Conor Cusack, John Murray and Ireland's continuing crusade for mental health awareness

Conor Cusack goes public about Ireland's last taboo - our feelings and depression

It’s possible that nobody better embodies the merciful development of Ireland as a modern, outward-looking and sympathetic country than the Cusack brothers of Cloyne.

Donal Og Cusack, a hurling goalkeeper, a top class athlete and, given how he’s famous for standing at the oppositions’ intended terminus for a lethal missile, incredibly brave. He also just happens to be gay, and his forthright and frank manner for speaking about his sexuality marked a real sea change in Irish sport. In so doing, he took what had the potential to feed the rumor and innuendo mill ad nauseum, and spelled out just how utterly incidental it is to him as team mate and a sportsman, and but one of many things that makes him distinct as a person.

In the last week, his younger brother broke his silence about another great taboo of Irish life, his depression. And a blisteringly honest, difficult yet crucial piece it was. In times past, it’d be a sad truth to say that a family where one brother was gay and the other was depressed would have all manner of epithets thrown at them. Today, they’re treated with the best possible mix of respect, admiration.

So it was with RTE Radio 1's John Murray, who made a welcome return to the airwaves after a months-long battle with depression. Again, warm encouragement on his return and kudos for his frankness in discussing his struggle abounded. 

So it’s been with SpunOut.ie, Ireland’s national youth website and a charity which has helped young people in their droves by giving them a safe space to talk about what they want to, and perhaps realize they’re not fighting a solitary battle. So it is with Console, so it is with Pieta House, so it is with Headstrong, so it is with myriad organizations who actively work in helping de-stigmatize mental health, and any other institutions public and private who aid understanding.

With major public figures and organizations becoming more and more upfront about their mental health, and the concern and supportive attitude that goes along with it, it's getting so much easier for everyone to be upfront about mental health. Easier, but not quite as easy as it should be yet. Too many people still struggle. Too many people still struggle with admitting they struggle. Too many people still say "pull yourself together" or "sure what would they have to worry about?" and "pull yourself together". Too many people, young and old, are still taking their own lives.

John Murray hit the nail on the head in his opening remarks back on his show, but one thing he said was especially pertinent: to be depressed isn't to fail the life test. Whatever the reason, be it an inherent national reticence or fear of showing weakness, we need to get past this notion that depression is a failing, based on something you've done or failed to do. Admitting to it, speaking up about it, and thereby making it that bit easier for the next person, is the strongest thing you can do. This has all been said in the past of course, by myself and countless other commentators besides. But until we get to the day where we think of mental health, it bears repeating. It bears repeating.

Seven things the Irish learned thanks to the Senate referendum

Two nuns carry out their civil duty voting on the Senate referendum

So on Saturday, the people of Ireland (well, some of them, but more on that below) narrowly voted to maintain the Seanad. So with the Upper House saved by the hair on David Norris' chinny chin chin, what have we learned from the whole sorry, disingenuous debacle?

1. If the referendum was an exam, we would have failed.

39.2%. That's the amount of people that voted to voice their opinion on a pretty crucial question about the way Ireland governs itself. In some constituencies, it was under 30%. That's both insane and a huge part of the problem. A lamentable amount of people find the question of Seanad reform irrelevant or petty, and politicians always seem happy to not contradict them. Politicians, it seems, only ever seem to engage for the most petty or selfish of reasons. Granted, the populace need to meet the politicians half way, but the powers that be aren't exactly at the line offering encouragement.

2. Donegal has a few co-conspirators on the No side for a change.

Donegal's reputation as Ireland's political arch-contrarian is unfortunate, but well-earned. Lisbons 1 and 2, the Fiscal Compact, Divorce, even the goddamn Children's Rights referendum, all turned at the door up yonder. Often, Donegal are the only ones voting against it in the whole country, which makes my home county look ever so slightly crotchety. Thankfully, a slew of Dublin constituencies have taken the sting out of Donegal's inability to say "Aye" by rejecting . In fact, the whole east coast did.

3. Fine Gael and Labour Senators advocating a Yes vote should all resign immediately.

Not a wholly serious point, but surely Senators sincerely calling for their own abolition won't let a piddling matter like the wrong result in a referendum get in their way? Fewer politicians, right?

4. Enda and Eamon are a busted flush.

The Taoiseach and Tanaiste put a lot of money on an outcome that was never going to be all that profitable even if they won, but now they've lost they just look like idiots. They tested their authority on an issue that didn't quite have the emotional baggage of an abortion debate or economic policy and lost badly, both in terms of mobilising people to turn out and the end result. That doesn't bode well for the more heated issues round the bend, like the Budget. And Enda's inexplicable refusal to debate Seanad abolition will come back to haunt him from here til the next election. Gilmore, meanwhile, continues to float in space.

5. Referend(a)(ums) are stupid, and not just for plural reasons.

The question of legislative reform is multi-faceted and complex. A referendum is barely an effective way of  a group of mates deciding what pub to go out to for drinks. Crucial and complicated questions get boiled down to false binary choices, subject to hair-raising lies and coloured by the public perception of the people asking the question. In a modern democracy, it's an appalling way to do business.

6. Michael McDowell is more attracted to spotlight than a moth.

In 2007, when the PD's built, lit and leapt onto their own funeral pyre, Michael McDowell swept in to the RDS, announced that there would be no encore, and swept out again. Since then, he's thrown his cape off like a barrister James Brown quite regularly, bursting back on to the scene every now and then to chip his 2 cents into the pot on all sorts, and Seanad reform was no different. Does he want to build yet another new party or is he just an avid drive-by opinion giver these days, who knows?

7. Time to get really serious about reform.

For years, people have known that the Seanad needs the legislative equivalent of a boot up the arse, but nobody has ever sufficiently laced up. If Enda wants to regain some capital, he'll get everyone together who has something to say about Seanad reform, and synthesize some genuine proposals that makes the Seanad useful, representative and full of diverse voices. And abolishing a fair chunk of the Dail wouldn't go amiss either.

Mayo have an All-Ireland ancient curse similar to the Red Sox jinx

Mayo's GAA team and their ongoing curse!

