Taking my dignity out of the machine for inspection
I notice it has shrunk considerably in the hot wash
While from the living room Marty implores Mary to wave
At the camera to all the Mayo folk watching at home
I wave back and spin the wheel round three times
It lands on 40 degrees between the delicates
And the badly stained
By Not Paul Durcan
***********
Thanks to the three of you who voted in the latest poll.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
It’s that time of year again! When a new blog tradition is launched that has about as much longevity as Stephen Fry swearing off Twitter for life! And where the exclamation mark is deployed rather too enthusiastically!
Welcome to the inaugural I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Paul-Durcan! When you, dear reader, are invited to commission an original Paul Durcan poem that Paul Durcan didn’t actually write!
Not Paul Durcan
Vote early, and vote often! The winning composition will be published on the Feast of the Blessed Patrick. Begorrah.
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
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
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.
“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.
There’s a woman who’s been trying to get up since dawn, to get the wreckage into gear, and dash, and spend, and pray she has enough petrol.
A woman who works all day and returns home to put in another shift by the fridge. And that takes the time to read the latest dubious story linking ISIS membership with wayward teenagers whose mothers work outside the home; or half half (OK, quarter) listen to yours.
There is a woman who will sit up all night with a Netflix series, and will not rest until the finale is over; who hides at the school gates rain, hail or shine; who feeds her pet hates; makes the bed just before getting into it, puts the candid feelings into cake, and makes your wishes up for you. You’re a bank manger! You have the power to let me borrow all your birthday money!
Yes! Found the Green & Black’s
There’s a woman who spends all her time, all her money, all her love, on the things and the people that matter. Like coffee, and toilet paper, and overdue Xtravision fees.
And through every hour, she will always be fed the feeling that she should feel she is not giving enough, not doing enough, not consuming enough.
Mothers, you do enough to put up with this insufferable bullshit. Now let us do something for you. Like stopping the exploitation of your bankrupt consumerist vulnerabilities, and the relentless rampant rifling of human emotion to sell you something else.
Mothers, you’re amazing…ly gullible if you fall for it.
FauxHealth: My cover. My arse.
It’s January 2016, so it must be time for…
Anti-Sinn Féin sentiment to hit apoplectic proportions across the mainstream media and middle-classes. The only thing more nauseating than the self-serving antics of the All-Ireland version of the politburo is the hysterical outcry The Party provokes among those respectable folk forced to suffer the riff-raff.
Specifically, the cynical self-serving outcry that has them holding their noses as they take their seats next to them in the pews of Leinster House; all the while conveniently ignoring their own role in sanctioning the same bunch of “grave-robbers and revisionists” to dominate the high-table of decision-making in the North through endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement.
It’s the sort of hypocrisy that enjoys persistent re-profiling into a gesture of such messianic proportions in the re-telling it’s a wonder the entire Republic weren’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Sure, those wee northerners would’ve obliterated each other had the political elite not stepped in to break up the skirmish. Sure, aren’t they all grand up there now? And aren’t we the fine nation that made all those generous concessions that didn’t affect us anyway to ensure peace was brokered between neighbours before we went back to ignoring them or sneering at them. And haven’t we a right to raise a brow at any allegation of hypocrisy, automatically charging anyone daring to do so with membership of Republican Sympathisers. Usually with all the consideration and finesse of a tweet. But..but…but…They’re not blowing the fuck out of each other! We made that happen! It’s different down here! What’s that you say about rampant sectarianism, political intransigence, and crippling poverty? Sorry, you’re breaking up….
It’s the sort of hypocrisy that enables the political and media elite to formulate a sickening hierarchy of respectable republicans. And get away with it. Where Mairia Cahill’s harrowing abuse can be exploited and adopted as a political weapon to fire from the benches of the Seanad while it’s fair game to relegate Pauline Tully, former wife of republican criminal Pearse McAuley, to a level of scrutiny consistent with the worst kind of victim-blaming those same critics abhor when applied elsewhere. Despite the over-lapping political ideologies of both women.
It’s the kind of hypocrisy that showers concern on the impact of the lack of law and disregard for justice on one woman, while spectacularly ignoring the commonalities of conflicts that unleash violence of every conceivable guise on too many women. But selective opportunistic support will do in lieu of giving a fuck, and possessing any sincerity or commitment to addressing the legacy of the Conflict. As long as they stay out of our way, and we can reduce peace to a tear-jerking sound-bite and the Conflict to a petty internal parochial battle between neighbours fuelled by irrational nationalism (our favourite fairytale), and write our late-coming elite into the history books of heroes, right? Right? Right.
Who will write the history of the Conflict? It’s not the job of the Shinners, but certainly not that of the myopic mainstream media and political middle-class of the Republic.
I ain’t no apologist or fan of Sinn Féin, but victim-robbing and revisionism cuts a number of sinister ways.
More rioja, anyone?
She puffed up the pillow for the umpteenth time while somewhere on the periphery of her vision the clock blinked 03:30. A week had drained by since she buried her Mother but the fitfulness had taken root long before then. She tried to lay her head down on what had become a punch-bag for every disjointed thought stalking her imagination. Try as she might she couldn’t knock them unconscious.
