It’s funny the things that catch people’s attention…No, let me rephrase that. It’s semi-insane what catches people’s attention. Assuming you haven’t been living in a hole in the ground, you’ll know how deeply moved were Enda Kenny, Micheal Martin and Joan Burton by Mairia Cahill’s allegations of rape. Assuming Ms Cahill is telling the truth, it shows that the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour are sensitive people, able to empathise with those who have (allegedly) suffered.
The semi-insane bit comes as you read a report in The Irish Times less than a week ago. It lists statistics fresh from an organisation called Safe Ireland. It tells how domestic violence services answered over 46,100 help-line calls last year. That’s one every twelve minutes. Safe Ireland works for the prevention of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.
Emergency refuges accommodated nearly 1,800 women and supported over 6,000 women last year. But – and here’s the semi-insane bit – almost 3,500 requests for emergency accommodation were turned down last year because the refuge was full. The head of Safe Ireland, Sharon O’Hanlon, said “We need leadership in this country around this issue”.
So – with desperate women and children being turned away because there is no room at the inn, so to say, where is the leadership to come from? Were there statements from Micheal Martin or Joan Burton this week about the thousands of women assaulted this year and last year and the year before? Was Enda Kenny shown hugging one of the 3,500 turned away because the emergency refuges were filled to the gills and could take no more?
People don’t apply for emergency refuge because they’ve a grudge against their partners or because they have a chance to have their case heard in court and some remedy provided. They apply for emergency refuge because they are desperate. Yet the leaders of the south’s political parties sing mum and instead tell the microphones and cameras how moved they are by the courage of Ms Cahill in making the allegations she’s made. It’s sort of like those South American countries that used erect high sheet fencing between the airport and the capital city so that no one would see the squalor in which so many of their citizens lived. While you can direct attention away from domestic violence that’s happening under your watch and instead get emotional about allegations of sexual violence by one person from Belfast, sure why would you be turning your gaze at a scandal that might reflect badly on you? Which might indicate that really, deep down, you don’t give a damn about anyone’s suffering except there’s a chance it’ll make you look good politically.
I no longer wish to talk about a young girl (16) at the time, be she catholic or protestants. SHE IS TELLING THE TRUTH
Gerry Adams is a liar, nice enough man I will grant you, but a liar.
When I next speak to any of yous bar Neill William and the other good men I cannot scroll down to get their names.
I will have great delight in rubbing your noses in it. Just wait softly softly catch a monkee,
Omertà, Mafia they all got caught, so will he, my GOD, will always insist good over comes evil. My God is the omni God all seeing all knowing.
To GA I SAY “come in number 7 your time is up”.
You will pay for your sins, of that you can be sure.
Jude, you just don’t get it. You incessingly point out the rise of Sinn Fein, and potentially how they could be one of the largest parties North and South following the next national elections. You continually laud them for what they have done for the peace process here, but you need to accept that they come with huge baggage. Their leadership contains murderers and terrorists who feel they can move on from their previous heinous deeds, whilst their victims are left with very little but their memories. GA has been embroiled in many controversies, each one of course denied, did we really expect him to admit to offences that could potentially carry a life sentence. He allowed his brother to continue within the party for many years knowing exactly what he had been up to, and now we find out that he has suppressed further serious crime with SF/IRA.
Putting all this in context, what would the reaction have been if these crimes had taken place within any of the other parties North and South? Jude, I believe the cliche is, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’, SF will not be free of these controversies for many years, and as I’ve suggested before, there are many more to come.
Well sweet William, you’re entitled to your view. I’m sure republicans did terrible things during the period of the conflict. I’m also sure terrible things were done to them and others. Everybody has baggage – but somehow it’s always republican baggage we hear about.I think , from your perspective, you should be rejoicing that so many in the Irish and British media share your view of things, rather than feeling aggrieved that I don’t.
You turn your timely torchlight today, Esteemed Blogmeister, upon the issue of news, and news massaging. News, not nude.
Quite serendipitously, there will be a talk given tonight in Dublin by the dissenting John Pilger who knows a thing or three about this topic. And no better place than Liffeyside which is quite a bilge-water of news massaging, perhaps never more obvious than in the last week or so. In the global house of news massaging there is even a strongish case to be made that Dublin is indeed, its very parlour. (Lonely Planet, please copy).
The bull-droppings-detecting Pilger has pointed out, amongst other things, that while the decapitations by the less than nice Isis fellaheen have clutched the, erm, headlines it is a little enough known fact that there have been a deal more beheadings in Saudi Arabia in the past month. S.A. just happens to be an ally of the orthodoxy which includes the UK, the USA and you name it, whichever morally superior country.
