I see where a man called E F Fanning has a letter in today’s Irish Times, complaining about the Irish media habit of throwing everything but the kitchen sink and Michael D Higgins at Sinn Féin. I promised myself I’d do a thorough trawl of the newspaper coverage of the Shinners but after a while I got bored and stopped. Too much material, too little time. But here’s a selection:
Sunday Independent, 2 November: Niamh Horan on the national flag: “The average young lad in the street should take as much possession of it as the IRA or Sinn Féin and realise it is not their flag, but all of ours”.
Sunday Independent, 2 November: Declan Lynch talks of republicans as “a darkness so profound, it was hardly of this world”.
Sunday Independent 2 November: John Drennan in a paean to Micheal Martin: “When Mairia Cahill needed, at a point of extremity, someone to stand by her, Martin was there”.
Irish Independent 3 November: Mary Kenny on the Royals: “It is to Prince Charles’s credit that he pursued peace despite the violent death of Mountbatten”.
And that’s just a taste of what’s been fired, directly or indirectly, at Sinn Féin over the last ten days.
Now there’s only one of two possibilities: either Sinn Féin are part of a “darkness so profound”, they deserve this relentless heavy fire and maybe eviction from politics altogether. Or they are a political party that is worrying the mainstream Irish media and in particular newspapers like the Independent to the brink of neuroses. Remember, all this criticism on the day (or day after) tthe Sindo published its own poll showing Sinn Féin to be the most popular party in the south. Somehow that gets morphed into a sustained attack on the party and even on the Irish people, who have been deluded into supporting this bunch of ruffians.
Is there a Press Council in the south, to regulate what gets printed? Some years ago a group called the Glasgow Media Group did a detailed analysis of the kind of words used and attitudes adopted in the British media towards a range of matters. It would make very interesting reading if some enterprising young journos or researchers were to do the same with the south’s media.
Mind you, it would be pointless except there were penalties exacted from those media organs found to be diseased in their coverage. Name and shame them, Virginia? Forget it. They know who they are and they know no shame.
Jude, your support for Sinn Fein is relentless, I really don’t know what you have to write about but for your beloved shinners.
It was interesting to see that your widespread media research extended only to the Indo, can you please explain the relevance of Prince Charles supporting the peace process, even though the IRA murdered his beloved great uncle. I’m not quite sure how that is an attack on Sinn Fein.
I mentioned it before, and I’ll ask it again, would you have given these alleged rapists of Mairia Cahill the same support if they had been Unionists, I think not.
Ah good morning, sweet William. “Relentless support’, eh? Not to be confused with the relentless attacks which I’ve given just a smidgin of. And of course your anti-republican stance would be..? Oh right. Balanced. OK. Have a nice day, William. Even if there is a chill in the atmospheric and political air.
Water is nothing if not versatile. Indeed, as some dry wit once remarked, water always finds its own devil.
Thus, in the Free Southern Stateen, the water issue went underground as AVOCA took over. That would be, A Victim of Child Abuse.
The devil in this case came bearded, bespectacled and blatantly (allegedly) illiterate in the dismal science of economics.
Only our o.t.r. devils run free.
There is a phrase, oddly enough in the lingua franca of the leprechaun, which describes this action of the water issue suddenly disappearing from sight: ‘uisce faoi thalamh’. It can be translated as something along the lines of ‘skullduggery’ or even ‘spin doctoring’. Though as Perkie’s inner poetaster has been known to remark, ‘poetasting is often what gests lost in the transubstantiation’.
Over the weekend, and spilling over to this Monday morning, however, the water issue has, with the help of the Risen P., broken the banks of Liffeyside once again. One was unsure why this was so. Of course, the mischievous malcontents claimed it was all due to a certain poll organized by a particular cult.
Indeed, it wasn’t till Prk listened in to PK on Newstalk today that he was reluctantly compelled to do an extremely distasteful deed, i.e., agree with the mischievous m’s. For Pat Kenny (for it is he!) was suddenly awash again with the over currents of the water issue, so much so there was nary a dicky b about the p. results which had been originally slotted to fill a goodly part of the prog.The poll, one might say, had been poleaxed.
As indeed had another minor detail which emerged from the Bearded One (see above) even earlier this morning in Ireland (at the unusually edgy hands of a normally polite G. Jennings on RTE), i.e., that the rapist (alleged) at the centre of the AVOVA issue (see also, above) was actually an extended family member.
Hmmm.