If the Boston Red Sox were to up sticks from Fenway, McHale Park in Castlebar would be an ideal place for them to go. Because, like the Red Sox for so long, the green and red of Mayo is cursed.

Some people believe it to be a literal curse. So the story goes, a priest was so appalled at the last victorious Mayo team's lack of respect for a funeral cortege that he hexed them all real good, and it would only be lifted when that team all took that great '45 in the sky. One of Mayo's surviving medal winners of that time Mick Mulderrig remembers the whole curse incident differently, as well as remembering the Truman Administration. "It's a load of crap", he reckons. In fairness, he has skin in the game.

What is certain though is that Mayo are congenitally incapable of winning any match called a final that doesn't have the words "quarter" or "semi" preceding it. 1996 and 1997 were heartbreakingly close affairs between Meath and Kerry respectively, and judging by the massive scrap that unfolded in '96, nose breaking too. 2006, which I watched in Westport at my friend's house, was not such a close run thing, Kerry making them look like eunuchs in a strip club. In 2012, I watched in Dublin with a lot of my Mayo friends as Donegal beat them, the only time I've willed Mayo to lose. But in fairness, I had skin in that game.

But this year, with me being safely abroad in Manchester and with Mayo facing the Dubs, I figured the mix of facing a team not wearing green and gold married with my absence from the home sod would mark a watershed in Mayo's loveable loser cache. The Irish Club in Chorlton where I watched did too, as green and red bunting at the bar draped above the Guinness and Magners drinkers in green and red jerseys underneath. Every time Dublin scored, a solitary enclave in the corner made any noise at all. When Mayo scored their goals, chairs were knocked dangerously askew.

But alas as the game went on, Mayo's chances of victory vanished like the half time spread of ham sandwiches. Goalkeeper Rob Hennelly, who if he weren't an amateur would have really earned his money out there on Sunday, was the real stand out player on the pitch. That was their trouble.

And so, as another All-Ireland Sunday night at the notoriously lascivious nightclub Copperface Jacks is bereaved of Mayo fans, there is still hope. Because while they don't have Sam Maguire there is one thing Mayo fans always have: next year.

Remembering the radiant Mira and her buzzing modern Facebook shrine

Remembering the radiant Mira Dabit

Facebook often throws up some strange societal phenomena that just were not situations a few years ago. Most of these revolve around a lot of people finding something out all at once. Things like announcing the end of a relationship can be incredibly awkward, and with birthdays your page becomes bombarded with well-wishes and tributes, which is of course a whole lot more pleasant. And so it was when I looked at the Facebook page of my friend Mira Dabit, whose birthday was Wednesday. It was absolutely festooned with messages.

That simple fact, people wishing Mira well on Facebook, shows another of its' peculiarities: Mira died last Christmas. She would have been 28 this year.

The presence of that page serves to both deflect and heighten that awful reality. Several months later and I've not really accepted that she's gone. Not even remotely. Every so often it'll cross my mind and it'll feel like recalling a nightmare, not something that actually happened. The fact her page is, even now, even several months later, constantly, consistently buzzing with interaction exemplifies how absurd the notion of her being gone is. Except, interaction isn't the right word. All the traffic is one way. You see the sort of things people are writing, even now, daily, and you realise it's not a Facebook wall anymore. It's a very modern shrine. The fact Facebook informs me of her birthday is an unwittingly cruel administrative anomaly.

I hadn't seen her in quite a while, and not having seen her in so long made it all the more unbelievable. She was in Washington DC, heavily involved in the Occupy movement there. Part of me still imagines she's still there, and that's the trouble.

DC was her final adventure, but she lived in many places. Conquered, really. She was from Ramallah, in Palestine. She was fiercely proud of that. She wasn't just a political activist but a historian and traditional storyteller. She loved her country in a way that was deeper and more multi-dimensional than anyone I've ever known. All too often patriotism is an ostentatious show of muscle. Hers was that of a passionate soul.

Outside of the Palestine question, (although not much was, for her) she held political views that I can only really call comically strident. She was the revolutionary's revolutionary. She once quoted Stalin at a workshop while on one of her legendary anti-capitalist tirades. In front of dozens of people. But disagreeing with Mira was never an impediment to getting on famously with her. She once teased me about becoming Taoiseach, and when I did she said she'd picket my office every day.

She also loved Derry. She really connected it with its upstart attitude, its culture, its people, and she called it her second home. Derry loved her too. When word spread of her passing there was a massive commemoration service, and people spoke at length about what she meant to them. And while the expressions were different, the sentiment was the same: everybody loved this effervescent,earnest, intense, fearless hell-raising Palestinian girl who felt like she'd be hanging round the Bogside all her life.

And so it continues, on her Facebook page and beyond, both as I speak and by the time you read this. In fact, in nine months, the tributes haven't stopped. I doubt they ever will.

Remembering two giants, Seamus Heaney and David Frost

Seamus Heaney

As I wrote recently, ten years ago I did my Leaving Cert. And while I mentioned many details of the day, one I didn't mention directly was my English exam. My Paper II's progress was eased dramatically by a question that could have been written for me (and I suppose, in a sense, it kind of was) in the poetry section: write a letter to Seamus Heaney outlining why you love his poems. Easy peasy.

My favourite poem then, as now, is Valediction. And it was to this I immediately turned to when I heard the news that he passed away last week. It closes, "You've gone, I am at sea. Until you resume command / Self is in mutiny". 

Self is in mutiny. It's simply put, yet blisteringly evocative. It's Heaney all over. And on Friday, I was a bit lost at sea. It's an odd feeling, to miss someone you never physically knew, and yet I wasn't alone in feeling that.

As news filtered through of Heaney's passing, my news filter was awash with people paying tribute, all of whom invariably posted their favourite poems of his as well. On a medium that's often noted for being shallow or frivolous, for Friday at least Facebook was a Xanadu of verse. It's a mark of Seamus Heaney's talent and influence that he was able to do that, although small wonder. For people of my age, he's one of the big reasons any of us have a favourite poem at all. 

