I’m tempted this morning to blog on the appointment of Joe Mc Hugh as Minister of State for the Gaeltacht [I had this originally as Joe McHugh being Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, but have been frostily corrected – see below], and the storm which has moaned and rattled since it was revealed he isn’t fluent in Irish. To quote John O’Dowd in a different context: So what? Mc Hugh’s proficiency in Irish has as little bearing as whether John O’Dowd has a Ph D in education. It’d be nice if he had but as in the great majority of Cabinet appointments, there is no obvious factor in the Minister’s background that suggests s/he’s fitted for the post. As with marriage, we only discover if the person is good at it when they’ve taken on the role. Being a fluent Irish speaker would tell us nothing about Mc Hugh’s abilities or energy in working for the good of the Gaeltacht.
Next? Well, next is the case of the On The Runs (OTRs). A woman with the surname Hallet and the interesting first names of Lady and Justice will today report on the On The Runs affair. You remember – John Downey was arrested for the Hyde Park bombings of 1982, he produced a letter which said he was not wanted for any crime, and he was a free man. Since then it’s emerged that some 200 such letters were issued to OTRs, assuring them that they were not wanted by the police.
OK – a couple of facts. The Good Friday Agreement saw the release of hundreds of republican and loyalist paramilitaries – people who had been convicted of a range of actions for which, under normal circumstances, they would have spent many years in jail. (Although yes, Virginia, under normal circumstances the overwhelming majority would never have seen the inside of a prison cell in the first place. But let’s park that one.) The OTRs were people who weren’t in jail to be released, so to speak, so their position needed clarifying. The upshot was that they were issued with letters from the PSNI, telling them they were not wanted by the police for past actions.
What has upset unionist politicians is, they say, the hurt this has inflicted on victims and relatives of victims of such men. That’s probably true – but no truer than the sight of the hundreds who were released from Long Kesh under the GFA. Justice, you might argue, came second to peace there. The same applied to OTRs.
What is really upsetting unionist politicians is that they were not consulted before the release of the letters. Maybe they should have been. But if they had, the scheme would probably have perished before birth. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was established over the heads of unionists, and they got very cross indeed about that too, but in the end they had to accept it. Had they been consulted, there very likely would have been no Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Unionists, who are famed for their sense of humour, argue that these OTR letters are an undemocratic way to proceed, where elected representatives are kept in the dark about what’s going on. As they say in the internet chat rooms, FFS, guys. What was 1912 about? What was 1918 about? What was the creation of this state about? The letters to the OTRs was a way to deal with some 200 men who weren’t available to be released in 1998. Besides, were unionists really kept in the dark? If I choose not to flick the light-switch, am I justified in complaining that I’m left in the dark? But hey, this has nothing to do with there being an election next year. This was a secret, undemocratic deal and we’re yelling our heads off only because we care about the victims. Well done, guys. Fingers in ears, hands over eyes, palm over mouth. Until, that is, it seems a good time to be loudly outraged. Then moral indignation everywhere, particularly from our First Minister, who once was very glad to grab a get-out-of-jail card himself.
I remember reading about OTRs back in 2001 and recently Barney Rowan has been re-tweeting articles and broadcasts he made back then as well. I always thought that politicians kept abreast of the news but hey I have been mistaken about things before.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we found UTV footage of Mike Nesbit reporting on what Rowan said back in the day
The new minister for arts, heritage and the Gaeltacht is Heather Humphreys, not Joe McHugh. He is the junior minister in the same department with direct responsiblity for Gaeltacht affairs, so the issue is whether his lack of fluency in Irish undermines his ability to do his job. A lack of research has led to you missing the point.
Go raibh maith agat (God, I hope I got that right), Kevin. And mea culpa. I do think, though, that I did raise the issue of whether his lack of fluency had bearing on his ability to do the job. It’d depend on what eactly that job was, wouldn’t it? And whether discharging it well required fluency in Irish. I feel strongly about people who mock those who are not as proficient in Irish as they are. Frankly it’s poor encouragement and plain bad manners. Ach sin scéal eile.
I’ve no doubt in my mind that the unionists are play acting over the OTR’s. I’ve said before that if they didn’t know a deal of some sort had to be made to tie up the loose ends of the Troubles, then they were very unsightful and very deaf , given that all those republicans and loyalists got a get out of gaol card. What could anyone expect? no -one wanted some of the more psycho elements that the Troubles threw up released. the Troubles allowed a lot of very unstable people to vent under cover of a conflict .Some of them were crazy to begin with. No we didn’t want them all out.we had to let them out as a job lot though.
