A review of 2010 through Irish eyes

The problem with reviews of the year is that the opposite end of the year feels like much longer ago than 12 months which makes those events much harder to recall. It’s a bit like meeting a friend you haven’t seen in ages: even if you became the new Chairman of BP, played in the longest game ever recorded at Wimbledon or admitted dabbling in witchcraft in the last year, you’d still likely start the conversation with “ah, it’s been quiet enough”.

Of course, it’s been anything but quiet this year, although those in power really could have done with shutting up more. I’m looking at you, government. This was the year where the wheels finally came off the stainless steel, gull-winged jalopy we used to call an economy, where instead hovering into the future we were dumped unceremoniously back to the fifties, with tracks of fire everywhere. At least we have a grey-haired man with glasses and a distinct speaking voice to help us through: Oli Rehn.

That the EU and the IMF have landed the mothership over the puny earthling repository we call Dáil Eireann is a bit embarrassing considering a few years ago we thought we owned the universe (yes, I’ve moved on from time travel and I’m on to space metaphors now). On the plus side, it’s nice to have someone competent in charge. Brian Cowen and the Keystone Cops he calls a government have done their level best to look as publically and emphatically stupid as possible, and in that at least they’ve done an incredible job. Among the nominees for best performance in a crowded field are Brian Lenihan doing his best Ralph Bellamy in Trading Places, Ivor Callely doing a particularly obnoxious Leo Di Caprio from Catch Me If You Can, Mattie McGrath’s unhinged Crocodile Dundee and Paul Gogarty, who in simply being himself seems to play more roles than Eddie Murphy in Norbit. But, the award this year goes to Oliver Reed himself, Brian Cowen, who made a holy show of himself on Morning Ireland after a Rat Pack night with the press pack.

Alas, for poor old George Lee, his nine months out of the limelight as a Fine Gael backbencher prompted him to give the business the heave ho, like the guy Gladys Knight sang about in Midnight Train To Georgia. The whole thing showed up Enda Kenny to the point he nearly lost his leadership of the party soon after. Luckily for him Fine Gael’s enduring weakness – toothless disorganisation – came to his rescue, and he still hangs on, like an actor in a 1950’s thriller dangling off a cliff.

But when it comes to tenuous clinging to power, you really can’t beat the Catholic Church. This year has been one big demonstration of how wide the chasm is between what they think of themselves and what they actually are. From The Vatican refusing to accept the resignations of two bishops for their connection to The Murphy Report, to Cardinal Brady refusing any responsibility for, anything really, all the while offering their two cents on the decline of morality at every given opportunity, the Church has engaged in behaviour that would make Jesus even more enraged than the time those guys sold counterfeit Playstation games in the Temple. Their piece de resistance this year though was making the ordination of women priests “a grave sin”, suggesting The Pope would be more comfortable up a tree house than in a marble palace. Someone pass me a hatchet.

In spite of the cataclysmic year for the Catholic Church, they still had enough devout members to create a ruckus on a number of issues. The year started off well for them, with the introduction of a Blasphemy Law that made no Christing sense at all, but it went downhill for them from there. They were audibly displeased at the passing of a Civil Partnership Bill, with Senator Ronan Mullen (think John Lithgow at the beginning of Footloose) leading the charge against. They were audibly displeased that Limerick pubs sold booze on Good Friday for a rugby match going on in the city that day, as it showed flagrant disrespect for the time-honoured tradition of people stocking up on drink on Holy Thursday. Or possibly some other reason. They were also audibly displeased at the emergence of Head Shops, or rather the sudden realisation they exist, as people prayed outside the premises in the hope these evil-doers who run Head Shops might stop selling whatever it was they were selling. The agitators won out, but it turned out to be a minor battle in a much bigger war full of double standards and moral outrage.

I was in London when I heard that Gerry Ryan had died, and while I tried to keep up with the story I couldn’t really connect from such a distance away with the palpable shock and grief people were feeling. Small wonder given he was only 53 years of age, holding a vice-like grip on 2FM’s schedules for 22 of them. Colleague after colleague came out to sing the praises of the magnificent slabberhead they knew and clearly loved, but within months that shock was trumped by an even bigger one.

The news that cocaine use was a precipitating factor in Gerry Ryan’s death certainly came as a shock, but perhaps not exactly a surprise. Except it seemed to be for the majority of those same colleagues who paid tribute to him only months earlier, as not only did nobody appear to know but nobody wanted to even take the issue on. Joe Duffy has described himself as hysterically anti-drugs, yet when it came to Gerry’s using it was only himself he was damaging, apparently.

That’s been Ireland’s year in essence, really: a reel of powerful people doing one thing and saying another with a galling lack of self-awareness. Radio presenters stoking broadcast bonfires about the dangers of head shops, but apparently thinking their friend’s supply of cocaine was somehow produced outside the canon of violence and exploitation we know the drug trade simultaneously creates and feeds off. Church leaders condemning the ordination of women priests or legislating for civil partnership and potentially abortion, while their cover up and de facto facilitation of child abuse doesn’t seem to bother many of them at all. Political leaders insisting the worst of the economic hardship will soon be over and that they have the national interest at heart, all the while implementing harder and harder measures on everyone but those who truly deserve it, and lying about what they intend to do continuously up until the point they introduce them.

That’s the problem with reviews of the year, they often made up of things that are hard to recall.

If Teddy Roosevelt was alive today he'd punch everyone in the face

I’ve always had a long-standing interest in American politics. Looking back, it was never going to be any other way. One of my first proper memories was seeing TV stats of Clinton’s 1992 victory and his victory sax. Growing up on the border in the 90’s it was almost impossible to avoid Clinton in fact, as he’d practically attained demi-God status thanks to his efforts with the peace process. On the wall of my grandparents’ kitchen wall was a plate with Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s faces on it.

