund.

If this sort of stuff turns you on check out this page.
 
 

Heddwch, Eisteddwch

I have been involved with the Welsh National Eisteddfod since the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. "Eisteddfod yr Arwisgiad" if I remember correctly.

The Prince had been invested in Caernarfon Castle and had discovered his "Welshness" for the occasion. He had undergone a Welsh cultural immersion course, prepared and serviced by the best in the Principality, which culminated in his making a speech in Welsh at the Investiture. Despite this promising start precious few words of Welsh have passed his lips since. Of 20 other speeches in Wales, only one has been fully in Welsh. The rest were in English, although of these 9 have a Welsh formulaic opening/closing.

Meanwhile, in 1969, the Free Wales Army were blowing things up, claiming a direct line of violent lineage from Saunders Lewis's example of the firing of Yr Ysgol Fomio in 1936.

The Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg) were painting out monolingual road signs, chaining themselves to TV masts, and, to all intents and purposes, "refusing to recognise the court" which was attempting to conduct its business in the Welsh heartland through the medium of English.

What is the Eisteddfod?
But back to the 1969 Eisteddfod. It was like an amalgam of the Oireachtas, a Fleadh Ceoil and the Spring Show all rolled into one. And all through the medium of Welsh. The buzz was enormous and the lines of the conflicts emerging within Wales were all reflected there: traditional welsh nationalists versus community/political activists; native welsh versus holiday-home tourists; linguistic purists versus a looser learner-embracing culture. Palpable excitement.

The Eisteddfod is a fantastic festival. It is a concentrated outpouring of Welshness over one week in August. It is the pinnacle of a vast range of cultural activity which goes on throughout the preceding year. You can get a flavour in my report of the Denbigh 2001 Eisteddfod on my site. This also references a number of partial updates to 2005.

Welsh Labour Party Funks it
It is ironic that the Welsh Labour Party decided not to have a stand at this years Eisteddfod. It was they who were first onto the field, and this long before political parties were allowed. Labour was then in Government and the Welsh Office (ie the then "local" branch of the UK administration) had an official stand on the field entitled "Llafur yng Nghymru". This was subtly translated in small print as "Manpower in Wales" but it was well understood by all to be the Labour Party in Wales.

Eisteddfod Website
The Eisteddfod itself has a website, which, despite a makeover this year, is still a bit chaotic and lacking in structure. While the webcams are very welcome - they allow those who can't quite make it there to see the show - the text-based aspects of the site seem to have deteriorated, and you have to go chasing BBC or Google news to see what is going on during the week. Attendance has been falling over the last few years and there is a strong case to be made for the festival making much greater use of technology to further the cause. The aim of the festival is to support Welsh culture and language and both physical attendance and virtual attendance on the web can contribute here.

Dillwyn's death
Dillwyn Miles has had a long and productive association with the Eisteddfod. He was for many years the Herald Bard, in a costume of his own design, and he has written what is effectively the public history of the Gorsedd of Bards (in English) and a series of personal reminiscences (in Welsh). He died this year, aged 91, just before Eisteddfod week.

Still only one female chair
The highlight of the 2001 Eisteddfod was the winning of the chair by Mererid Hopwood, the first woman ever to do so. Well, six years later she retains this distinction.

There are three competitions, the winners of which qualify to be candidates for Archdruid. These are the Chair and Crown, both for poetry, and the Prose Medal. The Crown has been won in the past by women, but only rarely, and this year's Prose Medal winner was a woman. But the number of women in the candidate pool is still very small and the prospect of a female Archdruid in the near future looks slim.

New Archdruid
A new Archdruid starts a three year term next year and has already been chosen. He is Dic Jones (Dic Yr Hendre) who won the chair as far back as 1966.

He also won the chair in 1976 but was disqualified over a technical conflict of interest. As a member of one of the local Eisteddfod committees, Dic did not qualify to enter the competition, but, as entries are adjudicated under pen names, this was not picked up until the last minute. The ensuing panic was a wonder to behold. But it all got sorted out in the end. Nevertheless Dic was held in bad odour for some time afterwards.

It is good to see him making Archdruid at this stage.


Results
The three principal literary competition results this year were as follows.

The Chair was won by T James Jones, who had won the Crown in 1986 and 1988. His brother Aled Gwyn won the Crown in 1995, while his other brother John Gwilym Jones won the chair in 1981.

His nephew Tudur Dylan Jones won the Crown this year, having won the Chair on two previous occasions. Clearly a unique family in the history of the Eisteddfod.

The Prose Medal was won by Mary Annes Payne who will now enter the pool of candidates for Archdruid.

None of this should give the impression that prizes are awarded lightly. One of the things that has impressed me about the Eisteddfod is that standards are maintained and where entries are not up to scratch no prize is awarded. Crowns and Chairs have been withheld over the years, much to the disappointment of attendees, not to mention the competitors. This year the Gold Medal for craftwork was withheld.

Further Links
Further Welsh material on my site.

The Dublin Welsh Male Voice Choir (PDF 450KB) which I joined in 1970.

Welsh typo to lift up your heart. Enjoy.
 
 

Lock up your rubbish

There was a time when we lived in a safe society. We didn't need to lock our front or back doors. Nor did we need to lock the car, and set the alarm, while just slipping into the local shop to buy a box of matches.

Well, maybe there was never such a time, and if there was, then there was also a local community to notice any suspicious activity near the front door. And we didn't have cars in those days, well, maybe just one.

Anyway without getting too nostalgic about the times that may never have been, there is no doubt that today is worse. Stabbings, muggings, breaking and entry with GBH are now commonplace. And nobody seems to care. Not enough anyway, unless it is happening to them at the moment.

These thoughts were provoked by a recent visit to the Carmelite church in Berkley Road, in Dublin's north inner city. I was killing time and decided to walk around the block, in a part of the city I had not examined in any detail before, in spite of having gone to school a few hundred yards down the road.

It is an imposing church and has many long remembered trappings of old - the Infant de Prague, St. Theresa of Lisieux and more - associated with the Carmelite Order.

Then I came to the offering box. This used generally to be a wooden box with a slot in it hanging on the wall. Not this time, in this place.

A full blown safe set into the floor with an elaborate slot mechanism. Amazing.

There used to be the very odd occasion, in the old days, when the offering box was burgled by some ne'er do well, who was assumed to have automatically excommunicated himself on the spot, and had an immediate reservation activated in the eternal fires. But the safe suggested that the force of the old deterrent had waned, and we were now into the final showdown where even Baby Jesus would need his manger secured for fear of abduction.

What a wonderful world!

And just in case there are any southsiders out there gloating and wondering what else would you expect on the northside, I should recount a subsequent southside experience to level the pitch.

I was walking along Upper Leeson St., the other day, when what did I see. Wheelies out for the binman (I haven't seen any binwomen yet!).

Nothing passremarkable in that, you might say. But as I passed them by, something caught my eye. Unbelievable - they were all locked. Yes, the rubbish bins were locked. That really got me wondering what people got up to on the southside.

Were the locks to keep the content in, or to stop some tipper piggybacking on his neighbour's load? Were they to stop identity theft? Could those who had identities worth stealing not afford a shredder, or perhaps the time to shred? Were the locks to keep indigent northsiders from sleeping in these luxury southside bins?

Or had these particular southsiders just been watching too much Beckett?

I feel a thesis coming on!

UPDATE

I am sorry to have to report that the Northside has taken this matter one stage further. This photo of a tethered rubbish bin was taken on Raheny DART southbound platform (on 18/11/2008).

Perhaps the local population has figured that these jazzy bins are a better class of object than the ones they put out for the binman at present. Or, given that this bin was on the southbound platform, perhaps the tether is a response to a Northside fear of Southside entrepreneurship in these troubled times.

Irish Solutions - Confucius, him say

I got to thinking recently about some Irish solutions to Irish problems over the years and thought I should share the fruits of our native inventiveness with a wider audience, so here goes.

Traffic lit roundabouts
I always thought roundabouts and traffic lights were alternative solutions to a traffic flow problem.

If, for example, you are trying to sort out traffic coming from four directions you can use a roundabout.

