Sunday Tribune, 22 March
There he was, the little Taoiseach: bassett-hound cheeks blushing, trying to stop his tongue flopping out the side of his mouth as it does when he's happy. If he had a tail, he'd have wagged it.
After all the flak at home, Brian Cowen was finally enjoying himself. He had come bearing gifts (a begging bowl of Irish weeds) and got a pat on the head and a good aul' feed at the White House. More important, he'd got Obama to promise to visit Offaly.
Nice one.
When Gordon Brown visited Washington, he only got a few manky DVDs – and he's blind in one eye, lads.
"Jaze, but tha' was some craic," said Cowen the next morning, as he popped a Panadol and changed his socks for the flight home. "Hould on a sec though, who're them lads?" he asked, pointing at the four rows of bearded gentlemen waving at him from across the aisle.
"Guantanamo Bay, boss," replied his aide. "You adopted them last night."
"Wha'? How did tha' happen?"
The aide raised an imaginary glass to his lips and tilted it a couple of times. Jaze, thought the Taoiseach, Obama spiked my pint.
"Don't worry," said the aide, "we'll shave them and stick them in Carlow along with the 48 other lads we have coming over from Burma. No one will notice."
Before take-off, Cowen checked his voicemail. "Jaze lads," he sighed, "looks like the Pope's coming to Ireland too."
And so, Ireland is now facing visits from the world's two most powerful men: one bringing a message of hope, the other bringing a boot to kick our pagan backsides. One represents the material world, the other the spiritual. One is liberal, the other ultra-conservative. Cowen must be hoping they don't want to come on the same day.
Last week, the Telegraph newspaper reported that Pope Benedict will tour Britain next year and is considering coming here as well. Unlike the euphoria over Obama, there's been no great rejoicing at the prospect of him visiting us.
What kind of reception will each man get? Sociologists will be watching closely, because the Pope's welcome will, inevitably, be measured against Obama's. The result will define post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
If the public had to choose between both visits, it would probably pick Obama. It's easy to see why. He is handsome, healthy and young. The Pope is stern, stooped and ancient. Barack says "Yes, we can", Benedict says "No, you can't". The former sees stem-cell research as a boon to mankind, the latter sees it as dooming mankind. Obama stands for hope, Benedict says hell really exists.
Then there's the Hitler Youth thing. Oh, and the condoms. Benedict visited Cameroon last week and said the church still opposes the use of condoms, even in a country with an Aids epidemic. Cameroon, by the way, has the world's fastest-growing Catholic population. Well it would, wouldn't it, considering he won't let them wear condoms.
So how would Ireland benefit from a visit by Benedict? Would it yank us back in line? Probably not. When John Paul II visited he was given a hero's welcome, but his trip didn't halt social change. Since then, we've introduced divorce, contraception, exposed church scandals, etc.
We now prefer sound bites to sermons, so if Benedict's visit is to bring hope, he's on a loser compared to Obama. When the civil-rights hero comes, the multitudes will hang on every word. The Pope's visit, on the other hand, will probably be marked by civil-rights protests. It would be disastrous for Catholicism if the Irish booed Benedict and greeted Obama like the Messiah. It would deal the ailing church here yet another sucker punch.
For this reason, Benedict should not come to Ireland. Obama's popularity would only highlight his lack of it. Besides, he'd be better off at home rethinking the rules on condoms.
Unlike the Pope, Brian Cowen is benefiting from the Obama effect. Yes, the visuals at the White House were awful: at one stage he looked like a bullfrog trying to catch a fly with his tongue. That said, he actually did a good job, even if Obama spiked his pint and made him adopt some Guantanamo lads. The word is, however, that Cowen's having the last laugh on the president.
Apparently, he's asked them to do security for his visit.
March 22, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
This is not a rebel column: Bono still makes me proud
Sunday Tribune, 15 March
It was in the summer of 1983 that the strange man asked my little sister what she was having for tea. She was 12 and I recall her holding the receiver away as if it had farted in her ear. “What’s up?” I asked. She had been in the hall for five minutes since the phone rang.
“He’s messing,” she said, alarmingly.
“Who’s messing?”
“Burgers,” she told the mystery caller adding, to me, “he says he’s Bono, but I’ve told him he’s not. He won’t go away. I want my burgers.” The phone was nearly back on the hook before the penny dropped. “MUUUUUMMMM! Come quick!” I roared, grabbing it.
I’d better explain. It really was Bono, but in my sister’s defence, you don’t expect rock stars to phone up asking what’s for tea. My mother is an anti-drugs campaigner and was producing a charity video with him called ‘Bands Against Drugs’. Bono had brought in the biggies: Lou Reid, Peter Gabriel, Sting. You won’t remember the video, but I mention it because Bono did it without fanfare.
For the past month, Bono has been slow-roasted at the stake over his tax affairs. In 2006 – before the recession – U2 decided to move part of its business to Holland to cut its tax burden. Annoyance over this has re-ignited and all Bono’s extraordinary achievements have been thrown onto the blaze along with him. What’s galling is that his detractors are mainly from my generation – the people who took such pride in U2’s conquest of the world.
The mob has forgotten that Bono is a rock star and could spend his time snorting coke with hookers. Instead, he uses it, and his own money, lobbying for an end to poverty. Bad Bono. Why can’t you be more like Keith Moon?
Bono is one of our most successful businessmen ever. We used to be proud of our top entrepreneurs. Why not him? He spends a lot of money here, employs people and – whether we like it or not – U2 is a business and is entitled to protect its interests. With the abuse he’s getting, you’d swear he punches kittens for fun.
