Clerical Abuse In The Republic Of Ireland

The full horror of abuse by members of 'religious' orders against innocent children was revealed today. Some say that this is a dark day in Ireland's history. I'd say every day that this activity went on and was covered up was a dark day- today is hopefully the start of the return of light.

However, I am deeply concerned that those who committed these disgusting crimes will not face justice. The Christian Brothers successfully sued the investigating commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document and its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions. Shame on them. If they are truly sorry for their members' bahaviour, they should do everything they can to aid justice- not block the course of truth.

I also think that members of society who turned a blind eye to these activities and acted as if members of the clergy were demi-gods who were above question ought to hang their heads in shame. They were complicit in this evil.

The southern government must now take clear and decisive action to enable those who were the victims of clerical abuse to secure justice. It's the least that they can do given that it was their predecessors who enabled these crimes to happen in the first place.

Peelers and a cúpla focal

News that the Policing Board in Derry will hold one of its meetings in Irish this Tuesday. There will be simultaneous translation for those not fluent in the Irish. The press release I received was in (faultless) Irish and referred, by the way, to Derry and not Londonderry. (Don’t tell Gregory Campbell!)

Being very cynical – can’t help it – I have to admit that I was momentarily taken aback. It is certainly another one of those arresting (!) moments that makes you think, a welcome step. That said, I pass many PSNI stations – have never been in one – and notice that they have signs in Polish and other Eastern European languages at the front. Nothing in Irish. If the Policing Board are serious about promoting the language, then why don’t they include information in Irish at the entrance as a matter of courtesy?

Anyway, here is the press release:

Cruinniú Gaeilge le bheith ag an Bhord Póilíneachta i nDoire

Tionólfaidh Bord Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann a chéad chruinniú poiblí Gaeilge sa Bhálseomra Corantach, Óstán na Cathrach, Doire, Dé Máirt 19ú Bealtaine 2009 ó 7.30 – 9.00in. Ag an chruinniú seo, beidh deis ag baill de phobal na Gaeilge comhaltaí den Bhord Póilíneachta agus an tArdchonstábla Cúnta don Réigiún Tuaithe a cheistiú faoi cheisteanna póilíneachta anois agus sa todhchaí agus faoi na nósanna imeachta atá ag BPTÉ le teacht níos éasca a bheith ag pobal na Gaeilge ar phóilíneacht. Tabharfaidh an Bord fosta breac-chuntas ar a chur chuige i leith Teagmhála Pobail agus ar an dóigh a bhfuil sé ag obair le codanna den phobal le pobail níos sábháilte a chruthú.

Tear it down from the mast…

The issue of tearing down other party’s posters is one that regularly features at election time. The SDLP’s Declan O’Loan has already complained about republican harassment while trying to put up his party posters in North Antrim. I noticed some youngsters – about 12 years old or so – defacing a Sinn Féin Euro poster by writing “Heil Hitler!” and painting swastikas on it last night. Naturally, one deplores this kind of vandalism. (They came for the Sinn Féin posters but I was not a Sinn Féin poster…) Then again, was it vandalism or a statement by youthful, committed social democrats who recognised the neo-fascist elements in Sinn Féin’s politics and were alerting their community accordingly?

It’s the way he tells them…

Apparently, Belfast-born funny man, Frank Carson, has thrown his lot in with the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and wants Britain to leave the European Union. Carson is quoted as saying that he is disgusted with politics: “We need to get out of the European Union and ditch the human rights legislation.”

If memory serves me right, Carson, a Catholic, is also a Papal Knight who received his honour from the Pope for fund-raising for charity. Truly, one of the oddest political matches I have heard of in a while. What next? Ken Dodds for Sinn Féin?

Censorship At The Andersonstown News?

Lisburn councillor Matthew McDermott has decided to compile a dossier of censorship at the Andersonstown News.

According to Matt: "Over a year ago I decided to refuse an award from Belfast Media Group in protest of the Squinter/Adams stuff and ever since then the paper has censored me from their pages. Literally, cut me out of press releases and cut me out of photos when they printed them (but then published the full photo on their website)."

I haven't seen the report yet, but if this is true, it's a truly Stalinist and childishly hamfisted attempt to get back at Matt for daring to show them up. Given the history of censorship of the provos on TV during the Troubles, you'd think those times had passed now that we're in a more normalised era.

It's one thing having a editorial slant, but quite another to simply pretend that someone doesn't exist. Do the Andersonstown News not want to their readers to get the full story?

As I say, I haven't seen the report, but it'll be interesting to see.

SDLP European Party Election Broadcast 2009

Power to the people

The Independent has a nice feature today in which it lists a number of books whose popularity have risen as the economic downturn has taken its toll: “Socialist fiction, feminist theory, even Marxist tracts – thanks to the recession, the classic left-wing reads of yesteryear are back in vogue. But which titles really deliver power to the people?”

