Wishing everyone a relaxing and peaceful day wherever you are.
Archives for posts with tag: Ireland
The latest report on child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese does not fail to shock. The abuse itself is chilling, depressing and appalling, but compounding it is the behaviour of senior bishops and cardinals as they conspired – over a 40 year period – to cover up the scale of the scandal throughout the Dublin area. A new word has been added to the common lexicon – “mental reservation“: where bishops could freely excuse themselves from telling the truth when under pressure to do so. The welfare of children was of little importance to these men, and the resultant suffering is incalculable.
Mary Raftery neatly sums up the gravity of this report and it’s implications for the Catholic Church in Ireland. One passage in particular stands out:
What emerges most clearly from the report is that priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals had the greatest difficulty in telling right from wrong, and crucially that their determination of what constituted wrongdoing was vastly different from that of the population at large.
Let’s think about that, for a second. The Catholic Church, like most religions, believes that the greatest value it confers to society is its ability to guide people in distinguishing right from wrong. And yet, it’s most eminent leaders and scholars behaved – and still behave – in a way that would lead you to the firm conclusion that, despite their years of learning, refinement and experience, they have no clue as to what is commonly accepted as morally acceptable or morally abhorrent behaviour. If the very leaders of this church can’t distinguish between right and wrong, what use is Catholicism at all? Why should any sane society uncritically accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in our schools? What real benefit does it offer our children?
The implications of the report are clear: The Church badly needs to be removed from the affairs of the Irish State. Let the parents and teachers teach our children right from wrong – they will do a better job. The churchmen had their chance for long time and they blew it. Enough is enough.
Spot the difference? Me neither.
The Irish Minister for Transport, Mr. Noel Dempsey, announced yesterday that he is determined to press ahead with tough new bullshit limits in the face of a backbench revolt.
Mr Dempsey, who works every second night as the President of Russia, announced that new gulags would be built in Siberia for public personalities who were caught with over 5 miligrams of bullshit in their public utterances. Up to now, the limit has been set at 8 miligrams, which is far higher than all other EU countries excluding the UK.
At a party meeting last week, representatives within Dempsey’s own party forcefully expressed their opposition to this move. Some are threatening to vote against the legislation when it appears before parliament. Mattie McGrath, from Tipperary, said that bullshit could relax jumpy parliamentarians and that he was partial to a bit of bullshit himself on occasion to make any of his public utterances even halfway coherent.
The most vociferous comments came from Jackie Healy-Rae in Kerry, who said that high levels of bullshit should be a mandatory requirement for all parliamentarians. “I’ve often used plenty of bullshit in my speeches, and it never did me a bit of harm”. He cites former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, “who was well known to use 90 miligrams of bullshit any chance he could get, and did they lock him up for it? Not a chance.”
Sources believe that Minister Dempsey has a difficult road ahead of him. According to one source, the legislation is dead at the starting blocks. “The level of bullshit in public use these days is so bad that it won’t happen without massive investment in Garda resources”, she said. “Gardai will need to invest in state of the art bullshit detectors while the number of random bullshit tests will need to be doubled, or even tripled. Who is going to pay for that?”. It currently believed that the new limits won’t become law before 2011.
The minister himself was unable for comment this morning. He was was in Vladivostok opening a new missile defense installation.
via Declan McAleese (Flickr - creative commons licensed)
KNOCK, Co. Mayo – 31 October 2009
Fifty thousand people from around Ireland turned up the town of Knock, Co. Mayo, today to see a glorious display of Nothing. The anticipation had been building up for weeks after clairvoyant Joe Coleman successfully predicted at least two displays of Nothing over the past months, with this day expected to be the best display of Nothing in fifty years. Bus-loads of pilgrims began to arrive into Knock since last Wednesday. Hotel rooms and guest-houses were booked up as far afield as Ballina and Tuam. James O’Shaughnessy from Rosslare arrived in Knock the night before, having walked in his bare feet from Wexford. All the pilgims spoke in feverish terms about their anticipation of today’s event. “It’s about time that the people of Ireland woke up, cast off our material desires and realised that all out problems would be solved if we moped around looking at bugger all for a while”, said Micheal Foley from Moate, Co. Westmeath.