This has the following benefits:

• it is eco-friendly - no electricity used - static signage
  
• it does not delay traffic when there is no one on the roundabout
  

But it can have one big disadvantage. If the traffic flow on one axis predominates, such as with a main highway versus a minor crossing road, the low priority road may never get a look in.

In this case you need to use traffic lights, even if the timing needs to be varied depending on time of day or observed traffic flows.

Ireland has combined these two methods to give us the roundabout with traffic lights. The lights are just at the entry, and exit, points of the roundabout, and the chaos is appaling.

The site of one, at least, of these monstrosities, is at Ireland's first official roundabout in Artane on the northside of Dublin. Since writing this I have been through the roundabout at Dublin Airport which reminded me that this must be the mother of all trafficlit roundabouts. A webcam at this roundabout would provide weeks, if not months, of uninterrupted entertainment to rival anything Big Brother has to offer.

Oddly even numbers
I have seen street numbered in many different ways.

• Numbers can go up on one side and come back down on the other.
  
• numbers can progress along a street with odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, but both ascending in the same direction. These can sometimes get out of phase depending on the incidence of number interrupters, like other streets, on either side, but it is usually manageable.
  
• you can have the odd effect in a cul de sac of numbers starting at the far end on one side, rising as they come towards you at the entrance, jumping across the entrance, and going on up the other side. You then see two adjacent numbers at the entrance and it can be difficult to know whether it is worth entering the cul de sac in pursuit of a particular number.

But I really came across a gem recently when trying to match up numbers before and after a number of separately numbered terraces were inegrated into a unified numbering system for the road.

The odd numbers start at one end of the road and go along one side, while the even numbers start at the other end and go in the opposite direction on the other side.

Mindboggling, but, perversely in my case, very welcome as for some reason, the terrace I was interested in started from 1 and had only odd numbers, which it fortuitously kept under the new system. So No. 31 was still No.31 after the changeover. My thanks to the mad hoor who thought that one up. [The terrace was Park View Terrace, and the road Brookfield Road, in the Old Kilmainham quarter of Dublin city.]

Bona fide contraception
In the first half of the last century the environment in Ireland was very repressive. There was strict censorship (sex not violence) and contraception was not available, unless you opted for abstention, coitus interruptus (also known as Vatican Roulette), or oral or anal sex, and the last two of these were considered immoral and abhorrent.

A woman could get the pill, supposedly to regularise periods, but this not only put the onus on the woman, it also left her open to the long term side effects of the medication.

Then Charlie Haughey thought up an Irish solution to an Irish problem. Contraceptives (ie condoms) would be made available on prescription to married couples who were practicing bona fide contraception.

In other words only those who were entitled to have babies were allowed to avoid having them. QED.


The empty oath
One of the things that kept Fianna Fáil out of the Dáil (Irish parliament) in the latter half of the 1920s was the requirement for deputies to to take an oath of allegiance to the Free State and of fidelity to the British King in his role as a symbol of the Commonwealth.

De Valera realised that to get into power he would have to take the oath, so he announced in advance that he considered it an empty formula and abolished it once he came to power.

Túsáite
There are two official languages in Ireland. The first one (Irish/Gaeilge) and the other one (English/Sacsbhéarla).

For the most part, or virtually entirely, the country lives its life through the medium of English and has done so for the last 200 years. As a result, its laws are conceived in English, drafted in English, debated in English, adopted in English and ultimately implemented in English.

There is a constitutional requirement that versions should also be available in the Irish language and these are invariably produced as translations from the English and published with a lag, which can be up to a fair number of years.

But here's the rub. In the event of a dispute over the meaning of a piece of legislation, the Irish language version takes precedence.

---

Believe it or not.

In defence of Froggy

I am republishing this post with some additions, as follows:

• the first section is the original post unamended;
• the second section is my own follow up comment posted after the transmission of the programme; and
• the third section contains some new comments on subsequent material relating to the programme appearing in the periodical History Ireland

---

The Original Post
posted 12 January 2007, before the broadcast

There is a report in the Irish Times (12/1/2007) which says that Albert Folens's widow secured a temporary (ex parte) High Court injunction preventing RTÉ from using a 1987 interview with her husband in a TV programme titled Ireland's Nazis, scheduled to be aired next week as part of the Hidden Ireland series. Mr. Senan Moloney, who was then working for the Sunday Tribune had taped the interview with Mr. Folens.

Mr Rogers, counsel for Mrs. Folens, said that a representative of the newspaper, Mr Moloney and Mr Folens had signed an agreement allowing Mr Folens to see any article before it was published and also giving him the right of reply. His client was seeking the injunction restraining the defendants from using, broadcasting and publishing the subject matter of that interview, otherwise than in accordance with the terms of the agreement in 1987.

Report was also carried in Irish Independent.

---

Albert was my French teacher in school. He was a very good teacher. He taught French through French. He was supposed to be teaching it through Irish but he didn't have the Irish.

He published a series of textbooks for learning French through Irish which we used in class. Donncha Ó Céileachair did the Irish end of these. Folens also started publishing cog notes for exams which were first class, even if they were totally subversive of the supposed aims of the education system. This activity progressed to publishing actual text books, particularly on new subjects like civics, and the business eventually expanded into a high class, and very worthy, publishing empire.

We called him Froggy, which must have been the ultimate irony for a militant Fleming. We didn't know his background then but it was fairly wide knowledge in Dublin that he had fled Belgium because of support for the Germans during WWII. It would have been understood here, though, that any such support was was bound up with the struggle for Flemish independence. The Germans had promised both the Flemish and Bretons greater independence under Germany than they then enjoyed under Belgium and France respectively. A number of Bretons also got sanctuary in Ireland after WWII and some became actively involved in the Irish language movement.


Albert wrote a book which set out his position quite clearly. He published it himself in 1958. It is called "Aiséirí Flóndrais" (Flanders Rising). It was published in Irish, translated from the English by Donncha Ó Céileachair. It shows that he was a true Flemish nationalist and abhorred the extremes perpetrated by the Nazis, some of which extremes, he says, were also mirrored by the then Belgian authorities. Along with tens of thousands of Flemings he supported the Germans as a means of achieving some measure of rights and ultimate independence for Flanders. Most of these were ultimately disillusioned by the later stages of the war by which time they were faced with Hobson's choice.

It would be strange indeed for the Irish, of all people, to be critical of his good faith in this venture when Ireland herself sought the help of the French (na Francaigh ag teacht thar sáile!) and the Germans (Banna Strand!) in her own fight against national, cultural, economic, linguistic and religious oppression. Our Head of Government even signed the book of condolences for Hitler after his atrocities were known. The Flemings were a long oppressed race, none the less so by their own cobbled-together and vindictive Belgian state.

I spent time in Flanders in 1967/68 at the height of the "linguistic wars" and I must say my sympathy was entirely with the Flemish. They had been derided, exploited, used for cannon fodder, denied office and forced to bend the knee to a francophile coterie which, thankfully by then, was beginning to resemble the fading remnants of a post colonial ascendancy.

I don't know if RTÉ made any effort to consult with his widow regarding the content of the programme or to give the family a chance to put Albert's view across. It doesn't look like it from the tone of the report in today's Irish Times and Mrs. Folens's statement.

There is a class of supposed exposé journalism, and it is not new, which seems very reluctant to afford the subject of criticism the right of simultaneous reply. This, after all, is only natural justice and to be all the more expected in a flourishing democracy like ours. It is, unfortunately, usually safe enough to take the lazy way out when the subject is dead! Fortunately there may be a prospect of some legal redress in this particular case. We'll see.

I don't know if Albert's book was ever re-published after 1958 or if the original manuscript in English ever saw the light of day. But, in this age of universal access to the internet, it would be worth publishing both, if only online.

There are even lessons to be learned from it on the linguistic front which might still be relevant to both the Welsh and Irish efforts at language development.

If RTÉ want to exhume Albert let them resurrect the whole man and pay some attention to what he actually has to say rather than setting him up as an easy aunt sally.