The paper offers an eclectic and international list with works by Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Erich Maria Remarque, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Orwell, Franz Fanon and John Steinbeck.

Just for fun, I wonder which Irish books should be made compulsory reading to help us find our way out of our recession, to recast the national intellect into something more critical?

Here goes nothing: James Connolly and Labour in Irish History; Patrick Pearse’s Murder Machine and other essays; Ernie O’Malley and On Another Man’s Wounds; Peadar O’Donnell and Islanders; Hubert Butler and his essays in Independent Spirit; Bernadette Devlin and The Price of My Soul; Mark Patrick Hederman and The Haunted Inkwell; Seosamh Mac Grianna and Pádraic Ó Conaire agus Aistí Eile; Breandán Ó Doibhlin and his three collections of Aistí Critice agus Cultúir and Alan Titley and Chun Doirne.

‘Cowardly scum’

Mitchell McLaughlin’s characterisation of the people who attacked his home in Derry with a petrol bomb last night as “cowardly scum” is one with which few people would disagree. This is the third attack on the Sinn Féin MLA’s house. Thankfully, none of the McLaughlin family at home were injured physically – though one can only imagine how they feel at this point. It is only a matter of weeks since the last attack on McLaughlin and he remarked that that was part of political life here.

The attack highlights once again just how far the standards of civilised behaviour have fallen and how difficult it remains to convince some people that they have to win the political argument rather than simply visit violence on people with whom they disagree. In that regard, it was heartening to see Gerry Adams of SF, SDLP leader Mark Durkan, Ian Paisley of the DUP and political representatives from the Alliance Party and the UUP all stand together in the Assembly against this attack.

A lifetime ago in west Belfast, a school friend and I were arguing about the IRA: he was for them; I against. I mentioned some horrific brutality the IRA had committed to which my friend’s father said: “Scum people to do scum things.”

The father and his family were pro-IRA well before the Hunger Strikes. Indeed, the father had been interned by the British army (no pleasant experience) and the soldiers had smashed the house up in the course of the ‘arrest’. The family in question were (and are) lovely people by any standard and their acceptance of what the IRA did was total – if occasionally a little defensive when non-combatants were killed.

None the less, the father – a hard-working, honest, likeable man – was under no illusions as to what some republicans were called upon to do and were capable of doing. Scum people to do scum things. Almost 30 years on, the scum people who do scum things are still at work. They have no support; they have no intelligence; they have nothing to offer. Yet, still, they can terrify a family in such a vicious way – and all, supposedly, done in the name of Ireland.

Compare the petrol bombers with the real guardians of Irish culture. Yesterday hundreds of thousands of GAA supporters marked Lá na gClub. Clubs in Ulster were every bit as active as anywhere else in Ireland. You could not help but be impressed by the dedication of club activists and the way in which they have kept Gaelic games alive over 125 years. The day showed every thing that is best about Ireland and Irish culture: live for your club; live for your county; live for your country.

What’s in a name?

Hollywood actor, Martin Sheen – he of West Wing fame – was interviewed by Pat Kenny on last night’s Late, Late Show. Sheen spoke on two issues which I would have loved to have heard more about but, unfortunately, Kenny did not develop the themes.

Firstly, Sheen spoke of his faith and his activism. Having had a near-death experience while filming Apocalypse Now, Sheen had returned to Catholicism. He spoke briefly about Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement and how it had affected his social conscience and Sheen related her work to the Irish experience at Shannon and the Iraqi war.

Kenny was not interested in following up which was a pity. Those issues of faith, witness and activism are still very much alive in Ireland and one would have thought that it would have appealed to Kenny’s audience. Indeed, the mass demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq – and the total disregard of that sentiment by both the US and British governments – have posed fundamental questions (again) about the nature of Western democracy.

The other issue Sheen raised was his name. Martin Sheen is, in fact, his stage name. His real name on all official documents, he said, was Ramon Estevez. He adopted an anglicised name when he began his acting career because of hostility towards Hispanics. It was, Sheen said, something he regarded and something and a decision that disappointed his father.

Again that issue of language, heritage and identity – both familial and national – are matters that are still being thrashed out in Ireland. It would have been fascinating to see an actor of Sheen’s stature talk about that. The language debate in Ireland is often presented as a simple issue of Irish v English. It would have been refreshing to remind people that issues of language are also international and that they still resonate with people across the globe.

Red Army Faction

I have just finished reading and watching The Baader-Meinhof Complex, a film about one of Germany’s most infamous terrorist groups, the Red Army Faction. The book by Stefan Aust has been made into a film of the same name. The film is essentially the book transferred to the screen and is not that good. It is too didactic and much of the psychological element of the book is lost in the translation from print to motion picture.

