As a rule I’m several steps behind. Nothing to do with age – I’ve always been this way – more just disorganised inefficiency. That’s why I’m only now catching up with the Paul Murphy story. Murphy, as you know, was the Anti-Austerity candidate in Dublin who took a by-election seat that Sinn Féin – and the bookies – thought was safely theirs. He’s the guy who was involved in the blockade of Joan Burton’s car. And he’s the TD who was arrested in the early hours a couple of days back and questioned for four hours about having broken the law by false imprisonment of the Tanaiste. A couple of nights ago he appeared alongside Eamon Dunphy on the Claire Byrne show, on RTÉ.
It was hugely interesting. Fine Gael put forward a young finance spokesman who resembled an irritated, quick-talking rabbit ; alongside him sat a consumer journalist. Dunphy lined up beside Paul Murphy. The discussion hinged on the short film which showed Dunphy comparing how France deals with its citizens and how the south of Ireland deals with theirs. The French somehow find a way to tax people and to use the money to provide a proper medical and child care system for its citizens. The twenty-six counties, for all its acclaimed recovery and pats on the head from the EU, cripples parents who want to work and has a lousy medical system.
Figures were reeled off like ticker-tape.The Fine Gael rabbit talked so fast, he’d moved on to the next set of figures while you were still trying to grasp the previous set. The consumer woman contributed less but made more sense.
The talking rabbit did two things he thought might discredit Dunphy and therefore Dunphy’s economic claims. He reminded the world that Dunphy had opposed Jack Charlton as manager of the Irish football team back in the day, and he reminded the world not once but twice that Dunphy was a Sinn Féin supporter and not the neutral commentator he was pretending to be.
Dunphy’s response was yes, he was a Sinn Féin supporter. “Do you mind?” he asked mockingly. An important response, I think. There are still people in Ireland who, despite the fact that the Shinners are the largest party on the island by a long way, see support of that party as automatically discrediting what the supporter says. It’s a stupid and illogical attitude but widespread none the less. Will there come a day when Sinn Féin – and Anti-Austerity people – will be judged on their merits? Don’t puff out the cheeks and hold the breath, I would suggest.
Final point: Paul Murphy described his arrest as political policing. Whether the order to arrest came from the government (perfectly possible) or from a senior rank in the gardaí (perfectly possible), this was intended to frighten off the middle ground – those who’d have thought of supporting the demonstrations against water charges but who might now hold back, fearful of being tainted by criminality. I’m happy to say I expect the opposite to happen – let’s call it the Gerry effect. By arresting, imprisoning and interrogating Murphy, the government or gardaí or whoever have shot themselves in both feet. The imprisonment of Murphy won’t scare off the middle ground. It’ll stiffen the sinews of the Anti-Austerity people and it’ll disgust the many middle-ground people who think that political policing is as dangerous as dynamite and as dirty as rabbit poo.
I’m not so sure that Murphy will ever have either the popular support or charisma of a Gerry Adams. I supported the water protest for a year or so and, like about fifty percent of householders, refused to complete my water charge application.
Then came the day those gurriers disgraced the anti-water charge protest with their foul mouthed attack on President Higgins. The detention of the Tanaisste was nasty. The attack on Higgins was an outrage.
I felt so deeply ashamed of my association, through my support of the anti-water charge protests, with those people, that promptly, next morning, I filled out my water charge application. Online. It was the fastest and most absolute method open to me to me to to dissociate myself from the attack on our President and our Constitution.
Quite possibly I am not be the only householder to undergo such a sudden change of heart. I wonder did water charge applications soar since that attack.
If Murphy wants to be a leader of what began as a spontaneous uprising of citizens, he needs to keep those anti-constitutional gurriers at least a barge pole’s length away from himself and his cause.
Mary Jo, interesting reaction. The Irish Constitution requires Republicans to protect Citizens from all enemies Domestic and Foreign. Or is it the Constitution over the Citizens?!….Austerity imposed through the Troikas’ edicts could be plausibly argued as enemies of both the Citizens if Ireland and the Constitutional emasculation of Irish Sovereignty…..Enemies, Domestic and Foreign subverting the constitutional integrity, Birthright ect of Irish people on one hand, and home grown Politicians facilitating this Robbery through implementing such impoverishing hardships at home by economic attacks on their own people,-Domestic Enemies?!,- A knee Jerk rallying to defend those loftily presiding over such theft is perhaps misplaced I’d suggest. The ranks of the vulnerable and dispossessed among the people of Ireland (A concept long in our psyche) north and south of the DMZ are swelling once again, and the social consequences dire for the many victims. I know where my empathy and allegiance lies and it is not with Tánaiste Angela Merkel.