Granted, sometimes his pronouncements are too high-falutin’ for our tastes, but he’s also known for being down-to-earth with fans and hacks. However, if you’re in the media, it’s not ‘cool’ to like Bono. Still, when he plays Croker, every bar-stool critic will want to be there.
U2 have given more to this country than is quantifiable in cash, and for little thanks. They wrote the soundtrack to our youth. If you’re too young to remember the Dandelion Market there will always be someone older to claim they were there for their first gig. (Like the GPO in 1916.)
Whenever I hear “This is not a rebel song …” the hairs still stand up on the back of my neck. When ‘War’ hit number one in the depths of the recession I nearly burst with pride: four Dubs were cracking the UK charts. My generation thought, ‘maybe we can succeed’. U2’s success gave us hope.
Then came the moment that a thousand Riverdances couldn’t match: the world watching as a mullet-haired Irishman mesmerised Wembley. Bono’s performance at Live Aid was possibly the greatest feat of crowd control since JC and the loaves and fishes. (Maybe.)
I’m not Bono’s PR and don’t want, or need, anything from him. He doesn’t need me to defend him from the mob but, like many others, I’m sick of the small town begrudgery he has to endure. There are plenty of other heads to stick on spikes (Bertie, bags get Bertie!).
On Tuesday we celebrate our national day. In any other country Bono and the lads would be at the head of the parade. How often have you said you’re Irish, when abroad, and been answered with “Ah, Ireland… Bono, U2.”?
There is some positive news for U2, though. The Dubliner magazine has just published its poll of the Top 10 things that make us proud to be Irish. U2 are at number eight, just ahead of the Irish breakfast roll. In 1983 my sister’s burgers were more popular than Bono. In 2009, he’s edged past some sausages.
Top of the list is our sense of humour. I hope Bono still has his.
F**k the begrudgers.
dkenny@tribune.ie
It was in the summer of 1983 that the strange man asked my little sister what she was having for tea. She was 12 and I recall her holding the receiver away as if it had farted in her ear. “What’s up?” I asked. She had been in the hall for five minutes since the phone rang.
“He’s messing,” she said, alarmingly.
“Who’s messing?”
“Burgers,” she told the mystery caller adding, to me, “he says he’s Bono, but I’ve told him he’s not. He won’t go away. I want my burgers.” The phone was nearly back on the hook before the penny dropped. “MUUUUUMMMM! Come quick!” I roared, grabbing it.
I’d better explain. It really was Bono, but in my sister’s defence, you don’t expect rock stars to phone up asking what’s for tea. My mother is an anti-drugs campaigner and was producing a charity video with him called ‘Bands Against Drugs’. Bono had brought in the biggies: Lou Reid, Peter Gabriel, Sting. You won’t remember the video, but I mention it because Bono did it without fanfare.
For the past month, Bono has been slow-roasted at the stake over his tax affairs. In 2006 – before the recession – U2 decided to move part of its business to Holland to cut its tax burden. Annoyance over this has re-ignited and all Bono’s extraordinary achievements have been thrown onto the blaze along with him. What’s galling is that his detractors are mainly from my generation – the people who took such pride in U2’s conquest of the world.
The mob has forgotten that Bono is a rock star and could spend his time snorting coke with hookers. Instead, he uses it, and his own money, lobbying for an end to poverty. Bad Bono. Why can’t you be more like Keith Moon?
Bono is one of our most successful businessmen ever. We used to be proud of our top entrepreneurs. Why not him? He spends a lot of money here, employs people and – whether we like it or not – U2 is a business and is entitled to protect its interests. With the abuse he’s getting, you’d swear he punches kittens for fun.
Granted, sometimes his pronouncements are too high-falutin’ for our tastes, but he’s also known for being down-to-earth with fans and hacks. However, if you’re in the media, it’s not ‘cool’ to like Bono. Still, when he plays Croker, every bar-stool critic will want to be there.
U2 have given more to this country than is quantifiable in cash, and for little thanks. They wrote the soundtrack to our youth. If you’re too young to remember the Dandelion Market there will always be someone older to claim they were there for their first gig. (Like the GPO in 1916.)
Whenever I hear “This is not a rebel song …” the hairs still stand up on the back of my neck. When ‘War’ hit number one in the depths of the recession I nearly burst with pride: four Dubs were cracking the UK charts. My generation thought, ‘maybe we can succeed’. U2’s success gave us hope.
Then came the moment that a thousand Riverdances couldn’t match: the world watching as a mullet-haired Irishman mesmerised Wembley. Bono’s performance at Live Aid was possibly the greatest feat of crowd control since JC and the loaves and fishes. (Maybe.)
I’m not Bono’s PR and don’t want, or need, anything from him. He doesn’t need me to defend him from the mob but, like many others, I’m sick of the small town begrudgery he has to endure. There are plenty of other heads to stick on spikes (Bertie, bags get Bertie!).
On Tuesday we celebrate our national day. In any other country Bono and the lads would be at the head of the parade. How often have you said you’re Irish, when abroad, and been answered with “Ah, Ireland… Bono, U2.”?
There is some positive news for U2, though. The Dubliner magazine has just published its poll of the Top 10 things that make us proud to be Irish. U2 are at number eight, just ahead of the Irish breakfast roll. In 1983 my sister’s burgers were more popular than Bono. In 2009, he’s edged past some sausages.
Top of the list is our sense of humour. I hope Bono still has his.
F**k the begrudgers.
dkenny@tribune.ie
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Why I am not ashamed to be drawing the dole again
Sunday Tribune, 8 March, 2008
June 1995, the sun is shining, the economy is recovering, people are smiling… and there's a cloud over my head. I am redundant and staring at the dole office in Dún Laoghaire. I'm 28 and about to sign on for the first time.