While still reeling from the passing of Heaney, on Sunday I heard yet more sad news: the passing of David Frost. Frost was one of a handful of people that I saw doing something, and how they did it, and knew I wanted to do it too. The range of the programmes he made was stupefying. He could muck about with comedians like the Pythons or Peter Cook, and also have the ear of some of the biggest names in world politics (he supposedly once greeted a former UN Secretary General with the phrase "Boutros Boutros Ghali, always a pleasure!"). He presented shows all over the globe at a time when TV was very much a domestic affair. His shows were responsible for both the classic Class Sketch with John Cleese and the Two Ronnies, and a game-changing interview with Richard Nixon. He even gave Through The Keyhole, a show involving snooping in famous people's houses, an unlikely gravitas. Referring to his habit for frontier-breaking, he joked about potentially doing a show from space, and kept his sense of humour throughout his life even when he was the biggest of shots. He made an impression on the world.

Seamus Heaney and David Frost have both left this world. But while they were here they shaped it with loving craft. I'm very thankful for that.

Bolshy Batfans Bash Ben Affleck as Batman? Relax, it's just a movie

Ben Affleck causes quite a stir with news he'll be the next Batman (Photo: www.theorange.co)

It's a testing time in the world. The west is finally getting itself sorted about Syria, although in a pretty cack-handed fashion. The liberal bona fides of Barack Obama's presidency are dissipating faster than you can say "Chelsea Manning". And Batman fans are losing their marbles over the casting of Ben Affleck as The Pointy-Eared Pippistrelle. That's Batman's nickname, isn't it?

Yeah, they're not happy, these Bat people. In the last week there have been myriad memes, articles, hashtags and even a god-damn petition petition either mocking, pontificating or generally shouting at the rain over Ben Affleck moving to Gotham City. I don't normally say things like this: but it's a only a film. Just a film. And like the 17th Batman movie in the last decade, for that matter. Well, give or take a few.

You'd think if you were to listen to the more serious-headed of the anti-Afflecks, you'd think it was the equivalent of getting Rob Schneider to play Titus Andronicus. How dare they undo the dark genius of Christian Bale and Chris Nolan! Of course, the truth is a lot less precious. At one point, Batman was played by the most obnoxious fighter pilot in a large group of really obnoxious fighter pilots. Even Fr Ted thought he was "a complete bastard".

He was also played by a man who featured in a film that involved multiple versions of himself opposite a woman who hasn't appeared in anything but shampoo ads for years. And at various points, his biggest villains were Matilda's father dressed like he was on the way to a reception at an embassy, Ace Ventura trading Hawaiian shirts for green, and the former Governor of California making ice puns. And the music, dear god, the music! At one stage, the soundtrack was replete with Prince jams, Seal power ballads and orchestral melodrama by U2. Now, granted, all these songs are awesome, but it's hardly Blade Runner intensity is it?

And let's not forget the implicit lunacy in the "legitimate" Batman films. Christian Bale's Batman thinks it's a good idea to save a city by throwing a bomb into some water, like it's a firecracker. And then there's Bane. Surely the pressing need to shout "speak up!" takes the sting out of his menace?

I'm about exasperated with the endless superhero films, hybrids and crossovers these days, but I really hope Affleck does a good job at Batman and silences the po-faced and wrong-headed critics. Although he'll find it hard to top Adam West.

A letter to my teenage self on finishing school, university and what comes next

From the LC forward - looking back on the last ten years

Last Wednesday the Leaving Cert results came out. It was 10 years ago since I got my own, and it got me thinking about a lot of things. I wanted to write about them but it became a bit of a hotch potch I couldn't really make cogent. So I decided to look inwards. And backwards. I decided to write 2003-spec Paddy a letter, outlining ten years worth of thoughts about the Leaving, University and what happens next. 

Dear 2003 Paddy,

Actually, that's a good place to start. A dwindling minority of people still call you Patrick. In ten years time, there will be, like, five people in the world who call you that. Paddy might be more jovial and free-wheeling and generally in-character to you, but a few will persevere with Patrick. You cherish them all.

If the time machine has worked properly, you will be reading this letter on the morning of the 13th August, the day you receive your Leaving Cert. This letter comes to you from ten years hence. I know what you're thinking: "They mastered time travel in 2013?". Well, no. I've actually had to wait several years more to deliver it. I know what you're thinking again: "Why didn't you just write me a letter from then rather than delivering what is functionally an out-of-date letter?". Because screw you, that's why.

Anyway, I have some things to tell you. Today, you will go up to Deele College for the last time as a student. Mr McFadden, who has now sadly passed, will take your results in one hand, the booklet outlining protocol for appeals in the other, and slip your results in the middle page of the booklet to further build the tension. Tension, I fully admit, I am now ruining. He'll make a joke about hoping you're able to count up your results, given your Maths result. You'll smile and breathe a sigh of relief, because you know when Mr McFadden makes a joke at your expense, all is well.

You count up your points, but Mr McGowan plays Vorderman with a calculator, in case Mr McFadden was right. He wasn't, you get an A2. You were right to drop to Ordinary. Higher Maths would have broken you like the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Also, Countdown replaced Vorderman, by the way. Her replacement is way better. You'll see. Also, you will one day see the actual Countdown clock quite regularly in work. Again, you'll see.

You get 435 points, quite a nice cushion for Arts in Galway, the course for which you've long held out for. Yes, Magee in Derry would be much handier, and your guidance counsellor admitted to being depressed when you spurned Law at Trinity. You politely rebuffed proximity to Maw's home cookin' and Mr McGivern's promise of a flourishing practice where you can buy a new Mercedes annually, and decided your heart and mind lay out west. I'm glad you did that, trusting your instinct like that. Make sure you keep doing that.

Some people will express surprise you're not one of those Omni-A grade students. You know different, and aren't fussed. For starters, it doesn't matter a damn once you get to your chosen college anyway, and you know your true talent lies in being able to recount vast tranches of trivia and identify basically any pop record within a second. Besides, you'll get an A1 in English to dine out on for a while.