As time went on my political consciousness expanded, initially through the Irish Democrat prism. But I soon moved beyond the Kennedys and found myself having more of an affinity with the likes his 1960 Primary opponents Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson, as well as FDR and Harry Truman before them. Yet while my voting profile would be largely that of your classic New England leftie liberal communist gun-hating egghead, one of my favourite ever Presidents was, in fact, a Republican.

There’s little you can’t admire about Teddy Roosevelt. A sickly and weak child, he worked hard at strengthening himself and became a fearsome boxer. He overcame enormous personal tragedy (his wife and mother died on the same day) to forge a successful military and political career. He was so successful as Governor of New York, in fact, that the party bosses he had so successfully taken on had him shunted to the political Marie Celeste they call the Vice Presidency. William McKinley’s assassination promoted him, and he became the youngest person to become President, and quite the President he turned out to be.

Enormously popular with the public, he was an advocate of a square deal domestically and walking softly and carrying a big speak with regards to foreign policy. He busted trusts and was an avid conservationist. He lost the sight in his eye after he challenged a champion boxer visiting The White House to put up his dukes and urged him to try and hit him as hard as he could. Later in his career he gave a ninety minute speech immediately after being shot, had a children’s toy named after him and appeared alongside Cary Grant in North by Northwest, albeit in stone form. He had a near-perfect blend of humane policies, physical and mental toughness and a preposterous lunacy that only the truly heroic possess.

And if he were alive today, he’d almost certainly give everyone a good hiding. 

The first person he’d give a good shaking to is the man who currently occupies his office. As the man who coined the phrase “The Strenuous Life”, TR would not be a fan of President Obama’s hedging and compromising with Congressional Republicans.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”, so claimed Teddy, and while Obama may have aimed for glorious triumphs, grey twilight is more what it feels like. Roosevelt would be particularly disgusted that healthcare for 9/11 responders can’t even get done, disgusted to the point he’d likely force any member of Congress who voted against such a measure to avail of their own public option.  But that wouldn’t be the only issue on which he’d have Republicans running scared.

In 1907 he claimed “A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune”.  A couple of years later he also said “No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered.”, so it’s unlikely he’d have rolled over on the extension of the Bush tax cuts either. Roosevelt may not have agreed 100% with the redoubtable Bernie Sanders, but he’d leaning to his side on this one.

Roosevelt was an enthusiastic big game hunter, but he never had to deal with that very modern beast: 24 hours news media. And, as a dyed in the wool Progressive, he would have been Fox News’ public enemy number one. Small wonder, when he made public statements like: “Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” He was referring to political parties, but it fits certain sections of the media like a glove.

In fact, one of Fox’s roster, Glenn Beck, considers Roosevelt the arch- antagonist in the deranged conspiratorial play he imagines real life to be, where progressives are just communists with poor stamina, tears and hysteria count for reasoned dialogue and “look left” road markings are a sign of creeping socialism. I don’t know about you, but I’d pay any money to see Roosevelt refute his charges. I imagine it would result in Beck being torn so many new ones he’d have a whole new range of orifices out of which to speak.

Roosevelt might have a couple of words to say to Julian Assange as well. TR was President during the age of “The Muckrakers”, a revolutionary movement of journalists uncovering malpractice, corruption and dreadful working conditions. Roosevelt largely welcomed and facilitated the improvements these revelations prompted, but he had a warning too:  “Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.”

With the world currently seemingly split between wondering if Assange is a Robin Hood-type hero or a nefarious scoundrel in rather black and white terms, Roosevelt’s point about throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a pertinent one. The public have a right to know if their government is doing dreadful things in their name; they don’t have a right to know diplomatic tittle-tattle that does nothing but embarrass and compromise and make people even more jaded about their leaders. The government has a right to keep certain things secret, like for instance a suspected outbreak of a terrible disease or counter-terrorism to counter mass panic; they don’t have the right to exploit legitimate safeguards for illegitimate means.

There are of course a couple of things about Teddy that weren’t wholly admirable either. His attitude towards hyphenated Americans was intransigent and far from empathetic, and early in his career he made comments about Indians and black people that’d make you grab your collar nervously, though he became more enlightened in that respect as time went on.  But for all his faults he was a fair, fighting President who stood unabashed and unashamed for Progressive values. Two years before he ran for a third term, he made this statement in launch of his doctrine of “New Nationalism”:

“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.”

Those words may be a century old, but they’re eminently relevant today. Now more than ever we need someone like Roosevelt to stand up for those values. And maybe crack a few heads while he’s at it.

Minister John Gormley's opportunity to leave a legacy of inspiring youth leadership

John Gormley

I’ve been a bit pre-occupied this week.

On this, the week of our Budget misery, I’ve been less concerned at the latest splurge of head-melting figures of what Brian Cowen has called “progressive” (if he added “-ly pushing us off a cliff” he might be approaching accuracy) and paying more attention to an issue close to my heart that, in the grand scheme of things, is just as important as Dáil votes and Finance Bills.

I was the first person elected to the Donegal Youth Council eight years ago, and I’ve been closely involved ever since. The high water mark of that involvement was between 2006 and 2008, when I was a mentor/trainer for that season’s youth councillors. Being the Emilio Estevez to those mighty, mighty ducks is the best thing I’ve done in my life without any shadow of a doubt. But this week, the Youth Council was suspended. The last co-ordinator’s contract expired last week, and due to a national hiring freeze the council can’t hire another one. The decision to hire lies directly with the Department of Environment, and with Minister John Gormley.

You may not have heard of the Donegal Youth Council, but this government would do well to follow at their example. It was the first directly elected body of its kind in the Republic of Ireland. Girl councillors have been in the majority for almost all of the past eight years, while the amount of women in politics at a national level is woeful. Youth Councillors are elected in a climate where 80% turnout would be considered disappointing, while the national average is much, much lower. Youth Councillors have a larger mandate that 90% of the members of Séanad Eireann.