Far more folk too have died of malaria in the past month than have of Ebola. It is scarcely any coincidence that these instances of news massaging have run parallel with the rise of the Dworkin Class. It is this somewhat rigid class which now decides what is sexy or what is not in a news sense. Hence the current culture of massaging.
One of the first instances of this stiff decision making was the abolition of ‘Miss’ and its replacement by ‘Ms’. This puzzled Perkie’s inner mental plodder for a long time and made him wonder just what he had been, erm, missing. The scales which Lady Justice balances so delicately in her hand above the entrance of Dublin Castle finally fell last week, coincidentally with the scales from a backward Perkie’s myopic eyes.
It finally dawned upon him even as he yawned, scratched, trouser coughed and stretched that while Ebola has (thankfully) not reached the shores of Eireland, the Free Southern Stateen has been in the grip of the unpleasantness known as Ms which stands for the medical condition called: Munchausen’s syndrome.
It is named for the German uber-spoofer of the 18th century, Baron Freidrich Hieronymus Fuehrer Von Munchhausen. As it is named for a herr and not a her, naturally enough it is a condition which primarily affects the male of the species, though not, of course, exclusively. Hieronymus is a particularly apt name as what the bombastic Baron was essentially about was: the dissemination of bosh.
Just as Alzheimer’s used to be known by the more homely term ‘doting’ so also, Munchausen’s syndrome was formerly called in the vernacular as ‘acting the notice-box’. Like doting, like box-noting. Perkie has good reason to know the latter, for it was many a time and oft he was fetched a clatter on the ear from the good Lady Dowager Warbeck as a way of getting him to desist ‘from acting the notice-box’. It is a condition, alas, he has never quite outgrown. As if that fact need noting.
On Liffeyside in the last week there have been three attention-grabbing public instances of Munchausen’s syndrome. Each involving the taking by the media mob of the harness from the horses of the trio and the pulling of their vehicles by the same m.m. through the streets of a receptive Dublin.
In the first two instances, it was on the occasion of the publication of their D.I.Y.ographies Firstly, by Dr. Roy Keane, professional Corkman and secondly by the god-like BOD, Freeman of Dublin. Fittingly, their D.I.Y.ographies were published on or near the ghosting time of the year. Perkie, alas, has momentarily forgotten the name of the afflicted in the third instance but is reasonably confident it will come to him before he has finished his blog-trotting for today.
Two books, one news-massaged conclusion: they are the two greatest colossi to bestride the Irish sporting scene ever.
Which, of course, is tosh. Just the sort of tosh which those influential officers of the Dworkin Class, those female wheelbarrowers with their muscular arms in the media, just love to lap up and continue to perpetrate, Why, the pair in q. are not even the greatest exponents of their particular minority spots in the island of Ireland. That honour clearly falls to two natives of Belfast, G. Best and M. Gibson. There is no need to elaborate on this fact, which is so obvious and incontrovertible, that Perkie has no intention of imposing further on Esteeemed Blogmeister’s generosity by doing so.
What he will do, however, is point out just one more instance of news massaging. This also involves that most political of topics, sport. In Parnell Park (aka the Parnellogram) last night a crowd of 10,000 turned up, primarily to watch THE finest sportsman in any code in Ireland today, Diarmuid Connolly. Last Friday, 5,000 turned up to watch Dundalk defeat Cork in the League of Ireland finale. Despite the Friday game being donated at least sixty nine times more pre-game media massaging.
Don’t just take Perkie’s dispassionate view of DC. Here’s a little click bait. Just finger press into the ‘Diarmuid Connolly’s goal V St. Sylvester’ thingy on the Internet and judge for yourself, equally dispassionate reader or two. Naturally, it has yet to go viral due to the Dworkin Class dominance in the media of the Free Southern Stateen. The GAA is just not, erm, sexy. No fear of DC’s horses ever being de-harnessed in Dublin. Perhaps, Washington, some day.
Oh, yes, the name of the person at the core of the third instance of Munchausen’s syndrome has just come to absent-minded Perkie: none other that he who, in his time, has stood up in Leinster House and stood by the Republic (not to be confused with standing his round in a public house): the indefatigable Dessie O’Malley. He too has just had his D.I.Y.ography published.
Another momentous, harness-removing occasion which calls for – what else – a Limerick from Pekie’s inner rhymester. Whose subtext is the phenomenal coincidence of another momentous item of massaged news from a different part of the globe on the very exact same day as the publication.