---

My comment
posted following the broadcast

I wondered why the original taped interview had not been used at the time (1987) as the basis for a story, or flogged to RTE as was done recently. It is interesting to see the reasons given at the time by the then editor of the Sunday Tribune, Vincent Browne, for not using the material:

" ... we have decided not to publish anything concerning your involvement in the Second World War, at present. This decision was taken on the following basis: that, given the absence of harder information concerning any impropriety it would be wrong to expose you to the turmoil that would inevitably ensue if we published the information which we presently have in our possession." Source

The only additional information available since then is the entry in the US/UK Crowcass manual listing Folens as an "interpreter" rather than a "translator" at the Sicherheitspolizei premises in Brussels. However Folens himself said that the part he worked in was "lectorale" which involved translation rather than interpretation. The dropping of a "reconstruction"/fabrication of an interrogation sequence from the transmitted programme speaks volumes in this regard.

---

Further Comments
posted 2 June 2007

The programme was reviewed in the March/April issue of History Ireland by Eamon O'Flaherty who lectures in history in UCD. He mentions Cathal O'Shannon's annoyance at Irish neutrality and at not being allowed to wear his British uniform when home on leave in Dublin from the RAF during the war.

I can understand why O'Shannon might have resented the welcome given to collaborators after the war when, at the same time, the contribution of Irish people who enlisted in the Allied cause was swept under the carpet. Some of my own family experienced this after WWI.

Regarding the actual programme, O'Flaherty does suggest, however, that in O'Shannon's case "perhaps the journalist's desire to tell a good story won out over the maintenance of proportion in the latter stages of the film". I certainly think that was the case. O'Flaherty himself, however, also asserts that "the controversial nature of the revelations even at this remove was shown by the efforts of the widow of Albert Folens, one of the subjects of the film, to prevent it from being broadcast". I understood that Mrs. Folens's action was an attempt to ensure a right of reply and fairness of treatment in the case of her husband. Her counsel was seeking to have the broadcast of the tape stopped except in accordance with the existing agreement which guaranteed advance knowledge and a right of reply - hardly new concepts in the area of justice.

A further piece in the May/June issue of History Ireland, by Daniel Leach, a scholar and PhD candidate at the School of Historical Studies in the University of Melbourne, takes a broader look at the factors influencing the behaviour of the Irish State during WWII, and, in particular, our covert pro-Allied neutrality. Leach underlines the importance of symbols of sovereignty to a small newly emerging state, particularly where the former colonial master and its major ally do not appear to take such sovereignty seriously.

The piece also refers to the practice of some of the victorious Allies of tarring all collaborators with the war-criminal label as a tactic for suppressing separatist movements. Obvious examples here were France and Belgium.

There are many lessons to be learned from this unfortunate episode, and they need to be learned sooner rather than later in a world that is increasingly making light of the very human rights for which people fought and died in two "World Wars" and many other struggles between and since.

A Terrible Beauty

My son recently drew my attention to the insanity of the current pre-election poster campaign where candidates are frantically vying with each other for the attention of the passer by.

Unfortunately some of these passers by are driving motor cars, and to make matters worse there seems to be no rule against the candidates vying with the vital traffic signals either.

This unbelievable example is in Pearse Street, Dublin, at the junction of Sandwith Street.

Mind you, a perusal of the entrails would make you wonder if the traffic signals were trying to tell Bertie something - settle for the Park, or, no left turn, for example.

But it really isn't funny and shows an absolute contempt for one of the causes all the political parties are pledged to, namely, reducing road deaths. Oh yeah?

There are many other issues in this campaign, not least of which is how far Bertie might be prepared to go to recruit a partner to keep him in government.

The entrails below, in Kildare Street, Dublin, just beside the Irish Parliament building, suggest the possibility of an unholy alliance in the next Dáil, appropriately underscored by the the former Free State Senator whose poem A Terrible Beauty is Born says it all.

Enjoy the campaign and don't blame me for the result.

Street Sculpture

At this stage people have become very familiar with what is referred to as street sculpture. These are not statues on pedestals. Rather are they life size figures, usually in bronze, depicting historical or symbolic persons, and designed to fit into the context of the street where they appear.

In Dublin, for example, we have James Joyce outside the Kylemore Bakery/Café in Tablbot Street, Molly Malone with her barrow at the bottom of Grafton Street, or Patrick Kavanagh resting on a bench along the banks of his beloved canal.

There are some interesting examples ouside the capital, however, and I thought you might like to see a few of these which I came across in recent times.

Click on the images for larger versions.

---

Galway

Although they never actually met, Oscar and Eduard Wilde are depicted relaxing and conversing in Galway's Shop Street.

Eduard was an Estonian writer who was a contemporary of Wilde's. He lived 1865-1933, while Oscar lived 1854-1900.


These sculptures are more stylised than lifelike.

---

Ballyhaunis

Much more lifelike are these characters from the Square in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo.

I took some shots from close up and almost found myself apologising to the guy in the cap for being in his face.

This group, and particularly the man with the cap, had a real presence.

It is entitled Lá an Aonaigh or Market Day. The sculptor is Rory Breslin and the project is connected with the Mayo Millennium Sculpture Initiative.

---

Kiltimagh

The West of Ireland has been decimated by emigration from the famine times onwards. It was particularly heavy during the 1950s. While the rest of Europe was basking in a post-war resurgence, Ireland was experiencing a prolonged depressing recession.

Emigration during this time, and in previous decades, had been so heavy that a significant income inflow in the national accounts came under the heading "Emigrants' Remittances".

This very striking sculpture, entiltled "I'll Send You The Fare" is in Kiltimagh's main street and is dedicated to the young men and women who emigrated from Kiltimagh, Bohola, and the surrounding areas during the 1950s.

The sculptor is Sally McKenna.

---

Kiltimagh has a strong literary tradition and it is very hard to escape the presence of Raftery the Poet in the town. From the Raftery Rooms, now sadly closed, to Raftery Square, the town resonates to the poet's words.

This street sculpture of a man reading his newspaper testifies to the town's literacy.

Unfortunately it is somewhat contradicted by the grammatical mistakes in the cast dedication plaque for the emigrant street sculpture and by the sign over Sparky's Variety Store in the main street.

---

Some more street sculpture here and here.

The end of the line

I recently visited Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo, where my father was born and where I spent many holidays in my youth (1950s to you). I had come back to chase up some leads in my current pursuit of my family history.

On my way back from the graveyard the road passed under a railway bridge. As I approached the bridge, I looked up towards the railway line and, to my amazement, there were the old semaphore signals still by the side of the track. They certainly didn't look abandoned; one was set to open and the other to closed.

They brought back memories of when my father, who worked for the national railway company, used to bring me to the station and get me into the signal box where I spent many an hour in the company of the signalman. Of course there were more trains then. There are now only three passenger trains a day and the odd timber goods train.

Anyway, I wondered what might have remained of the old signalbox and all its solid victorian mechanical and electro-mechanical machinery. So I trekked up the slope to the station and went to the ticket office. Fortunately this was manned (literally) as there was a train due for Dublin.

I asked the man if he would mind me going onto the platform to take a few photos for old times sake.

"You're welcome."

"Is the old signal box still around? I used to spend time in it in the 1950s when I was down here with my father."

"It is."

"I saw the old signals down the track. I suppose they're not in use any longer."

"They are, but only for the next week. After that we will be going over to lights signalling controlled from Athlone"

"You mean the old levers which controlled the points and the signals, and that I was allowed to operate in the 1950s, have been in use all this time?"

"They have, indeed."

"And the old staff system?"

"Definitely"

Well I must confess I was absolutely flabbergasted. The control system, installed when the railway first came, was still in use, and apparently functioning satisfactorily.

Unfortunately, there was nobody around to let me into the signal box which would not be open until much later in the day, but I was welcome to take what photos I liked including of the interior of the signal box, but only through the window.

What he told me confirmed that the line was still single track which doubled at the station to serve as a passing point.

I should explain what the staff system was. It was an ingenious way of locking a single track section so that it could be occupied by only one train at a time. Don't forget that with a single track you could, otherwise, have two trains approaching each other, at speed, from opposite directions.