In the past eight years the Youth Council have been ahead of the curve on so many of the issues that affect us today. They’ve been pioneers in shaping mental and sexual health policy on a national level, and in boldly raising awareness on what were even a short time ago taboo topics. Even Mary Harney acknowledges their crucial role in making the cervical cancer vaccine a public health imperative. Their “Agenda Day” held in Letterkenny brought people of all walks of life from guards and young people to older people and businessmen together for an unprecedented public discussion on their views and concerns for the future of the town. They’ve organised public general election debates. They have done and continue to do similar work on road safety, on positive attitudes to drugs and alcohol, on education reform, on public transport and infrastructure, on the environment, on sporting policy, on loads more besides. They also have the not inconsiderable duty of serving 12,000 young people in the county, each with their particular personal concerns.

It’s disconcerting in the extreme then to learn that the Youth Council might be in danger. Not because of a lack of funding or interest, they’re not the problem at all. It’s a simple staffing issue. The youth councillors themselves initiate and steer their own agenda, but without a coordinator to guide and advise them, they can’t do their job properly. The last batch of youth councillors were only elected a matter of weeks ago, so the role of the co-ordinator is even more pertinent still. It’d be an incredible shame if the hard and valuable work of the last eight years was lost in such a way.

That work is even more important in light of the Budget and the circumstances the country finds itself in. You might be forgiven for thinking that with the savage cuts happening in all sections of Irish life that something like the Youth Council is a kind of luxurious folly. But exactly because of the effects of our economic woe, it’s never been more important to have eager, engaged and active young citizens bringing hope and positivity to the country. Think tanks and ten point plans for transforming the country endorsed by popular media figures are all the rage right now, but the Donegal Youth Council have been putting plans into action long before the latest think tank was thought up.

Whoever they work with and wherever they’re working, they’re continuously told they’re the best at what they do, not just in the country, but on the international stage. We should be emphatically proud that the enduringly neglected borderlands in the North West of Ireland is home to what is genuinely considered a world class organisation. But they don’t do it for the glory, or because they think it’d be good for their CV. They do it because they care.

If Ireland is ever to be a place of true prosperity again, it needs citizens who take responsibility and initiative for making their communities better places, who from a young age feel they have a say and a hand in the issues that affect them. It needs citizens who have a vision of what the country can be and get to work on making it reality, and who think of public services not as something passively received but actively shaped. The Donegal Youth Council fosters all these values, and it is vital they’re allowed to continue with that work. It is a shining example of politics at its purest, and public service at its finest.

A crisis everywhere except in the Irish media

Ryan Tubridy - "The Late Late Show"

One of the more uplifting moments of the last few weeks was provided in bulk by international zeitgeist machine Twitter. A hashtag dedicated to great things about Ireland took off like an errant financial consultant to Rio, and in spite of the various other spectres haunting the Irish news, it became a preoccupying topic.

Some of the suggestions were straight-forward (the Kerry coastline), some were oblique (conversations with your parents that begin “D’ye know who’s dead?”), some were tongue-in-cheek (our united opposition to buying anti-virus software) and most of them were funny-because-they’re true. Memories of TV were an inevitable part of the mix as well, like the ESB ad that coloured a whole generation’s view of what college would be like, me amongst them. If only TV now was as capable of lifting the mood.

The problem with Irish stations at the minute is they’re acting like an overzealous teacher on a mundane school trip. If you have to constantly ask “We’re having fun, aren’t we?” then chances are you’re not. Case in point: The Late Late Show. To Ryan Tubridy’s credit last week’s Toyshow was one of the best in living memory and forced the country to put down their cynicism en masse for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t resist making the odd topical gag about the IMF and the like that nobody wanted to hear. Every other week he’ll make a reference to the blindingly flaming obvious, something like, “we really need good news right now” or “things are very tough at the minute”. The Late Late has always been a national barometer of sorts, but it works just as well without the running commentary.

The high water mark of this televisual navel-gazing happened a few weeks ago, when Tubridy interviewed Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. At one point Gilmore referred to the President of Chile’s handling of the mining crisis as an example of decisive leadership, when Tubridy interjected to say “But that was 33 people, we have 4 and a half million people in a hole here”.

Fair enough, it’s Ryan’s prerogative to test political leaders in any way he sees fit, but that piety would be a whole lot more tolerable if weeks earlier he had asked Willie O’Dea, a former cabinet minister in one of the most calamitous governments the world has ever known who had to resign due to spreading scurrilous rumours about a political opponent and then lied about it in a sworn affidavit, any question harder than “Who’s your favourite ninja turtle?”

That an estimable broadcaster such as Tubridy feels such a self-conscious need to furnish us with a makeshift weekly fireside chat is aggravating, but it’s a trend that’s replicated and augmented across their schedules. Of course the news has to report things as they are (although, in the now-notorious press conference where RTE cut away from Vincent Browne giving it lilty to Brians Cowen and Lenihan to studio analysts, not always perfectly either), but the litany of Ireland’s other current affairs shows generate a lot more heat than light.

“Prime Time” have created promos that made their coverage of Ireland’s bailout look so stunningly dramatic that it’d be forgivable to think presenter Miriam O’Callaghan was a figure closer to Jack Bauer than John Chancellor. Pat Kenny’s “The Frontline”, though sometimes stimulating, is well named because it more often than not descends into an over-the-top bloodbath. Vincent Browne’s crazed judicial stylings make his nightly show a clinic in masochism. And some of the callers to Joe Duffy’s national squawk box “Liveline” would make you facepalm for a solid ninety minutes. One of the counter-intuitive benefits for the broadcasters about this economic catastrophe is that it sure has helped fill a lot of airtime.

Of course, I’m not suggesting for a minute that broadcasters should avoid confronting harsh realities in order to make us all feel better about ourselves, but being stultified by increasingly bombastic and fantastical coverage of issues we’re patently and intimately aware of to begin with is worse still. We hardly need presenters and experts earning six figure salaries to tell us in detail how poor we’ve all become and why over and over. Or for them to appear to revel in it so much.