The dole office is located beside the 'Tech' college. I always thought this was a strange juxtaposition that sent out the message: "We know you're going to fail your Leaving so we conveniently plonked the dole queue a few feet away."
I wound up repeating my Leaving there in 1985 because I'd cocked up my application to journalism college.
After an all-boys private school, this was heaven. I got to sit beside girls. (GIRLS!) This concentration-drain guaranteed that I was never going to see the inside of journalism college.
Luck loves a chancer, however, and during my stint at the Tech I had my first article published in the Evening Press and landed a job as a 'junior'. Two years later I was a staffer with money in my pocket and a false sense of pride and security.
Ten years on, in June 1995, the Press collapsed and I walked out of the sunlight and into the dole office. All my grafting amounted to nothing and I was a failure. People from Middle Ireland didn't draw the dole. I was a pariah, in my own eyes at least.
It was hard to see the back of the dole queue through the cloud of Major smoke. I'd like to say I smelt the scent of defeat in the air, but I don't recall it. Just my own shame, magnified by the drabness of the surroundings. This was something some of my peers picked up on.
Although it wasn't said, drawing the dole was the final resort. It carried a stigma that ranked somewhere between banging on the poorhouse door and being named in Stubbs Gazette. You were a dosser.
The man who paid me my dole each week clearly thought this as he flung my money through the hatch. His eyes said: "Sponger."
Thursday 5 March, 2009, and the sun is shining. I'm redundant and at the dole office, signing on again. This time I have Jarlath from RTÉ's Mooney Show at my elbow, recording my thoughts.
Production journalism, from which I made 80% of my living, is being universally pared back and it was inevitable that my job as associate editor would come to an end. Last in, first out, and there are, genuinely, no hard feelings.
I am worried though: my wife has taken a 10% pay cut and this column is my only income. I am worried – but I'm not embarrassed. I have asked the Mooneys along because I want to go public about being made redundant. I am not ashamed of this. Middle Ireland still is though.
In the dole office, I spot a former neighbour who was a legal secretary. The man to my left tells me he's in IT and to my right is a luxury car salesman. There are two graduates in front of me. No one will go on the record.
Outside, Jarlath speaks to an architect who agrees that the stigma persists. So does the lady who deals with my claim. She was very sympathetic, by the way.
I tick all the Middle Ireland boxes: I have a semi-d with a crippling boomtime mortgage and a formerly comfortable life. Now I am looking for help from the state.
I went public on the Mooney Show last week to say that there is no shame in this. This is a democratic recession and everyone is being hit, from lawyers to labourers. We are all in freefall and it's vital to remember that it's nothing personal and your own worth hasn't been diminished. If you're reading this and are unemployed, don't be afraid to admit it. There are 350,000 others like us.
I hope I didn't come across as a twat on the radio, whingeing about my own situation. I don't want sympathy: there are people out there much worse off than I am. However, I am very grateful for all the kind messages I've received.
Anyway, enough of all this gloom.
Normal service will resume in this column next week. Brian Cowen, your arse is in my crosshairs.
dave@davekenny.com
June 1995, the sun is shining, the economy is recovering, people are smiling… and there's a cloud over my head. I am redundant and staring at the dole office in Dún Laoghaire. I'm 28 and about to sign on for the first time.
The dole office is located beside the 'Tech' college. I always thought this was a strange juxtaposition that sent out the message: "We know you're going to fail your Leaving so we conveniently plonked the dole queue a few feet away."
I wound up repeating my Leaving there in 1985 because I'd cocked up my application to journalism college.
After an all-boys private school, this was heaven. I got to sit beside girls. (GIRLS!) This concentration-drain guaranteed that I was never going to see the inside of journalism college.
Luck loves a chancer, however, and during my stint at the Tech I had my first article published in the Evening Press and landed a job as a 'junior'. Two years later I was a staffer with money in my pocket and a false sense of pride and security.
Ten years on, in June 1995, the Press collapsed and I walked out of the sunlight and into the dole office. All my grafting amounted to nothing and I was a failure. People from Middle Ireland didn't draw the dole. I was a pariah, in my own eyes at least.
It was hard to see the back of the dole queue through the cloud of Major smoke. I'd like to say I smelt the scent of defeat in the air, but I don't recall it. Just my own shame, magnified by the drabness of the surroundings. This was something some of my peers picked up on.
Although it wasn't said, drawing the dole was the final resort. It carried a stigma that ranked somewhere between banging on the poorhouse door and being named in Stubbs Gazette. You were a dosser.
The man who paid me my dole each week clearly thought this as he flung my money through the hatch. His eyes said: "Sponger."
Thursday 5 March, 2009, and the sun is shining. I'm redundant and at the dole office, signing on again. This time I have Jarlath from RTÉ's Mooney Show at my elbow, recording my thoughts.
Production journalism, from which I made 80% of my living, is being universally pared back and it was inevitable that my job as associate editor would come to an end. Last in, first out, and there are, genuinely, no hard feelings.
I am worried though: my wife has taken a 10% pay cut and this column is my only income. I am worried – but I'm not embarrassed. I have asked the Mooneys along because I want to go public about being made redundant. I am not ashamed of this. Middle Ireland still is though.
In the dole office, I spot a former neighbour who was a legal secretary. The man to my left tells me he's in IT and to my right is a luxury car salesman. There are two graduates in front of me. No one will go on the record.
Outside, Jarlath speaks to an architect who agrees that the stigma persists. So does the lady who deals with my claim. She was very sympathetic, by the way.
I tick all the Middle Ireland boxes: I have a semi-d with a crippling boomtime mortgage and a formerly comfortable life. Now I am looking for help from the state.