However, it is frightening to read the book and recognise so many similarities between the R.A.F. and our local paramilitaries of all hues. The self-delusional, cancerous rhetoric is similar; the narcissistic, shallow intellect of the leadership; the brutal and merciless violence that they use in the pursuit of their aims and the international fraternity of like-minded friends is all there. One of the most striking things is the fact that the R.A.F. did not formally wind up their operations until 1998 – similar timing with our home-grown ‘heroes’.

In the early 1980s I was on a school trip to Germany and saw the letters R.A.F. written on a wall, this would have been about the time of the first IRA hunger strike. I hadn't a clue what it meant and thought, in my innocence, that it was drunk members of the Royal Air Force damaging private property! Of course, the really terrifying thing is to realise that while the R.A.F. leadership and many local paramilitaries have recognised the futility of their actions, one still remains in existence and armed – the UDA.

Vibrations of light

The books of Canon Sheehan do not rest on Irish bookshelves in the same way as, say, those of Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens do on English (or indeed Irish) shelves. That’s a pity. Sheehan was a writer who sold in huge numbers during his day and it seems a bit strange that someone who made such a great contribution to English-language literature in Ireland should be so forgotten. Is television the key? His works are not adapted for the small screen by RTÉ in the same way as Hardy or Dickens are by the BBC. Is it impossible to give, say, The Graves at Kilmorna, Lisheen or The Blindness of Doctor Gray the tv treatment? Irish producers seem to have no difficulty in plundering written literature for material, yet Sheehan remains immune to this trend. A case of cultural cringe, perhaps?

Anyway, as well as being a novelist, Sheehan wrote a wonderful book called Under the Cedars and the Stars. I have it in the form of four short books that Mercier published in the early 1970s: The Beauty of Summer; The Sadness of Autumn and The Loneliness of Winter. They are beautifully written contemplations on life and death and bear comparison with, say, the sensibility and style of Thomas Merton.

Here is a lovely abstract from The Magic of Spring, a very acute observation of returning swallows and one which still holds true. The single lonely swallow I noticed a few weeks ago while cycling around Lough Neagh has been joined by hundreds of companions. Fáilte don Éan:

“The first swallows have come. I had been watching for them these last few warm days in early April, and I scanned the sky every morning and evening for the white breast and black wings that cut the air like a knife … Then, one evening, the 16th of April of this year, I looked up suddenly from my book; and no? – yes, indeed, they were my pretty favourites, tumbling, tossing, gliding flapping, through the air, as in last September, when bade them farewell and without sign or warning they were gone!...

“And here are they again careless of time and human vicissitudes and vexation; here to roll and toss and plough the air like the vibrations of light, so swift and sudden and silent are their movements; caring only for the day and the hour of existence, and only studying alternations of weather, as to whether they shall seek their living food high up in the summer air, or poised above the darkened river, when the heavy clouds bend down weighed with rain, and the flies are languid from the pressure. But here they are, harbingers of spring, and its most swift and elastic messengers…”

Old-fashioned posters

Finally saw a solitary SDLP poster on my travels over the weekend. Alban Magennis has removed his moustache which is good because there was a while there when he could have been confused with Borat. Noticed too that the SDLP has a slogan on their poster: “We win, you win.” Nice and snappy and certainly a hark back to traditional practices, the idea of trying to headline a campaign and give it some meaning.

Also had a chance to see one of the Jim Nicholson’s UUP posters up close while out cycling. It too has a slogan that I had not noticed before: “Vote for change.” It is not very strong given that change is one thing that one does not associate with the UUP. Even stranger is the very, very, very small print at the bottom of the poster which bears the boast “Conservative and Unionist Party”. It seems odd that the UUP would go to such lengths to achieve the tie-in with Cameron’s Toffs and then have it in such small letters on their election material.

That said, no party has come close to beating Sinn Féin and their poster parade. I was in west Belfast at the weekend and could not help but notice the scores of SF posters on the lamp-posts. The credit crunch has obviously not affected the party’s ability to fund their campaign. Full-colour posters are not cheap, even in these times. (There does not seem to be a slogan on the SF posters. I guess the traditional appeal to the colours is all they need.)

‘Is there an English equivalent of that?’

Leaving the children’s library books back, the librarian said, not in an unfriendly way, “I can’t pronounce those names at all. Is there an English equivalent?” To which, I replied, not in an unfriendly way, “No.”