Immediately this minor detail forklifts the case into a different sphere entirely and compels it to take its place firmly among the 97%. That is the percentage of AVOCA cases which have been committed by the F-word which has been so deftly avoided by the prudish press – F for Family, Friends and Furtive Neighbours and other Strangers.
Corralled inside the other 3% are, naturellement, those convicted clergymen (of the RC persuasion) and latterly, other (alleged) terrorists.
The reason this 3% manages to hog 97 % of the deadheadlines is because the ruling class of the Free Southern Stateeen ordains it to be so. That would be the Dworkin Class. AVOCA and Avoca are not necessarily the same thing but the confusion is understandable as Avoca is dwork for The Meeting of the Daughters. In other words their Annual Conference or Ard-Fheis at which much superfluous flesh is in evidence.
Which is the yearly doffing of their dunchers in the direction of their spiritual founder, that Bouncy Castle of Bile, the late and deeply lamented Andrea Dworkin. A Stalin-sized (oops, almost wrote Stallion !) portrait of their dungareed Demi-goddess dominates the backdrop to their podium. Always.
A regular keynote speaker and honorary dwork at the Meeting of the Daughters is – mirabile dictu ! – the O’Toole known as the Phenomenal Fintan.
Last week, coincidentally, in his Tuesday column in The Unionist Times, he, and it is indubitably a he, was doing a deal of what he does: Finger Jabbing: ‘No wonder Sinn Fein is furious. How galling for people who operate on this higher level of truthiness to be dogged by those who are stuck on the muddy ground of mere truth’.
Now, in the wake of the poll that dares not speak its name, that SF are, seemingly, not now doing an impression of the Furey Brothers (with ‘Sweet 16’ just around the corner) or even Billy Fury himself (they, seemingly, being ‘Half way to Paradise’) perhaps the modest Fintan might lift himself from the base camp where the muddy ground is to be found and ascend a.s.a.p. to his more natural habitat, the lofty cerebral summit of CaraounToole.
Perkie is methinking the time might be indeed somewhat apt for Tuesday’s child to turn his colossal intellect on to another watery issue, that what has been describied by the m. malcontents (see above) as ‘the Watersgate of The Unionist Times’.
This concerns the rather abrupt disappearance underground of Friday’s child, a columnist by the name, strangely enough, of John Waters. And all sorts of ‘uisce faoi thalamh’. As the Phenomenal Fintan just does not do the l.f. of he leprechaun (as his stubborn clinging to his surname, O’Toole copperfastens) the pernickety Perkie refers him to the first mench of the stenchy phrase (above) for an explanation.
Also, ‘Watersgate’ features patsies, fall guys, innumerable tweets by a mysterious ‘H2O’ and other facets of an utterly mystifiying nature. Murky waters indeed. Time surely to fathom the hitherto unfathomable for the Great Unwashed not, erm, privy to the inner plumbing of The Unionist Times. Time, as it were, to get to the bottom of it all.
Perhaps the Big O’Toole might get his inner Little Richard to throw some light on this issue of Tuttiness.
Perkie modestly pleads: over now to thou, Frutti Fintan.
Water is both ante-deluvian and
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a… .
The imperial masters are not pleased. In spite of an attempt to redistribute wealth by the current leader of the Labour Party in London, the proletariat appear to want more of the cake. Your reference to the work of the Glasgow University Media Group is relevant at the present time. In the book, ‘Really Bad News’ reference is made to a ‘hierarchy of access’ in which access is given mainly to the powerful (GUMG 1982:113 – 126).
The current administration in Dublin is clearly out of step with the electorate. The body politic has been shaken to its core by an unreasonable electorate. What is wrong with a private company having access to PPS numbers? What is wrong with introducing water taxes? Surely the executives who were responsible for sending out all those letters deserve a bonus? What is wrong with exorbitant call out charges? Is it not a bit too much to expect constitutional protection for water? Surely the entrepreneurs know best and deserve lucrative salaries and bonuses in order to attract the right calibre of people, just like the banks?
The tried and tested method of ‘divide and conquer’ appears to be working well in the north of Ireland. The ‘bloated public sector’ is being challenged by the entrepreneurs (?) in the ‘wealth creating private sector’? Tell that to people who continue to provide a quality service in the hospitals as waiting times increase and wards are closed due to inadequate staffing. Irish and British administrators sat on their hands during the summer months when millions of pounds literally went up in smoke around bonfires and protests. As the smoke begins to clear it now emerges that it will be the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit by the proposed cost-saving budget cuts. The elected representatives make the decisions and then pass the responsibility to implement ‘efficiency savings’ to people living and working in the ‘real’ world. People were told to give themselves ‘a good shake’ if they did not concur with budget cuts. Patients with diseases of the nervous system and their carers will no doubt give some politicians a good shake next time round.
