Asked to say a word or two about Horticulture, Dorothy Parker said that you could take any Whore to Culture but not make them think.
About a century earlier and on the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Davis urged his Irish compatriots to Educate that they might be free..
I’m reminded of Ms. Parker’s quip and the patriot’s appeal by the discovery that Gerard Craughwell, who may yet stand for the Presidency of Ireland, was successfully nominated to her Senate by a Culture and Education Panel.
Tom Cooper’s BLOG, “UNIFORM” (18 August) alerted us to this possibility. The professional critic “TAM” , who has nothing whatever to say and repeats it ad nauseam et ad infinitum, labelled Tom Cooper’s informed BLOG as “Bitter “- a proof that his (TAM’s) comment should not be taken Lightly.
| The would-be President and current co-curator ofIreland’s culture and education made a mistaken assertion concerning the Presidency..The Constitution clearly states in Irish – “Nuair nach n-ainmitear d’oifig an Uachtarain ach aon iarrthoir amhain, ni ga votail chun e a thoghadh.” It just as clearly states in English – “Where only one candidate is nominated for the office of President it shall not be necessary to proceed to a ballot for his election.” Senator Craughwell’s putative bid for Ireland’s highest office, he claims, arises from the belief that the Constitution insists that there be at least two candidates. The ordinary Sean Citizen might be forgiven not bothering about Constitutional Minutiae, but a Senator with vaulting ambition should be better informed. Presidents are required to be sufficiently informed about the Constitution, to refer, if in doubt, proposed legislation to the Supreme Court for adjudication of its Constitutional validity, before signing it into law.
I cited Thomas Davis on Education and its necessity to gain freedom. Davis also thought it necessary to address his fellow-students in Trinity College, Dublin, with the words -“GENTLEMEN – YOU HAVE A COUNTRY.” Eighty years ago, in 1937 , Irish voters enacted Our Constitution (IT WAS NOT HANDED DOWN BY A DEITY, A MONARCH A PROPHET OR PARLIAMENT, FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC) and they placed a light burden on their fellow-citizens – “FIDELITY TO THE NATION AND LOYALTY TO THE STATE ARE FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL DUTIES OF ALL CITIZENS” It is quite clear that Senator Craughwell is ignorant of that duty and at odds with the citizens who enacted it eighty years ago or act in accordance with it today. He was born in Limerick in 1953 and was nineteen years old when the Parachute Regiment murdered unarmed civilians in Derry, thirty five years old when the Solicitor Patrick Finucane was murdered by British agents in Belfast, and twenty-one years old when British agents killed over thirty civilians in Dublin and Monaghan in one afternoon. He boasts of his service in the British Army’s Royal Irish Regiment, just as an officer in that Regiment, Captain Bowen Colthurst of Blarney Castle ,boasted of his Irishness when he went on a murderous rampage in Dublin, killing, amongst other unarmed civilians, Francis Sheehy-Skeffinfton, whose son was later to grace the benches of Seanad Eireann
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Another embittered ad hominem attack on an Irishman who doesn’t meet the requirements of extreme nationalism.
I don’t think that even the mildest nationalist has a warm spot for the UDR/RIR/BA and the various other hired gunmen of the British state.
Craughwell doesn’t meet the requirements of the citizens of Ireland and the Constitution enacted by them. His failure to meet them demands pity, not bitterness. It should, however require his resignation from Seanad Eireann and, (if he has one) the surrender of his Irish Passport to the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs. Why, in God’s Name, should the Minister request free passage in other countries for someone who does not meet the minimum requirements of Irish citizenship?