I went public on the Mooney Show last week to say that there is no shame in this. This is a democratic recession and everyone is being hit, from lawyers to labourers. We are all in freefall and it's vital to remember that it's nothing personal and your own worth hasn't been diminished. If you're reading this and are unemployed, don't be afraid to admit it. There are 350,000 others like us.
I hope I didn't come across as a twat on the radio, whingeing about my own situation. I don't want sympathy: there are people out there much worse off than I am. However, I am very grateful for all the kind messages I've received.
Anyway, enough of all this gloom.
Normal service will resume in this column next week. Brian Cowen, your arse is in my crosshairs.
dave@davekenny.com
Monday, March 2, 2009
Face reality, we're marching over the edge of an economic cliff
Sunday Tribune 1 March
"Jesus! Who shot you?" My friend, Andrew, was walking towards me with a bullet hole in his forehead.
"It's Ash Wednesday, you idiot," he sighed, pointing out that we had just entered the solemn festival of Lent. Forty days of fast, abstinence and whatever else you're (not) having. I had forgotten this because Lent started early this year in the Kenny household, as it did in thousands of others.
That evening, on RTÉ, I watched protestors march outside the Dáil and recalled beating a similar path 14 years ago.
The summer of 1995 was drier than Daniel O'Donnell's drinks cabinet: perfect weather for a street protest, lousy weather for a sit-in. At noon on Saturday 27 May, a lanky young hack (me) legged it down Burgh Quay, staggering under the weight of a colossal hangover. My sore head was the result of a night spent lamenting the imminent demise of my employer of 10 years, the Irish Press Group. Despite the bleariness, I was determined to take part in the unfolding events.
The background to the Press's decline is unimportant now, but, in short, we journalists believed we could save the loss-making titles, while management appeared hell-bent on closing them down. We decided to lock ourselves into the building as a protest.
In the newsroom, my colleagues had gathered around the 'night town' desk, listening to the radio headlines. On the cigarette-scarred desktops were piles of the XPress, a home-made paper we'd assembled the night before. The air crackled with nervous excitement. At 5.30pm the building was sealed and we were 'locked in'. I remember the rush of empowerment: we were finally making our stand. We would win.
Over the next four days we ate cold pizza and produced the XPress, occasionally braving the icy waters of the machine hall showers. Outside our co-workers fought the propaganda battle. Reporters' contacts books were shared and politicians and celebrities rallied to our cause. Soccer correspondent Charlie Stuart called Jack Charlton and, in a surreal exchange, we cheered out the window as the Irish team cheered back at us from Poolbeg Street. Boxer Steve Collins came too and waved his fist at us – in a friendly way. Gifts of food and booze piled up in the newsroom and well-wishers kept up a constant stream of calls.
Our band of 40 slept on the floor or on desks, scaring each other with tales of the White Lady who was said to haunt the building. We spent the days pulling all the strings we could.
On our last night, we broke into the booze and finished up having a chariot race around the newsroom in swivel chairs. Despite our situation, our morale was high for the upcoming 'second front'. The next morning we marched out as heroes, following a rally attended by 1,000 hacks outside the Dáil. Government and opposition politicians were behind us and came out to shake hands like they did with the protestors last week.
The 'second front' was waged from Liberty Hall where we edited the XPress and continued our campaign: gigging, lobbying and marching to save "our" paper.
Summer doesn't last forever though, and the evenings began crawling in. Colleagues drifted away and the public forgot the Press. It was dead. In September, we wound things up and I slipped, utterly disillusioned, into the dole queue.
We'd been naïve. There are some fights you can't win. Protest marches may make you feel better but they won't stop the inevitable. You can't stop a recession with shoe leather either and strikes will only make it worse.
Ictu is insane if it believes that withdrawing productivity will help the economy. Part of me suspects that David Begg et al are delighted to see strident trade unionism resurrected at last and are manipulating emotions to justify their existence. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the democratic right to strike, but doing it in unprecedented times like these is suicidal.
I say this with genuine sympathy for the protestors: it's better to have a job and take a cut than be on the dole. I know, I've been made redundant three times and have just taken a hit again.
Face reality, don't march away from it. Lent's just starting: there's a long way to go until the resurrection.
"Jesus! Who shot you?" My friend, Andrew, was walking towards me with a bullet hole in his forehead.
"It's Ash Wednesday, you idiot," he sighed, pointing out that we had just entered the solemn festival of Lent. Forty days of fast, abstinence and whatever else you're (not) having. I had forgotten this because Lent started early this year in the Kenny household, as it did in thousands of others.
That evening, on RTÉ, I watched protestors march outside the Dáil and recalled beating a similar path 14 years ago.
The summer of 1995 was drier than Daniel O'Donnell's drinks cabinet: perfect weather for a street protest, lousy weather for a sit-in. At noon on Saturday 27 May, a lanky young hack (me) legged it down Burgh Quay, staggering under the weight of a colossal hangover. My sore head was the result of a night spent lamenting the imminent demise of my employer of 10 years, the Irish Press Group. Despite the bleariness, I was determined to take part in the unfolding events.
The background to the Press's decline is unimportant now, but, in short, we journalists believed we could save the loss-making titles, while management appeared hell-bent on closing them down. We decided to lock ourselves into the building as a protest.
In the newsroom, my colleagues had gathered around the 'night town' desk, listening to the radio headlines. On the cigarette-scarred desktops were piles of the XPress, a home-made paper we'd assembled the night before. The air crackled with nervous excitement. At 5.30pm the building was sealed and we were 'locked in'. I remember the rush of empowerment: we were finally making our stand. We would win.