The system operated through two interconnected devices at either end of the single track section. Each device had a bank of staffs, which were like small metal batons, and only one staff could be out out of the combined bank of staffs at any one time. When you took a staff out of one device, the system locked until the staff was returned to the device at the other end of the section. A driver could not enter a section unless he had a staff in his possession. A perfect system, with a built in failsafe factor (eg should the electricity go down), provided, of course, you left out the human factor.

In the old days this staff system operated all over the country, everywhere there was a single track line. As an aside, the man explained to me that the Ballyhaunis station (terminal to you) was one of only two in the country that could be switched in and out of the system. This depended on whether more than one train at a time was scheduled to occupy the track between Claremorris and Castlerea. If they were, Ballyhaunis was switched in and provided a passing point for what the system recognised as two separate single tracksections (Claremorris-Ballyhaunis and Ballyhaunis-Castlerea). Otherwise, it operated as a single section between Claremorris and Castlerea.

And all this elegant control system would be obsolete in a week's time. It was very sad. The passing of an era. From electro-mechanical to electronic, and from local to regional control.

You can see a more sophisticated explanation of the "old" system here and of the likely replacement here.

I hope that someone will see to it that the relics of the old system are preserved somewhere, if this is not already the case. It would be a shame if future generations were denied the opportunity to view this elegant and robust security system in all its glory.

Tarting up or tarting down

I was always taken with the image of the sailor with the sextant, from one of the big sailing ships, below the sign for the Combridge Galleries and above the one for the opticians Murray McGrath, on the corner of Grafton Street and Duke Street, in Dublin city centre.

I took a slide of this in the 1960s which I included in my Ireland show. I showed the slide of the sailor in isolation from his surroundings and asked the audience to guess where it was. Often as not they hadn't a clue.

We don't always look around us as we go down the street and we look up even less.

But if you did have the leisure to cast your eyes upwards - there he was. Still navigating off the wall.

He looked dignified, calm and competent. He knew where he was, where he had come from and where he was going. He conveyed a sense of stability and continuity, not to mention vision - 20/20 that is, and him perched above the opticians and within a brush length or two of some fine visual art.

That's how I remembered him.

--oo00oo--

I was in town the other day. The area around Grafton Street was buzzing. Open air cafés, street traders and buskers all added to the bustling atmosphere.

I passed the way and looked up.

My eyes went up and my heart went down.

Instead of my remembered sailor there was a mere gaudy shadow. My real sailor had been replaced by a modern piece of tack.

His coat was pink and peeling. He was looking at the sextant in his hands as if he didn't know whether to play it, eat it, or poke somebody's eye out with it. He was reduced in stature and had clearly put on a bit of weight - puppy fat maybe. He had lost his bearing as well as his bearings. He knew not whence he came or where the hell he was going. And it didn't really seem to matter. Nothing was expected of him.

Sad to see such tack in a country whose income per head has shot to the stars.

Per ardua ad astra, was the motto of my alma mater.

That was getting there.

But the return journey - a bit more flaky methinks.

Gaeilge: Fíor, Breac, agus eile

Ós rud é go bfhuilmíd anois i lár Seachtain (Coicís) na Gaeilge mheas mé sraith nasc a thabhairt le chéile do na leathanaigh nó na míreanna agam féin atá as Gaeilge nó a bhfuil baint acu leis an nGaeilge. Seo thíos iad.

As we're in the middle of Irish Language Week (fortnight) I thought I'd draw together links to some of the material on my site/blog in, or related to, the Irish language. Check out below.

These are actually in Irish
Na Duibhirigh
Na hUaisle
Ainmnmú Shráideanna Bhaile Átha Cliath
or bilingual
Rang 1963

These relate to the use or misuse of the language
Gaeilge ón mBroinn
Doicheall
Drochghaeilge Oifigiúil
Deis ar Fáil
Easpa fada contúirteach

These are by way of comment on, or just related to, the language.
Bóithrín na Smaointe
Mar a scríotar bítear
Easpa Shacs-Béarla
Béal doras
Géibheann
Buailte
Iarsmaoineamh
Frithród

Kicking Teacher

It seems to have become fashionable to have gone to Belgrove National School despite its being located on the northside of Dublin.

John McGahern taught there and was sacked from there for having written a dirty book. Neil Jordan is a past pupil and I recollect seeing a load of other names quoted recently of well known people whose education started in this school.

I think I was there before before most, if not all, of them. That would have been around 1949 when I was living in Dollymount Park.

People are always writing nowadays about how they went across the fields to school, or to the shops, or to anywhere. Crossing the field has almost attained the status of a literary conceit.

Well, I went across the field to school and I'll bet there are very few people who have had as big a monument erected on their field as I have had on mine. A spanking new church, no less, named after the angel who brought the good news to Mary.

There was nothing wrong with Belgrove, I just hated school and availed of any opportunity not to go.

One day, I set out for school across the field and by the time I got to the other side I realised I had left my schoolbag behind. I turned around and set out for home. By the time I got home, about two minutes later, I had convinced myself that I was now so late that there was no point in going to school at all that day. My mother thought otherwise. But I dug in and refused to go to school. She grabbed me by the ear, or somewhere, and literally dragged me all the way to school.

She knocked on the class door, which class was now well underway. Teacher opened the door. My mother said "This fellow says he's not going to school today". "We'll see about that" said the teacher, making to grab me as my Mother handed me over.

By this time I was beyond all reason and kicked the teacher sharply in the shin. "Get him out of here" shouted the teacher.

My Mother reluctantly led me home, across the field, of course.

QED.

The teacher's name is being withheld at the request of the family. Not her family, my family, in case her estate decides to sue even at this late hour.

Anthony Glavin R.I.P.

Tony Glavin was an O'Connell's boy, from a good northside school like myself.

I met him in first year English in UCD where he, in common with myself, took a remarkably practical approach to the lectures. Some of these lectures were good, some bad, and some awful.

It didn't help when one of the most awful was a series of six lectures on Shakespeare's Coriolanus from the soon-to-be President of the College.

The lectures consisted of the lecturer reading the play and spicing it with asides. It was a dreadful bore.

Tony and I evolved a sophisticated and effective study plan. During the first four lectures we played battleships and during the last two we read the play ourselves from cover to cover.

And it worked. Tony went on to dedicate himself to his music and wordcraft and here I am writing this appreciation in the Queen's English (well almost).

May he rest in peace.

You can read a proper appreciation here if you have an Irish Times subscription.

Dublin in the rare oul times

I recently came across an exhibition celebrating the life and death of Dublin's Theatre Royal which closed after 141 years on 30th June 1962. I enjoyed many pantos and films in the Royal, which was the largest theatre in Ireland.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was a first cousin, once removed, and by marriage, to one of the Royalettes - the resident troup of dancing girls.

The demise of this iconic premises was seen by many as the beginning of the end of "the rare oul times". This magnificent living and breathing theatre was replaced by a plastic-and-glass box full of civil servants.

It got me thinking about the nature of change and developement.

Sure, you can't keep everything the same forever, but things can often change for the worse. The picture above is typical of many of the city centre façades today, as dereliction reigns while developers assemble propeties to build yet more anonymous glass edifices.

Dirty old town

I felt an affinity with the older Dublin.

I went to school in Parnell Square, walking up every day from Tara St. station, through O'Connell St. with its monuments, or Moore St. with its street sellers, and coming back through Liffey St., for a dalliance in Hector Grey's "emporium of all a young boy ever wanted", even if the most of it was cheap imitative manufacture from Japan. I bought my first guitar there for £3, or was it 30/- ?

The Pillar, dead centre of the city, site of the old tram terminus, meeting point for city dwellers and visiting country folk alike, is now gone. Replaced by a shining needle without a haystack. A modern version of Jack's beanstalk.

Real estate

Since I started delving into my family history I have been taking a greater personal interest in various parts of Dublin and the fate which has befallen some of its lesser known buildings.

The premises in which my great grandfather worked as a shoemaker in the 1860s is now the site of vast new Civic Offices. Yes, you guessed it: Wood Quay. At that time 15 of the Quay's 22 premises housed shoemakers.

When the area was being controversially redeveloped in the 1960s I had no idea of any family links with the site.