Conduct Unbecoming
On the very day of the DIYography of Des O’Malley
Who with the SAS strove so mightily to be ohso pally
Whether by purest chance
Or just plain happenstance
Came first news of Ebola from the Kingdom of Mali.
This may sound harsh but is there any chance you could get to the point in one paragraph it would save precious time?
In Ne Nero speak: you talkin’ to me, Neill?
Would that I could ! Unfortunately, like O. Wilde, Perkie just doesn’t have the time to pen a short piece. Like this one.
Beir bua !
Or spot the author and move on quickly…
Oh Perkie,you thing of wonder. May your typing digits never fail in their tapping strength.
Enda probably thought his photo shoot with Ms Cahill would see him over the 30% mark in approval ratings !! Sadly for him he fell just short at 29%.
Of course, Adams with a 40% standing is a liability…
Jude, a very valid point you make here. In relation to the Mairia Cahill case, I’m “news dodging” at the minute to prevent hearing who has jumped on the political bandwagon as of late. The fact is, for some, it’s political opportunism at its height and is unfortunately damaging any case and credence Máiría may have. Maybe the 3500 women in the South who have been denied emergency accommodation have SF sympathies ….
Jude I know you’re a fair minded and honest man, but I think it’s time to put a stop to Norma wilson and her hate filled rants on your blog.( at least monitor her)
It’s a reasonable request, which I’m sure other readers of this site will agree with.
I at first I enjoyed her comments as internment but now she is getting a little over the top. I am not one to support censorship, quite the opposite, but there is a point in which common sense must prevail.
Please take this is my personal opinion. It’s your blog for you to decide and I will abide with your decision.
I’ve been thinking the same. I’d welcome thoughts of others on the topic
As you said Jude its always easy to like people if they agree with you the problem is when they don’t agree with you it becomes easy to dislike them doesn’t it?
I have always regarded Jude as an affable “semi retired” lecturer and although we would disagree on everything its important to hear what other people are thinking just to test the strength of your own argument
I fully agree with you here Neill. However, Norma has been particularly abusive of late. Her point of view gets lost in the constant dehumanising of people. I welcome a challenge to any argument I put forth but she seems to insist on the right to make ridiculously offensive assumptions.
That’s not agreeing/disagreeing Neill, it’s just plain abusive.
Jim, I agree. However in this instance I will recite a quote i often use from Mark Twain with my own bracketed focus: “never argue with stupid (bitter) people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” … Just saying …
Jim,
I agree, Norma’s posts should at least be edited to exclude unnecessarily offensive “playing the man” remarks. If Norma can’t focus on the subject-matter then maybe she ought to reflect on the worth of submitting comments here.
RUC
Yur havin a laff aren’t ye.
When people don’t even address the OP and rant on about something that has been well aired on other threads it is clear they are simply here to troll.
When Seamy Fincuane has to claim he didn’t read what he put up on his facebook page.
When Mary Nelis has to deny being Mary Nelis after putting up the same thing the day after Mary Lou condemned it as shameful and cruel.
And when Mitchel McLaughlin’s son retweets a fake document which was put out years ago by a convicted paedophile Vincent McKenna and proven as a fake then and claims it was the work of MI6/MI5 Journalists, Mairia Cahill, Ed Moloney and the Boston Project.
Mairia Cahill has no worries about Shameless Shinners believing her when everyone else does.
Retweeting the McKenna document was really scraping the bottom of the barrel but putting up the original letter within the hour to prove it was a fake and attempt to use it to smear those people was not only nasty but actually stupid…..
Like how did they get it so quickly for a start? Someone had to have saved a copy because the original one was clearly send to this ‘Vincent’. Who saves a copy in case it happens again?
To cut a long story short….MI6/MI5 Journalists plus the others in on their “dirty tricks trying to blacken Sinn Féin & Gerry Adams. ” put a document on Twitter.
Within the hour some gallant soul finds the ‘original’ genuine one which blows this dastardly plot out of the water…..
Oh friggin’ dear Pat!!
I totally agree with Jim. I’m a long time reader of the blog and I have to say that I find the majority of what Norma has to say outrageous.
I think I read once that one of the rules of debate should be to ‘attack the argument, not the character of who is making it’. This is certainly not a rule Norma abides by as she evidently sees it perfectly acceptable to insult whoever, whenever.
I’m glad that the comments section of your blogs includes contributions from those who’d hold a different political outlook than myself. It’d be of much less interest to me if everyone was always in total agreement on every issue raised. But it’d be no hardship if I was spared reading Norma’s irrational, abusive rants.