Over the next four days we ate cold pizza and produced the XPress, occasionally braving the icy waters of the machine hall showers. Outside our co-workers fought the propaganda battle. Reporters' contacts books were shared and politicians and celebrities rallied to our cause. Soccer correspondent Charlie Stuart called Jack Charlton and, in a surreal exchange, we cheered out the window as the Irish team cheered back at us from Poolbeg Street. Boxer Steve Collins came too and waved his fist at us – in a friendly way. Gifts of food and booze piled up in the newsroom and well-wishers kept up a constant stream of calls.
Our band of 40 slept on the floor or on desks, scaring each other with tales of the White Lady who was said to haunt the building. We spent the days pulling all the strings we could.
On our last night, we broke into the booze and finished up having a chariot race around the newsroom in swivel chairs. Despite our situation, our morale was high for the upcoming 'second front'. The next morning we marched out as heroes, following a rally attended by 1,000 hacks outside the Dáil. Government and opposition politicians were behind us and came out to shake hands like they did with the protestors last week.
The 'second front' was waged from Liberty Hall where we edited the XPress and continued our campaign: gigging, lobbying and marching to save "our" paper.
Summer doesn't last forever though, and the evenings began crawling in. Colleagues drifted away and the public forgot the Press. It was dead. In September, we wound things up and I slipped, utterly disillusioned, into the dole queue.
We'd been naïve. There are some fights you can't win. Protest marches may make you feel better but they won't stop the inevitable. You can't stop a recession with shoe leather either and strikes will only make it worse.
Ictu is insane if it believes that withdrawing productivity will help the economy. Part of me suspects that David Begg et al are delighted to see strident trade unionism resurrected at last and are manipulating emotions to justify their existence. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the democratic right to strike, but doing it in unprecedented times like these is suicidal.
I say this with genuine sympathy for the protestors: it's better to have a job and take a cut than be on the dole. I know, I've been made redundant three times and have just taken a hit again.
Face reality, don't march away from it. Lent's just starting: there's a long way to go until the resurrection.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Go away Bertie, like the Riordans your muck-spreading days are over
Sunday Tribune, 15 February
"Geddup the yard, there's a smell of Benjy off you." Remember that schoolyard insult? If you were a child in the 1970s, you probably will. It referred to farmer Benjy from popular RTÉ soap The Riordans and the fact that you smelled like him – ie of cow dung.
The soap was revisited last week in the excellent RTÉ documentary Tea, Taboos and Tractors. It brought back memories of Sunday evenings with tea and jam sponge, and no homework done, listening to Tom blathering on about "sarcoptic mangemites" and "worm drench". They were simpler days, when no one locked their front doors. The world was a happier place, wasn't it?
Of course it wasn't. The North was ablaze, there were oil shortages, strikes and no money. That's the great thing about nostalgia: it rinses the crappy bits off the past and hoses them down the slurry pit. Probably the kindest thing to say about Riordans' Ireland is that it was less pretentious. There was no micro-celebrity circuit inhabited by people like, say, Rosanna Davison.
Rosanna's face is everywhere. On the day The Riordans documentary was aired, one paper reported
that she would be announcing her plans for St Valentine's night at a photoshoot in Dublin.
Wow. Was the shoot for Vogue? Harpers? Elle? No, it was for… pizza. Rosanna and her boyfriend would recreate the iconic John and Yoko
'bed-in' to advertise pizza. 'Give pizza a chance' was the slogan.
Now I like pizza, but the sight of Rosanna and her boyfriend nibbling it in bed turned my stomach. They represent everything I disliked about the Celtic Tiger, which made "celebs" out of models and created a "social scene" out of PR launches.
Rosanna is queen of the celebrity/models and regularly gets to voice her opinions. Such as this one on Tuesday: "Photocalls are useful. They only last for an hour or two, then you're free for the rest of the day." (Sounds a bit like signing on.)
And this last July, when she 'revealed' she had taken a 'cheapo' flight to Marbella: "We came over on a whim. It was a particularly rainy day in Dublin when we decided… All the talk of the recession does make you more careful. We were very careful to get a good deal." Last Sunday, Rosanna
spoke about the economy again. I'm not going to tell
you what she thinks because, frankly, I don't care. She
spent last Christmas in Mauritius and has a daddy who's richer than Croesus (Croesus de Burgh). She doesn't need to worry about the recession.
Neither does former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who has a nice fat pension. Like fellow Tiger celebrity Rosanna, he is omnipresent in the media. Last week, he was pictured at a launch in the Burlington Hotel, grinning like a man bursting to tell a private joke. He looks like
that all the time now as he smugly waits to be made president.
Bertie's joke was about the recession. He told guests at the hotel, "If the economy had kept going the way I had left it, this place [the Burlington] wouldn't be here because they [property developers] were going to knock it down." Ho, ho, ho. Burlington Bertie, what a card. "The way I had left it." If Bertie was at the helm, we'd still be afloat.
Many people hanker for the Bertie days. Like The Riordans, he reminds them of happier times. That's if you forget that he led us into a property boom which has now imploded, causing misery to hundreds of thousands of people.
A boom that saw the reckless over-development of land for the benefit of his party's friends and where fortunes were squandered. The economy he "left behind" was a time-bomb, primed by him and the man currently trying to douse the flames that followed its explosion, Brian Cowen.
Bertie obviously still hurts over his demotion and consoles himself by thinking that we, secretly, want him back.
We don't, Bertie. Your Ireland is dead. If Rosanna Davison represents the superficial celebrity of the Tiger years, then you represent the avarice and cronyism. Your comments on the economy are as irrelevant to most of us as hers are.
Things are bad enough for the country without a has-been taoiseach hanging around making snide comments. Like The Riordans, Bertie, your muck-spreading days are over. Now shut up.
"Geddup the yard, there's a smell of Benjy off you." Remember that schoolyard insult? If you were a child in the 1970s, you probably will. It referred to farmer Benjy from popular RTÉ soap The Riordans and the fact that you smelled like him – ie of cow dung.