The day lived up to expectations right from the start. “It was amazing”, said Bill O’Rourke from Prosperous, Co. Kildare. “As soon as we got there we immediately started seeing Nothing, and for the entire time we were there we continued to see Very Little Happen on a regular basis. We must have been there four hours. I’ve never experienced so much Nothingness on a single occasion before”.
Mary Kelleher from Ennis, was slightly more skeptical. “Well, I’m sure I saw a flock of crows at one stage, so saying we saw Nothing is a bit too strong. But it might have been a trick of the eyes. God acts in mysterious ways, you know”. However Martin O’Carroll from Gort was far more insistent. “Praise be! It was an incredible experience! There were thousands of us there, and we all witnessed directly the complete absence of anything interesting at all! You can’t put that down to chance”.
At 3pm on the day , a slight wind blew from the west, but it soon died down again. Some in the crowd immediately fainted from sheer wonderment. Around 3.15, the sun was momentarily seen from behind the grey clouds. “I definitely saw it shining”, said Pat McGarrigle from Roscommon. “It was there in the sky, and it was shining down. The locality suddenly brightened up around us. We could feel the sun’s rays on our faces. We all burst into prayer”.
As the crowd began to disperse around 7pm, a great light appeared in the sky. The Aer Arann flight from Dublin had arrived on time.
Joe Coleman declared the occasion a great success. “By the end of the day, everyone was completely bored. Our traditional values are obviously still strong. Let this be a warning to the politicians and the Church hierarchy. If you believe in your heart that Nothing will happen, then it can come true despite what the authorities might tell you”. He is currently organising a pilgimage to Lourdes, “where a great Non-Event is due to take place before the assembled multitudes during December”.
I’m currently reading Richard Dawkins’ latest book “The Greatest Show on Earth“. The premise of the book is simple. Dawkins presents the case for evolution in the face of those who fervently believe that is it isn’t so. His thesis uses the metaphor of a crime scene to tie together all the clues, and Dawkins comprehensively shows that there is only one suspect in town – evolution.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, with numerous sources such as comparative anatomy, molecular biology, fossil evidence and continental drift, all pointing to evolution through natural selection as the only reasonable explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on Earth. Evolution has even been witnessed in numerous laboratory experiments. Dawkins leaves no stone unturned in presenting the case for evolution. It’s delivered with the enthusiasm of a child, the simplicity of a teacher and the forcefulness of a barrister who knows he has an open-and-shut case on his hands.
I can’t praise Dawkins’ book highly enough. It’s full of fascinating digressions and factoids and it takes the reader on a rollercoaster trip through space and time as it presents the evidence, often in considerable detail. I don’t personally believe it will matter a jot to the beliefs of ardent creationists, but to the interested layman it will help to explain how intellectually bankrupt their beliefs are.
It was with this frame of mind that I read the transcripts of the Richard Dawkins interview on the Late Late Show (a top chat show on Irish television). I was astounded. As most people know, Dawkins authored a best-selling book on religion in 2006 called The God Delusion. It was a full frontal attack on religion, calling out the nonsense within and attempting to put religion under the microscope and into the sphere of public debate. Ryan Tubridy, the Late Late Show host, interviewed Dawkins a few times about it on radio and it always lead to some lively back-and-forth battles between Dawkins and his detractors. That was in 2006 and 2007. Now in 2009, Dawkins has published a new book on an altogether different subject, yet Tubridy could not resist the temptation to bring the discourse back to his atheism, and to inject sensationalism wherever possible – (“So what is the Vatican then? Toy Town?”, “Do you see God as believable as the Easter Bunny?”, etc.). None of these issues are discussed in Dawkins’ latest book, leading me to the conclusion that Ryan Tubridy didn’t even bother to read it.