This may, however, have been a better fate than befell the premises in which he first opened his own business, in 1873, at 122 James's St. just in front of St. James's (Protestant) church.

It fell into ruin around 1884; was demolished around 1900; and finally finished up as a parking space in the church grounds. As a further twist, the church closed for business in 1963 and the addresses of the former Nos. 121 and 122 have been appropriated by the lighting emporium which now trades from the old church premises.

Parnell St. has changed radically. The premises in which my great grandmother was in domestic service, in the household of Sir John Barrington, sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin, is now part of the Parnell Centre: the precise part which was, recently, and briefly, the site of Peter Stringfellow's unsuccessful foray into Dublin's "nightclub" scene. A different sort of domestic service entirely from that provided by great grandmother Sarah Rankin.



Meanwhile, still in Parnell St., but just on the other side of O'Connell St., another great grandmother worked in Ellen Berry's milliner and dressmaking establishment. Mary Anne Connely, as she then was, surely had no idea that, some forty years later, she would be related by marriage to Sarah Rankin from the other end of the street, when her son, Patrick Mortimer, married Sarah Rankin's daughter, Sarah Burgess. Ellen Berry's shop is now a coffee bar.

Both these great grandmothers had the distinction of being married in the Pro Cathedral, not due to their exalted status but because it was their local parish church.

Little did I know when I was in school in Parnell Square, that I was only a stone's throw from where two of my great grandmothers lived and worked.

The other side

There were some aspects of the rare oul times that could have done with being a little rarer.

This is Eden Quay on the north side of Dublin's River Liffey. It was here that my grandfather was found drowned in 1918.

From my reading of the newspapers of the day, along with a clatter of Coroner's reports, it seems that drownings were two-a-penny in those days. While that may have been less subversive of society than today's murder-a-day, it is still a dark side which should temper our often unquestioning nostalgia for things past.


This is great grandfather Joseph the Carpenter's unmarked grave in Glasnevin.

Joseph and Mary Anne (see above) were married in 1861, presumably with some expectations of being happy ever after.

Before the end of that year they had lost a newborn baby, and by the time Joseph died some 14 years later, they had lost two more children, each just over a year old, due to infant cholera and teething inflammation.

A living city

So now, when I walk the streets of Dublin, they come alive with the ghosts of my ancestors and their families. The more I delve, the more streets come alive.

It doesn't really change the present and it can give rise to a spurious sentimentality, but it is nice to know a little of what was going on before you came along and it can help keep your feet on the ground.

No man is an island, but beware the Tsunami !

Central Model School

Having raised the subject of the Central Model School in Dublin's city centre in a post on George Bernard Shaw, I was invited by a commenter to expand on my association with this venerable institution, so, here goes.

I had just got my primary degree and had no particular plans for the summer when a fellow student asked me if I would do him a favour. He had a friend who had secured a job as a teacher in the Central Model School, but the friend still had some practical exams to do and would not be available until ten days after the start of term. Would I stand in for him for those ten days?

Whatever about initiative, I still had a sense of adventure in those far gone days and I rose to the challenge.

When I arrived on my first day everything looked normal and under control. I was given a class; I think it was fifth class which would have meant about 11 year olds.

I was full of great ideas about getting and holding the pupils' interest and presenting the subjects in the most interesting way possible.

My first instruction from the head teacher was to give a child a shilling and send him down to Capel Street to buy a bamboo cane. This was to be my symbol of authority and the instrument of retribution on any pupil who chose not to obey instructions, who was lazy, or who did not adequately focus his mind on the learning process. I must say this was not quite what I had in mind, but I forked out the shilling and got the cane.

My second surprise was the range of ability in the class. This ranged from very intelligent children who were anxious and willing to learn to those whom I felt should have been in a special school which would cater directly for their learning disabilities, or a reformatory which might remedy their insolence or sheer disobedience.

There were two brothers in the class, one at either end of the scale. The less well endowed one used to take off at lunchtime to Woolworths department store, nick a load of little plastic boats, and spend the afternoon loudly pulling them apart at the bottom of the class. When I suggested he lay off the noise, his brother, who turned out to be his minder, threatened to get his bigger brother to sort me out. Given the flats in which the family lived, this was a consummation devoutly to be avoided.

Another little fellow came up to me a half hour before the official lunchtime with a request. "Please sir, can I go early. Me mammy's sick an' I have to do the messages before lunch". "OK" said I and saw him out the door. About ten minutes later there was a knock on the class door and a procession entered: in the lead, the headmaster, followed by the lollipop man who was dragging my little fellow by the ear. "This (unmentionable) says you said he could go home early" said the head, fully expecting that I would contradict this outlandish story. The little fellow had been caught shinning down the rear spiked gate by the lollipop man who was coming on duty for the lunch break. Imagine the head's incredulity and frustration when I confirmed the little fellow's story.

I eventually gave up trying to teach anything and contented myself with simply holding their attention with stories and demonstrations of primary scientific phenomena. My successor could concentrate on improving their lot - after all that is what he was trained to do.

Meanwhile, I woke up each morning in a cold sweat at the thought of battling through another day in this bootcamp.

I did learn one thing from this "teaching" experience. Insofar as I had any competence as a teacher it was purely to teach the "willing to learn". Perhaps, it wasn't quite as bad as that. I subsequently found out that the particular class I had been allocated had borne the brunt of teacher changes in the immediately preceding years and this, no doubt, contributed to their, and my, difficulty.


There is an unexpected postscript to this adventure. I was in the habit of eating in Gaj's restaurant at teatime on those evenings I stayed in town after work. Gaj's was not only the most socialist restaurant in town, it was also the most sociable. It was a hotbed of constitutional revolution and civil disobedience in the cause of advancing the lot of the working class. Anti-establishment activists, such as Máirín de Búrca, of the Dublin Housing Action Committee, frequented the place. You went in and sat at any table and struck up with the most unlikely bedfellows. I once met a man there who was ashamed to have come from Mayo. God Help Us!

Anyway, the point of my dragging Gaj's into this post is that, one evening, I was coming out of the place, and on the pavement by the doorway was a young fellow playing the tin whistle. Nothing strange in that, you might think. But this guy had his manager/impressario at his side, and who was it? Yes, the guy who broke up the boats in class.

So I also learned that performance and behaviour in class is a poor predictor of success in the commercial end of the arts at any rate.

Saint Andrew, bless him.

I'm not sure why, but there seems to be an enormous international interest in Saint Andrew's church in Westland Row, Dublin. Much of the interest seems to focus on the inscription above the entrance, to which I have drawn attention and posed a question in a previous post. Mind you, despite all this interest, nobody has attempted to answer the question I posed in that post.

In any event, in view of all this interest, I thought I'd post a shot of Saint Andrew himself as he appears atop the church. Click on the picture for a larger image.

My Tachondria and other trivia.

Up to now I had been looking on my family history quest as learning about other people, albeit my own ancestors. I then started thinking a bit about how some of this background might have influenced my own attitudes and genes.

North side/south side

There is a northside/southside thing in Dublin city. The southside is traditionally the posh side and many southsiders consider the northside to be inhabited by tribes of subhuman proles.

Over time this clear distinction has been eroded somewhat by (i) the public authorities locating tracts of public housing on the southside, (ii) the existence of some posh areas on the northside, (iii) the emergence of an east/west split, and (iv) the inevitable movement south of some northsiders in search of status, or property values, or just to get away from their savage neighbours.

I always knew I had a foot in both camps as I started on the northside (Howth), spent half my life on the southside (Orwell Gardens and Ballybrack), and returned to the northside when I got married (Raheny). I now find that one of my great grandfathers appeared on the northside (Glasnevin) around 1860, while another great grandfather appeared on the southside (Thomas St.)around the same time.

Various counties

My mother had always told me, or at least had given me the impression, that her family, on her mother's side, went way back in Dublin. However, my probings revealed that her grandfather came from Wicklow and her grandmother from Laois (Queen's County in those days).

Equally, on my father's side, I knew he was born in Ballyhaunis in Co. Mayo, and thought his father might have been from Tipperary as Dwyer was a Tipperary name. However, I now find that one of his grandfathers was from Co. Limerick, and the other from Co. Sligo.

