First of all the details.
Willy Paul for those of you who pay no heed to the eejitry that permeates through rural life was a character widely known in Magherafelt. Though not without his faults he was more commonly known to the Magherafelt area as the man in the trench coat who would randomly direct traffic, the man with a dog called ‘bastard’, the man who commit a minor crime annually so as to avail of the Christmas dinner in prison, the man who talked out loud into an imaginary walkie-talkie in a phonetic alphabet of his own invention.
http://www.knowhere.co.uk/Magherafelt/Londonderry/Northern-Ireland-and-Republic-of-Ireland/info/localcharacters
The ANC on the other hand need no introduction. Nelson Mandela is amongst the most recognisable names of the last century. The ANC swept to power on the back of a dream that in turn rode on the back of a nightmare.
The ANC is also rife with problems and accusations and most important of all, disappointment.
So much so that an outsider must wonder why exactly do the people of South Africa keep voting them in?
So, what would the ANC fear from Willy Paul electorally speaking? Well, not a lot.
You see, aside from not being a citizen of South Africa and in addition to being as mad as a bag of badgers Willy Paul is deceased. He is no more. He has ceased to be. He’s expired and gone to meet his maker. He is a late village character. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. He is an ex-Willy Paul.
However, were he to overcome these formidable obstacles and enter into SA politics the ANC would still not need to worry. Despite the rage and railing against the corruption, poverty, the feeling of betrayal, the incompetence, the contempt by those at the top the ANC know they only have to come out with the same old song and dance and people will fall in line. Unthinkingly. Unquestioningly. Back to the same old same old.
We on the outside would be astonished. But those of us in the wee six would be hypocrites. We’re all about to do it again. I wish I wish I wish that we’d vote in Willy Paul. Or someone. Anyone but the bulk of the people that we have (they’re not all bad, if you’re fortunate enough to live in an area where things get done then count yourself lucky).
But in the absence of Willy Paul, well, who do we have? Well, as it happens there’s an abundance of untried, budding talent.
The people of Mid Ulster have seen their health services taken from them this past 20 years. Yet they have a voracious campaigner in the form of Hugh McCloy who has cut his campaigning teeth in the pursuit of fathers’ rights. Why not try him?
And if you don’t like that Hugh then there’s another, Hugh Scullion (two of the most South Derry sounding names representing the entirety of independent thought in that area).
In Derry there’s Eamonn McCann running again (ok, not ‘untried’) and nearly everyone in the land has at some point, perhaps begrudgingly went “Hmmmm, fair enough Eamonn” (yes, even you Dr C).
In Fermanagh South Tyrone there’s Donal Ó Cófaigh, I know nothing about the man, but what’s the worst that could happen by voting him in and sending a message to the incumbents to say that you find them unsatisfactory at present?
West Tyrone’s independent aspirants are 75% female. Great. Go for it ladies. I wish you all the best. I hope others do too.
What we have at present doesn’t work. People need punished. Not the voters but those that would treat them as the ANC has treated their once faithful block of support.
Really, we have nothing left to lose. Literally.
“If you don’t vote, then you’ve already voted for the other guy”.
You are someone who claims by your previous posts to know the south Derry area well but there are so many inaccuracies in your post,I don’t know where to start. Firstly the late Willie Paul was obviously suffering from mental illness and why he should be dragged into a post about politics is beyond me.Secondly Hugh McCloy from Moneymore was part of an ill fated campaign to keep the Mid Ulster Hospital as a major health facility (nothing to do with fathers rights.Thirdly Hugh Scullion is WP,an outfit once described accurately as “the biggest lie in the history of Irish politics” (due to the relationship between the WP and an organisation known internally to the WP as “group B”) Youalso are someone who regularly indulges in false equivalence ie – you previously posted how “an opportunity was missed” in Derry football flags “not being allowed” by loyalists to fly alongside the butchers apron in Magherafelt.How anyone could equate a sporting flag with a blood soaked emblem of imperialism is beyond me.You see the vast majority in South Derry don’t need loyalist permission to support their football team or don’t subscribe to the notion that the union jack is acceptable to us if we are “allowed” to show support for a GAA team.Unionism is in the halfpenny place in Magherafelt and South Derry generally and is in no position to dictate to anyone.
michael c
I know noting of mid-Ulster or South Londonderry (yep! I just did that to wind people up, so don’t be wound up by a deliberate wind-up), but I do have a sneaking suspicion that we’re supposed to get the point, while, at the same time, keeping our tongues firmly in our cheeks.