Excellent response Francis – and also a very interesting and well written critique of the Troika, our continued Austerity (or ‘frugality’ as Merkel would have it named) – and how our ‘Constitution’ has been undermined.
Meanwhile, no frugality in the living standards of a FG TD who lives in the same apartment block as myself (despite having another home 3 miles up the N7) – and in the 3 years and 4 months after the Election – claimed over 500,000 Euro in expenses (No receipts required) – Yet doesn’t even have the sense to (a) Put final demands etc from suppliers to his secondary business through the shredder in his local Constituency Office (where he is never to be seen) – and (b) Leaves such paperwork in the ‘communal bins. Speaking of ‘locals’ – often frequents one in the Town, and on many, many an occasion has been seen almost literally falling out of his car, and barely able to make it along the path to his apartment – totally oblivious to the fact that often a time, i’ve been under the eave of my (unlit) doorway, having a cigarette.
Come this May – approx 1 million euro of Taxpayers money will have passed through this TD’s Bank Account/s / hands – And he has done nothing for the Town. I and my neighbour have yet to see him in the Dail even once – despite regularly watching the Debates/Reports that are screened late of an evening on RTE.
And i’m sure this isn’t just one instance of a FG ‘gravy-boat rider’.
Bring on the Election – and soon.
Nowhere in your blog today, Esteemed Blogmeister, do you actually do poetic justice to the Fine Gael rabbit by giving to ‘this airy nothing a local habitation and a name’.
On reflection, Perkie’s inner google sleuth , might will have stumbled on the reason for this, erm, ‘oversight’. And which, with your permish, he would like to share with his fellow blogstrotters anon.
For the record, the fast talking Fine Gael rabbit is one, (gulp) Simon Harris, TD, Minister of State at the Department of Finance. His actual ranking indicates that he is charged with looking after the loose change. Which may well mean that he is in fact the busiest mandarin in the Ministry of Moola on Upper Merrion Street,Dublin 2.
Or should one say, boydarin? As he is rather fond of reminding viewers and listeners alike, he is THE youngest TD in Sinister House. While his actual age is 28, he looks 18 and acts 8. As indicated by his response when asked on air his age: 28 and a half. Even though his birthday was as recently as December.
Simon Og would seem to have a thingy about repetition: perhaps it has to do with the harassment gene in the Clan Harris? This constant reference to this own youthfulness is rather akin to his repeated reference to E. Dunphy as being a – Dia idir sinn agus an t-uafas ! – supporter of the Shinners.And with all the implied sinfulness that that accusation carried.
One almost heard the warning bell to announce the presence of a leper in the studio in his shrill, about- to- break boy soprano treble.
Given his addiction to the Y for Youthfulness word and his ranking in banking circles perhaps it is meet and j. to refer to him as Simon Y. Harris.
(Ecclesiastical point of information: it is Abbots, not rabbits, least of all Fine Gael rabbits, wot commit simony).
Not that there is anything derogatory, per se, in the concept of youthfulness or even the concept of appearing or behaving more youthful than one actually is.
Take, for example, the case of Franz Schubert . When this Viennese native was just a jugendlicher of 18 summers he contrived to compose his sublime Symphony Number 3 in D Major. For some reason, past all mere human understanding, the celestial strains of this heavenly work are somewhat less familiar to the Irish ear than the sound of Simon Y. Harris’s achy breaky voice.
Check out the second Allegro con Brio and see if the lyrical charm and clarity of the solo clarinet in harmony with the syncopated strings reminds a body of the fast talking Fine Gael rabbit’s cabbage crunching, number crunching monotone.
Perkie’s inner Harris Tweed ears, it must be admitted, failed to recognise even a passing echo.
What it did remind him of – though this may well be down to his Wolfe Tone deafness- was the mile a minute auctioneering song once recorded by the legendary Leroy Van Dyke. (Now, there’s a name to fitz ze zeitgeist in ze Emerald Isle).