The so -called OTR’s couldn’t t hen be held hostage to the future or this thing would go for ever. Unionists , being conservatives by nature, were very unsure of any kind of change anyway . the change with the Good Friday Agreement moved too quickly for them.For one thing they’d already built up a “Security Industry” which was largely fed by their community.It was about to be dismantled …and it subsequently was. The helicoptors stopped flying and the road patrols ceased almost overnight.if change had been left to the unionist community , nothing would have changed…some things stay the same .Unionism’s mind is back now in 1912. It has spent this past year or so prevaricating and stalling talks…without any logical explanations , I might add .
As you point out Jude., unionism has to be dragged shrieking ans screaming into any agreement, about anything , so why would anyone tell them the whole story anyway .To do so would mean you’d get nothing done….ever..When you take a cat to the vet , you don’t explain nicely to it that it’s about to lose its gonads ,or it’ll have blood running down your arms .You buck the little sweetheart into a carrying cage and proceed to get the job done. .
PaddyK , I suspect you have let the bag out of the cat here. Mr Robinson threatened to resign if he did not get an inquiry, he got a review. He wanted the government to rescind the measures. The Hallett Inquiry does not make any such recommendation. We will have to resign ourselves, to further prevarication on this issue.
OTRs being the topic du jour one is all a-tremble and a-Trimble at what will be the Editorial Take of The Unionist Times (TUT) on the topic.
Why all this a-t and a-T. stuff, you say: surely it is as predictable as Dublin’s take of the Sam Maguire that the ET of the organ which uses The Irish Times (TIT) as its nom de guerre will be its usual pompous and prudish pro-Unionist TUT, TUT, TUT self.. And that the TIT n.de g. so suggestive of the Red Top is just that, a marketing ploy to maximise its readership.
For in truth those who worry that the TUT will forsake its origins and orangens need have no worry. The Orange Top will ever remain true to its roots: it is bred in the bone. Not an inch, not a column inch.
And yet.
And yet, the Times and the times may well be changing as Bob Dylan is due to warble at his sell out concert come the Fall in the narrow confines of the Handball Alley adjacent to Croke Park, and which has been such a b. of contention between the Croke Park residents and ‘residents’, if last Tuesday is anything to go by for us go-by-the-walls.’.
For it was last Tuesday the same orange-scented organ dropped a CLANGER which on the Richter Scale is the biggest drop since 1945 when Pilot Paul Tibbets dropped his A-bomb from his airforce plane (nicknamed ‘Little Boy’), since 1956 when P. Warbeck (coincidentally, also nicknamed ‘Little Boy’) dropped his ovoid in the egg-and-spoon race of the O’CS School Sports within winning sight of the Railway End of Croke Park, since 2013 when Warren Gatland dropped BOD (which does actually rhyme with GOD, the exception to the ‘hope’ and ‘history’ rule of rhyming).
But it was not the dropping itself but rather the identity of the dropper which caused such a CLANG to reverberate around the purlieus of polite conversation from Merrion Square to the Malone Road. For it was he, the Panjadrum of PC Protectorate himself who uttered the by now infamous phrase.
Yes, none other the Biggest Spanner in the O’Toole Box of Thought Control, himself. No less than the fifth columnist called: Fintan.
What can this clanger-dropping utterance mean ? That – to take an example at random – TUT is going to renege on its support for, say, the RIR, that it is about to say TUT, TUT, Tootsie, good bye? What does the uncertain future hold?
Perhaps the best way to understand this future is to glance at the certain past, and in the company of the most devious OTR of them all, P. Warbeck. Having been refused permission and a licence by the All-Powerful Esteemed Blogmeister in the recent past to march back from Ballybough to Ballsbridge he will now take full advantage of the raic ri ra agus ruille buille (that is hoo-hah in the lingua frranca of the Leprechaun) not to march but to go On The Run not only back to the Bridge of Ball but in time itself.
To November, 1979-ish. The setting was the RDS, the occasion a Press Conference by,(yes) Aiken Promotions for the then Queen of Country Music – the lady who put the tree back into country – put yo hands together for Missy Dolly Parton sheself, y’all. (That she is still the Queen in the h. and now was shown in the way she wowed Glastonbury of late).