If we count temporary residences, we can add: Longford and Offaly. Mind you, it's still only eight out of twenty six counties.


Republican/BA/RIC

Another division in Irish society is between those with republican credentials and those more closely associated with the (former British) establishment.

In this respect I am in deficit on the republican side where my only (uncorroborated) claim to fame is my uncle having been a runner for Michael Collins in London – and for this revelation I rely entirely on one of my country cousins.

On the other side I have: relatives who fought, and died, in the British Army (including at the Somme in 1916); constables in the Royal Irish Constabulary; and a bootmaker and a caterer for the British Army.

The balance is pretty definitely one way.

Genes

And what of the gene pool?

While I can list the various illnesses which are stated to have killed my ancestors and their immediate families, I am not sure how relevant some of these are to the gene pool. Anyway, here's a recital from death certs in my possession :

acute peretonitis; asphyxia – result of immersion; asthma; bronchitis; cancer; cardiac failure; coronary thrombosis; exhaustion; gout; infantile cholera; inflammation from teething; parkinsons; tuberculosis

A number of these conditions are cited in multiple cases.

Tradesmen/clerks

The variety of career backgrounds also proved interesting. I had known about some of them but the full range surprised me. Many of these also have multiple instances:

ancestors
bootmaker; carpenter; civil servant; clerk; constable; domestic servant; farmer; labourer; manager; salesperson; shopkeeper

family
air hostess; auctioneer; barperson; businessman; carer; civil servant; comptometer instructor; cooper; counsellor; court clerk; dressmaker; engineer; hairdresser; journalist; lawyer; machinist; priest; professor; receptionist; soldier; teacher; undertaker

From small acorns

I recently started some work on my family tree and the results are here.

My interest in getting a more comprehsive picture than the vague bits of knowledge that had been floating around was sparked by three things. (i) I had got a free family tree programme with a computer magazine and in order to try it out I had to enter in some data. This made me aware of the big gaps in my knowledge of my family background. (ii) I had photos from my mother of her grandfather and some of his family and, in particular, his shoe and boot shop in James's Street, in the centre of Dublin, taken around the beginning of the last century. (iii) Having retired from the day job I had more time to follow up leads and assemble the bits of the jigsaw.

Raiders of the lost ark
I had no idea of the public sources available nor of the amount of time required to follow up tenuous leads. Neither did I have any idea of how personally involved you can get in this stuff and of how emotionally you can react to the things you find out.

An archivist whom I met in the course of my expeditions said she often thought that people should go into therapy before embarking on this type of quest. I can now see what she meant.

Nevertheless it is an interesting voyage of discovery but one to which there is no end this side of the grave.

- sources: It is quite amazing the extent of the sources of information that are out there in the public domain. Today we are used to this and expect to find out all sorts of things about people by just putting them into Google. We don't expect there to be much out there about our own family over the last 150 years, unless, that is, we come from a particularly famous or notorious background. You would be amazed, however, at what can be gleaned from indexes of births, deaths and marriages and from the actual certificates themselves, all of which are in the public domain (sometimes for a fee!). Street directories can trace family movement; census returns can fill in a mountain of detail; and even poring over maps and photographs can bring its own form of enlightenment.

- shocks: But be warned. This can be a dangerously revealing exercise, exposing not only the white, but the big black family lies and concealments. Not for the fainthearted to be sure. So far I have unearthed a grandfather who was found drowned in Dublin's River Liffey after having gone missing for a week, and a grand aunt who died in an institution in which she had apparently resided for about 30 years.

- discoveries: I also discovered that one of my grandfathers was a twin; that I had British Army and RIC connections on both sides of the family; and that people either lied about, or were sublimely unaware of, not only the ages of those around them but their own age as well.

- lacunae: Clearly much historical source material has been lost or destroyed over the years. We Irish bemoan the destruction of the Public Records Office in the course of the civil war. This destroyed a vast amount of pre-1922 material, including, to my own cost, coroners' inquest reports. At least most Irish people are aware of this problem from the outset. It is, however, disturbing to discover that photographic archives in private hands are either incomplete or have been dumped. It is also annoying to find that the rent/rates records of occupancy of the Dublin Artisans Dwelling Company which built half of Dublin, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, have been unceremoniously skipped as recently as the 1980s. These records were a vital complement to the existing Dublin street directories for the period, as the directories do not record individual occupancy for these estates and Dublin Corporation did not keep any record of occupant's names.


Rewriting history
In any event, I think I made my own small contribution to history along the way.

I arrived at my grand uncle John's grave in Glasnevin expecting to find John, his wife Tess and their son Matthew. This expectation was based on the cemetery's computer records which I had been given at the entrance. Imagine my surprise when I found the tombstone recorded an additional occupant, a daughter who was buried as recently as 1996. I informed the administration who promptly (electronically) exhumed her from the non-existant grave in which she was recorded as reposing and reinterred her in the correct location. Can I now claim to have rescued someone from Limbo. I hope so.

In exploring the photos in the Irish Architectural Archive I found them a bit sparse on older photos of James's Street so I donated a copy of the photo of my great grandfather's boot and shoe shop which will now be available to other researchers.


Professional help
I would like to record that the staff in the archives I have consulted have been extremely helpful and courteous, not to mention tolerant in the extreme. They must be fed up with the enthusiastic "Eurekas" and expressions of frustration of individual researchers, but they don't show it and even evince an interest in the researcher's progress towards the ultimate goal of enlightenment.

Fellow researchers
You keep meeting the same people as you progress around the various archives. Some are young and have a specific and limited purpose. Others, like myself, are having a general poke at their families' past and appear to be going through some sort of a belated mid-life crisis.

Still, exchanging experiences and tips is a constructive experience, and this support group is probably some substitute for the more formal therapy envisaged by my archivist friend at the outset.

Father Benignus, R.I.P.

It is probably a sign of advancing age that I am now inclined to scan the death notices in any paper I buy. Fortunately I only buy the Irish Times once a week on a Saturday.

I was sorry to see the notice of Fr. Benignus's death in last Saturday's paper. He was in Dún Mhuire, the Franciscan research house, in Killiney when I lived in Ballybrack.

He was a scholar who wore his scholarship lightly. He enjoyed the company of people and he was an island of irreverence in the sea of repressive authority that was then the prime characteristic of the Irish (Roman) Catholic Church.

A scholar needs to be both reverent and irreverent, each in its place. I remember being almost scandalised when Benignus told me he read Agatha Christie for relaxation. It just didn't seem right then. And he was also keen on the occasional limerick, like the following which he passed on to me:

There was a young lass from Cape Cod,
Who believed in intervention by God,
But 'twas not the Almighty
Who lifted her nightie,
But John, the lodger, the sod.

I'm sure himself and the Almighty will get on fine.

Mar Fhlaith ins na Flaithis go raibh tú.

GBS @ 150

It is now 150 years since the birth of George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) and various plans are underway in Ireland to commemorate the great man.

Apart from a general awareness of his existence and of his contribution to Anglo-Irish literature, I have had three personal experiences which relate to him (sort of).

My Fair Lady

In his will, GBS left the proceeds from his works to a number of institutions, among them the National Gallery of Ireland. The amount involved increased significantly with the success of "My Fair Lady" which was based on his play "Pgymalion".

It is reported that, of the institutions benefitting from his will, only the National Gallery of Ireland realised its entitlement in full. As I remember it, the money was used to finance a substantial extension to the Gallery. At this time, a statue of GBS residing in the obscurity of the Gallery's basement was relocated to outside the south eastern corner of the Gallery, to which it was a striking addition. I photographed it as part of my general photo-romp through the city (see photo). When the money was spent, and the extension constructed, the statue vanished from its outdoor pedestal. I was originally cynical about this turnabout: out of the basement, into the lawn, gone from the lawn. I have learned, since originally writing this post in June, that the story is a bit more complicated and not at all uncomplimentary to the Gallery.

