While our parents stoked the fires of justice, we fell asleep beside them

Sunday Tribune 26 October 2008

Two stories caught my eye last week. The first was about the cancellation of bus services to UCD because of violent behaviour by drunken students. The other told how education minister Batt O'Keeffe was attempting to lure Chinese students here with the offer of great opportunities in our universities.
What an excellent idea, I thought. If we fill our universities with young Chinese folk, they can show our lot how students should really behave. They could teach them how to be the architects of social change, as opposed to just being anti-social. China's students, after all, were responsible for sowing the seeds of democracy with their defiant stance in Tiananmen Square. Even the most belligerent Belfielder would admit that squaring up to a tank is more impressive than getting tanked-up and squaring up to a bus driver.
Also in Dublin last week, a young "protestor" was fined for causing €13,500 worth of graffiti damage. I'm calling him a "protestor" because protesting was generally the reason people sprayed graffiti when I was a teenager in the 1980s. What was the message he wrote? Brits Out? Say 'No' to Apartheid? Free Nicky Kelly (with every packet of cornflakes)?
No, it was 'Konk'.
That's right, 'Konk'.
'Konk' was his graffiti tag-name. So instead of making a controversial, witty or inspirational statement, he did the literary equivalent of jumping up and down and shouting 'Look at me!' The idiot.
While I was pondering the state of our not-so-disaffected youth, an old familiar voice was tuning up in the capital. It grew louder and louder and by Tuesday afternoon was soaring over the spire of St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, and out across the country. The battle cry of a generation had been recommissioned: 'We Shall Overcome', the pensioners sang, and the government trembled.
Then, like a clip around the ear, came the realisation who these angry old folk were. They were the generation who first manned the barricades in the golden era of protest, the 1960s.
These were the young people who marched for civil rights.
These were the angry young men who protested against Bloody Sunday and burned down the British Embassy.
These were the brave young women who defied church and state by bringing a train-load of contraceptives into our prudish Republic.
These were the people who filled the streets to protest against the cruel taxation system of the late 1970s.
These furious grey-hairs who besieged the Dáil on Wednesday were the people who taught my generation to fight for the underdog.
Stirred by their example, we supported the Dunnes Stores strikers in their stand against apartheid. We campaigned for nuclear disarmament and told Ronald Reagan to go home when he visited Ballyporeen.
We shouted 'stop' to the destruction of Wood Quay and followed Sean DBR Loftus as he tried to save Dublin Bay.
We marched, sat-in, fasted and signed miles of petitions in support of the oppressed – from El Salvador to Cambodia.
This era of protest peaked in 1985 when we raised our voices to demand employment at the Self Aid concert in the RDS.
And then, when we got what we wanted – the jobs, the prosperity – we fell asleep. We dozed off beside the fire instead of continuing to stoke it. We became complacent and let our leaders turn this country into a Nanny State. We became the 'Me Generation', obsessed with wealth and status. Those of us who entered politics helped consolidate this new materialism.
It has taken the pensioners of Ireland to smack some manners back into us. And we deserve their anger.
As I stood outside Leinster House on Wednesday and watched them spank the government, I felt ashamed of myself and my generation.
Instead of passing on what our parents taught us about caring for others, we showed the next generation only how to be consumers. We failed them.
At 2.30pm, the pensioners gave way to another army fired up by their actions.
The students had arrived. They had looked beyond my generation to our parents for leadership. They proved there's still hope for us.
Long live the Granny State.

dkenny@tribune.ie

October 26, 2008

Would the real Gerry Ryan please sit down and think of others

David Kenny, Sunday Tribune, 19 October 2008

It was billed as "the most revealing showbiz book in decades" and that for two euro I could "read it here
first."
It promised to uncover the state's greatest "shock jock's" innermost secrets.
It offered "exclusive" extracts from 'Would the Real Gerry Ryan Please Stand Up'.
I was hooked from page one.
Ryan stretched the full length of the Mail on Sunday in a tuxedo, hand on hip, jacket thrown over shoulder. With those full lips of his he brought to mind Oscar Wilde doing a stint as a nightclub bouncer.
To his left were the headings: 'I know I drink too much', 'Why I lost out on millions','The truth about Pat Kenny'.
There were to be "warts and all" as we read about Ryan's "astonishing life" and "women". Would we please turn to pages 32 to 37?
Expectations were high. Would we hear the twang of knicker elastic in a broom cupboard? Or read of Keith Richards-like excesses?
Would we? Answer: "no".
The title of Ryan's autobiography echoes a song by Eminem. The newspaper article, however, was very 'slim' on anything 'shady' in his life.
We learned that Ryan drinks too much. "Enough to have you certified as a borderline alcoholic." Note 'borderline'. Here's a question: how many middle-aged Irishman DON'T drink too much?
We read about his compulsive obsession with rearranging the shirts in his wardrobe. Sex god David Beckham has the same problem although he rearranges soft drink cans. Unfortunately, there the comparison ends.
He spoke of the greatest experience he's had with drugs – they were diet pills.
He "revealed" his love of food and money. (Stop yawning.)
The "truth about Pat Kenny", by the way, was that Ryan believes he should be paid the same as him.
Oh, and he had a vasectomy (Ryan, not Kenny – that we know of).
So much for the feast of "outrageous" revelations. This was merely a puffed up soufflé that exhaled and died at the first prod of the spoon.
The truth about Ryan appears to be that he has led a relatively unshocking life. The paper gamely attempted to hype it up anyway. Here's an example: the headline stated 'My kids are great. They've seen their father drunk in his underpants, falling down and getting back up'.
What Ryan actually said in the piece below was: 'My children have seen their father in his underpants, drunk, (note commas) besuited and feted, celebrated, falling down and getting back up again'. This was an entirely more banal statement.
And that's exactly what these revelations were: banal. This was no full-frontal flash – just middle-aged belly-spread being stroked in a come-hither fashion.
The real revelation was the apparent extent of Ryan's ego and how he loves to indulge it.
His references to his wealth and how he likes to spend it were nauseating.
The 52-year-old – who was paid €100,000 for his memoirs – apparently spends so much he gets calls from his bank manager telling him he's overdrawn.
He spoke of his favourite sommelier (who's yours?) and how much he enjoys five star hotels and travelling first class – "that, my friends, is better than the 44A".
He told of ordering a €2,000 bottle of wine in a Paris restaurant that he thought was €200 euro. Only 200?
He told how he lost out on "millions" by not doing a deal with NewsTalk.
Then he referred to the moment, after interviewing rape victim Lavinia Kerwick, that he "became absolutely convinced that [he] was a significant figure".
Finally, the real Gerry Ryan had stood up. A self-indulgent, vulgar man, beloved by hundreds of thousands, but perhaps none more so than himself.
Today the listeners who pay his wages are feeling the pain of last week's budget. Ryan might like to remember that as he sips on his chilled Montrachet.
For my two euro I would have preferred less talk of Gerry in his jocks, a couple of decent shocks and for him to stop waving his wad in my face.
Would the real Gerry Ryan please sit down.


dkenny@tribune.ie