Anyway, more on today. You'll spend the rest of it feeling like you're two feet above your body, fielding questions from people you haven't heard of since your communion asking how you fared, listening to the local radio and hearing Tanya from Glenties being congratulated by every single bloody member of her family on every show throughout the day. You'll be followed round by the atonal hit of the summer, Lumidee's Never Leave You. You'll be glad and unsurprised to know she never has another. You'll go out tonight at the behest of two girls you know fairly well from theatre school. You're the only boy there in a large group of girls, and the two people who know you knows everyone else. It feels a bit rare. You see a handful of your schoolmates, they're much too hammered to say much. You head up to another bar, but there's a mate of Dad's on the door. You don't dare put him in an awkward position, though you're later told he'd have let you in if you'd said who you are. You're home in time to see the tail end of some Donald Sutherland thriller. A feeling of being vaguely out of the loop, palpable awkwardness around girls, missed chances and a photographic memory for TV: it's basically a very neat microcosm of your whole teenage experience. Don't worry though, Galway is coming.

But while we're on the subject: girls. I won't lie, it's touch and go I'm afraid. Sometimes, it'll feel more like horrified look and go. You're basically King Midas in reverse. Easy to say, but I wouldn't worry much about it. Just don't feel the need to change tack or harden yourself in any way because of past rejection or whatever, you'd be amazed what will happen if you hold the line. That advice applies in general, actually.

Next week, you'll have an unholy kick-bollock-scramble of a week trying with offers, accommodation, fees and god knows. You'll pick your residential area for first year within fifteen minutes of an internet search, preoccupied by expediency and a desire to watch Football Focus. It will be one of the most crucial and brilliant choices you ever make.

Going back to the theatre thing, the whole acting hope doesn't quite work as you planned. A quirk of fate in the first week of college means you'll return to one of your first loves: radio. Your absolute first love, TV, will soon follow. It's much easier to play yourself anyway. And, you might be a bit surprised by this given how it never really featured in your plans, but writing becomes a pretty massive part of your life. So will youth work. Your two year hitch with the Donegal Youth Council ends up lasting a tad longer, let's put it like that.

Basically, you're going spend the next decade doing and seeing some great things, 2003 Paddy. But as you you can see a great many of them you won't expect. Enjoy that uncertainty. Don't worry too much about planning things to the letter, you can't live like that. Life won't let you live like that. It's not always going to a picnic either. There's going to be a lot of rejection, a lot of things falling through, a lot of wondering what the hell you do next, or why you even bother. But through a mix of hard work, luck, pathological enthusiasm and a level of stubbornness that would break whatever instrument you use to measure that, you're also going to have some extraordinary experiences born of insane Deus Ex Machina, half chances, spur-of-the-moment decisions, mad impulses and resolute rainbow chasing. 

You're going to work with some of the biggest names in TV. Most of them will be called Jeremy. In a few years time, there will be a beautiful famine replica ship moored at the docks in Dublin. You will be profoundly seasick off the top of its crow's nest near the Mull of Kintyre. You'll get to travel loads, and for work no less. You'll read a story about a website that got crazy publicity for an article on threesomes, despite being one of the best things to happen in empowering young people ever. You'll be proud to say you helped set it up. You'll get turned down for stuff, but offered something else instead. You'll be bloody glad it worked out as it did. You'll look someone in the eyes and feel utterly, utterly flummoxed. You'll work with young people to the point where you care about Leaving Cert result day every year since your own, because extraordinary people you've worked with closely are going through it. You try and impart whatever knowledge you can, and it's about as rewarding as it gets. 

But for now, get up, get dressed, don't keep mum waiting and get your results. Try and act surprised when you get up there. The Leaving Cert was the means, you won't believe where it ends. 

Remembering Jesse Owens at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics in the shadow of Russia's homophobic laws

Plans to boycott Sochi Olympics due to Russia's laws against gay community

I can't remember at what age he told me, but I remember vividly my father telling me the story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He told me of Hitler's thoughts on his inherent inability, about his refusal to shake his hand, and how Owens thoroughly sickened him by destroying the competition.

My memory of being told that story was pushed to the front of my mind this week, with Stephen Fry's open letter to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee President. He drew on Jesse's story and how it applies to the situation unfolding for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi. Vladimir Putin's full-on homophobic legislative assault, apart from being inherently malevolent, is causing a fundamental clash with the Olympic spirit. Pressure and publicity is piling up, but to no avail.

This isn't going to be a long blogpost, because it doesn't need to be. I don't need to explain how wrong it is that in this day and age, laws precluding a gay person's right to be are being so brutally curtailed. I shouldn't have to. There are very few cases in life that don't occupy at least one shade of grey, but this is one of them. It's just wrong. An absolute wrong.

Jesse Owens is an inspiration not just for his athletic achievement, but for his defiance and grace. But he should never have been put in the position he was put in. Hitler should never have been allowed to curate the Olympic flame. Neither should Putin. Because if he won't bow to diplomatic pressure, or common sense, or just some common humanity, maybe the economic humiliation of having a world event removed from him will do the trick. It doesn't matter if the athletes won't be affected, or whatever sort of loophole tries to be spun, a statement should be made that anywhere in the world where people are treated like this, the global community will not tolerate it. The Olympic spirit is all-inclusive, all-encompassing, all-encouraging. The Games should reflect and embody that completely, and since that can't happen in Sochi as it stands, it should go somewhere else. Anything else would be wrong. Just wrong.

Men's magazines and music videos are a feminist issue?

Still from Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" music video

 
I am a man. I think that goes without saying. But I have no problem in self-identifying as a feminist. In fact, I'm quite proud of it. On a purely logical level, women account for half the population so it's madness that their opinions wouldn't be represented to the same level. And on an instinctive level, it's my considered opinion that women are civilization. If women didn't exist, society would be a populace of PlayStation jockeys foregoing trousers. And if we had more women in cabinets, boards and top offices, maybe the world wouldn't be quite as financially, politically and culturally bare-arsed as we are.

Feminism isn't or shouldn't be a fringe movement any more. In a world where women are under-represented, underpaid and under-appreciated, feminism is a global imperative.

As exemplified by the Twitter page @EverydaySexism, we're a million miles away from not just a non-sexist society but a non-misogynist society too. As summed up by Ireland's pre-eminent drag artist Shirley Temple Bar recently, "Sexism is when you think you'd have done it better cuz you're a man. Misogyny is when you think she messed it up because she's a woman."