As you well know Ireland is a very unequal society between the ‘have’ and the ‘have nots’.
This inequality was exacerbated by the Celtic Tiger where the rich got very rich investing there excess income and wealth in lending, shares and property.
It is the wealthy who have a huge vested interest in owning and controlling the media and as a result establishment politicians who are obliging facilitators of the movement of the Irelands resources towards the rich and super-rich.
A socialist party like Sinn Fein threaten all of that as they are perceived not to be in the pockets of the rich and influencial so must be attacked by those who support the Wealthy status quo.
Ms mary lou mc donald obviously doesn’t read the Mirror at wordpress! her loss!!! http://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/perfidious-or-precarious-albion/
Not only is the result of the poll presented with projected seats but it is put in the context of UK projections and seats.
Can Ms mc donald possibly demand more?
Its people like Mary Kenny who are beyond help when it comes to the southern media brainwashing. Mary believes Prince Charles, who holds senior positions in the British Army (that same British Army that murdered many innocent Irish people, either directly or through collusion with Loyalist terrorists, Dublin/Monaghan Bombings just one example) was some sort of “peace maker”, all because his dear old Uncle was killed by the IRA. Someone should tell Mary that Prince Charles wasn’t the only person who lost family members during the troubles and just because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and that his back side has been wiped every day of his life that doesn’t make Charles any better than any other person who lost loved ones.
Well said Ryan, the problem is these people think Charles and his family are somehow superior to `ordinary` folk.
Perhaps you should read what you have wrote and consider how bitter that makes you sound?
I always read what I write, neill, so I don’t end up in court. As to bitter – I’m happy to say I’ve avoided that particular bear-trap, despite all temptation. For God’s sake, neill – I even like YOU…
One minute the Independent is some old rag not suitable as toilet paper. But when it favours Sinn Fein it’s the greatest authority since the bible – cake and eat it?
I think I missed the bit where someone said ‘It’s the greatest authority since the bible’ – where was that, Theresa?
Jude
If there is a conspiracy against Sinn Fein these are not very good examples of it.
The first one is an injunction to Irish people to take possession of the flag, indeed to emulate SF. Surely a good thing.
The second is a quote about the IRA. As we are constantly reminded they were not the same entity as Sinn Fein.
The fourth a reference to Prince Charles supporting the peace process,which SF of course also support. Surely a good thing.
Only the third is an oblique criticism of SF and does not even mention them.
Ah gio m’man ( I’m assuming you’re a man – can’t be sure since you wear a body mask): the implication if not statement is that somehow SF have hijacked the national flag and it needs taking back. Was there ever such bone-headed bilge? Regarding the second, the willingness of these people to use ‘Sinn Féin’ and ‘IRA’ interchangeably, even when talking about people who would hardly have been teenagers when the IRA packed things in – it’s ubiquitous. The fourth on Charles deciding not to do an Arnie Schwarzennegger …Nuff said.
Eilis O’Hanlon’s role in this whole sorry affair is an interesting one. Probably worth a blog by somebody prepared to undertake a bit of investigative journalism (a type of journalism utterly alien to Ms O’Hanlon it would appear). I can’t help but feel this is going to run and run, but not perhaps in the way that those instigating it had hoped.
The media`s bias against Republicans is nothing new and it will have zero effect on Sinn Féin`s vote. If we can fight against censorship, state collusion, internment and other such like then the wailing of the Dublin elite will make no difference.The Cahill woman will be tossed to the side once the hypocrites north and south have used her for their obvious propaganda. As we speak, some other stooge is being lined up, to be paraded before the cameras and used as a weapon against Gerry Adams. It is really only a matter of time before he is placed on the grassy knoll.
We all know the expression, keep your powder dry or perhaps, hold your fire is a better one. Well, we all know them but it seems FG, FF, the BBC, Sindo et al don’t.
Back in the day, they played the disappeared card but SF have done/are doing all they can to recover them. Among others, we had Jean McConville. The bonus came with Darky fingering Gerry but then Gerry got scooped and interrogated by the peelers. Well, bad as that seemed at the time, it closed that door.
Then came Cahill, with all the supporting cast jumping in. It all looked a bit too familiar, a bit too obvious as to what the intent was. Cahill became a cross between Ann Travers and Kate McCann, unwilling to accept challenge, even threatening to sue anyone questioning her or her motives.
Result? Sinn Fein’s rise in the polls.