It seems to be an inescapable cycle, a part of Ireland’s incurable preoccupation with preoccupation: the more the media discuss banks and bailouts the more we get sucked in, and the more sucked in we get the more the media feel they need to ratchet up the noise. And when every syllable of news is proclaimed at the top of the voice, the truly important gets drowned out in a collective bout of national tinnitus. This obsessive desire to micro-cover the crisis is not only diluting the story, but eradicating all relativity and perspective.

The media and in particular the broadcast media can at its best can be an agent of incredible nobility; it can inform, educate, entertain, amuse and enthuse. But if they really want to be agents of seeing us through these “tough times”, there are a few words of advice they should take heed of every now and then: just shut up for a while.

Labour’s Frank McBrearty big loser in Donegal by election results

Labour candidate Frank McBrearty was a surprise early casualty in  the Donegal South West by-election as Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty cruised to victory last night.

After polls indicating McBrearty would take anything up to 19%, McBrearty polled a disappointing 3,366 votes, around 10%, and crashed out after the second count. Most of those missing votes seem to have gone directly to Doherty, who with 13,719 first preference votes had a commanding lead from the outset.

The reason for McBrearty’s dramatic fall off in support is a likely a mixture of a number of things: McBrearty’s media performances were poor to the point of infamy, whereas Doherty was solid throughout and never looked like losing the lead. Also, McBrearty’s home region in the Finn Valley is naturally amenable to Sinn Féin, and these factors together may have contributed to soft Labour supporters switching their vote at the last minute.

Doherty was about 6,000 votes ahead of his nearest rival Fianna Fáil Senator Brian O’Domhnaill, who has seen the party’s vote collapse by over 60% since the last General Election with his 7,354 votes.

The erosion in Fianna Fáil support has prompted speculation that Fianna Fáil may only run one candidate in the next election, an extraordinary and unprecedented move.
Speaking after the count, Mary Coughlan said “it would be a matter for the party” whether they follow a one or two candidate strategy.

Minister for Social Protection Eamon O’Cuiv has claimed he isn’t worried by the Sinn Féin surge, claiming “to extrapolate these numbers would have Sinn Féin at 1918 levels of support. I’m not naive in politics”.

In spite of Fine Gael’s large lead in national polls, their candidate Barry O’Neill fared poorly, polling 6,424 first preferences, about 19%. He claimed however he would fight the convention for the party’s nomination at the next election, even though current incumbent Dinny McGinley will be hoping to not just keep the seat but potentially receive a place at cabinet at the next government.

The surprise package of the day has been independent councillor Thomas Pringle, who outpolled Frank McBrearty and, in his own words, has primed himself to be “a pain in the neck” next time for Mary Coughlan if she decides to run again.

McBrearty, said while he was disappointed he hadn’t got more votes, he was still pleased to treble the Labour vote in the constituency and said with the help of transfers he’d be in the mix for a seat next time.

Let them eat cheese - Irish government giving out free cheese to the needy

Never mind the EU the IMF or GDP, Ireland’s real concern is our long-standing relationship with WTF.

On the whole, Ireland’s history has been so nutty we shouldn’t really ever travel without an EpiPen, whether it be losing battles due to our hired help showing up at the wrong place like at Kinsale in 1603, or the Earls fleeing Ireland accidentally forgetting to bring their wives in 1607. You’d think modernity would have ironed out some of our more idiosyncratic creases, but not so. Our government just won’t let that happen.

Last week Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith announced that the government would be giving out free cheese to the needy just before Christmas. Yup, free cheese. Inevitably, the announcement was met with incredulous, mocking derision. In a year where another government bright idea was taxing ATM withdrawals to curb tiger kidnappings, the notion that 53 tonnes of cheese would raise national morale was the high water mark of the “if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry” feeling currently pervading the country.

So, as we descend into a kind of Blanche du Bois madness, what better time to have a look back at some of the events and people that have made Ireland the baffling and out and out ludicrous country it is today.
The Insane Adventures of Oliver J Flanagan:

Olly J was elected to the Dáil at the age of 23 on a Monetary Reform ticket, meeting people at mass gates and riding his bicycle around the constituency while wearing placards saying “HERE COMES OLIVER” on the front and “THERE GOES FLANAGAN” on the back. Over his 44 years service in the Dáil he’d be repeatedly returned with stonking majorities despite being one of the most patently bonkers politicians to ever serve in any forum anywhere. During his maiden speech he was admonished by the Ceann Comhairle for being “persistently irrelevant” and a week later blamed the Jews and Masons for all of Ireland’s woes, going as far to claim that “Where there are bees there is honey, and where there are Jews there is money”, criticised them for “killing our saviour nineteen hundred years ago” and praised Germany for routing them out of the country. Being an ultra-Catholic Knight of Columbanus he was not only quite keen on Jesus but fond on maintaining public morals too, and condemned the notoriously racy “Late Late Show” because “There was no sex in Ireland before Teilifís Eireann”.

Oliver was as likely a candidate for a place at cabinet as he would’ve been for a part in The Hangover 2, but a minister he became in 1976, replacing Paddy Donegan as Minister for Defence after he called the President a “thundering disgrace” (and some other things too). He died in 1987 and was replaced by his son Charlie, who as Fine Gael spokesman on Justice gave full-throated backing to the Civil Partnerships Bill. So that’s progress at least.

Oireachtas Funkadelic

I’ve always been fond of the 1920’s – the pinstripes, the dancing, the dames – but as fun as Chicago back then must have been the Dáil and Senate gave it a run for its money. At the foundation of the state, for example, there was a Ministry of Fine Arts. During a debate to adopt Daylight Saving Time, one member argued against the measure saying that “No self respecting cow can be expected to be milked at 2:30am in the morning”, while another thought it would be a good idea as being an hour out of synch with Northern Ireland would entrench partition. Perhaps the most dramatic parliamentary event of the twenties though was the motion of no confidence placed against WT Cosgrave. Whip counts indicated he should have lost narrowly, but as it turned out the vote was a dead heat and with the chair’s casting vote, Cosgrave was saved. The reason the opposition lost was because the National League TD John Jinks, who would’ve tilted the balance, mysteriously disappeared before the vote for reasons to this day not completely known. Incidentally, the National League Party were formed in protest at the Intoxicating Liquor Act, which restricted pub opening times.