Gender roles need to be continuously challenged. Even in 2013, it still feels vaguely novel to have women and girls wanting to be scientists and engineers, and small wonder when you rarely see Meccano or chemistry sets anywhere next to fairy wands and dolls houses in toy shops. A few months ago, I saw myself in a shopping center a set of gender specific festival ponchos. The boys' were black and said "Rock star" on them. The girls' were pink and said "Groupie". That tells you all you need to know.

But over the summer I've noticed I'm sitting at the back of the broad feminist church. A great deal of attention has been focused on Robin Thicke's video for his song Blurred Lines. Well, the song and the video. Personally, I think it's a great song. While the lyrics certainly contain a degree of over-assured swagger, I think that's the point. He's trying to actively win a girl over by, it seems to me, a mix of comic over-confidence and the assertion that her previous man did not understand her or her primal nature they way he does. Date rape, as some have maintained, doesn't really come into it from where I sit.

The video I'm colder on, and find harder to defend. Not because it's sexist as such, but because it's a bit mental. Besides, models in videos are hardly new, Robert Palmer basically came up with the video for Blurred Lines in 1986, he just didn't have them move around, any of his mates there, or sheep. But, and this is a crucial point for me, one of the models in the video didn't seem to mind much, so I don't think I should either.

While Blurred Lines left me neutral as a calling cry for feminism, the recent campaign to get lads mags off the shelves or in "modesty bags" has left me an out-and-out conscientious objector. The lobby group UK Feminista, as part of their Lose The Lads Mags campaign, have claimed that magazines with semi naked ladies on them are "deeply harmful and fuel sexist behaviour which underpins violence against women". I completely disagree.

I may be a feminist, but I'm also a complete moral degenerate. I've long held that society is much too prudish and much too bashful when it comes to sex and portrayals of sex. It's not a problem we have with violence, as a hail of bullets in a film is par for the course, whereas a stray nipple causes all sorts of moral panics. I'm deeply suspicious of people who draw shaky lines around what causes people to do things. I don't think a picture of Kate Upton, a woman who models of her own volition, wearing a bra fuels sexist behaviour across the board anymore than watching Reservoir Dogs encourages ear cutting, or The White Album encourages murder just because Charlie Manson cited the album as an influence. Or those 11:30 Diet Coke ads encourage women to objectify men. Modesty bags sounds much too churchy and buttoned-down for the kind of feminism I subscribe too. It's also reductive, and insulting to individual men.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no apologist for lad culture. I think lad culture is for masculinity what sticking your head between park rails is for exploration. But what would be much better than a headline grabbing crusade would be a deeper look at the factors at play here.

For the most part, sex education comes from television shows after 11pm, with schools floundering in their responsibility. With lack of education comes ignorance, and with ignorance unchallenged comes the problem. We still have a culture where when a woman is attacked or abused, it's still a not uncommon to hear "she must have led him on or provoked him somehow", or something to that pathetic effect. The problem isn't the lack of clothes covering up flesh on display, it's the lack of respect society still has for women, whatever they're wearing. We can put lads mags in modesty bags all we want, but unless we get to the real core reasons of sexism and misogyny, then we're only hiding the problem.

The awkward moment when your 'rant of hate' is dealt with by the broadcasting authority

Listener gets their Irish up about Pope radio piece

In one form or other, I estimate I've been writing two articles a week for seven years. That's quite a lot of cyber ink.

For the most part, I'm glad to say they've gone down well. Some, however, have not.

A quick glance through my back catalog on this august site, for instance, will show you that at various times I have been called a bigot, a fool and, in one glorious case, a sick tangy idiot. I find all these singularly hilarious.

My favorite however was being told that my soul would rain into hell like snowflakes. If my soul does indeed go to hell (and I'm almost certain it will) then I'll be glad of a graceful descent.

But last week I discovered that people being unhappy with something I'd written was kicked up a notch.

Turns out a radio column I did for RTE's Drivetime programme in February about the outgoing Pope raised the ire of one listener. He claimed I was being sarcastic and disrespectful, not to mention offensive and ridiculous, and said I went on a rant of hate. You can decide for yourself if he's right here, by the way.

"A rant of hate". Wow. And not just was a complaint made, but it also went before the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland's complaints review board.

Double wow. This had been the first time I'd ever been scolded in the non-recreational sense.

When I was at school, I was studiously compliant. Once when a group of scallies decided to rotate their chairs to face the wall when a teacher went out to photocopy, I left the room and washed my hands of it, Pontius Pilate style. I used to wear my tie all the way up to the top button, which was always buttoned. Thankfully, I've got a lot, lot less uptight since then, although I am still a militant when it comes to tie-wearing.

But since then I have not just become less uptight, but a lot less, as a phrase from home goes, "bird-mouthed". What does it achieve to think something strongly but not lend voice to thought? Exposure from my mid to late teens to groups like the Donegal Youth Council and SpunOut.ie were eye and mind-opening experiences in dealing with authority and telling them that things needed to change, doing so respectfully but assertively. Plus I was born in a house where being outspoken and calling shenanigans on situations that shouldn't be were valued at a high premium. I don't question authority to be, as the complainant thought, disrespectful or offensive. I do it because I respect various systems enough to engage frankly with them. Those systems are strong enough to take it. The sarcasm and ridiculousness, however, is just in-built, unfortunately.

Thankfully the broadcast complaints crew resolved the problem, but I respect that man's right to complain about me, in the same way I have the right to criticise the Papacy of Benedict XVI. If anything I'm kinda glad, because it led to a fair bit of publicity, the cache of a rebel and my name being hashtagged on The Journal like I was Robin Thicke or something. It also gave me a really good laugh.

I've come out of all this with an amusing anecdote and a positive reaction for which I'm grateful but in general rebuke, as long as it's not for something cruel or wanton, isn't something any of us should be afraid of. All too often we probably have things we'd like to put out there that we don't, for fear of causing embarrassment, or insecurity, or out and out ructions. There are so many people with valuable opinions who have been surreptitiously told all their lives to leave it to other people, so they stay quiet, their voice and their skills stashed away. But there are always things to be said and always things to be done in this world, and nobody has a monopoly on who gets to speak and who gets the tools to work at what they want. So, if the choice is pissing someone off by saying earnestly what you think, and being pissed off without yourself for letting an opportunity go, then the answer is clear. It's so much better to be temporarily red-faced than be permanently bloodless.

