The 1st one
Reply
Category Archives: Uncategorized
A prayer to St. Valentine
“The relics of St. Valentine, some of his bones and a vial tinged with his blood – are in a small casket under a shrine in Whitefriar Street Church – a beautiful old church full of echoes and candles, just off a busy Dublin city street. On the shrine lies a simple, soft cover notebook, where locals and tourists write their prayers to Valentine.
People write to Valentine about what they long for, asking him to help, telling him their secret hopes or fears – all there within the pages. It’s an incredibly compelling document, discovering it is almost like finding someone’s diary – except it’s public.
Writer and comedian Maeve Higgins has been visiting the church and the notebook for over ten years. In 2012, she decided to make a radio show about the people who write in the book – who they are, what they ask for and, of course, whether or not they find what they are looking for. Finding people willing to talk on air about their own private matters of the heart proves difficult – in short, nobody wants to.
So Maeve speaks with Fr.Brian Mckay – one of the Carmelite priests based in Whitefriars Church, who allows a notice to be placed on the altar, asking people who use the book to contact her, and talk to her about their relationship with the book. She waits, and hopes, and has almost given up, until one day, her phone rings…
This radio show is a portrait of quiet Catholic church that is – fleetingly- filled with the most romantic and dramatic, and hopeful and private moments of peoples lives.”
A real heart-warming listen.
Preview: Thursday 11th February
The cosmos returns tomorrow with another dazzling line-up that promises to deliver the usual swag-bag of fist-clenching crackers. First up are The Managers. The elusive group make a rare appearance for one of their tumultuous live performances. Expect plenty of baseline data and drumming of fingers.
Going forward into the afternoon The Two Loud Fuckers Upstairs have been kicking off recent appearances with a parade of tracks from their Greatest Hits album. The duo is currently working on new material with Do You Fancy a Wee Tray-bake with Your Tea? getting a test-run last week. They’ll be followed by dilettantes Some Pair with an abundance of catchy frivolous pop including new single Look At The State of Yer Wan (Eye-roll).
Hyperbole springs eternal when it comes to the description-defying M1. Few resist the charms of perennial crowd-pleasers such as All Pile Into Apple Green, I Must Have That Cigarette Lighter With My Child’s Name On It, and the mournful Burger King It Is Then.
In the ten years since Friends Reunited got together, they have been thrilling each other with special requests. How Much Did You Lose This Week is a dead cert for the encore before the headline act responds to their self-consciousness with a carefully crafted lack of any. AKA Róisín Murphy.
She was brilliant, probably.
“It’s a ghastly set-up” Stephen Rea
A rare interview with actor, observer, humanitarian, and fellow passenger in a lift once who was probably freaked out by the weird smiling woman.
https://player.fm/series/rt-sunday-with-miriam/stephen-rea
The mommy dialogues
“How’s it going?”
*Yawns* “Am fucked. Exhausted. Up again last night”
“Have you tried the star chart?”
*curls lip*
“Seriously, give it another go. We’d the same problems with Aisling”
“And did it work?”
“No. Well, she just grew out of it eventually. I used to do the supernanny thing as well and put her straight back into bed every time she got up. Exhausting though”
*Yawns*
“Or you could just switch beds. Our Róisín’s two were in and out of their bed till they were seven. Kevin just went to their room”
“Have done that. Turfed her Da out. At least everyone gets a night’s sleep”
“Exactly. And it doesn’t last forever”
“And it’s not like it’s interrupting any major sex sessions”
Ten second pause
In unison: “That only lasts five minutes anyway”
Observations of a Dublin taxi driver
Often the best tippers are the ones who can afford it least.
The people who inspire me most are not the rich and famous that I’ve met but ordinary people who struggle daily with the burden of sickness; their own, their children’s or their parents but can still manage to smile and ask about you.
Good manners are not dependent on higher social class, education and money. The most unmannerly people I’ve met often have all of these while the most polite often have none.
Nothing defines the Irish more than their sense of humour. All through the recession we never lost it.
A few hundred years ago somebody said of the Irish people that we suffer most from “…..too much drink and lack of moral courage”. I think this is still very true today.
The Irish make great friends for at least two hours in a pub.
There is a significant number of racist Irish people. Most of them have never lived and worked abroad and know nothing of the difficulties involved.
The Irish love sport and sporting success whatever else is going wrong in the country it’s the great opium that soothes us all.
The golden unspoken rule of the Irish is never take yourself too seriously. If you do, you’re doomed to be a victim of your family, friends, work colleagues or worse still; Mario Rosenstock or Oliver Callan.