28 dollar bid it now, 30 dollar 30,
Will you gimme make it 30,
Bid it or a 30 dollar will you gimme 30
Who’ll bid a 30 dollar bid?
Indeed, as a noted exponent of, erm, auctioneer politics Simon Y. Harris, T.D. might well already have it earmarked for this campaign theme-toon. It’s what Young Fine Gael Fogeys do.
The McCausland known as – who else? – Nelse prompted you to quote The Great Shakes, Esteemed Blogmeister, Simon Y. Harris,T.D. has the same effect on Perkie’s inner Bardolator.
In this instance, curiously enough it is the wonderfullly wise words spoken in reference to a decidedly non-Schubertian Viennese by the name of Angelo who suddenly has power thrust upon him at the early age of,yes, 28. To say power goes to his head like a bottle of Power drunk rapidly by the neck a la a Fine Gael rabbit is not far off the mark.
It happens in the (also curiously underrated) ‘Measure for Measure’:
‘ But Man, proud man
Dressed in a little brief authority
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured
His glassy essence – like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep’.
To conclude: on the necessity for insinuating Simon Harris, TD’s favourite letter – Y for Youthfulness – into the breach of his names. Thus, Simon Y. Harris, T.D. For, in December 2014, the mainland newspapers, both upscale and redtop were alive with the name of….Simon Harris. The other one. The middle-aged one who left Devon to go to Kenya to set up there a home for orphan boys. And where he proceeded to carve out a career for himself as, what the redtops but not the upscale broadsheets coined, ‘the Jimmy Savile of lay missionaries’.
And there was RTE spending millions to inform its licence-payers that only Catholic clerical missionaries indulged in that class of carry on in the Dark Continent..
Or, erm, not.
‘But Man,
Dia idir sinn agus an t-uafas ! – thanks to you Perkie my Irish is improving at a frightening rate. And then that glorious Shakespeare quotation. And then that reference to Mr Schubert No 3 – Perkie, we don’t deserve you. That’s all there is to it. We really don’t. Man.
I’ve said it before – Perkie should be Uachtarán na hÉireann.
Any protest against Uachtarán Warbeck would be mollified with a mere raise of the eyebrow, as he sped past in his coach. Vote Perkin Warbeck – Hilarity not Austerity!
Maith thu, mo Cheannaire.
Ar dha choinnioll on two conditions, the second of which is contingent upon the first.
1. That President Perkie’s inner poetaster is allowed to continue as an unacknowledged legislator,
2. That PP (see above)/ An t-Uachtaran P is permitted to avail of a mode of transport (to prosaic parishes such as Finglas) an 1920 Rolls Roylce armoured car called Sliabh na mBan. Even though it once infamously failed in its primary duty of care , oddly enough,where another chap named of Collins was concerned.
Ar aghaidh linn !
And i’ll second – or rather, third that!
GRMA, fellow card-carrying member of the (by definition) less than mass-movement MEAS M.A.S.
(Meas being the leprechaun for ‘appreciation’ while M.A.S. of course is the acronym for Mutual Appreciation Society).
But, in fairness, and to lapse into the argot of the target at this moment in t., going forward, it is not exactly difficult to shoot proverbial fish in the axiomatic barrel.
They are the target which, erm, continues, not so much to give, but to donate on a global scale. Such fish ! And what a barrel !!
When the butt on one’s aiming insists on making every year the equivalent of the Chinese Year of the Scapegoat and persists in presenting itself on a daily basis in a quarry-sized barrel, Perkie’s inner laptop warrior cannot only mutter in amazed appreciation: ‘Why, this is like falling off a log-in’.
The fish, being piranha, at one time used to be contained in a variety of bloody vessels, each smaller than the next, from hogsheads to kegs to firkins but since deciding to merge in the manner de facto, the cask-task, as it were of contrarians such as Warbeck Minor, has been rendered as easy as taking a bag of bull’s eyes from a herd of moon calves.
For, in truth, with the concentration of meejia ownership in the palms of a handful of egregious eejits from Eireland who perforce for tax dodging purposes, pass their time where the palm-trees sway gently in the calming breeze, the piranha of the press now occupy the one-size fits-all barrel.