The children’s Christian names are recognisable Irish. Have I marked them for life as a consequence? We do live in the North and one needs to be cautious. In the benighted place where I have pitched my tent, the community is very segregated and there is a sectarian undertow (on both sides) to life. That said, my wife (who does not speak Irish) liked the names which are distinctive but not bizarre. In fact, the primary school they attend is full of Pádraigs, Diarmuids, Oisíns, Odhráns, Áines, Méabhs and Caitlíns. (The last one pronounced by parents and children alike with the American inflexion: Kay-linn as opposed to Catch-lean.)

It is a world away from my generation (40 plus) who would never have been given such ‘exotic’ names. I have a very good female friend whose first name is unmistakably Irish. However, it is not actually her first name. Her birth certificate knows her as Elizabeth; her given Irish name is, in fact, her second name. I know also of one well-known academic from the North whose father wanted to call him Séamus but who was registered as James because the clerk in the council refused to write Séamus in an act of petty sectarianism which many of my parents’ generation would recognise.

Those days of refusing to write down a name in Irish are gone (for the most part) but asking for an equivalent in English have not, it seems.

Almunia for England

There is speculation in the English papers that Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia may declare for England. Almunia has never played at senior level for Spain and it does not seem likely that he ever will. Under residency laws, he would be eligible for England and, let’s face it, they need a decent keeper.

Of course, this is not a new development in international football. Jack Charlton’s Republic of Ireland team called up as many second and third generation Irish men to the cause as he possibly could. Indeed, he even got them wearing Irish shirts when they didn’t actually have a drop of Irish blood in them – but we still love you Tony Cascarino.

That said, it must be difficult for the more xenophobic Engerland fan to see an Italian in charge of their national team and read that a Spaniard would become first-choice keeper over stout-hearted Englishmen. Could it get worse? How about a German striker? I doubt that Capello would complain. You can just imagine the commentary were Engerland to win the next World Cup: “And England have beaten Brazil thanks to a wonder goal from England’s Kurt Wolfgang von Bismarck whose grandfather was at Dunkirk – in a Stuka. Well, Motty, what do you make of that?”

Then there were two…

UUP’s Jim Nicholson has his Euro posters up. That makes the second party to fly their colours in my wee part of the world. I know that we live in an electronic age but there is something very comforting about the old-fashioned election poster, those big cheesy grins from the candidates with their ‘vote-for-me’ demeanour. Is it just me, though, or is there always a hint of fear to be seen in those same smiles, a little suggestion that the voters just might not answer the call?

SF/SDLP merger

Denis Bradley in today’s Irish News reckons that northern nationalists are feeling unloved and unwanted by both the British and Irish governments. He argues that a merger between Sinn Féin and the SDLP would boost nationalist morale though he admits it is unlikely at the moment. (That is, slightly, understating it!) He writes that the Irish government need to “devise and provide a comfort blanket to northern nationalism. If that means more representation in the Dáil and Senate then better it happen soon”. If it doesn’t, he argues, that it will create “a dangerous undertow”.

Euro elections

There is apparently a Euro election coming. The only poster I have seen so far are Sinn Féin’s. (“Daddy, Bairbre de Brún is up our lamp-post!” “Well, tell her to get down.” I jest, of course.) It is, of course, testament to the SF party machine that they are so quick off the mark.

Will they have a good campaign? I can see de Brún getting a seat in the not so-occupied Six Counties but am not so sure down South. The party’s other MEP, Mary Lou McDonald, is defending her Euro seat but will not be running for the Dáil in the forthcoming by-election in Dublin Central. That surely is a major surprise and all the waffle from Sinn Féin about clashing dates and deadlines is just that – waffle. If McDonald, SF vice-president let’s not forget, is really to make her mark on domestic politics she needs to be in the Dáil, not in Brussels. It seems that Sinn Féin don’t believe that one of their most high-profile candidates can win the seat. Of course, the real nightmare scenario for McDonald is losing the Euro seat too. Big stakes indeed.

Perhaps equally surprising is the news that SF stalwart in Dublin, Councillor Christy Burke, is tipped to run in the by-election in her place. Undoubtedly, he is synonymous with the party but he is hardly the youthful, modern image that Sinn Féin have been trying to portray in recent years. Are Sinn Féin finding it as hard as other parties to get young candidates?

Ritchie right and wrong

It could have been much worse for SDLP Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie. Her decision to remove funding from a programme linked to the UDA was ruled by a judge to have been wrong on procedural grounds but that she was within her rights to make a judgment in public interest. A technical K.O. but she will live to fight another day – and I imagine that she will still have a lot of political niggle to endure from political opponents.

Interesting to see that it is First Minister Peter Robinson (DUP) and Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd who are leading the charge against Ritchie. Being criticised by Robinson will do Ritchie no harm amongst the nationalist electorate and one would have thought that Sinn Féin would be better keeping quiet than joining in with the DUP on this issue. Still, I suppose the party are performing so poorly in office that they need to distract their voters one way or another.