Le Tout Hackariat were in attendance: ranging from the TIT to P.Warbeck himself, who was hacking as a hack with an appropriately sized mosquito press sheet with a Gnationalist take on things, God forgive him his innocence). La Doll was in sparkling, rhinestone form, despite the venue, a draughty back room in the otherwise resplendent RDS. This draught caused to promoter, dressed in his de riguer pullover, to absent himself for a few moments and to return carrying an industrial-sized 69-bar electric heater.
No hands off stuff here from Jim Aiken (for it was he). Prior to this I had thought of him as ‘Ireland’s only white Jim Aiken’ but ever after I have only ever referred to him as Gentleman Jim Aiken. In part tribute indeed to the artist who caused the biggest hoo-hah prior to the Five Concert fiasco during his tour of Ireland in 1963 – yes, Gentleman Jim Reeves.
There are those who would claim that JR did not deserve the title of ‘Gentleman’ just as there those who dismiss Garth Brooks as ‘a fat man in a Stetson’ (see above under C for Clanger) but one disagrees. When he sang in that velvet voice of his ‘Danny Boy’ in the surrounds of St. Columb’s Hall in Derry the MC on that occasion was young curate by the name of Fr. Edward Daly. On his return home the singer took the time out to pen a personal note to the curate thanking him for his courtesy and assistance. A note from Nashville to Charlie Nashville, one might call it.
. That, in the Warbeckian scheme of things, warped though it might well be, is the mark of one of M. Nature’s gents (See also ‘pullover, electric heater’ above).
But, to digress. What was a really wunnerful occasion the Press Conference was marred only by a display of loutishness which on a scale of 1-10 could be marked a 7, perhaps. (The bench mark of 10 here in the Free Southern Set was set, of course, by that supreme display of uncouth loutishness when that suave and sophisticated (soi-disant) Gay Byrne (GB by name, GB by nature,- may his tribe increase ) refused to shake the hand that shook the hand.
That occurred about half way through the hour long P. Conference when La Doll in full flight had her answer interrupted rather rudely by the crude clump, clump, clump of the hobnaited (de rigeur) boots of the popular music critic of the UT at the time. (No name, no p.d.) as he made his weary way to the door, not unlike the plod of the ploughman in the Country Churchyard of yore.
Thinking he had made his egregious exit unnoticed he was ambushed by Mrs. Parton’s talented Missy just as this Nob (soi-distant) was about to place his hockey-stick hands on the knob of the door, when La Doll swivelled around to snipe at him with a-
-Waall, y’all, sorry to be so dull. Can I fix to call y’all a cab?
Exit, hyper critical music critic of the UT with egg on his face in the ovoid surrounds of the RDS.
This exhibition of egregious eejitry by him was proof if proof were needed, that the UT stood four square behind the concept that is R.I.R., ie, Racism in Reverse.
Would he have done the donkey if say, the singer had been black and not white trash?
Would, to be contemporaneous about it, The Toole-box (see above) have referred to, say, F. Domino as ……’the fat man in a pork pie hat’ ?
Still, the jury is out. To the extent that legendary bookie Horace Bachelor (may his tribe increase !) no less has got in on the act. He has chosen to open a book and discerning readers are asked to send their bets to Keynsham, Bristol.
That is: K-e-y-n-s-h-am.
PK
I am both saddened, and hurt by your last contribution.
Had your daughter been in London, that July in 1982, could you suffer Downey walking around free?
My parents were both there, on the tube they saw the headlines of a newspaper someone was reading. My Father whispered to my Mother “do not speak”, for they were afraid of their accents being heard.
In my world, there is either right or wrong, good or evil, black or white.
I would never have entered into a GFA, if I knew then, what I know now it’s unbelievable.
And the double standards of Sinn Fein is unbelievable, the government back then tried to bring it out in the open, but SF not going to give the same amnesty to the British Army.
They called themselves IRA, I called them IRT the T being for Terrorists.
They say we are in the last days of this world, children will turn on parents, you won’t know the seasons from one another.
But I am an optimist, good will always over come evil.
Norma
Unionist politicians knew about these deals for the ‘on the runs’. They are lieing when they say they knew nothing about it. When John Reid was secretary of State for Northern Ireland he answered questions about it in the House of Commons and spoke at some length about the numbers who had been given assurances they were unwanted by the police.