The new young Irish offer so much hope. They are so well educated, so creative, full of confidence and no longer carry the inferior baggage that previous generations carried.
From a Ranelagh rank regular
Una Mullally, sexual consent classes, and dissent
I’m not on Twitter, but my fella is; so I’m obliged to annoyingly look over his shoulder occasionally to sneer at something. Anything.
I spotted this gem earlier from some bloke re-tweeted by Róisín Ingle:
“any1 justifying why they don’t need to attend a sexual consent workshop NEEDS to go 2 1 ASAP”
An obvious reference to the dissent greeting Una Mullally’s piece in the Irish Times’ today instructing readers on why we need “a solid framework of education around sex and consent”, which apparently amounts to compulsory sexual consent classes due to be introduced for freshers to Trinity in the coming year.
Mullally makes no reference to proven models of good practice that exist within youth work provision; the comparatively higher success in exploring these issues at a younger age in a non-formal educational setting in which young people are facilitated to explore the responsibilities that come with sexual development along with their peers rather than top-down instruction; and the on-going cuts to the sector that attack this vital function.
Instead, the reader is treated to a blunt defence of the approach, and a neat comparison of these classes with the similarly necessary imposition of breathalyser tests, and other put-’em-up tactics designed to undermine the legitimacy of any chin-stroking or reservations about the move. The limits to the elasticity of consent in the context of debate are seemingly off-limits. And that might well be the most annoying sentence I’ve ever written, but let me not interrupt my own righteousness any further…
The problem with reserving the right to reflect on the issues a little longer than the length of an opinion column and its umpteen curled lips, is that one is obliged to share question marks with strange bedfellows. By strange, I mean bonkers, as a cursory read of the regular commentariat below the line of columns on the Irish Times website will confirm.
Similarly, the problem with having a left-leaning feminist outlook is that that broad value system is shared with what appears to be an increasingly bug-bite ridden band of bed-fellows intent on knocking themselves (and the validity of their own argument) out with spectacular feats of intolerance. Shutting down the need for all ideas to be given a good kicking appears very much at odds with their own philosophy.
The quality of the debate is one thing, but the rush to paralyse it with such thoughtful and insightful comments as the tweet above is further evidence that elements of both the Bonkers and the Left are becoming indistinguishable. Or as my new best friends over at the Irish Times’ comments section would put it – what a load of shite.
For a more rounded, open-ended, view on the issue that treats the reader as an adult, have a read at Fionola Meredith’s take from the same paper. Or as my new best enemies over at the Irish Times’ comment section would put it – what a load of shite.
And your Ma smells of wee.
Remembering… Mary Raftery
“The Church thinks in centuries, do you think your paper has the resources to take that on?”
Stanley Tucci’s pithy lawyer puts it up to Mark Ruffalo’s investigative reporter early on in Spotlight, the deft dramatisation of The Boston Globe’s incendiary exposure of the systemic cover-up of widespread child abuse by the clerical elite. For decades. Sound familiar?
Hollywood thinks in blockbusters, but did it have the resources to take it on? Whatever about the availability of budgets, its success is due in no small part to an experienced cast willing to resist any scenery-chewing righteousness. The ever reliable Ruffalo captures the tenacity and flightiness of a truth vigilante on the verge of something big; but it takes Michael Keaton’s restrained editor to reign him in, having at one time been too eager to get over the finish-line himself. There’s big. But there’s bigger.
“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one”
Sound familiar? The axis of blind eyes and indifference kept on turning. Tucci can be trusted to deliver another unequivocal truth.
The audience of the Dublin cinema I’m in knows where the conclusion is headed. As does the rest of the Western world familiar with the story of Vatican corruption. Despite the multitude of spoiler alerts revealed over recent years, a reminder can still leave them sitting silent until the last of the credits roll. After the written updates on what happened next disappear; and the flashing lists of destinations revealed as locations where clerical child abuse investigations have taken place.
Ferns, Ireland. Gortahork, Ireland. And the rest. Counties are an irrelevancy.
RTÉ deals in small investigative departments, but did it have the resources to take it on? It had Mary Raftery.
“Mary was best known for her 1999 ground-breaking “States of Fear” documentaries. They revealed the extent of abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and institutions managed by religious orders. It led to taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologising on behalf of the state.
Her work also led to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which reported in May 2009, and to the setting up of a confidential committee which heard the stories of victims of institutional abuse.