The soap was revisited last week in the excellent RTÉ documentary Tea, Taboos and Tractors. It brought back memories of Sunday evenings with tea and jam sponge, and no homework done, listening to Tom blathering on about "sarcoptic mangemites" and "worm drench". They were simpler days, when no one locked their front doors. The world was a happier place, wasn't it?
Of course it wasn't. The North was ablaze, there were oil shortages, strikes and no money. That's the great thing about nostalgia: it rinses the crappy bits off the past and hoses them down the slurry pit. Probably the kindest thing to say about Riordans' Ireland is that it was less pretentious. There was no micro-celebrity circuit inhabited by people like, say, Rosanna Davison.
Rosanna's face is everywhere. On the day The Riordans documentary was aired, one paper reported
that she would be announcing her plans for St Valentine's night at a photoshoot in Dublin.
Wow. Was the shoot for Vogue? Harpers? Elle? No, it was for… pizza. Rosanna and her boyfriend would recreate the iconic John and Yoko
'bed-in' to advertise pizza. 'Give pizza a chance' was the slogan.
Now I like pizza, but the sight of Rosanna and her boyfriend nibbling it in bed turned my stomach. They represent everything I disliked about the Celtic Tiger, which made "celebs" out of models and created a "social scene" out of PR launches.
Rosanna is queen of the celebrity/models and regularly gets to voice her opinions. Such as this one on Tuesday: "Photocalls are useful. They only last for an hour or two, then you're free for the rest of the day." (Sounds a bit like signing on.)
And this last July, when she 'revealed' she had taken a 'cheapo' flight to Marbella: "We came over on a whim. It was a particularly rainy day in Dublin when we decided… All the talk of the recession does make you more careful. We were very careful to get a good deal." Last Sunday, Rosanna
spoke about the economy again. I'm not going to tell
you what she thinks because, frankly, I don't care. She
spent last Christmas in Mauritius and has a daddy who's richer than Croesus (Croesus de Burgh). She doesn't need to worry about the recession.
Neither does former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who has a nice fat pension. Like fellow Tiger celebrity Rosanna, he is omnipresent in the media. Last week, he was pictured at a launch in the Burlington Hotel, grinning like a man bursting to tell a private joke. He looks like
that all the time now as he smugly waits to be made president.
Bertie's joke was about the recession. He told guests at the hotel, "If the economy had kept going the way I had left it, this place [the Burlington] wouldn't be here because they [property developers] were going to knock it down." Ho, ho, ho. Burlington Bertie, what a card. "The way I had left it." If Bertie was at the helm, we'd still be afloat.
Many people hanker for the Bertie days. Like The Riordans, he reminds them of happier times. That's if you forget that he led us into a property boom which has now imploded, causing misery to hundreds of thousands of people.
A boom that saw the reckless over-development of land for the benefit of his party's friends and where fortunes were squandered. The economy he "left behind" was a time-bomb, primed by him and the man currently trying to douse the flames that followed its explosion, Brian Cowen.
Bertie obviously still hurts over his demotion and consoles himself by thinking that we, secretly, want him back.
We don't, Bertie. Your Ireland is dead. If Rosanna Davison represents the superficial celebrity of the Tiger years, then you represent the avarice and cronyism. Your comments on the economy are as irrelevant to most of us as hers are.
Things are bad enough for the country without a has-been taoiseach hanging around making snide comments. Like The Riordans, Bertie, your muck-spreading days are over. Now shut up.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Don't forget we're Irish – fighting The Gloom is in our genes
8 January 2009
Are you as sick of The Gloom as I am? Have you a pain in your gut hearing how doomed we are? Do you wish George would throw himself into the river Lee?
Last week, as the airwaves crackled with more bad news, I decided to try and write about something cheerful. So I looked around. And around. And around.
There's a stretch in the evening, I thought. Good, but I can't stretch that to a column.
Fuel prices are coming down. Great, but I'll wind up bashing the Greens (any excuse).
What about Mary Harney? She was photographed leaving a Dublin restaurant at 1.30am. She looked decidedly un-gloomy even though it was a school night. I could write about her fiddling while Rome burns but … more Gloom.
As I pondered this, The Gloom paid me a personal visit. I won't say what happened, but it made me more determined to be upbeat.
So I looked away from Ireland to the English papers, only to be rewarded with the downbeat headline, 'Children are unhappier than ever'. More bloody gloom.
According to the 'The Good Childhood Report', the UK is raising a generation of kids who have been "damaged" by parental "neglect".
It singled out "individualistic" women for choosing to work rather than stay at home. Well, that won't be a problem any more, will it? (Sorry, nearly spoke about The Gloom again.)
I wondered if Irish kids are unhappy. Our two societies, like our children, are much the same.
During the boom we raised a generation of latch-key children in designer clothes. This was a result of both parents having to work as everything was so expensive. Junior was bought off with guilt money, PC games, etc. According to the report, he's now "damaged" because he wasn't nurtured.
So much for something positive to write about: on top of adults feeling grim, our children are miserable too.
Want a pleasant surprise? It turns out, that despite everything, they aren't. Ireland has the happiest children in Europe.
Two months ago, the government published a study of childhood here, drawn from 22 data sources including the CSO and WHO. The 'State of the Nation's Children Report' concludes that our kids exercise more and are more likely to be happy compared to other EU children. Finally, some good news.
It sounds slushy, but there IS truth to the adage that happiness is infectious. This was confirmed on Monday when the nation woke to its first proper snowfall in 18 years. It was like a hug from an old friend and, instead of 'meltdown', the talk was suddenly of 'freeze-up'.