And, no, I don’t know, Am Ghobsmacht – I’m not even sure I know how to pronounce it – although it looks a bit like that Ulster-Scots phonetic malarky. You know, the kind of sounds one can only make with a frog in one’s throat and one’s tongue in one’s cheek.
“Firstly the late Willie Paul was obviously suffering from mental illness and why he should be dragged into a post about politics is beyond me”
That’s not an inaccuracy, that’s merely questioning the taste of my post, which is fair enough.
“Secondly Hugh McCloy from Moneymore was part of an ill fated campaign to keep the Mid Ulster Hospital as a major health facility (nothing to do with fathers rights.”
http://f4j-soo.blogspot.ca/2009/04/fathers-for-justice-protester-hugh.html
“Thirdly Hugh Scullion is WP” – OK, fair enough, but he was stated as independent on the site I referred to (which has since been corrected), hardly a biggy in any case.
“How anyone could equate a sporting flag with a blood soaked emblem of imperialism is beyond me.You see the vast majority in South Derry don’t need loyalist permission to support their football team or don’t subscribe to the notion that the union jack is acceptable to us if we are “allowed” to show support for a GAA team”
Simple, rightly or wrongly the unionists of Magherafelt are found of the union flag and the local GAA fans are proud of the county team.
I did not make an ‘equivalence’ nor suggest that GAA fans need permission to fly flags, I simply stated that I thought it would have been respectful if the unionists had kept the GAA flags up rather than taking their customary approach of “right you lot, it’s our turn, let’s get rid of this clutter!!!”
“Unionism is in the halfpenny place in Magherafelt and South Derry generally and is in no position to dictate to anyone.”
I never mentioned dictating. Now who’s being inaccurate?
There’s missing the point and then there’s deliberately missing the point.
So, to recap, ONE inaccuracy in my post?
Every parish should have its own Willy Paul , Am Ghobsmacht, a chara. And probably does.
Back in the Fabulous Fifties in that part of Dublin 12 where the highest parish in Ireland is located we had our very own:
-Georgie High.
He acquired the nickname because he was ever only seen on his bone-shaker of a High Nellie bicycle, pedaling erratically like the clappers and whistling merrily offkey a tuneless toon of unknown provenance, but one which had probably never seen the sidewalks of Tin Pan Alley.
He would always tool down Brandon Road from the direction of Mangerton Road and bring a few moments of glee unrestrained to our shortpanted gang. Georgie High appeared to us to be impossibly old; in retrospect, he was probably in his late teens but as none of our gang had yet reached double figures, this meant he was seriously ancient.
There were at least two odd aspects to Georgie High: he was never seen to walk (or run, or slinge, or jog itself) but was always in the saddle. Nor was he was ever seen to return via Brandon Road: he was the original one-way boyo.
Once he had disappeared from view after hanging a sharp right into Slieve Bloom Road that was the last you saw of Georgie High, for that day in anyways.
Occasionally, sightings of him would be received from such distant mountain ranges as Galytmore Road, Errigal Road, Comeragh Cul de Sac, Sperrin Road , Cooley Road, Donard Road, Kilworth Road and even Mourne Road itself.
In short, nobody ever knew where Georgie High had come from or, indeed, was headed to. Come to think of it, the same puzzle might apply to any one of us.
If one had known the m-word at the time, one might even have called him:
-A, erm, metaphor.
Yes, indeed, Georgie High was like nothing so much as a metaphor. A metaphor for what, though?
Ah, that is the question, Joxer.