The National Broadcaster

Mercifully these days there are as many TV channels available to the casual viewer as stones on Salthill beach, but there was a time when certain people only had the two Radio Teilifís Éireann stations to choose from. Some were lucky and had “The Channels” (BBC, ITV, et al) but there were many more who suffered in silence, as silence was often preferable to watching RTÉ. There were two shows however that had the country hooked: “Glenroe” and “The Late Late Show”. Glenroe was a soap in the literal and metaphorical sense, as not only was it showed every Sunday night at 8:30pm but it was also synonymous with national school students’ bath time. The show ended over a decade ago, but I think I speak for every Irish man, woman and child when I say nobody will ever forget where they were when the wardrobe fell on top of Dinny, when Miley cheated on Biddy with Fidelma in the haystacks or when George was killed by Peruvian guerrillas.

The Late Late meanwhile was the national water cooler, furnishing us with talking points like Terry Keane’s affair with Charles Haughey, Peter Brooke singing My Darling Clementine unaware that an IRA bomb had killed several people that same day in the north and Padraig Flynn’s infamous “Try It Some Time” interview. One particular Late Late item that has taken on cult status of late that would make you spit your cooled water out in disbelief was the “Rap Against Rape” initiative in 1990. Consisting of five radio DJ’s, the singer Hazel O’Connor and a couple of black lads dancing at the back in a vein attempt at credibility, their song was called “What Did I Do Wrong?” Well, if you have to ask... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKMTSGgJPGA


With Leaders Like These...

I don’t know if leaders reflect their people or vice versa, but either way we’ve had some interesting characters with their hand on the national tiller. WT Cosgrave went to Mass three times a day due to his crushing post-Civil War guilt. Eamon deValera ended a masterful career of political bluffing as President by, despite being quite blind, pretending to know what was going on thanks to an advisor whose work ought to have got him a consultant credit on “Weekend At Bernie’s”. John A. Costello, in conversation with his party colleagues James Dillon and Paddy Lindsay, confessed the only time he’d been in a pub he’d nearly choked on a bottle of orange, leading a dejected Lindsay to exclaim it was small wonder Fine Gael were never in power. At a meeting during the FitzGerald government, Jim Mitchell made a reference to the film “Rambo”, finishing with a knowing glance to Garret and saying “I’m sure you’ve seen that film, Taoiseach”. The Good Doctor, not known for his grasp of culture contemporaneous, replied apologetically “Oh, no, I’m afraid I haven’t” to much giggling.


What A Scoop!

Gone may be the days of the kind of all-powerful publishing giants and wisecracking newspapermen Cary Grant would play in old timey movies, but at least in the field of Irish local news there are still some characters who can inject some colour into a black and white business. John McAteer, the editor of the Tirconnail Tribune, once took the Donegal County Council to task in an editorial, calling their facilities variously “a complete dog’s dick” and “pure shite”. In an editorial. A bit up the road, the tiny publication The Inishowen Independent tried an ambitious advertising campaign consisting of a large sign with bold, capital letters on the main Buncrana road. Their chosen slogan was supposed to convey that it was a paper that not only covered the stories of the locale but had a unique knowledge of the area and its inhabitants, but it took on a more ominous tone as you drove past it. The sign read: “The Inishowen Independent: WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!”

Donegal is at the center of Ireland’s political universe

As much as I was enthralled by the build up and eventual results of this week’s midterms, I didn’t think by week’s end I’d be gearing up for going to the polls myself.

It’s an absolute rarity, but Donegal is currently the center of the Irish political universe. Following a successful case to the High Court by Sinn Féin, Donegal South West faces a bye-election on the 25th November, nearly a year and a half since the seat became vacant. Up the road in Donegal North East, histrionic spoofer Dr Jim McDaid said bye bye to the Dáil after 21 years of doublespeak and scandal, bringing the government a case of glandular fever away from collapse.

The people of Donegal North won’t have to worry about replacing him just yet, but in Lifford across to Glenties and down to Bundoran the posters are already up. And while we’ll have a distinct lack of fiscally conservative CEO’s throwing their money around like a lightweight wrestling opponent or scarcely believable TV slots involving sheep, it should be an intriguing race all the same, for several reasons.

The prima facie politics of the bye-election are interesting in as much as this race provide a lot more than a new TD; it’ll show whether Sinn Féin in Donegal can finally transfer votes into seats, it’ll show if Labour can rise in the polls enough to make big gains out west in the next election overall, and it’ll also show the extent to which the death laser has travelled up Fianna Fáil’s trouser leg.

As it stands, Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty looks set to take the seat, helped in no small part by the fact his actions precipitated the election in the first place.

Fine Gael’s Barry O’Neill and Frank McBrearty Junior of Labour ought to do themselves no harm either, with Fightin’ Frank’s transfers likely to be the decisive factor of the election. Brian O’Domhnaill, Fianna Fáil’s presumptive nominee, looks to be largely on a fool’s errand.

But it’s the satellite issues surrounding this election that make it truly compelling. Or maddening, whatever you’re having yourself. That the seat left vacant by Pat “The Cope” Gallagher’s election to the European parliament would stay vacant for 17 months is just plain negligent, and would likely be illegal in any other country. That the government would dodge holding it for over a year citing the reason they were too busy attending to affairs of state is not just cowardly but repugnant to democracy. That they would contest the High Court challenge is incredible, but that they would appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court is really appalling. Just how much attention are they paying to those affairs of state if they have time to take a case to the highest court in the land to cover their asses?