Ireland skittered to a halt, totally unprepared despite all the forecasts (sound familiar?). Roads were clogged and eejits had to be rescued from mountainsides after going to admire the view.
Then came the sound of Nintendos being flung aside as a generation of children and a lot of older teenagers experienced their first Irish snowfall.
On the hillside near me, trays became makeshift sleighs. The happiness spread as the snow whitewashed The Gloom. Children and adults flung snowballs at each other. Misshapen snowmen appeared. The Sixth Estate – the internet – spoke of nothing else. No economics, just snow.
Ireland wanted a distraction, anything to take its mind off The Gloom. We wanted to go outside and be children again. Or to stand at the pub door and – happily – grumble about it.
I realised that this is what makes us Irish. We're irrepressible. We're genetically programmed to fight glumness. It's why we've thrived on this dank little rock.
We're surrounded by greyness most of the year, so when a reprieve comes in the form of a glowing snowfall, we squeeze it dry. We celebrate it as a boisterous day out.
My memory skidded back to the snow of 1991 and my friends and I spinning down a frozen road on metal bin lids.
Our footballers had conquered Italia 90 the previous year and, lifted by their example, we believed that everything was possible.
"You'll never beat the Irish." We were on our way to Tiger land. We were emerging from The Gloom.
We'll emerge again. Besides, we still have each other, whatever the forecast.
February 8, 2009
Are you as sick of The Gloom as I am? Have you a pain in your gut hearing how doomed we are? Do you wish George would throw himself into the river Lee?
Last week, as the airwaves crackled with more bad news, I decided to try and write about something cheerful. So I looked around. And around. And around.
There's a stretch in the evening, I thought. Good, but I can't stretch that to a column.
Fuel prices are coming down. Great, but I'll wind up bashing the Greens (any excuse).
What about Mary Harney? She was photographed leaving a Dublin restaurant at 1.30am. She looked decidedly un-gloomy even though it was a school night. I could write about her fiddling while Rome burns but … more Gloom.
As I pondered this, The Gloom paid me a personal visit. I won't say what happened, but it made me more determined to be upbeat.
So I looked away from Ireland to the English papers, only to be rewarded with the downbeat headline, 'Children are unhappier than ever'. More bloody gloom.
According to the 'The Good Childhood Report', the UK is raising a generation of kids who have been "damaged" by parental "neglect".
It singled out "individualistic" women for choosing to work rather than stay at home. Well, that won't be a problem any more, will it? (Sorry, nearly spoke about The Gloom again.)
I wondered if Irish kids are unhappy. Our two societies, like our children, are much the same.
During the boom we raised a generation of latch-key children in designer clothes. This was a result of both parents having to work as everything was so expensive. Junior was bought off with guilt money, PC games, etc. According to the report, he's now "damaged" because he wasn't nurtured.
So much for something positive to write about: on top of adults feeling grim, our children are miserable too.
Want a pleasant surprise? It turns out, that despite everything, they aren't. Ireland has the happiest children in Europe.
Two months ago, the government published a study of childhood here, drawn from 22 data sources including the CSO and WHO. The 'State of the Nation's Children Report' concludes that our kids exercise more and are more likely to be happy compared to other EU children. Finally, some good news.
It sounds slushy, but there IS truth to the adage that happiness is infectious. This was confirmed on Monday when the nation woke to its first proper snowfall in 18 years. It was like a hug from an old friend and, instead of 'meltdown', the talk was suddenly of 'freeze-up'.
Ireland skittered to a halt, totally unprepared despite all the forecasts (sound familiar?). Roads were clogged and eejits had to be rescued from mountainsides after going to admire the view.
Then came the sound of Nintendos being flung aside as a generation of children and a lot of older teenagers experienced their first Irish snowfall.
On the hillside near me, trays became makeshift sleighs. The happiness spread as the snow whitewashed The Gloom. Children and adults flung snowballs at each other. Misshapen snowmen appeared. The Sixth Estate – the internet – spoke of nothing else. No economics, just snow.
Ireland wanted a distraction, anything to take its mind off The Gloom. We wanted to go outside and be children again. Or to stand at the pub door and – happily – grumble about it.
I realised that this is what makes us Irish. We're irrepressible. We're genetically programmed to fight glumness. It's why we've thrived on this dank little rock.
We're surrounded by greyness most of the year, so when a reprieve comes in the form of a glowing snowfall, we squeeze it dry. We celebrate it as a boisterous day out.
My memory skidded back to the snow of 1991 and my friends and I spinning down a frozen road on metal bin lids.
Our footballers had conquered Italia 90 the previous year and, lifted by their example, we believed that everything was possible.
"You'll never beat the Irish." We were on our way to Tiger land. We were emerging from The Gloom.
We'll emerge again. Besides, we still have each other, whatever the forecast.
February 8, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bend the rules, minister – everybody loves a maverick
Sunday Tribune, 1 February
Everybody loves a maverick cop. You know, the kind that's normally described like this: "In a world without rules… he made his own rules…" The kind that will beat the bejaysus out of the bad guy, crash dozens of cars, be shouted at by his captain, surrender his badge, and then solve the case while on suspension. This will, inevitably, mean shooting the crook with his last bullet.
Back in the 1970s, the US had Dirty Harry, while Britain had Regan from The Sweeney.
In Ireland, we had… Lugs Brannigan.
Sergeant James 'Lugs' Brannigan didn't need a gun. He had hands the size of dinner plates which he used to keep Dublin's gougers in line. Last week, Justice Paul Carney recalled how Lugs's techniques made the city safer. He also said that the garda "heavy gang" of that era, who specialised in eliciting confessions, were more misguided than bad. The media picked up the thread and, by Wednesday, Ireland was fondly recounting stories of coppers clattering skangers into submission.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to see a return to that type of heavy-handed policing. If Nicky Kelly is reading this, I'm sure he'll agree. In 1978, he was wrongly convicted for his alleged part in the Sallins mail train robbery. He had 'confessed' after being tortured by the 'heavy gang' and, in 1992, was given a presidential pardon.