Personally, I loved Dawkins’ clear, no nonsense answers but I couldn’t help feeling that, on Tubridy’s part, it was an opportunity missed. Is Richard Dawkins so one-dimensional that the only issue worth talking to him about is his atheism? Dawkins has much to say on the subject of evolution and why it is so important that we understand it. He is deeply passionate about science education, about the philosophy of science, about the promotion of science, about legal challenges to science, about critical thinking. In brief, we could have learned something but instead we were treated to a charade, deliberately intended to scandalise the Irish churchgoing public. This is a huge pity. By conflating Dawkins’ views on evolution with his atheism in this way, Ryan Tubridy may have muddied the waters concerning evolution, a topic that is critical to understand as we rehabilitate science and technology within the Irish education system.
“The Greatest Show on Earth” is only controversial if you are a creationist who has been vaccinated from reality. For the rest of us, it’s a rollicking good read on a vitally relevant subject.
The Irish government over the past 10 years has been a disaster. I hate their arrogance. I hate the fact that we are all going to have to pay through the nose because of their blithe mismanagement of the economy. I wish some of them could see jail time, convicted of the felony of driving a country while hopelessly drunk on power. I hope they are obliterated in the next election. There. I’m glad I got that off my chest.
Nevertheless, I will vote Yes in the Lisbon Referendum. One of the many reasons why I will be voting Yes is precisely because our government were so incompetent.
If we have learned anything in the past two years, it is that government arrogance can lead to extraordinarily bad decisions. During the ‘good times’ it was incapable of listening to good advice, of taking the foot off the pedal, of acting in the best interest of its citizens. It paid lip service to the longer term needs of its people while it cosied up to the property developers and bankers. Cautionary warnings from the EU were treated with disdain. The perceived “deadweight” of the EU resulted in a lack of urgency defending the first Lisbon referendum against its critics. These chickens came home to roost when this referendum was comprehensively defeated in 2008. Perhaps we need to take take the views of our European partners a bit more seriously in future.
There is an assumption that an Ireland, free from EU interference, could make better decisions, but where is the evidence for this? Before the EU came into being, Ireland was a bloody awful place – conservative, illiberal and pandering to the needs of the well-heeled few. When we did eventually join, these same self-interested forces within our own country fought tooth and nail to prevent even the most basic social and environmental reforms to take place. Without European influence, there would be no such thing as a minimum wage. Our environmental record would be disastrous. Homosexuality and condoms might still be on the banned list. If there is one big achievement of Europe, it is that it dragged this country kicking and screaming into the modern world. I am proud of my country but I don’t think I would be quite so proud of the place if the basic reforms that came with EU membership had not happened during my lifetime.
Another reason I am voting Yes is because I don’t see how giving our government a bloody nose will benefit any of us in the long term. It’s one thing to hurt the government if you see a benefit in doing so, but it is quite another thing if the outcome is a vote for economic meltdown. The outcome of Lisbon is long-term and will transcend many governments in the coming decades. If you have a problem with the government, the place to make that dissatisfaction clear is in the polling booth at the next General Election, not in the referendum, where a negative result will have lasting impacts on our economy.
So for those still thinking of voting No just to give the government a kicking, here’s a handy chart..
And they said that squeezing 16 hrs of walking in Kerry down to two and a half minutes could not be done. Pah! I grimace menacingly in their general direction.
Here is the video of the walk. Right here, right now.
I’m back from a three day sojourn in south Kerry, walking 71 km in aid of cancer research. The format of the event this year was different from previous years, in that we were based in the same location for the whole weekend, with all walks terminating in Kenmare. We were brought to our starting point by bus from Kenmare each morning. (Kenmare is a smashing little town in south Kerry, a short distance from some of the most superb scenery in the country. If you are thinking about a trip to Ireland, it is an absolute must-see).
Moll's Gap
On Friday we travelled from Moll’s Gap to Kenmare. It was a relatively easy road walk, with the final few kilometers trudging through the hills above Kenmare. The distance was 17km, so it wasn’t too difficult. Conditions on the hills were very wet (no surprise given the rain of the last few weeks).
Lauragh to Kenmare
Saturday was the most challenging walk. We started out from Lauragh in the Beara Peninsula, and we had to overcome two hills and a long road-walk before we arrived, exhausted and footsore, into Kenmare about 8 hours later. The conditions were quite challenging, in that the ground underneath was either rocky, or very loose or sodden wet. Nevertheless the scenery was spectacular, the temperature was just right and the rain stayed away.
