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.