Please, Jude
Remove me forth with, I could not give a toss. This is my views, I faithfully stand by them.
So I bide you all good day and good luck.
Please remove me forthwith.
Goodbye, Norma. And good luck.
Jude
Can you not just edit Norma a bit. She is passionate about stuff, it would be a shame to lose that I think.
I’ve taken her off at her own request, gio. Like you I’m sorry it’s ended like this but I did warn her more than once that you just can’t dish out abuse and sin é – that’s it. We all can verge on abusive at times but most of the time we try to mix it in with some semblance of argument. I’m open to that from Norma or anyone else.
I think ‘Norma’ should be allowed to air her views as its a constant reminder to people how bigoted and bitter these people are and how they fail to see it.
She also regularly made me laugh at her attempts to appear indifferent to the topics on this site and yet she was one of the busiest on it.
Her presence will be back here in one way or another that’s for sure.
Wolfe tone
You’re another example of pot, kettle, black and derriere. And you’re right, sometimes people can’t see the bitterness in themselves but then again, sometimes people point an accusing finger at others to justify their own bitterness.
I think it was for the best for everyone that Norma was put out of her miserly.
Norma
Its good to see you’ve gone, as your rants were becoming tedious and pointless. It did however give us a perspective on the bitter orange invective, still being spewed by some so called moderate, even ‘mixed marriage’ unionists that really, when you scratch the surface, can’t stand a ‘taig about the place’, – unless they know their place !
So Unionists bigoted Nationalists non bigoted that’s a poor stereotype really isn’t it?
Truthrevisionist
I wonder what Jude, Jim Lynch and other contributors think of your rants? That one in reference to Norma was just scratching the surface. Nobody but yourself mentioned taigs. I could just as well say your rants give me a perspective on such and such a group but actually all they do is give me a perspective on you. Lazy generalising I think Jude calls it or maybe it’s general laziness. Bitter orange invective…that’s a pun isn’t it?
Norma has retired, but she will be missed.
Pretzellogic
Yet again, I’m baffled as to what the point is, you are trying to make???
But I’ll try this;
Not having ‘a taig about the place’ was a well worn expression often used in the six counties through generations, to explain the subjugation and cultural and economic engineering of the catholic/nationalist population, in order to control their influence in commerce, industry, housing, politics, the police, the judiciary, the civil service and generally all functions of the ‘Protestant State’. It was essentially a form of apartheid, – you know the type once used in South Africa and now practised today in the criminal state of Israhell.
Now it appears to me that Norma, aged 60, is perhaps aggrieved that these ‘halcyon’ days have now gone and all she can engage in, as a reflex, is a constant barrage and spewing of vitriol and bitterness for all things republican / nationalist.
Perhaps she is in denial that none of the above occurred and to compensate she hurls insults and ill will to deflect guilt?
Perhaps more tellingly, she reflects the sentiments of many more acrimonious, seething, well heeled participants in this failed unionist statelet.
Reality sometimes cannot be swallowed in one bite.
Most importantly,people like Norma who have nothing constructive ever to offer will never be missed.
Truthrevisionist
Your reply was sorta the point I was trying to make.
pretzel
I have to agree. I hope the likes of Wolfy and Ruaidri (whose charming efforts we have all heard about recently) will now take the mote out of their own eye.
I on the other hand have only compassion for my fellow man and woman.
To understand all is to forgive all, as the Buddha probably said.
Pretzel, if you have picked up on my distaste of the British war machine in all its many guises then I am Spartacus!
If I am supposed to ‘tolerate’ racist,sectarian and general bigoted rants against anything but Norma’s community then I am afraid that won’t be happening.
If I have a distaste for any organisation,family or church that awards,covers up,or indeed perpetrates abuse on youngsters , then I am Spartacus. And that includes any republican organisation.
If you are expecting a sackcloth and ashes moment from me then I suggest you are a deluded optimist.
Wolfe tone
Yes I did pick up on your comments here. I was trying to point out your hypocrisy and again you haven’t disappointed. Why would you even suggest that I may be expecting a sackcloth and ashes moment from you? I’m a Paisleyite for Christ’s sake. Deluded!! Optimist!! I
Suffering comes in many forms Jude and the situation you have outlined is truly horrific. Unfortunately there is no political capital to be made from outlining the scandal by the government parties.