Uncertain whether it was just the wind or an engine, she held her breath as a car slowed and rolled up over the kerb. One… two slammed doors. No click of a heel. No car-locks clicked shut. The groan from the nudge she gave her husband coincided with the ring of the bell.
“What the fuck?”
“Jesus!”
And other profane one-worded queries ushered them downstairs to the hall where they panicked themselves into fumbling for the front-door keys.
Two uniformed Gardaí.
“Are you the owner of a black Toyota Corolla registration number zero nine….?”
“Yes”, she shakily responded, her heart somewhere it wasn’t designed to be.
“And who are you, Sir?”
“My husband”, she cut in.
“What’s this about?”, her husband demanded to know, his characteristic affection for law enforcement officers waking up before the rest of him.
“Were either of you driving the vehicle this evening?”
“No”, they replied in unison, “why?”
“It was involved in an incident earlier. Can you tell us when you last saw it?”
That fucker, she mused accusingly. She was back behind the wheel of her imagination breaking the speed limit. The fucker being the mechanic she had left her car with days previously. A man she had never met before that week. Try as she might she couldn’t escape the mental leap from one heinous crime to another. Not a burglary surely. God, no. Oh no, Jesus, please let it not be a sexual assault. Or worse.
“What is it?”, they pleaded.
“I’m afraid we can’t disclose any more details at the moment. Tell us the name and number of the man you believe has the car”
They only knew him by his first name. Reluctantly, her husband scrolled through his phonebook, accidentally dialling the number as he went to read it out, the ringing tone invading the tension.
“Please. Just read the number out”
“Zero..eight….”
“Thank you. If you call the Garda Station tomorrow, they will explain what happened”.
The clock blinked 04:05. Both of them punched the living day lights out of their pillows until worry got the better of them. At 10:00, she lifted the phone.
“OK. Thank you for letting me know”, she signed off, as her husband hovered over her having given up mouthing a string of “wells?” she batted away with her one available hand.
Days later, they parked up on the kerb. Fresh flowers for her mother’s grave in hand. A cigarette ready to be lit in his. To the left of her mother’s resting place, synthetic grass lay across another freshly dug grave signalling someone’s barely born but silent grief. Tufts of lime green adorned with wreaths left by folk with whom she would form an unavoidable remaining-lifetime bond. She had already struck up a companionable silence with the mother of the teenage girl laid to rest on the right. Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. The last time she spent time in this woman’s company was in the primary school yard of their girlhood.
“Oh my God. Look”, her husband shouted inspecting the name on neighbouring grave closer. “It’s him”.
Rest In Peace.
A child of the ’80s. Date of death the same as the night she was awakened from her sleeplessness. He had chosen somewhere remote to put an end to it all. Whatever it all was.
They stood silent for a few minutes; keeping their private thoughts just that before strolling back to the car.
“It’s awful”
“Tis yeah”
“You know they thought it was you that night. They were coming to break the news to me”
“I’m here though, aren’t I?”, he wrapped his arm around her.
“Just as well. Mum would’ve twirled in her grave if she thought she’d have to lie beside you for eternity”
**************
Based on events that happened to a friend over Christmas.
As anti-Black Friday fever sweeps across the nation, threatening to destabilise the parish of Cardinal Joe Duffy, and provoke Matt Cooper into knocking himself out with his own mock incredulity, let’s take a moment to consider some other dodgy American imports to our land. Begorrah.
I can’t remember when it happened exactly. It possibly coincided with the arrival of cappuccinos and those 20 ft inflatable Santas people erect on their gable walls at Christmas. With a straight face. Until then, Irish women were either teachers or volunteers with Saint Vincent de Paul, depending on their age. Now they’re nobody unless they’re doing both and holding down a job, sorry, a career, that involves trips to a board-room in heels to lean in to (unless they’re expressing) while writing about how empowering it is at precisely the same time. Won’t somebody please think of the dinner? Oh wait, they’ve done that, too.
2. Westboro Baptist Church
I must choose my words carefully here, otherwise WordPress will spinelessly cough up hefty hush money once it’s slapped with a solicitor’s letter threatening legal action over my apparent defaming of president of its Irish wing, Breda O’Brien. Ah fuck it, what do I care. This is the internet after all. Here goes..
ALL PUBLIC OPINION IS SUBJECT TO A GOOD KICKING, BREDA!
P.S. Pray for me.
3. Bono
Coming over here and taking our leafy suburbs working class streets for his inspiration.
4. Racism
I’m not saying we’ve anything against white middle-class singers coming over here and taking our inspiration but…
5. Obesity
Taking our humble spud, chopping it up and sticking it in the fryer, smothering it with taco sauce and placing them next to a double cheese burger and a gallon of coke. It’s enough to.. *crushed in stampede*
Would you like some self-control with that?
6. Dating
Sobriety. Cutlery. Talking.
Bring back that most reliable of mating klaxons: The National Anthem.
Yeah, I know this is more than 5. I was never any good at math. Which reminds me..
7. Awesome
Grand. Ach alright.
Where exactly on this spectrum should we suppose this fits?
Awesome me star spangled arse.
department of speculation 