My personal favorite element of the story however is that Fianna Fáil asked Pat The Cope back from Brussels to run. In other words, they tried to get the man who gave up his Dáil seat to run for Europe to give up the European seat to contest the same Dáil seat he vacated. If Jonathan Swift were still alive, he’d probably throw his pen to the ground and his hands to the air. It’s impossible to write satire when real life trumps it so emphatically.

The nation’s media will set up camp here for the next few weeks, and as gratifying as it is to see Donegal focused on for once, I’d much prefer it if we were electing TD’s along with the rest of the country. With an unfathomably tough budget to be passed and a need for whatever government enacting their four year plan to have the authority and national sanction to do so, we can’t afford to have an election one constituency at a time.

Ireland becoming the 51st state – some kind of Joaquin Phoenix-style prank

Pointing out the comprehensive lunacy of members of the banking industry these days is like coming back from a salmon barrel-shoot with a bountiful cargo, but amongst the highly inflated dime-a-dozen madness one banker’s claim earlier in the week stood out like a sore thumb that was broken because of late debt payments.

Michael Soden, former Bank of Ireland Chief and current Central Bank adviser, has been showing the kind of ingenious thinking that made Ireland’s financial enterprises the envy of the world by advocating, wait for it, Ireland leaving the EU and possibly becoming the 51st state of the U.S. Wow, someone give that man a medal. Preferably not The Charlemagne Prize though.

Part of me hopes this is some kind of Joaquin Phoenix-type pisstake, or some desperate histrionic attempt to flog the book he’s just penned. But then I realise that not only are bankers much more predisposed to the realm of mind-boggling fantasy than satirical humour, shy of claiming the secret to eternal youth is printed just below the publishing info nobody would dream of buying the thing anyway. So, unlike NAMA, I’m choosing to take the value of the comments at face value.

Soden opines that Ireland’s hands are tied by the EU and if Europe can’t find a solution that “accommodate(s) the needs of the Irish electorate, should we look elsewhere”. Interesting theory, though the needs of the Irish electorate are to dole out a battering that hasn’t been administered in four years. And Ireland’s hands are tied - such as it is – because Ireland is in such a bad financial state (because of people like him) that we have the largest deficit in the Union, four times the EU limit. And if Ireland did go the way of Greece, it’d be German taxpayers ruefully though dutifully paying the bill. Ireland was the architect of its own downfall, the EU are the recovery team.

He doesn’t stop there: “Our membership of Europe has to have balance in all aspects, particularly in relation to our culture, our sovereignty and the price we pay for economic and financial independence. Have we unwittingly surrendered these precious aspects of our society as the price of European Union membership?”

No, Michael, we have not. Back in 2001 around the time of the SSIA scheme launch the other 14 European finance ministers thought Charlie McCreevy’s economic policies were so insane that all he was missing was a white coat, a streak of unruly grey hair and a maniacal laugh, but it didn’t stop him pursuing them. Regarding sovereignty, the EU isn’t some hostage-taking cabal run by Alan Rickman and his brother Jeremy Irons, it’s the sum of its national parts. And for all the threats we’ve heard over the years Ireland has yet to be dragooned to service in a European Super Army or forced to legalize abortion. Though I will concede that the EU and its precursors did force our hand on some issues our own governments didn’t really want to go near, unconscionable things like paying women the same as men and decriminalizing homosexuality. The tyrannical bastards.

As for Europe’s role in our cultural erosion, I haven’t the faintest idea what people who say that mean exactly. Irish is an official language of the EU and you can find books and documents as gaeilge in Brussels with ease. They also fund thousands of community programs, international cultural exchanges and cross-border cooperation projects. There are myriad youth and community groups, organizations of incalculable value who would simply not exist without either the Youth In Action budget or the various stages of Peace funding.

It’s also worth stating that according to last year’s figures while the US is Ireland’s main export partner at about 21%, the next on the list is Belgium, on around 18%. Belgium is a country the size of Maryland with a population slightly higher than Michigan. But I’m sure if we were to switch sides, Governors O’Malley and Granholm could pick up the slack. And not to disappoint those who beat their chest or wave the flag decrying the loss of our independence, but prior to the EU we were practically reliant on trade with Perfidious Albion. I’ve heard it suggested brave old Ireland was better off before joining the EEC in 1973. We really weren’t.
But hey, maybe I’m being too hasty. Let’s consider part two of Soden’s bullet-proof plan, becoming the 51st state of the union:

“The possible consequences of political and economic association with the US would be a massive influx of foreign direct investment, a link to the US dollar, a reduction in unemployment, and who knows, maybe an annual payment for a number of years to get our finances back in balance.”

True, nothing asserts national sovereignty like joining another country. Apart from the fact if we joined the US it wouldn’t really be foreign direct investment anymore, it’s a very compelling case. After all, unemployment in the States is basically zero, and North Dakota can devalue the dollar unilaterally whenever it likes to stay competitive. I especially like the idea of the annual payment. If only there was some kind of continental union within Europe that provided structural funding of some kind to help us build up our infrastructure. Wishful thinking I guess.

Of course one section who wouldn’t like joining the US are politicians. Given Ireland has about the same population as Alabama, that means only seven congressmen/women, two senators and a governor at the top level. A lot of TD’s are going to be out of a job. Even Barack Obama would have trouble with the idea, as although he could rely on Ireland to vote heavily Democratic in election years, our Blue Dog stance on some issues would cause him a few headaches during congressional votes. Besides, it would totally take away our exotic allure.

The sad truth is that the origin of Ireland’s central corrosive problems are to be found much closer to home. The EU didn’t compel Charles Haughey to borrow an eighth of AIB’s annual income in the seventies, or take money from any businessman who’d indulge him. The EU didn’t compel TD’s to open Ansbacher accounts. The EU didn’t compel Michael Lowry to let Ben Dunne pay for house renovations, or Ivor Callely to fiddle his expenses by claiming he’d officially moved to west Cork even though his website claimed (and still claims) that he lives in north central Dublin. And the EU sure as hell didn’t compel the top brass of our banking sector to think they could do whatever the hell they liked, whenever the hell they liked. Or for our government to appoint the more insane amongst them as an adviser to the Central Bank.