Jonathon Powell, who was Tony Blair’s chief of Staff, claims he had a conversation with both Peter Robinson & Nigel Dodds in which the pair intimated that they could accept amnesties for ‘on the runs’ as long as the government told the public it was accepted by David Trimble and not the D.U.P.
In my world Norma, there are a thousand shades of grey.
Does your pro-Israel stance extend to defending the actions which resulted in those four young boys killed while playing on the beach in Gaza City?
You see RJC, that is the problem, or should I say the difference?
In my world, you either respect the law, or break it. You are either a criminal or an honest law abiding citizen?
By the way, should you be having one of your grey moods, I don’t care who you are, Protestant or catholic, one law for all.
Why don’t we let all the child molesters have a few children to play with. Shocked! That’s the effect I endured today.
Norma
PS don’t forget that GA was able to keep another dirty little secret.
I don’t entirely disagree with that. It’s just that the other day you signed off a comment as ‘Pro Israel Norma Wilson’ Are you still ‘pro Israel’ in light of current events?
Well Norma .like i said .There was a bitter pill that everyone was asked to swallow . On both sides .There were some crazy buggers on both sides that a lot of us would rather they were kept inside .They weren’t . The throat cutters and the stabbers were let out with the shooters and the bombers ….on both sides. The savages who disembowelled wee girls and threw them in wheelie bins with pool cues stuck up them .The throat cutters who head political parties. The psychos who dangled young men from rooftops by the feet and let them drop. There were plenty of other hate -filled bastards who really got into the killing game of hatred. We had to let them all out or the prisons would seep this bile back out into both communities as families continued to visit their sons , husbands , wives and daughters in gaol for the next thirty years..
That’s what we had to do for a new beginning…The OTR’s were a loose end ….either already in gaol or “Not Yet Caughts” ..they had all to be “released” for a new start ..The way unionism is reacting , you’d think there was another way .If there is , I haven’t heard it yet. If Peter Robinson didn’t know about it…? Well I have real doubts about that. I have no doubts that himself and a handful of his cronies have no problem in trying to light a fire that was put out for good reason some near twenty years ago.
In a few years anyone who was involved in any of the conflict will be dead and there’ll still be people blaming each other for who did what to whom….In the middle of all this is the rest of us who were involved in none of it and could see fifty years ago how it could have easily been resolved with a little fairness..
I could easily say ..a plague on you all you small minded selfish wee bastards, with your killing and bitching….I hoped that everyone had the wit to know what was required to stop all the killing. the iRA and the loyalists gave up their arms and the soldiers went back to barracks, We had a fairly normal society here for the first time in a generation,Who would. want to go back to that other horror show?.If that’s what unionism is after they seem to be picking at the very scabs that will get blood running again.That seems to comfort them more than anything else. The old Testament preached revenge .This new Christian idea was to forgive your enemies, turn the other cheek and hope that they caught up . Unionism seems to be still in the Old Testament while their banners proclaim otherwise.
Is that stupidity or just plain hypocrisy?
I know you’ve only raised it in passing, but it’s something I’ve wondered what people make of it: why were British soldiers ‘returned to barracks’ and not returned to England. In other words, why do we have the British army billeted here? Just askin’, like…
I suppose, Jude, they’re on standby just in case the whole thing blows up again like an earth -cycle or a recurring weather condition. Other than that, I suppose they had the best part of thirty years to set up state of the art bases , fully equipped for training….Do you suppose these self -contained military communities are still militarily functional? I haven’t really thought about it myself but it has already occurred to me that they were a huge part of the local economy. I know some of them were closed but I’ve no real details. Obviously , only one side of the community had anything to do with them anyway…..just as the UDR would have been a neat little part-time gig for a lot of families on the unionist side alone.
The GF agreement would never have been signed by SF, IF THE PROVISION FOR OTR HAD BEEN OMITTED
Dear God common wit would explain that.
All inside out,, All outside in,
Jesus Wept
PK
The savages who disembowelled wee girls and threw them in wheelie bins with pool cues stuck up them .
Paddy the above section of your blog, I do not remember this.
We could carry on throwing mud at each other until next week.
A lot of people are dead? Why, because the IRA was on a roll, why did they not talk thirty years ago.
They could have achieved the same result, with out the pain and suffering and heartache.
I have told you’s all before, I have come through these troubles relatively untouched.
But I cannot imagine the pain some people must be going through tonight!