It appears that GBS took umbrage that this fine statue was wasting its sweetness in the basement and attempted to have it put on display. The Gallery, at that time, had a policy which limited displays to people already dead. Shaw, however reluctantly, understood this and commented that it would "all shut up OK" by which he presumably meant when he was dead. Meanwhile, when John White became curator, the statue was put on display outside, where it remained for thirty years. Unfortunately it then started to weather and was brought back inside for restoration and a coat of wax.

Now that the Gallery is honouring the author in this commemorative year, the statue is the centrepiece of the current exhibition. Fair dues.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the statue in the first photo above has its back turned to the national parliament building where the level of mastery of the English language still leaves a lot to be desired.

Phonetic English

GBS took a great interest in the English alphabet and offered a significant prize for anyone who could come up with a phonetic alphabet to replace the existing rather ramshackle arrangements.

As someone who has tried to teach English to foreigners (who else), I have every sympathy with this approach. English pronounciation is appallingly difficult to learn and can be perfected only by rote. Even then it is rampant with distinctions based on location (an enriching element) and on class (a disgrace).

A competition was announced 1957 and 450 entries were received in the course of 1958. No single entry was deemed winner and the prize was shared by four contestants. Penguin Books published a version of Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion" in parallel text as an aid to learning the new alphabet.

You covered up the new text, translated the standard English text, and then compared your results with the "official" version. I had a go at it and was quite impressed at its economy and consistency. However, try as I did, I could never quite get it quite right. I found this very discouraging until I realised that the phonetic alphabet reflected the phonetics of the author or standard-maker and his pronounciation of certain words were not the same as mine. Standard English spelling has now been accepted as representing a range of different pronounciations and introducing a new standard would open up a pandora's box.

The new alphabet never caught on and there is a very good discussion by one of the contestants here where the author describes it as "a slimming down of written English to the point of anorexia".

Central Model School

The final connection between me and him seems to be the Dublin Central Model School. This is a remanent of a daring experiment in the 1800s of which only very few remain today. Virtually all of the primary school sector was owned and managed by the Churches (overwhelmingly the Roman Catholic Church) despite being financed for the greater part by the State (taxpayer). The Central Model School, in contrast, is owned and directly managed by the Department of Education.

GBS "studied" there for some seven months in 1869. I taught there for some ten days in 1966. It is an open question as to which of us was most affected by the experience. I was certainly shattered by it and, now that I have mentioned it, will write it up in the near future.

Conclusion

Happy birthday George, ní bheidh do leithéid ann arís.

Traitors All!

It has taken a long time for the Irish to come to terms with those of their numbers who were involved in any way with the pre-independence British régime, and more particularly those who volunteered to join the British army, some of them inspired, no doubt, by the call to "defend the rights of small nations", however ironic that might seem to us in retrospect.

The dead of 1916, of the subseqent War of Independence, and even of the previous Fenian generations, overshadowed their "shameful deeds" and relegated them to a convenient oblivion. Even the oblivious souls in Limbo had more claim to our attention and pity and were released into Heaven before the memories of those Irish who died in the service of the British army were begun to be resurrected.

I was brought up in a fairly republican tradition which saw de Valera as the quintessence of Irishness. My teachers taught me to rejoice, in 1952, on the death of the English King, the presumed inheritor of the odium due to his Imperial predecessors and the monarch with ultimate responsibility at the time for the ongoing British occupation of Northern Ireland. He turned out to be also the head of my neighbour's church, but that is another story.

Yet, when I look into my background I find another side to the story.

On my mother's side, her maternal grandfather made boots for the British army, among other clients presumably. A relation on her father's side died in Ranikhet, in India, in 1892, while serving in the British army.


On my father's side, his father was an RIC man and his brother was killed in France, serving in the British army, in WW1.

In today's terms this was serious collaboration with the enemy, at least in the eyes of Sinn Féin/IRA who have a history of murdering such people, even, in some cases, where they are "collaborating" with the modern Irish democaratic state.

Brian Lynch, in his poem "Pity the Wicked" has savagely, and rightly, attacked the arrogation by Sinn Féin/IRA unto itself of the divine prerogative over life and death. He instances the case of Pat Gillespie, turned into a human bomb by the IRA. His crime? He was a chef for the British army. And the scrubbers in Aldershot. A mop was now a lethal weapon, a WMD, the possession of which justified invasion of their workplace and blowing them to kindgom come.

If that approach had been adopted towards my family I wouldn't be here now, on either my father's or my mother's side!

The current state of play in my pursuit of my family history is here.

Surfing holiday

The internet is a funny thing. You start by checking out something and before you know where you are you have travelled the world and through time and other dimensions.

Take today. I went to check out Y BYD to see if my friend, Ned Thomas, had yet actually published the first daily newspaper in Welsh. There is a crying need for such a paper and he has been trying to raise funds for the last few years. He has now passed his £300,000 target for subscriptions and is trying to raise further corporate funding and publish the damn thing. No sign of Y BYD yet on the streets.

While I was at it I decided to check out the current issue of PLANET and was confronted by a serious photo of Osama bin Laden. Now, Ned founded PLANET in the mid-seventies with the aim of bringing Welsh-speaking Wales to the attention of non-Welsh-speakers. As far as the latter were concerned Welsh Wales (as it is often referred to) had a whiff of the reservation about it, and they were generally insensitive to the community and linguistic problems faced by the minority Welsh-speaking population. Non-Welsh-speakers were also, obviously, unfamiliar with the rich and evolving literature in Welsh.

PLANET was in English and had an international, as well as a Welsh flavour about it. It is a tribute to Ned's foresight that it is still going today.

Anyway, to get on, the first item was an interview with a world-famous Welsh-born photographer, Philip Jones Griffiths, who had a history as a war photographer dating back to Vietnam. He used his photographic skills to underline the human (or more strictly inhuman) aspects of warfare and much of his material is alarmingly relevant in the context of the current US occupation of Iraq. He had also, clearly, photographed Bin Laden, hence the cover. I googled him and came up with this earlier interview which gives a flavour of the man.

My own interest in photography led me to push on and I came across his work which is available through the Magnum photo agency and which is displayed in their catalogue.

That led me, in turn, to check out the Magnum exhibition of photos of Ireland (from the 1950s to date) which is currently on show at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham, Dublin.

Some photos in this by Cartier Bresson took me to that photographer's book on Paris where I had taken a number of shots myself in 1988 .

So what started out as a simple "check-it-out" became a voyage of discovery from which I emerged hours later tireder but wiser.

Hope you enjoyed the trip and will dip back into some of the links and branch out from there.

The Oul Boreen

Streetnames in Irish can be quite controversial and provoke serious semantic wars between rival camps of streetnameologists.

Part of the problem is that the original versions of most of the street names, at least in the cities, are in English. Irish versions are frequently nothing more than clumsy transliterations of the original English, and even where a distinctive Irish language name does exist, it has most likely been forgotten and is now replaced with one of the aforsaid abominations. And this is before we even come near the subtle inflexions of Irish grammar.

Séamas Ó Brógáin has a good discussion of some of the issues on his excellent site and he also offers a list of sensible Irish versions for most Dublin streetnames. I have stuck a few examples of current abominations on my own site.

Titles like row, lane and terrace can be problematic in Irish. Lane is normally translated as lána and this lacks a certain elegance and distinctiveness.

While in Galway recently I noticed the use of bóithrín or little road for this and it struck me as very appropriate as the term is not used to render any other English equivalent. So why is it not in wider use in Irish, I asked myself? [translation for my English readers = wondered]

I came to the conclusion that it is all the fault of the Leprechauns who have devalued the term by including an anglicised version in their paddywhackery vocabulary. The Oul Boreen invokes images of poverty, bare feet and even famine itself. Nobody in Ireland today would like this for an address in preference to Southfork or even Mornington Crescent.

So here's the plan. It's time to reclaim the Oul Boreen and recycle it back into the lilting Irish from which it originally came. Lead on Galway!

Marbh le Léinte T agus marbh gan iad

You would think that Galway City Council was telling you not to enter Fallers Sweater Shop. Maybe they thought it was a Sweat Shop and they were doing their bit for the international labour movement.

In any event it is a very interesting shop. Among other Oirish paraphanalia it has a witty selection of T shirts, some of which are shown below.