The Senate is everything that's wrong with Ireland, so time to change it

The Seanad chamber

Irish politics at the minute resembles a sort of intergenerational domestic feud. The Dail's relationship with the Seanad has deteriorated to the point where they can barely be civil to each other any more. The Seanad, indolent, under-achieving and coasting hopelessly, is being sent to a military academy by its emotionally distant, repressive and ultimately damaging and damaged guardian, the Dail. The 4th of October is the day when the people will decide if the Seanad should straighten up and fly off.

In short the Senate, and the government's plans for it, is everything that's wrong with Ireland in an nutshell. But so is the Dail.

Let's look closer at the Dail, in fact. Having launched headlong into a massive economic iceberg, Enda Kenny now says the Seanad could have done more to stop the financial crisis. He conveniently forgets the fact the Seanad aren't at liberty to much pertaining to money, and that the Dail went on a wanton solo run on the bank guarantee and much more besides anyway. Displaying the same imagination with the Upper House as they have with pretty much everything else, this government is content to let the Seanad slide formally behind the bookshelf of governance, and it's too fat and lazy to reach in there and actually devise any proper use for it.

Regina Doherty though, one half of the Keystone Cops running the referendum for the government, claims that abolishing the Seanad is in actual fact an exercise in leaner, meaner government. Everyone else is having to make do with less, she claims, so too must the political classes. Except, while they're cutting the Seanad down to the quick, they're only skimming 8 seats off themselves. A whole 5% cut! Meanwhile, the local authorities haven't been so much reformed as sloppily amalgamated, with the same old mandate to point at potholes in newspapers. We're getting to the point where the role of a TD will be that of a local councillor, national legislator, and their own check and balance.

If their would-be assassins are ham-fisted and disingenuous in extremis, then the Seanad have been woefully inept at saving itself. In the last few days and weeks alone David Norris, clearly struggling with myriad legacy issues, has let his emotion get the better of him, his claim that Regina Doherty was "talking out her fanny" completely overwriting his earlier magnificent defence of the chamber he's sat in since 1987. Mary White invoked Godwin's Law comparing Richard Bruton to a Nazi propagandist. Jim Walsh was brutally graphic during the abortion debate. Terry Leyden suggested Hitler and Mussolini were good Christians. Fidelma Healy Eames.

The sad fact is of course that the Seanad is a repository of future TDs, washed up TDs, party hacks who wouldn't get elected in anything resembling a normal circumstance and a handful of eminent voices that stick out like sore thumbs. The only sane option therefore isn't to blow it up, but amend the buffoon : eminence ratio. The Seanad could and should be a house where civically minded people who aren't all professional politicians could congregate, deliberate and make legislation better, or sometimes just cool the jets of an impetuous Dáil. They could and should be elected in a different way, so that a Senator running for office doesn't need to have "Ballypoltroon & District NEEDS a representative!" and can focus solely on national issues. But oh no.That would be too sensible for this government, for this country,

The nine things Ireland has learned from the frustrating abortion debate

Billboard in Ireland earlier in 2013

After 21 long years and 6 feckless governments, abortion is now a teensy weensy bit legal in Ireland. As one tweeter said, she became an adult in the time it took them to get their act together. But if that isn't a big enough development, the debate has certainly brought up a number of issues. For example:

1) Political Conviction Only Applies To The Unborn

Call me naive but I was always of the opinion that politically minded people had a whole issue profile of things they felt strongly about. It turns out abortion is apparently the only political issue that matters. Words like conviction and conscience were thrown around for the abortion debate in a way you never see for, say, an efficient public health service or education provision. It's bizarre, macabre even, that people who are arch-pragmatists when it comes to punishing waiting lists or gutted education funding for people who are actually walking around living their lives become principled absolutists over a pregnant woman's womb. Which brings me on to my next point...

2) Lucinda Wasn't So Much Brave As Proud

Yes, on one level a Minister sacrificing their position on a point of principle is a hell of a thing. But in this case the questions keep totting up. Why now and why this? How is it that the risk of a mother committing suicide being grounds for having an abortion is the moral red line when she's been part of a government that has implemented all manner of harsh policies? She already voted with the government for some of the amendments, so why not work inside government to put a proposal to the people on abortion that would leave the constraints of the X-Case a thing of the past? Why insist on a collision course with the leader and deputy leader of her party, and so soon after being a key figure of Ireland's EU Presidency? People on the pro-life side laud her bravery but self-immolation feels more like it.

3) Peter Matthews Is A Wee Bit Bananas

Peter Matthews was a banker in a past life, and brought in to the Fine Gael ticket thanks to the oft-unfashionable notion that legislators who regularly discuss certain topics should have a background in them before speaking up. Peter Matthews has in recent times ditched talking money and gone on a full-on pro life tirade crusade. He's pretty hardcore about it, having somewhat perversely replied that "We're all going to die anyway" when posed with a question about a hypothetical dying mother's plight. But his appeal late at night in the Dáil for everyone to "Wake Up!" to what's happening was a bit warning-the-end-is-nigh-wearing-a-sandwich-board.

4) Mattie McGrath Thinks Shouting The Parliamentary Equivalent Of "Jumanji!" Will Sort Everything

Mattie McGrath, a man who has spent so much time working the parish pump he must have arms like Rafa Nadal, must have been watching Perry Mason or something the night before the debate as he claimed the whole thing was unconstitutional and should be suspended. Nobody paid a blind bit of heed. But he was just one in a long line of TDs who had blithe regard for the terms of previous referenda who were happy to ignore democratic will because they didn't fancy it themselves.

5) Bitterness In Fine Gael Could Corrode Titanium

It was clear from some of the exchanges in the Dail that a lot of people are pissed off in Fine Gael. Michelle Mulherin was clearly seething at the threat of being booted out if she voted against the government, but not seething enough to actually do it. Interplay between Lucinda and James Reilly and Lucinda and Enda Kenny has been icy at best, and Reilly said of the aforementioned Peter Matthews "You're not a doctor or a lawyer". I'd suggest a saucer of milk for all concerned but it'd go immediately sour.

