I believe that the tsunami of Tripe and Treason will blow its own sources away. Sources such as the risible pseudo-religious “Rite and Reason” column in the IRISH TIMES, the Gang of Headbangers in the Sunday Independent, the ever-buoyant former Corkman of the Year John A Murphy and a Monstrous Regiment of Chancers in the media and academia.
Over the past year this BLOG has repeatedly refuted the false witness of, for instance Fergal Keane and Stephen Collins, and attacked the contemptiblemattacks on altruistic heroes by pretentious scoundrels such as Gay Byrne. But the BLOG was not leading the attack – it was simply reflecting the contempt a great numbers of people already expressed and collating them for easy reference. The word from Ireland is of numerous local history groups where intelligent citizens pool their knowledge and the stories of their families and neighbours without seeking the imprimatur of their presumed betters.
A competition amongst the Purveyors of Tripe and Treason for the title of Prize Chancer might commend itself to readers. I mentioned John A Murphy, Professor Emeritus of History from University College Cork. And quoting the Corkonian father of James Joyce, I once said that his anti-Sinn Fein obsession would give you a heartburn on your arse. God help him! But hasn’t the Professor taken to the worship of the the British Royals, living and dead? When the current Monarch visited Cork he unearthed a statue of Queen Victoria and interrupted its brass-rubbing, to kiss the Royal ass and drool about his Brown-Nosing in THE IRISH TIMES.
And there’s Seamus Murphy SJ a cloistered celibate, more innocent of historical lore than many a randy and roistering young truant. As Lady Bracknell observed, losing one parent is unfortunate but two suggests carelessness. In seeking to damn Pearse, Connolly and their hero comrades, Father Murphy went on active service with a Lying Column of the Irish Times (“Rite and Reason”). His own chosen hero, Daniel O’Connell, he asserted, had never shot a man. The world, his wife, his friends and his enemies knew that in the year 1815 Daniel O’Connell shot John D’Esterre dead in a duel in Dublin. And in the same year O’Connell was arrested on his way to Ostend to fight a duel with Sir Robert Peel, who had challenged him.
There are other prize chancers about but the two drop-brick Murphys have to be in the running.
Not only did O’Connell shoot a man, his unprincipled support for a war in support of British Opium dealers cost the lives of thousands of Chinese. O’Connell opined that Irish freedom was not worth the spilling of a single drop of Irish blood. But the right of drug dealers to make huge profits out of human misery was worth going to war for.