Speaking about her findings to the BBC in 2009, Mary Raftery said: “There was widespread sexual abuse, particularly in the boys’ institutions.
“Extremely vicious and sadistic physical abuse, way off the scale, and horrific emotional abuse, designed to break the children.
“We had people talk to us about hearing screams… the screams of children in the night coming from these buildings and really not knowing what to do.
“They didn’t know to whom they could complain because the power in the town was the religious order running the institution.”
Following the documentaries, the government set up the Residential Institutions Redress Board which has compensated about 14,000 people” Source: The BBC
Mary Raftery
Spotlight is a reminder of the power of Mary Raftery’s investigative journalism, and her fearless tenacity that served the village truth in the face of wilful blindness. In an era in which RTÉ doesn’t appear to be over-endowed with such resources, her contribution, and premature death, still has the power to pin the viewer to the seat for just a few seconds more.
Password protected
Hi ho. It’s back to full-time work, I go. This time to one of those large organisations with its own IT Department. Gotta love those IT guys. Every day is a no-uniform day, another opportunity to remain nonplussed with head down while all about them are losing theirs. And go by the name of Gary. Usually.
Gary set me up on the system on my first day before sauntering back to his mothership with an over-the-shoulder warning I’ll need to change my password regularly. It took a nanosecond to lash in the first: my Daughter’s name and birth year. There was a time I would’ve approached the task by having a generous stare into space before being jolted back into real time with precisely the right song title for there and then, only for it to be rejected for not containing the requisite mix of numbers and letters. Napoleon36. A historic figure and a few random numbers to you, an Ani DiFranco song and the year of my Mother’s birth to me. [“Everyone is a fucking Napoleon”. Except you, Ma, you’re just naturally short.]
Passwords represent rare opportunities to smuggle a teeny wee piece of your heart into a soulless workplace. The hidden bit of you for when a framed photo or potted plant won’t do. When the frame is empty, and you couldn’t give a fuck about plants. The password protects those cordoned off files and feelings you can’t share with anyone. Except on the rare occasion a Gary needs it, and they’ve probably heard them all. I wish I could remember all of mine and print them off like the keyboard-track of my life.
I’d forgotten the scale of my Ani DiFranco habit back in my 20s. Her middle finger was perpetually aloft to the latest man who’d broken her heart, and to The Man who breaks millions to make millions. Notsosoft – the first, and sole remaining, password from an early email account. A relic of me as the idealist, brimming with enough angst to take Him and his sort on. Like many of us thundering up the highway towards World Change, I was seduced by a boy down a back alley where we both overstayed our welcome. Subsequent passwords from that love affair: firedoor00, untouchable02 (as in Untouchable Face), and thereyougo04 (..”swinging down the boulevard..” I was well into Katell Keineg territory by then)
Damestreet08 didn’t expire till ’09. Scene of my first kiss with my now husband up against a fancy streetlight outside the Brian Boru Pub on the corner before you cut down to Burdock’s. We parted an hour after it started from where I floated back to the car-park. It was locked so I had to cough up eighty quid to get my car out. I’d have cheerfully paid double that. Fakeempire09 and Slowslow10 came later followed by the date and place of our wedding. Now I bring our little one in to work every day. All kitted out in lower and upper case accessorised by a one and a two. Till home time, when she comes running towards me with her lopsided ponytail and Minnie Mouse t-shirt giving me a few ideas for the next password.
There’s a change in constellation. Something’s been re-arranged. Even Ani is lighter of step..
Update: Since this was originally posted, I’ve gone through..
Numptynuts15, Shitebags15, and Saveme16.
Got a password story to share?
How to decrease your readership in 10 easy steps
*sound of footsteps legging it*
Use reader repellent post titles, obviously.
Have a gradual public breakdown, that’s not quite sure whether it’s an actual breakdown, or just one of one’s personae looking for a way out.
Periodically compose an irrational rant against Bono/parenting/Norn Iron.
Why use 10 words when 1,000 will do?
Only use questions rhetorically, OK? It breaks up the tedium.
Alienate yourself from your new or potential blogging mates by forgetting to do the small-talk and getting a bit too relaxed on the sofa of their comments section with your coat still on. Put your feet up too soon and on your head be those pursed lips. It’s OK, bumping into each other in a mutual blogger friend’s comment section loses its awkwardness after a while.
*re-reads last point* Don’t make an iota of sense if at all possible.
Forget any sort of theme, anyway.
Or having a name that conveys any meaning.
*echo*
Actually, just the nine will do.
🙂
department of speculation 