What unites the piranha is, of course, their shared detestation of the PIRA. And the unholy water which fills their jumbo sized Jameson barrel is siphoned from the Boyne.
Now, as is well known / mar is eol do chach the species of fish most associated with the Boyne in song and in gory is The Salmon of Knowledge/ An Bradan Feasa. This causes the phenomenon of such erudite salmon on a higher salary scale as Finntan to leap out of the barrel to show just how much above the norm of mere piranhas they are.
As one good churn deserves another,mar a deirtear, what else is Perkie’;s inner plaid capped Elmer Fudd to do only open up with his double barreled laptop and blaze away, Joseph Flint-lock style?
Was it ever, in the history of HIbernia, so easy to be a Cooper-star?
Beir gach bua, beannacht agus bairille dubailte, Estemed Blogmeister !
Say it ain’t so Mary Jo. Your posting seems ingenuous at best and and an outright lie at worst. You disageed with the water charge, then when a demonstration did not meet your approval, you suddenly fill out the water application to spite ‘those gurriers” . Please , that is laugable. Me thinks you rae a water meter installer. “detention of the tanaiste” she had a grin on her face in the limo.
Better on her face than somewhere else…
hah bad visual hah
Jude, spot on! In the southern media and southern political circles a daily diet of Anti Sinn Fein mantra is a daily expectation. Opinion polls suggest, these attempts at attacking and undermining Sinn Fein from all angles and instances, isn’t having the desired effect by those propositioning it! As Brendan Behan once States “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” and we all know the aptitude and capabilities of the Sinn Fein propaganda machine.
The government in the South not only went about debating and introducing water charges in the wrong manner, their handling in the aftermath of such legisaltion is being propositioned in the wrong way … As the southern media continue to spin the whole water charge opposition as a criminal conspiracy!
Me thinks you’re telling porkies there Mary Jo 😉
Not a porkie at all. My action could be deemed an emotional, not reasonable response but there it is. When it comes to the Presidency of Ireland I’m almost American in my respect for the office.
Mary – would you have respected the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann had Brian Lenihan got it back in the day?
I hope you don’t think I’m being facetious, I felt the heckling of Michael D was unnecessary and didn’t really do the anti-austerity/water charges movement any favours.
That said, this little cartoon did make me laugh –
https://twitter.com/Oireachtas_RX/status/561614005996101632
The whole truth
The White Rabbit was the one who started Alice on her journey down a hole.
“Little Alice fell down the hOle, bumped her head and bruised her soul.”
The Fine Gael Rabbit’s indecent haste with figures exposed an agenda that was designed to conceal more than it would reveal about the true nature of the social and economic policies being pursued by the current administration in Dublin. He scored an own goal as his exposure of political bias was crude in the extreme.
Voters have ample time to reflect on the arrest of Paul Murphy and others in contrast to the manner in which bankers and speculators have been rewarded for plunging the country into a sea of debt.
The Fine Gael Rabbit might find it useful to contemplate advice from the March Hare.
March Hare – “See all the trouble you started?”
Alice – “But I didn’t think…”
March Hare – “Ah, that’s just it. If you don’t think, then you shouldn’t talk.”
I didn’t see the encounter between Simon Harris and Eamon Dunphy but according to John Dreenan in today’s Sindo ” it was Simon who KO’d Dunphy by pointing out the contradictions between Dunphys pose as a neutral commentator and his enthusiastic support for Sinn Fein”.Has Eamon had a ” road to Damascus conversion” as I seem to remember him in decades past being an enthusiastic critic of all things Republican !Maybe where principles are concerned,he adheres to the Groucho Marx school!
Ah Argenta – a reliable man for the reaction. First of all, it’s a good thing to see what you’re commenting on. Second, Dunphy at no stage posed as a neutral commentator – I mean, come on! When did you last see ‘neutral’ and ‘Dunphy’ in the same sentence? Thirdly, Dunphy for several years now has been saying that he put the boot into the Shinners for years but has since revised his position. I think that’s commendable openness. And lastly ‘John Drennan in today’s Sindo’….Mmm. Need one say more?
Just one thing more, Esteemed Blogmeister.
(Please note: the following report contains flashing images).
Check out that impartial reporter, Stephen Collins of The Unionist Times on the same topic.