I M Weary: Are you as fed up as I am with this whole does-the-IRA exist thing?
D Dóite: No.
I M Weary : You’re not tempted to climb the walls and slide down them using your fingernails?
D Dóite: Oh, certainly I am. The reason I said ‘No’ in response to your question is that I am not as fed up as you. Your fed-upness compared to mine is like an emaciated mouse beside an over-weight elephant.
I M Weary: Who or what are you most fed up with?
D Dóite: That is a very hard question to answer – there are so many contenders. Chief Constable George Hamilton, who’s managed to give the impression that the IRA killed Kevin McGuigan but in the same speech to say it was the Action Against Drugs outfit, who are a bunch of criminals, drug dealers and former members of the IRA. He’s a contender.
I M Weary: He’d certainly be high on my list.
D Dóite: But I’d also have to give serious consideration for King of the Fed-up-givers to the UUP leader Mike Nesbitt. He’s for quitting Stormont because he couldn’t lead a party that sat in government with people – i.e, Sinn Féin – who have links with killers.
I M Weary: Yet Mike teamed up with people who have links with the UVF and the UDA. Remember the time they were doing the Graduated Response thing?
D Dóite: How could I forget? He’s quitting the Executive because he says he’d have to sit with people who are linked with killers, even though he himself was linked with unionist paramilitary killers.
I M Weary: Can you think of anything worse?
D Dóite: I can. The DUP contribution to the mess. They’ve accused the UUP of posturing and politicking, while it’s beyond Specsavers clear that the DUP’s decision to stay in or leave Stormont will be based, not on ethics, but potential election votes. The smell of hypocrisy is overpowering.
I M Weary: Oh, now I remember. I can too.
D Dóite: You can too what?
I M Weary: I can too top that. Columnists.
D Dóite: You mean fifth columnists? Like that IRA spy network they said was at the heart of government?
I M Weary: No – I mean the people that write in newspapers, explaining to everyone what’s happening and how they should feel.
D Dóite: And get paid for it.
I M Weary: Indeed. I’m not saying they’re all bad, mind.
D Dóite : You’re not?
I M Weary: But some of them…I’ll give you one example.
D Dóite: Do that.
I M Weary: In the VO this morning –
D Dóite: The VO?
I M Weary: The Venerable Organ.
D Dóite: Oh. Can’t say I know it. But anyway.
I M Weary: In the VO this morning, one of these columnists is on about the IRA still being around. Here’s how it goes: “Likewise, the continuing existence of the IRA is obvious from any detailed examination of official reports, specifically the 2008 Independent Monitoring Commission report on the Provisional IRA leadership”.
D Dóite: So this columnist says the IRA is still around and the 2008 IMC report proves it. Sounds reasonable to me.
I M Weary: Have you read the 2008 IMC report?
D Dóite: You must be kidding. Life is short.
I M Weary: Well, here’s a bit of what they say: “ In our view the way in which the leadership has adopted an entirely different course, disbanded terrorist related structures and capacity and engaged in different activities, and members have moved on to other things, means that the PIRA of the recent and violent past is well beyond recall.”
D Dóite: So the IMC in 2008 said the IRA had moved on and wasn’t coming back?
I M Weary: Exactly.
D Dóite: But the VO columnist said the IRA was still chugging along, and indicated the IMC report as evidence of that.
I M Weary: Yep.
D Dóite: Whereas when you check the IMC 2008 report, it says just about the exact opposite.
I M Weary: Exactly.
D Dóite: The moral being, don’t believe everything you read in the papers.
I M Weary: I have no intention of doing so.
D Dóite: You are weary of it all.
I M Weary: I am weary of it all.
D Dóite: And I am fed up.
I M Weary: You are indeed fed up…Maybe somebody’ll kidnap a horse or a queen or something, and they’ll move on to that.
D Dóite: And you know who they’ll blame for it?
I M Weary: Oh here, here – stop, would you? I feel the need of a dark room and a bottle of whiskey.
D Dóite: May I join you?
I M Weary: You may.
(Exeunt omnes)
I don`t believe anything I don`t read in the papers because I gave up reading columns by the likes of Dudley Edwards and O`Doherty a long time ago.The Belfast Tell A Lie is full of anti Sinn Féin propaganda and to be honest I just ignore it. A few months ago the mighty Nelson McCausland was given his own (Nelson`s) column in the BT, his little bearded image stares out from the page pleading with his eyes, please, read me, read me, but I flick over, blissfully unaware of the rubbish spouting from his non Ulster Scots writings.That`s how I keep my blood pressure at a decent level, same as when the royal family appear on my tv, I just switch over. As Martin Luther King would have said, free at last, free at last, from all that crap.