But the laughable attacks on Gerry Adams must be addressed. Gerry Adams stands head and shoulders above most of the time-serving politicians in Dail Eireann All attempts to divert him and Sinn Fein from the path to an All-Ireland republic are doomed to failure, but expect many more attacks to surface as we get closer to a general election.
The establishment is very worried about the growing popularity of Sinn Fein and will stop at nothing to slow the advance, as we have seen recently..
Getting back to the question of suffering, I am including a little excerpt from the Guardian newspaper of Monday, October 11, 2010, so Neil and Norma will get a little flavour of how things were for some in the little Orange utopia, just in case they have forgotten.
.
Castlereagh interrogation centre in east Belfast, the scene of many of the complaints of police brutality at the heart of current appeals, was a forbidding place with a terrifying reputation.
It was the subject of several Amnesty International complaints, one government commission of inquiry and at least one secret internal police investigation.
For more than 20 years the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and successive British government ministers maintained that IRA propaganda was largely to blame for its notoriety, and that whatever abuses did occur were the responsibility of a few “rotten apples”.
However, a number of former RUC interrogators, men who worked at Castlereagh during the 70s, 80s and 90s, have recently told the Guardian that the beatings, the sleep deprivation and the other tortures were systematic, and were, at times, sanctioned at a very high level within the force.
.
As I have said before, nobody should be forced into an all-Ireland state against their will, but democracy can be a bitch sometimes and a majority verdict on the subject is fine by me..
Castlereagh interrogation centre in east Belfast, the scene of many of the complaints of police brutality at the heart of current appeals, was a forbidding place with a terrifying reputation.
It was the subject of several Amnesty International complaints, one government commission of inquiry and at least one secret internal police investigation.
For more than 20 years the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and successive British government ministers maintained that IRA propaganda was largely to blame for its notoriety, and that whatever abuses did occur were the responsibility of a few “rotten apples”.
However, a number of former RUC interrogators, men who worked at Castlereagh during the 70s, 80s and 90s, have recently told the Guardian that the beatings, the sleep deprivation and the other tortures were systematic, and were, at times, sanctioned at a very high level within the force.
Of course you would have preferred the Kangaroo IRA court type of justice and your rotting cadaver left on a deserted road?
What mercy did the IRA ever show to any of its victims?
False comparison, Neill. We paid the RUC to look after us – all of us. The facts now show that was not the case.
Hang on Jude you are wrong at least you walked out of a RUC interrogation the same cannot always be said of a kangaroo court created by and ran by the IRA after all the IRA tried to usurp the states legal judicial system
Neil
You seem to have forgotten the ‘Kangaroo Courts’ organised by the RUC and British Intelligence services, where photo montages were handed out like confetti, to loyalist murder gangs, and ‘guilt’ was proven by being a catholic.
Jude,
The hypocrisy and opportunism of Enda Kenny, Michael Martin and Joan Burton is sickening – they are using Mairia Cahill every bit as she is them to engage in naked politicking that undermines the rule of law.
What is any society to do beyond offering an alleged victim a) their day in court and b) counselling?
Of course Ruaidri you make no comment on SF`s hypocrisy on there stance on child abuse in the Catholic church?
Your blog today exposes the plight of those who suffer for long periods in silence as a result of domestic abuse and the political posturing that passes for government. I sincerely hope that as a direct result of your thoughtful presentation on this issue, many people will take the next step and seek help from ongoing abuse.
It would appear that some elected representatives and sections of the media live in a time warp, this country was fine until the leader of Sinn Féin and his followers appeared on the scene. While many people in the north of Ireland were challenging injustices, inequalities and sectarianism, others were focused on carousing and the pursuit of profit. The most popular leader of the Labour Party since the last leader has not had a lot to say about the complex roles undertaken by women at the present time. Her main concern is that some people have expensive mobile phones and the time to protest against austerity measures.
Demonising individuals and groups who oppose austerity measures is no substitute for effective government. Again and again we hear advocates of welfare reform talk about the need to live in the real world. Such clichés ring hollow when one considers the number of MLA’s in the north of Ireland. Most people will remember that for months on end some MLA’s took salaries but refused to work the institutions of government. Many operate in the same time warp but are content to articulate the need to cut health and education budgets. Don’t mention salaries, expenses, subsidized food and the free mints, that would impede day to day government. Do we really need doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, home helps, carers, residential homes or teachers? Most people recognize privatisation by stealth when they see and more importantly experience it, apologies, I ought to have used the politically correct term, ‘outsourcing services’.
Ahhh Jude, the readers are expecting much too much from our politicians. The very idea of them acting like honest men… it goes so against the grain.!!!