6) Declan Ganley Really Needs To Wind His Neck In

Poor Declan Ganley is the political success equivalent of Mean Girls' Gretchen Wieners, always trying to make "Fetch" happen. It's not going to happen. But on he goes on his doomed quest for relevance anyway, trying to assemble the dual forces of right wing economics and strident pro-life bona fides in various ways. On the night of the overnight debate, he tweeted about Texan changes in abortion law and made reference to Ireland to Ireland taking it up as it becomes "unfashionable". He actually used that word.

7) The Whip Situation In Ireland, Along With Everything Else, Needs A Rethink

There was something a bit merciless about the way parties used the whip to settle any dissent in the ranks, and in an ideal world TDs would have more flexibility to vote what they think. But as long as the vast majority of TDs are acting the role of souped up county councillors playing to the gallery every time they open their mouths and not proper legislators, then whips are necessary to get anything more nationally pressing than potholes done.

8) Fierce Late Night Debates Make Some TDs Awful Grabby

Hey, who among us hasn't been working til 3 and yanked a national legislator on to his lap? Oh. Not even Benny Hill would be at that.

9) Youth Defence Are Just The Worst

I don't really need to elaborate on this, do I?

Irish radio station 2FM's no old music policy - If I was putting them in the right direction, I wouldn't start from here

Is no old music really the best way to revamp radio?

So Dan Healy is the new boss of 2FM. Right. It’s not an easy job he’s just landed, as 2FM is struggling with a problem substantially worse than being a radio station that everybody hates: it’s a station nobody’s all that bothered about. So what is his first big announcement of regeneration? Songs before 1990 will be generally banned. Oh.

On one level. I can understand the rationale. 2FM is Ireland’s ostensible youth station, hence a music policy that focuses on recent music is the way to reel the 18-34 punters in, right?

There’s just one problem with that point of view: it’s bollocks.

This year, the song of the summer came straight from 1977. A song so catchy and imagination grasping that it’s been made into hours-long mixes featuring the likes of Alan Partridge and Ron F*cking Swanson. It came from an album that features contributions from the guy behind this and this, from a band that derived their name from a magazine review when they were an indie group named after a Beach Boys song. A band, incidentally, who have made their career from taking awesome old songs and making them awesome new songs.

This is also the year of Spike Island, a much-vaunted film inspired by the Madchester scene. Under Healy’s rules, most of the previous work of Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder and Stone Roses, three of the most important musical figures of this year, would be technically banned.

So too would most of Glastonbury’s big hitters this year. Apart from the aforementioned Chic, the likes of the Stones, Public Enemy, Elvis Costello would have a lot of their key work seen as music non grata. Primal Scream and Nick Cave would just about survive. Even the Arctic Monkeys are embracing their retro selves, as Alex Turner looks like a cross between Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent these days. Why is that Public Image Ltd can sit easily with Monsters And Men, or Kenny Rogers followed by Vampire Weekend at the gold standard of music festivals, but not on a national radio station?

This is the thing Dan Healy appears to be overlooking: age and relevance are not the same thing.

When you listen to music on YouTube, or iTunes or Spotify or Grooveshark or the many, many other ways you can circumvent listening to radio these days, you might start contemporary but it won’t be long before you’re referred on to other similar songs or whole playlists full of stuff that may be a good bit older than where you started, but it still holds together. Shouldn’t a radio station do the same? Shouldn’t a radio station be a place where people can hear good music, all kinds of music, and hear skilled presenters enthuse about it and the connections between the artists of today and where they drew their inspiration? Ultimately, despite it being obsessively genrified nowadays there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. Automated algorithms on websites seem to be better at realising this than radio bosses.

So, it seems, are ad men. In recent times songs by Fleetwood Mac, the Bellamy Brothers and Jona Lewie have enjoyed a resurgence due to their use in wildly popular TV ads. The youngest of those songs was released in 1988. We’ve come to the remarkable and preposterous situation where a bank, a mobile company and a Scandinavian warehouse that sells things called Pöpli or whatever have more influence over what we listen to than radio.

If Dan Healy was trying to make a wholesale change to 2FM’s appeal, a bit like when Matthew Bannister led a bonfire of the Smashey and Niceys from BBC Radio 1 in 1993, then this plan of his would make a whole lot more sense. If he genuinely wanted to rebrand 2FM as a brash, unapologetically youthful Radio 1 full of Grimmys, Coxys and Scott Millses, and formally cede the BBC Radio 2 demographics to Today FM, I’d applaud his daring. But he’s also said that he hasn’t thought about a shake-up of presenters, none of whom in the crucial 7am - 7pm timeframe fall into the 18-34 demographic Healy is so keen to attract.

I’m not suggesting that 2FM consistently play oldies of the vintage parodied in clips like this, or have the same old DJ’s trying to be something they’re not (although Terry Wogan as a Garage MC would be a welcome addition to any roster), but an arbitrary ban on music before a certain date is a daft cure based on the wrong diagnosis.

2FM might have its problems, first among them a lack of a compelling identity, and a public perception of calcified indifference .Stopping DJ’s from playing too much Deacon Blue will hardly change that.

Ireland's national broadcaster should not pander to special interests from gay pride to pro-life protests

Gay Pride Dublin 2013

The conservative Catholic cultural commentator and alliteratively described David Quinn had a problem recently. He took exception to 2FM, a constituent radio station of the national broadcaster RTE, being the official media sponsor for Dublin's Pride Festival. Quinn, a vocal opponent of French moves to legalize same sex marriage and, you get the impression, every liberal reform since Vatican II, asked if RTE would do that, why not the next big pro life event? He expanded on this, wondering whether 2FM should also sponsor, say, Muslim and Catholic events.

It's just as well David Quinn is a writer, as with an apples and oranges argument his career as a greengrocer would surely be a disaster.

The notion that a pro-life rally and a gay pride event are remotely analogous is, to be generous, bizarre. A pro-life rally is a nakedly political issue. Gay rights and celebration, while certainly having a political element to it, ought not to be. Gay is also not a religion, and you can participate in a pride march without being gay, welcomed in fact. The same can hardly be said of a "pro-abort" (as some of the Youth Defence crew refer to pro-choicers as) showing up at the Vigil for Life.