The EU might be terribly easy to complain about, but if Ireland left it in the morning and found traveling to Paris or the Algarve much harder, texts and calls much more expensive while over there or medical expenses costing an arm and/or a leg if God forbid you got in trouble, then those complaints would be ten times louder. And not for nothing, but if you did shun the EU and decided to holiday at home, it’s because of the European Blue Flag program that our beaches are as impressive as they are.

Ireland’s connections to the US are as valuable as they are historic and long may that stay the same, but to suggest we’d be better off without Europe is as churlish it is childish.

Return to the economic woes of 1992 could mean a cosmic do-over for Ireland

Election literature - Dick Spring

The more I think of it, the more it makes sense: Ireland has obviously found some kind of wormhole in the timeline a la “The Twilight Zone”.

Consider this submission for your approval: Unemployment so high it’s getting vertigo; a rickety, Fianna Fáil coalition led by a deeply unpopular midlander staring down the barrel of an unseemly end; a Fine Gael party bedevilled by their unfashionable leader; while Labour make unprecedented gains in the polls, absorbing disaffected independents from all directions and looking forward to enormous gains in constituencies were previously James Connolly himself would’ve struggled to get half a quota.

Yes folks, it’s 1992 all over again.

With the benefit of hindsight we now know that 1992 was the high water mark of misery in what had been an extended period of chastened economic woe, but from then on things got steadily better: unemployment went down, investment went up and, mirabile dictu, governments even ran budget surpluses.

As many great things happened in the years following ’92 as ruddy awful things happened in the last two years, awfulness precipitated by the astounding hubris of the notion that the past was another country, never to be re-visited. It wasn’t. But, as the indicators seem to be suggesting, the political gods are offering a second chance, a cosmic do-over of sorts. The parties would do well to make the most of it.

The party with the most to gain and the most to learn is undoubtedly Labour. After the election of November ’92, Dick Spring’s tide engulfed 33 seats in the Dáil chamber, over double what they’d had previously. But after election night things went downhill: Labour’s gain had been Fine Gael’s emphatic loss, and the two old coalition partners could only muster 78 between them, five shy of a Dáil majority. With Labour’s reluctance to bring the Progressive Democrats into the equation and John Bruton’s hostility toward the Democratic Left, Spring’s ambition of getting a turn as Taoiseach was looking bleak. So, Labour did the unthinkable and turned to Fianna Fáil, who were holding out hope they would and had studiously prepared for such an eventuality.

Fianna Fáil and Labour formed a government in January 1993 that was touted to last well into the next century but Labour and Spring, who had won said 33 seats on the premise of radical change and hoisting Fianna Fáil from office, paid a heavy price.

Pilloried in the media and trounced in subsequent by-elections, Labour readily jumped ship in December 1994 following the bungled extradition of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, and following a shift in the numbers game were able to form government with Fine Gael and the Democratic Left after all. While it was one of the more stable and successful governments the country has ever seen, the voters’ memory was sufficiently long to see Labour’s representation halved at the next election. Eamon Gilmore would do well to seek the counsel of Spring following the results of the next election. Or failing that, read Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus”.

Fine Gael too have lessons to learn. It was patently clear from early on in his leadership of the party that Bruton was thoroughly unelectable as Taoiseach, and polls repeatedly had him miles behind the popularity of Dick Spring prior to the election. There were even suggestions that Bruton make way for a more palatable cross-party leader, suggestions he flatly rebuffed. All of this was compounded by his unilateral calls for coalition government without consulting his prospective partners and obstinate and haughty attitude to sharing power with the ex-Stickies in the Democratic Left, an attitude he’d have to shelve two years hence. Even when Labour went into government he couldn’t convert what should have been a slam dunk in terms of political point scores, and hobbled on as leader after an attempted heave in early 1994, demoting some talented dissenters in the process. That he found himself as Taoiseach at all was as much a surprise to him as anyone else. As it turns out, he was unelectable as Taoiseach, as his was the only government not formed following an election, and he failed to win a second term in 1997.

Enda Kenny’s story is remarkably similar to Bruton’s, if a bit more hapless and a bit less capable, and his zero-tolerance approach to working with Sinn Féin may be one he has to revisit if things don’t quite go the plan at the next election. If he’s still in charge by then.

For Fianna Fáil, the picture is a bit more bleak: the best they can hope for is control their damage for next time round and elect a conciliatory leader to replace Cowen, Micheal Martin would be ideal. But Fianna Fáil is the nation’s default setting and history has proven that if they keep quiet on the opposition benches for a while, pretend the last few years didn’t happen and elect a likeable leader, or at least someone difficult to hate, then all manner of sins will be forgiven. Fine Gael and Labour have to be much more careful. For the Greens, it’s bleaker still. Prayer can only do so much.

The next election, as it was in ’92, is an open goal for the opposition. If Labour maintain a principled stance at the point of impasse and if Fine Gael sort out their leadership woes before they encounter another round of stonewalling deals they’ll later rue or making lone runs they’re incapable of, they might just convert it this time. Whether all concerned do things differently once they’re in power next time around is much harder to predict.

Irish nostalgia lovers in for treat with 'Reeling in the Years' - SEE VIDEO

Care to take a guess what the big talking point is in my circle of friends this week? It’s not the repeated calls for political consensus by Environment Minister John Gormley (mainly because most people can see it as the master class in fig leaf couture that it is), or the fact that apparently a third of Irish people in their mid-twenties are driven loco by the fact they’re still living with their parentis (we try not to dwell on that one). It’s not even the depressing realisation that, after seeing "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" on the TV this week, my father was roughly the same age as I am when the film was released (I have to confess, that one is all mine). In actual fact, the big, preoccupying story this week is the return of "Reeling in the Years".