That said, with all the genuine crime we have, it's understandable why people hanker for Lugs's methods. He broke the rules to mete out natural justice. He believed that, sometimes, it's okay to go above the law to serve a greater good.
That's a sentiment that should be echoed by another lawman who was in the news last week – Justice minister Dermot Ahern.
On Tuesday, Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai lost a High Court challenge to the minister's order to deport her. She says her girls, Jemima and Naomi, will be subjected to genital mutilation by their father's family if they are repatriated. Her other little girl, Elizabeth, died after undergoing the procedure in 1994. The European Court of Human Rights has now intervened and Pamela has been given a temporary reprieve.
Rules are rules. The Minister for Justice has done everything by the book in this case. He's upheld his duty to protect our borders. He needn't feel guilty about Pamela's case. Neither should we as a nation feel any guilt towards Africa. We didn't colonise it. So the state should fight on to deport Pamela's girls. Rules are rules, right?
In short, no. Jemima and Naomi were aged three and four when their deportation was ordered in 2005. Four years is a long time in a little girl's life. Sligo is now their home. The overwhelming desire of their Irish friends to keep them here confirms that. It's now a case of, simply, making an exception.
We are used to bending the rules in this country – politicians do it for developers all the time. We're also a very compassionate race, and I don't believe minister Ahern, who has children of his own, can be unmoved by Jemima and Naomi's situation.
He is a man of strong convictions. Last month, he defended forwarding a complaint from reviled terror chief Michael McKevitt to a previous justice minister. "It would be a dereliction of duty," Ahern said, "if I was to ignore families when they come to me indicating that there is, perhaps, in some way, some infringement of someone's human rights."
Are the rights of two vulnerable children not as important as those of a prisoner?
Ahern has the power to bend the rules and let them stay. It won't, as some say, open the floodgates to mass immigration. It's about doing the right thing.
Just two weeks have passed since the Roscommon incest case came to light. The state failed in that instance to protect children from the barbarism of a parent. Will it now fail to protect Naomi and Jemima from relatives who want to mutilate them?
Bend the rules, minister. Administer natural justice. Everybody loves a maverick.
Everybody loves a maverick cop. You know, the kind that's normally described like this: "In a world without rules… he made his own rules…" The kind that will beat the bejaysus out of the bad guy, crash dozens of cars, be shouted at by his captain, surrender his badge, and then solve the case while on suspension. This will, inevitably, mean shooting the crook with his last bullet.
Back in the 1970s, the US had Dirty Harry, while Britain had Regan from The Sweeney.
In Ireland, we had… Lugs Brannigan.
Sergeant James 'Lugs' Brannigan didn't need a gun. He had hands the size of dinner plates which he used to keep Dublin's gougers in line. Last week, Justice Paul Carney recalled how Lugs's techniques made the city safer. He also said that the garda "heavy gang" of that era, who specialised in eliciting confessions, were more misguided than bad. The media picked up the thread and, by Wednesday, Ireland was fondly recounting stories of coppers clattering skangers into submission.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to see a return to that type of heavy-handed policing. If Nicky Kelly is reading this, I'm sure he'll agree. In 1978, he was wrongly convicted for his alleged part in the Sallins mail train robbery. He had 'confessed' after being tortured by the 'heavy gang' and, in 1992, was given a presidential pardon.
That said, with all the genuine crime we have, it's understandable why people hanker for Lugs's methods. He broke the rules to mete out natural justice. He believed that, sometimes, it's okay to go above the law to serve a greater good.
That's a sentiment that should be echoed by another lawman who was in the news last week – Justice minister Dermot Ahern.
On Tuesday, Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai lost a High Court challenge to the minister's order to deport her. She says her girls, Jemima and Naomi, will be subjected to genital mutilation by their father's family if they are repatriated. Her other little girl, Elizabeth, died after undergoing the procedure in 1994. The European Court of Human Rights has now intervened and Pamela has been given a temporary reprieve.
Rules are rules. The Minister for Justice has done everything by the book in this case. He's upheld his duty to protect our borders. He needn't feel guilty about Pamela's case. Neither should we as a nation feel any guilt towards Africa. We didn't colonise it. So the state should fight on to deport Pamela's girls. Rules are rules, right?
In short, no. Jemima and Naomi were aged three and four when their deportation was ordered in 2005. Four years is a long time in a little girl's life. Sligo is now their home. The overwhelming desire of their Irish friends to keep them here confirms that. It's now a case of, simply, making an exception.
We are used to bending the rules in this country – politicians do it for developers all the time. We're also a very compassionate race, and I don't believe minister Ahern, who has children of his own, can be unmoved by Jemima and Naomi's situation.
He is a man of strong convictions. Last month, he defended forwarding a complaint from reviled terror chief Michael McKevitt to a previous justice minister. "It would be a dereliction of duty," Ahern said, "if I was to ignore families when they come to me indicating that there is, perhaps, in some way, some infringement of someone's human rights."
Are the rights of two vulnerable children not as important as those of a prisoner?
Ahern has the power to bend the rules and let them stay. It won't, as some say, open the floodgates to mass immigration. It's about doing the right thing.
Just two weeks have passed since the Roscommon incest case came to light. The state failed in that instance to protect children from the barbarism of a parent. Will it now fail to protect Naomi and Jemima from relatives who want to mutilate them?
Bend the rules, minister. Administer natural justice. Everybody loves a maverick.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