Loathsome as it may be for some, Dublin Pride as an event has much more in common with St Patrick's Day or National Healthy Eating Week than, say, the Catholic World Youth Day. It's a community event in a way a life vigil never could be.

I don't doubt the sincerity of the views of Quinn and similar conservative commentators, but you get the opinion when you hear them railing against RTE bias, what they really mean is "Why aren't people listening to and agreeing with us?". In fairness, the same can be said for anyone who rails against bias, it's just they're the worst offenders. Besides, the conservative assessment of RTE as a liberal haven of anti-Catholic bias is pretty much struck dumb by the fact the bells of the Angelus are played on Radio 1. Every single day. Twice.

That's not to say the left-wing doesn't have it's problems with RTE either. A look on the likes of sites like Indymedia cast RTE as the stooge of a massive neo-liberal orthodox establishment. It even gets trouble from the centreground, as this damning video comparing and contrasting the Late Late and Graham Norton shows.

But this is the challenge that public service broadcasting faces. It can't and shouldn't aim to appeal to just a certain section of society, it has to at various points cover everybody. Public service broadcasting  has to be as broad as possible, and yet instructively niche at the same time. You may not always like it, but it would do us all a disservice if a public channel played to the gallery of our preconceptions all the time.

A lot of media commentators often claim that certain opinions or voices shouldn't be heard on the public broadcaster. These same commentators are invariably employed by privately owned media, who seem to think that the airing of views is their gift to dispense. It's not. Public broadcasting is here to serve everyone, either through the proliferation of different voices, wide coverage and, yes, endorsing the odd event, and to do so free of a money-making agenda.

The same day as Dublin's Pride march, across the water at Glastonbury another group concerned with liberation of another kind, Public Enemy, were playing. At one point during the set, Chuck D "I ain't here to sell shit, I am at your service". Assuming you could get that past the censors, it wouldn't be a bad new slogan for RTE.

"Guns & Roses" - How left wing coalition might be Ireland's Labour Party's only hope

Eamon Gilmore discusses the Algerian hostage situation on Irish TV

I was in a hotel room in London last week, and switched on the TV for the news at the time the Algerian hostage crisis was being covered. Half way through the bulletin, I see Eamon Gilmore being interview by a press pack in his capacity as Foreign Affairs Minister. My first instinct was to think, "Oh yeah, that guy. What ever happened him?"

For a while now - specifically, since February 2011 - that question has been reverberating round my head. "What ever happened to Eamon Gilmore?". Or indeed, "What ever happened to the Labour Party?". Despite their best ever showing in an Irish election ever in 2011 they have since gone into hibernation, choosing to prop up the political status quo by going into coalition with Fine Gael rather than taking their place, for the first time ever, as Ireland's main opposition party. Now, you might say that nobody achieves anything in opposition, but then again they haven't achieved anything in power either. Seriously, can you think of anything worthwhile Labour have done in the last two years? Answers on a postcard please.

Their choice to take the leather of ministerial Mercs and office chairs poses a serious problem for the party in this, the year of their 100th anniversary, and indeed beyond. As people cast their minds back to the nostalgia-doused heroism of Connolly and Larkin, today's Labour top brass will look all the more ridiculous and feckless. And as for the next election, the problem gets more serious. If Labour couldn't properly assert themselves with 37 seats at the height of their powers, how will anyone believe they can get anything done after five risible years in power and an inevitably diminished parliamentary presence?

At this stage, there seems to be only one option, one that isn't all that palatable to some, but it's not like Labour have a choice: alliance with Sinn Fein. It won't be easy for the ex-Stickie dominated Labour to countenance a move jokingly referred to as a "Guns & Roses" coalition, but ultimately what choice do they have? The long wished for unification of the left  in Irish politics should and could have happened a few times over in the last two decades, but for Labour to maintain any relevance in the next decade and beyond, they need to become a senior partner in a cogent force advocating genuine social democratic principles. Once the old embarrassments of the Sinn Fein parliamentary party finally stand down, and it's only a matter of time before they do, the only obstacle remaining will be outright snobbery. But if Labour can't detach themselves from their death grasp with Fine Gael for the "politically naive" or "economically illiterate" Sinn Fein, then pride will surely come before a very large fall.

Home thoughts from abroad can cause serious January blues - New year blues for immigrants leaving their families again

Heading back to reality after the holidays can be hard

As I start writing this, on the 6th January, it's not the just the Christmas decorations that are on a come down.

Post-Christmas malaise hitting you like a juggernaut of omni-problems and January's role as an austere counterweight to all the December revelry is a familiar trope and a feeling we're all au fait with, but for the emigrés among us who returned home for the holidays, the feeling hits a little harder.

I, for instance, now living in Manchester, got home for a little over a fortnight. At least, that's what the calendar indicated, but I'm convinced I've been swindled by the space time continuum somehow. There's no possible way that lightning fast pop-my-head-round-the-door of a holiday was 16 days long.

There's a lot to pack in to such a short space of time, and that's what makes that great big expanse of January all the worse. While at least you get some degree of solid family time, it's the important people outside that circle that proves problematic. You try and catch up with all your friends, but inevitably there are a few you can't meet up with, and that's vexing. But what's almost worse is the friends you do see, but just barely. When there are a slew of people you want to catch up with, people you might not have seen in ages, a whistle stop visit a mile wide and an inch deep doesn't really cut it. In the season of goodwill to all, you really want to have time to say more than "Merry Christmas!" to them all.

Meetings can also be bittersweet because the geographical distance can show up other forms of distance. When you don't see someone in ages, and you have a long list of developments to share in a short space of time, the new names and new factors you've been missing out on while away can cause considerable lament.

With the new year rattling inexorably on, full of appraisal and longing as much as hope and resolution, the one thing we in the places we've left behind can resolve to do is make sure the links of our life don't become rusted over. "No man is a failure who has friends", so said Clarence the Angel in the Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life. The festive season may be over, but the effort to make time for the people who matter to us most shouldn't stop, whatever the time, and wherever you are.