In TV terms, only episodes of "Mad Men" featuring Trudy Campbell come anywhere near close to matching the excitement I’m currently feeling.

For the uninitiated, "Reeling" is an historical documentary series, a popular culture travelogue documenting life, politics, attitudes and sport through a very Irish lens. The idea and execution thereof is simple, but incredibly effective. Using only archive footage (and occasionally pregnant pauses), contemporary music chosen with clever precision and a few explanatory sentences rolling across the bottom third throughout, Reeling In The Years has profiled every year from 1962 (the year after the national broadcaster Teilifís Éireann came into being) to 1999, with the new series beginning this Sunday bringing us right up to date.

The show has been an unmitigated success for RTÉ, receiving universal plaudits, becoming the staple of many a summer afternoon’s viewing and a scheduler’s dream, as it’s habitually in the top ten of most watched programmes in any given week it’s shown. Such is its popularity that they had to had to reverse their initial decision not to release DVD’s of the show (because procuring the rights of external archives and music for such a venture is a job so stressful and expensive it’d make Hercules weep) and released two slightly amended compilations of the 80’s and 90’s. The compelling mix of a bullet-proof format, nostalgia and learning by stealth has made "Reeling in the Years" not only the national social studies class, but the national common denominator.

While the proximity to the events profiled will be much closer than previous series, the rate at which things have changed in Ireland even over the last 24 months will have given the producers more than enough scope to use their trademark retrospective tongue in cheek humour and penchant for finding clips of statements that proved wry prescience, the most infamous example being Charles Haughey claiming he’d “keep a little something for myself” in response to being asked what he’d do if he won the newly launched National Lottery, accompanied by Wet Wet Wet’s “Wishing I was Lucky”.

So while it’ll be interesting to see how stories fresh in the mind are dealt with, even more interesting will be the memories evoked by big events long since buried, like the Y2K bug, the ban on smoking, the infamous nude painting of Brian Cowen or, God forbid, the Saipan debacle of the 2002 World Cup. Opening those wounds again could precipitate a second civil war.

But whatever the new series shows and however is shows it, Ireland will be watching attentively.

It will be available internationally on http://www.rte.ie/player

'Ireland's Greatest' series illustrates Ireland's lack of leadership figures

RTÉ television is currently half way through their “Ireland’s Greatest” series, a search to find the most outstanding Irish citizen ever. The series is comprised of five documentaries fronted by the advocates of the respective candidates: Michael Collins, James Connolly, John Hume, Mary Robinson and, eh, Bono. All those names are of course pretty remarkable in their respective ways, but the list as a whole is even moreso. Not one of those greats have actually led the country.

Big Mick certainly would have had he not been killed in what are even now contentious circumstances, so his legacy as a leader can only be extrapolated. James Connolly too died before he could exert any influence on the institutions of power. John Hume never held a government posting after briefly being Minister for Commerce in the ill-fated Northern Ireland executive of the early seventies, while Mary Robinson’s role as President was largely honorific. Bono sang "Mysterious Ways".

Not only that, but the candidates are, apart from all belonging to the most recent corner of history, largely left-leaning figures, and not one of them were members of Fianna Fáil, the party that has run the country for about three out of every four year since they formed. Irish voters, as the old Peronist maxim goes, signal left and turn right.

The discrepancy between who we like in theory and who we vote for in practice is enormous. As it stands, the Dáil is inhabited by an unseemly amount of mini Boss Tweeds and souped-up county councillors who aren’t fit to hold Mary Robinson’s briefcase. TD’s so backbench they’re in constant danger of getting nosebleeds or falling off the edge, who’ll vote for health cuts in Dublin and attend rallies about how important the local hospital is back home. And yet, these people get elected time and time again, because they’re Great Local Men. They tend not to be women.

Now granted, every country has their parochial interests and loony-toon members of parliament sent to the capital by their constituents for no other reason than it beats having them at home, but in Ireland the respectability deficit lamentably goes all the way to the top. Since they’ve taken over, Taoiseach and Tánaiste Brian Cowen and Mary Coughlan may as well have done their business in quick-motion accompanied by ragtime music, such has been their disastrous administration. As they stumble from one unforced embarrassment to another and preoccupied by market confidence in the country, they’re either unaware or uninterested in the fact that the country lost confidence in them ages ago. The previous occupant of Cowen’s office Bertie Ahern, a modern day Emperor with new clothes if ever there was one, can currently be seen in a universally-derided TV ad for a tabloid newspaper offering sports tips from a kitchen cupboard. The opposition Fine Gael should have an unassailable lead in the polls but are being held back by Enda Kenny, who while a decent man is much less leadership timber than flat pack furniture.

This isn’t an “It was better in the olden days”, fadó fadó thing either. The abiding memory of John Bruton is acting like Wayne and Garth at an Alice Cooper concert when Prince Charles visited Ireland. Albert Reynolds always looked like the right answer in an odd one out competition when pictured with world leaders. Liam Cosgrave, our angriest and most stubborn Taoiseach, once claimed he hoped the Israelis and Palestinians settle their differences along Christian principles. Charles Haughey, though easier on the world stage than most, saw himself as more of a Renaissance Prince.

Of course we have had leaders of gravitas and international renown over the years like Lemass or Lynch or FitzGerald, but Garret 'The Good' left office 23 years ago, and we haven’t really had a good one since.

Ireland’s reputation around the world has taken such a battering of late that we can’t really afford many more years without some inspiring leadership, to say nothing of all the other things we can’t afford.

When Barack Obama was inaugurated nearly two years ago, nations the world over wondered out loud if they had such a figure amongst them. I’ve no doubt that we have a few potential Baracks somewhere, the shortlist of Ireland’s Greatest proves we can produce those kinds of people. We just need to get better at voting for them.