Norma
Hey Norma…I’m not throwing mud at you or anyone here.My bile is always for politicians who cannot do politics and leave the rest of us to clean up after them.None of the Troubles just simply happened for no good reason.There were actions and reactions . As for the horrific incidents I mentioned…yes they happened.One of the familys was related to my wife and they never recovered from the gruesome death of their daughter at the hands of so called loyalists. There were plenty who gave their hatred and bigotry full rein during the worst days of the conflict.At one point I worked with the brother of another of these characters and he openly boasted about his bigotry. there are some mad people out there and poor politics only encourages them.By poor politics I mean people who have no notion about how to talk out a deal without leaving the table in a huff like little children.
Norma, where have you been living, 30 years and the result would have been the same, dear sake wise up
Take one, did you never hear of Sunningdale
Take two, did you never hear of the wicked witch of Downing St
Take five, and rest
Hi Jude, I think the point regarding Joe McHugh is that his appointment smacks of post colonial apathy towards the Irish language. His lack of Irish completely diminishes his ability to do the job since his job is to represent the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht. He does not understand the people of the Gaeltacht so how can he represent them? The situation reminds me of the USA and the appointment of white men as president of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, white men who have understanding of native American culture. This is a slap in the face for Irish-speakers and perhaps punishment for having taken to the streets this year to protest the circumstances which lead to the resignation of the first Irish Language Commissioner.
Thanks Dónall – you may well be right. But in the end I’d ask: what’s he supposed to do in this job – can he make things better in the Gaeltacht, change things, make them living and vibrant. From what I hear there’s quite some work to be done on those lines. His speaking Irish would be nice but his being effective imo matters more.
Norma you are quite right
On Thursday, Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard that Kevin McFall was arrested after ignoring police instructions to stop what he was doing.
The 21-year-old, of Moyard Parade in the city, was due to contest a charge of indecent behaviour.
But he instead pleaded guilty to having committed the offence on 4 May this year.
A second charge of possessing an offensive weapon in public, namely rocks, was withdrawn.
A prosecution lawyer said McFall was seen urinating against a fence outside All Saints Church on Westminster Street in south Belfast.
“Police told him to stop as there was a church service ongoing,” she added.
He was detained at the scene when he continued, the court heard.
A defence solicitor confirmed McFall is currently serving a prison sentence for another undisclosed offence.
He is not due to be released until early next year.
After hearing details of the indecent behaviour, District Judge Fiona Bagnall imposed a £100 fine.
Is your point that the fine was too lenient ?
No my point is don’t point a finger, especially when there is three pointing back.
These wheels are still turning they have not come to a stand still yet?
Norma
Did you actually go in search of a newspaper article about a catholic boy pissing outside a church ? Really!!! I thought only protestants pissed outside churches. On behalf of everybody here Thanks for enlightening us all.
I have no idea what this question means
”These wheels are still turning they have not come to a stand still yet?”
PK
I am afraid I will never get my head around this. RJC, please, I have not got the time to reply, but here is a few which involved children. Omagh and Shankill Rd.
You can almost picture that heinous little man Downey, sitting in some little dingy pub in Donegal glorifying his dirty little deed.
If I had have had any powers, back in the day Pier Points would have been doing overtime. I could easily do it myself.
It’s a sad day for justice, a dirty dirty sad day.
I hate the thought that I could be next to somebody like Downey in a queue, it sends shivers down my spine.
I still will hold on to my faith, I still am optimistic that good will over come evil.
Norma
So who is Good and who is Evil ?
Presumably the IRA were evil so, as you see everything in black and white, does that mean the British are the good. ?
Norma ..i’ll put it like this . The conflict was a twisted affair to which many of us were only onlookers. To get them all to stop , the idea was to forgive them all at once.That was the only way it could be devised.It was a fresh start of sorts. There’s no other way to put it to a strange Christian people who are having trouble living up to their own teachings. Christians are really not supposed to seek any further revenge.It’s against their religion…
As far as I can tell Unionists aren’t prepared to acknowledge that unionists played a role in killing people during the ‘troubles’, only the IRA murdered people – nobody else did. That is how they view the conflict or terrorist campaign as they prefer. It’s surreal actually.
A lie told often enough becomes the truth
Norma
Joe Mc Hugh not Joe McHugh.
It’s been attended to, Joe. Apologies.
Oh PaddyO youre a man after my own heart.