Jude the uup /dup are doing a good job showin all that the Wee NI is not and can not work bring on Plan B
UUP are no doubt playing politics, but that’s what political parties do.
Personally I believe the structures set up by the GFA/BA are not working. The Executive has never really worked as a competent cabinet. Its sham government. All the important strings are pulled from London. The ordinary citizen – taig & prod – has been properly screwed. This wee place is an economic & political backwater growing worse by the day – if that’s possible.
But I hear you say “There is peace. There’s only the occasional killing & its usually not sectarian. Just internal housekeeping.”
I’d give you that. I lived through all the worst times. I know what it was like & what we have now is infinitely better. BUT we are over 20 years on from the ceasefires & we haven’t moved on as a society. We still do not have a proper democracy for the people. Its been carved up for the political power blocs to keep their hard men happy, but the people do not have a say in what happens & cannot get things done.
Forget about the ‘whataboutery’ & who did what to whom & when.
We need an upgraded agreement or we’re all toast.
I think that one of the little rays of light in our digital future is the accelerating death of those monstrous, banal organs of industrialised fibbing we know as newspapers. I’m not sure how long it has been the case, but it would seem that the true motivations for daily papers existing are far from commercial ones, but rather to do with power and influence, status and prestige.
Whether its on behalf of Rupert Murdoch or Denis O’Brien, newspapers serve an indirect commercial purpose by publishing stories explicitly in the wider economic interests of those who own them. Even if The Times runs at a direct loss, with it Murdoch reaches opinion formers and decision makers, and sets the overall agenda – making a potential gain.
I guess it was ever thus. Beaverbrook used his influence to encourage appeasement, whilst ‘Lord’ Rothermere and his Daily Mail were ardently pro-Nazi during the 1930s. Plus ça change, eh?
There are of course downsides to this drop off in newspaper circulation, but when I find myself staring at a rack of newspapers struggling to perhaps find one that I don’t find objectionable then my sympathies soon fade.
In this sorry corner of Ireland, I would put money on the Newsletter ceasing to exist within the next ten years. Recent circulation figures would appear to bear this out, and I would guess that its readership falls into an older demographic. There appears to be a bit of a fire sale going on at the BelTel at the moment; and the ‘lets look at pictures of young women wearing low cut tops in nightclubs’ approach favoured by its godawful website doesn’t exactly suggest that a glittering digital future awaits.
Following an Irish Water debate on TV3’s Late Review earlier this week, some wag on Twitter posted – ‘A journalist owned by Denis O’Brien, on a TV Station owned by Denis O’Brien arguing about Water Meters owned by Denis O’Brien’ – which kind of sums up the current state of Irish democracy. The fools, the fools, the fools.
The dark room and the bottle of whiskey await…
I M Twice as Weary – When you say that Mystic Mike teams up with people ‘who have connections with’ the UDA and UVF.
Bullshit – say it as it is – these guys are the UDA and UVF!
And Mike says Sinn Fein have not earned his trust.
But does anyone trust him? He has done absolutely nothing to earn trust from nationalists/republicans. In fact, by his paramilitary associations he has done plenty to lose any trust there might have ever been.
The truth is the UUP, TUV and DUP are inextricably linked to loyalist killers of every hue, always have been and always will be.
So why should they be given the benefit of any doubt?
Well said Sherdy.
Its strange how the media forget that DUP members carried UDA leaders coffins, shared platforms with the likes of Loyalist serial killer/psychopath Billy Wright, defended UVF/UDA prisoners in jail and Peter Robinson even called them “counter terrorists” all the while 85% of UDA/UVF murders were innocent Catholic civilians. The other 15% were mostly innocent Protestants murdered or Loyalists who needed “took out”. I could go on.
One thing that I always remember was Sammy Wilsons reaction to the UDA plan of ethnic cleansing of Catholics in 1994, Sammy said: “This is a valuable return to reality”. Can you imagine the uproar if a SF member said that? Ruth Dudley Edwards would still be writing about it. But no, the media remain quiet when it comes to the DUP/UUP. The question is: Why?….
One knows where you’re going to, Esteemed Blogmeister, when you suggest putting a cork in the topic du jour.
Perhaps the one best positioned to put same into such is none other than the standout scribe of the, yes, Cork Examiner who also just happens to be Gazetteer of the Year. (2014).