This one nicely sets off the royal black and cream of the pint against the green envy of other beers: do Carlsberg and Heineken spring to mind?

It also has resonances of blasphemous beers of green beloved by Irish- and pseudo Irish- Americans alike. Not to mention the short lived arrogance of a ten pin bowling set.

Seeing as how we mentioned Carlsberg you might like to consider this take off. The claim is qualified by "probably" which, if you follow the rationale of the beer ad, means "I think I am but the regulator won't let me say so". Shadows of a repressed youth? The claim is also qualified by being limited to "Ireland", though it is not clear whether this is the State or the island. A cross-border marathon might be required to settle that one.

And, finally, when it all goes wrong, you have to blame the other fella and dip into the dark recesses of hiberno English (or "Béarla Éigeantach" as it is known in some post-famine millieux).

There are few terms in any language that can give you the same satisfaction as the word "gobshite". It is an affectionate way of insulting someone absolutely - calling him the absolute dregs (and it is a "him", the word is not applied to women). Mind you,the addition of "fecking" far from making it worse actually mollifies it a bit. I suppose you can't have it every way.

And, finally, finally, the multipurpose "eejit", gender neutral, insulting and affectionate, and seldom on its own. An eejit is usually a f**king eejit, even where the first term is completely silent. Sometimes the final "t" can be silent, as though the deliverer had expended so much force on the first two syllables that he collapses from exhaustion before reaching the final consonant.

So, all in all, a mighty collection of witty indigenous T shirts (the "r" is definitely pronounced here).

Na Duibhirigh

Bhíos i nGaillimh thar an deire seachtaine agus chonac an fhuinneog seo a chuir ar mo shuaimhneas mé.

De réir dealramh tá teacht fós ar na Duibhirigh leasmuigh den phríomh chathair.

Ní hamháin san ach táid ag coinneáil súil ghéar ar a gcomharsain i gcónaí.

St. Andrews

I just got a decent digital camera and one of the shots I took is of St. Andrews church at Westland Row, Dublin, Ireland, where I was baptised.

I know it breaks the first rule of buildings photography with the perspective tilt but it is just a passing by shot and, innste na fírinne, I am really trying out the new blogger facility for hosting images.

However, on reflection, since posting the above, I have been trying to make sense of the inscription on the church, as seen below. It would appear to refer to Blessed rather than Saint Andrew. This does not seem to make sense as surely Andrew was already a saint when this church was built.


DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO SUB INVOC B ANDREAE APOSTOLI
Ideas welcome?

Bring me my red shirt and my brown trousers

The ignominious fall of Admiral Nelson



8th March is the anniversary of the toppling of Admiral Nelson from his perch in Dublin's O'Connell Street, in 1966, on the eve of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the 1916 Rising.

This year is the 90th anniversary of the Rising and the Irish Government intends to use the occasion to reclaim the Rising from the historical clutches of Sinn Féin/IRA in its various manifestations. A major parade, involving the Irish army, is planned to pass the GPO, the major iconic site of the Rising. A similar parade was held in 1966 when de Valera was still President and the Irish airforce had three Vampire jets, all of which were deployed for the fly-past. You can see some images here.

Anyway, back to Nelson. I was one of the minority of Dubliners who actually went up the Pillar. It was more taken for granted than mounted, and, had it not been for my showing a foreign tourist around the city, I might never have seen the sights from such a height. You can see some photos which show the shadow of the pillar on O'Connell Street and an interesting back view of the Pro-Cathedral, which neatly illustrates the rationale of the authorities of the day insisting that it front onto a back-street (Marlborough St.).

You can see the deconstruction of the monument in a html slideshow here.

And, in honour of the year that's in it, and in the interest of furthering "these island" relations, you may wish to download a Nelson Calendar for 2006 here

Had a nice Work Life Balance Day?

Yesterday was Ireland's "Work Life Balance" day when employers and employees alike were urged to cooperate in achieving a better work-life balance in the face of the increasing demands of the working life.

I recently retired from a career which spanned almost 40 years and which was getting more stressful by the day. I worked in the public service which gets loads of stick from the media and others for being a "cushy number" [they can't sack you, they will always pay you, and they will give you a big pension when you retire]. Ironically a lot of this criticism comes from mega-buck media pundits who could do with putting in a little more work for their bucks instead of criticising others about whose working conditions they know next to nothing and care even less.

Public service careers in Ireland, and I assume elsewhere, have become more fraught over the years as more output is expected from often decreasing resources. This is aggravated by the indiscriminate use of runaway technologies. At the same time the whole process is becoming more transparent and subject to minute scrutiny through Freedom of Information legislation and the proliferation of Parliamentary Scrutiny Committees in addition to the traditional systems of Parliamentary Questions and debates and the ubiquitous "representations" (correspondence) from the public and other stakeholders. I am very much in favour of increased transparency, if only as a protection of the integrity of the public service in the longer run. However, servicing this transparency also requires more resources, and this is seldom taken into account.

You won't be surprised, therefore, to hear that I identified very much with the recent findings of Ciarán O'Boyle even though these referred specifically to senior management in global organisations. I've been at the global end of the business and time-zones play havoc with any attempt to organise work life balance.

Wanted: numerate unmarried female!

Recent notice on College of Europe Website!

Does it infringe gender discrimination laws?

Wednesday 7 September

The College of Europe's Development Office is seeking key economiss for the constitution of a reserve list with a view of its future activities (mainly short term missions). See the jobs pages for details.

Bloganna Gaeilge

I wondered if there were any blogs in Irish so I did a search and some follow-up and here are the results:

Links from Gaeilge.org:
Breacleabhar an Imill
Muddle-Headed Wombat
An t-Imeall
An Caomhach
Gaeilgeoir na Fionlainne
Blog April

Some crosslinks from the blogs above:
Arm Rúnda na Gaeilge
As Ord Oraiste
Blag Shomhairle
Hilary NY
Aduaidh
Faoi dhéin an dorais
Cuisle
Aingeal
gan ainm

One in gaidhlig (with lots of cross links to other gaidhilg blogs]
Gàidhlig - cha bhithinn às a h-aonais!

another in gaidhilg:
an nighean neònach

Eibhlín's farewell

I went to a funeral today.

The ceremony was in the Victoria Chapel in Mount Saint Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.

It was a very moving occasion. Eibhlín had died suddenly in London of a heart attack and was now finally being laid to rest a week later.

I knew Eibhlín in the 1960s and 1970s but hadn't seen her much since. I had no idea of the path of her life since then, or of its richness, or of the extent to which she touched so many other peoples lives, until I heard it all laid out at the funeral.

The ceremony was very moving. It celebrated Eibhlín's life and interests and included blues and classical music, buddist chanting, poetry and straight eulogy. While there was a priest "celebrant" there was an absence of the usual hijacking by the church of the soul of the dead.

Eibhlín was cremated, or as it was more aptly put at the ceremony, returned to the elements.

May her elemental self live on in the hearts of others.

Some new stuff

There is some new stuff added to my website:

language
computer programming
sound man
Vale Printers

Checking it out

Thanks to the lady who set me up.

First Post

I keep starting this blog over.

I haven't really got a use for it and originally set it up just to see how these things worked.

Website

Since then I have left Tripod and set my website up with ipowerweb, which seems fine. It's at www.photopol.com.

Coláiste Mhuire

I have a subpage on it devoted to my class in Coláiste Mhuire(class of '63) which I hope will include ongoing news views and photos. I have whacks of these and intend scanning them in over the next (possibly very long) while.

College of Europe

I am also thinking of having a section devoted to my College of Europe class in Brugge (Class of '68) though they don't know that yet. I have already some stuff up on the college and some photos from Brugge (formerly Bruges)in the 1967/68 period.

General Photos

I have also scanned in quite a few photos which are presented in a photogallery while other photos appear in context in features such as that on Paris in 1988 or a slideshow of shots around Ireland.

Ongoing Stuff

I am also doing a few ongoing features like Signs of the Times where I poke fun at bad signage or Shop Rage where I vent my frustrations at the current obstacle course called shopping.