Old Kenmare Road
Sunday was the last of the walks, from Torc Waterfall outside Killarney to Kenmare along the Old Road. This is an absolutely fantastic walk, although not for the faint-hearted. It’s a trek of about 21 km, but at times the scenery looks like something out of Disneyland. The most challenging part of the route was the end – a steep incline then decline on hard road, when my feet were shouting at me “no more”! Sunday was our wettest day. In Kerry they don’t get the kind of rain we are used to. They don’t do drizzle, or moist weather, or soft days. No, in Kerry it’s the Real Thing. From dry to drenched in 0.6 milliseconds.
All in all, a fantastic three days. I feel great from the walk, the company was great and I have to say that the organisation was fantastic throughout. I’ve had enough bananas and flapjacks to last me a lifetime.
If you would like to do something big for charity in 2010, or you just want a weekend to remember, this is the thing to do!
DERMOT AHERN: Tommy Tiernan, son of Deuteronomy of Gath.
TOMMY TIERNAN: Do I say ‘yes’?
TOMMY: Yes.
DERMOT: You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord, and so, as a blasphemer,…
CROWD: Ooooh!
DERMOT: …you are to be stoned to death.
CROWD: Ahh!
TOMMY: Look. I– I’d had a lovely gig, and all I said to my audience was, ‘That piece of legislation would make Jehovah piss himself laughing.’
CROWD: Oooooh!
DERMOT: Blasphemy! He’s said it again!
CROWD: Yes! Yes, he did! He did!…
DERMOT: Did you hear him?!
CROWD: Yes! Yes, we did! We did!…
WOMAN #1: Really!
[silence]
DERMOT: Are there any women here today?
CROWD: No. No. No. No…
DERMOT: Very well. By virtue of the authority vested in me under the 2009 Defamation Act —
[NUN stones TOMMY]
TOMMY: Oww! Lay off! We haven’t started yet!
DERMOT: Come on! Who threw that? Who threw that stone? Was it you Senator Norris? Come on.
CROWD: She did! She did! He did! He! He. He. Him. Him. Him. Him. He did.
NUN: Sorry. I thought we’d started.
DERMOT: Go to the back.
NUN: Oh, dear.
DERMOT: Always one, isn’t there? Now, where were we?
TOMMY: Look. I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy, just saying ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Oooh! He said it again! Oooh!…
DERMOT: You’re only making it worse for yourself!
TOMMMY: Making it worse?! How could it be worse?! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
CROWD: Oooooh!…
DERMOT: I’m warning you. If you say ‘Jehovah’ once more– [MR. A MATTHEWS stones DERMOT]
DERMOT: Right. Who threw that?
[silence]
DERMOT: Come on. Who threw that?
CROWD: She did! It was her! He! He. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him.
DERMOT: Was it you?
MR A. MATTHEWS (wearing a false beard): Yes.
DERMOT: Right!
MR. A. MATTHEWS: Well, you did say ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Ah! Ooooh!…
[CROWD stones MR. A. MATTHEWS]
DERMOT: Stop! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Ooooooh!…
[CROWD stones DERMOT]
WOMAN #1: Good shot!
[clap clap clap]
(via Monty Python’s Life of Brian)
Image via Uniform Velocity
According to the Irish Times today, 42% of men in Ireland never use sun protection.
This is madness. We shouldn’t take the sun for granted. It is a killer, as 5,000 Irish people are finding out each year. All it takes is one small mole on your body to go a different colour or shape, and you could be in big trouble. Once a cancerous mole reaches the lower layers of the skin, the cancer can quickly spread around the body, virtually guaranteeing your early demise.
Most of us Irish have the wrong skin. It’s doesn’t tan, it burns. It’s replete with vulnerable moles and other blemishes. And, after prolonged exposure, it can kill you.
The answer? Stay out of the sun as much as possible and wear high factor sunscreen. Oh yeah, and have someone check out the moles on your skin. You might thank them one day for saving your life.
Passive Impressions 