None other than Michael Clifford (for it is he !). And just as this organ grinder of axes on Leeside is also known as the Irish Examiner (think, vacuum cleaner and Hoover) so also is the much garlanded Michael known as Mick in his lovable role as Yerra brogue man supreme on radio and TV . (Who complements Joe Duffy of the definitive Dubalin accent).
Sit back so and absorb Michael Clifford’s last, definitive word, chiseled as always in durable prose:
-The existence or otherwise of the IRA is a real issue, whatever the Shinners might claim. This jurisdiction has had a single army since 1922, answerable to a government elected by a sovereign people. The possibility that a party in power has access to the structures of another armed entity which could for instance, settle scores or contribute financially to its political wing, is a very real issue indeed.
Deflecting to other more palatable matters,or claiming to be a victim of demonisation, just won’t wash anymore’.
Whoa there, hoss: settle, petal.
‘A single army since 1922’. ?
In the years, 1972, 1973 and 1974 lethal military operations were launched on Liffeyside when bombs were detonated, bank heists were foisted on Grafton Street and other instances of duggery by skulls unknown were consummated with specific political objectives in mind.
Such as the ramming through The Leinster Counting House on Kildare Street of the relatively frivolous piece of legislation called ‘Offences against the Free Southern Stateen Act’
Alas, NO evidence is included to implicate the ‘single army’ in these atrocities.
To conclude on a linguistic note: it has been authenticated that the surname ‘Littlejohn’ translates in the leprechaun as ‘Shoneen’.
PS So V.O., Esteemed Blogmesiter, stands for Venerable Organ.
And there was one fully convinced it stood for Voice Over, on account of the lip-syncing which its performing columnists are addicted to, having been assiduously fed the daily line from the Spin Doctorate of the Labour Party (SDLP).
Tis a sad day surely, with the long nights after Samhain itself to be drawing in entirely, if one does not add at least one extra arrow of information to one’s quiver.
(Thinks: or perhaps, that S.D. bit ought to stand for ….Still Desperandum?).
Does the DUP/UUP have links to Unionist paramilitaries? They certainly shared platforms with them in the past and still do today, even when the UVF/UDA are still murdering, still drug dealing, still involved in sectarian/racist intimidation and still involved in violence. The DUP set up Ulster Resistance and Third Force, which were caught with importing weapons. Gusty Spence, leader of the UVF, alleged that the UUP run Stormont paid him to start a sectarian war. It was Gusty Spence who said the infamous line: “If you cant get an IRA man, get a taig”. The same Gusty Spence who burnt a Protestant pensioner to death in her home on the Shankill Road when trying to burn down a Catholic owned business. I could go on.
The obvious question has to be asked here: Why hasn’t there been an investigation into if political Unionism has links with Unionist paramilitaries? Are they the one and the same? Some would say yes, some would say no, some would say maybe. I have my own opinion. Would the DUP/UUP have anything to fear from an investigation? or better still: would the British Government?
The UUP decided to leave the executive. Mike TV is now starting off his election campaign for next year and is hoping to take a few MLA’s from the DUP. The DUP will have to react, they will fail to get SF excluded from government and will have to leave themselves or risk being branded “Lundy’s”. Remember in 1998 when the DUP were saying the very same of the UUP? Talk about history repeating itself….
PPS Third last word, Esteemed Blogmeister.
This time from a second Mick. Not a Leeside Mick this time, but rather a Liffeyside Mick.
In his Radio Column for The Unionist Times, Mick Heaney (any relation? ca fios/ who knows?) opines:
-But, equally, the deputy (Deputy O Caolain of Monaghan) seems oblivious to the uncomfortable contradiction in his party (sic) constantly eulogising the IRA’s past
deeds but then crying foul if anyone else asks whether this organisation has fully disbanded, even when a murder prompts the query’.
The murder, incidentally which Radio Critic Mick refers to here is the McGuigan murder. And not the Belfast murder in July involving a samurai sword.
The point being, it is obviously NOT the biz of Radio Critic of The Unionist Times to raise the questions NOT asked on radio.
TUT is obviously mindful of the murals north of the Black Pig’s Dyke which counsel: ‘Whatever you say, say shag all’.
PS The (sic) above refers to a, erm, grammatical matter. Should be, of course, ‘his party’s constantly eulogising’. One mentions this as it tends to swing the balance against supposing Mick Heaney is actually a relation and in the direction of supposing he’s not.
“PS The (sic) above refers to a, erm, grammatical matter. Should be, of course, ‘his party’s constantly eulogising’. One mentions this as it tends to swing the balance against supposing Mick Heaney is actually a relation and in the direction of supposing he’s not.” What are you, Perkin? You are a gem of inestimable value…