Real heroism has nothing to do with being a celebrity

Sunday Tribune, 1 August

'Hurricane Higgins is dead. Last photograph of the People's Champion.'
I had to stare at the picture for several seconds before I recognised Alex Higgins. He was lost in his overcoat and looked 90. It was shocking to see the man who had once been a twitchy, aggressive 'hurricane' looking as if a breeze could knock him over.
Tributes were cued up. 'Hero', 'maverick', 'legend'… and eventually nostalgia snookered common sense. Higgins wasn't a hero. He was a very good snooker player who, for a while, rose above humble beginnings but ultimately returned there. He was a gouger who had once threatened 'Mr Nice', Dennis Taylor. His life was a string of run-ins and scraps. He was a sad mess. He was loved by his fans, but he was no hero.
The obituaries recalled his hellraising. We like to make heroes of our hellraisers. Harris, Behan, Lynott: all heroes, because they had the whiff of sulphur and booze about them. What's heroic about being a charismatic drunk?
That said, Higgins will probably have a statue raised to him in Belfast – just as Boyzone's Stephen Gately is to have one raised in his memory in Dublin.
Gately was not a hellraiser, but he was charismatic. Like Higgins, he came from a humble background. Like Higgins, he used his talents to become famous and has been called a hero. This was for 'coming out'. He inspired other gay men to do likewise.
His friends had wanted Docklands railway station to be named after him. Instead they got a statue. There are many others who deserve statues before Gately. Does being a nice guy from a boy band really merit one? Maybe, but I'm not totally convinced.
The Gately memorial formed part of the silly season talk last week about renaming places after Irish heroes. Fianna Fáil want to rename Dublin Airport after Sean Lemass.
[Imagine the Yank tourists: "Gee honey, where are we?"
"Lame-ass airport, honey."]
There was a debate about renaming Cork's airport after Terence MacSwiney who starved himself to death during the War of Independence. Two other names that have been mentioned are Rory Gallagher and Christy Ring.
These memorial debates show how the lines between heroism and fame have become blurred in celebrity-obsessed Ireland. How can hurling a ball or playing guitar be more noteworthy than sacrificing your life as MacSwiney did?
Heroism is not defined by what you say, how well you play sport or sing. It's defined by what you are willing to lose.
There were two good examples of real 'everyday' heroism in the papers last week.
The first emerged from an Irish Times interview with comedian Des Bishop whose dad, Michael, is dying of cancer. He's based his new show, My Dad Was Nearly James Bond, on his life.
Bishop described how Michael had been a model and an actor, getting parts in Day of the Triffids and Zulu. He was even asked to audition for James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He had the kind of fantasy life young men dream of.
Then, when Des was born, Michael turned his back on fame. He knew that acting wouldn't provide a steady income for his family so he became a retail manager.
"He gave that up to raise us in a stable way," says Bishop. "That is so much more heroic than any nonsensical James Bond, celebrity thing."
It struck a note. Des's dad is a hero for sacrificing his dream. Heroism isn't found at the end of a snooker cue or a microphone or a lens. It's found changing nappies when it could be sipping a vodka martini. Everyday heroism is about giving yourself up for the benefit of others.
The second example of everyday heroism came via Facebook. I got word that a hero of mine was celebrating finishing chemotherapy. Her name is Marie Carberry and she has been fighting breast cancer. She writes a diary about her experiences in the Evening Herald. It's brutally honest and very moving. It's also very, very funny. Here's an example:
"'Excellent, excellent,' the oncologist murmured. I would like to say he was talking about me as a whole package, but he was actually talking about the workmanship of the surgeon who had carried out the mastectomy..."
Marie's decision to write about her cancer is, presumably, part-cathartic. That doesn't undermine her bravery. When Jade Goody chose to film her cancer battle she was pilloried for it. Cancer, despite our general enlightenment, is still taboo.
Marie's sacrificing of her privacy will have helped many people facing into a similar situation. She's bared herself to educate others. No amount of maximum snooker breaks or CD sales can compare with that. She won't ever have an airport named after her. A statue's unlikely too. (Sorry, Marie.)
With this in mind, I've decided to dedicate this column to her instead. Statues are placed on columns, so we're halfway there, Marie. It's not much, but it will exist in cyber space for a few years. Someone's bound to come across it in the future and read the following words:
'Marie Carberry: you'll never be a snooker champion and I don't know if you can hold a tune, but you're a hero.
'A real hero – whether you like it or not.'

dkenny@tribune.ie

August 1, 2010

What has Orangeism ever done for Ireland but divide it?

Sunday Tribune, 25 July

Ten years ago, I was a guest at the Lord Mayor's Ball in Belfast. Sammy Wilson was hosting it. Sammy always struck me as a weasel-faced pup whenever I watched him on UTV. I felt uneasy as I entered City Hall.
I felt uneasy looking at the torn WWI pennants and the reminders of Belfast's loyal past. I felt that this was not a building for a southern taig like me. I was in a foreign country.
Initial misgivings gave way. People from the predominantly DUP gathering fell over themselves to make my group welcome. Sammy was the most genial of hosts. He spun around the dance floor like a rock and roll dervish. I liked him.
I had always suspected that TV's DUP monster must be human – and he was. I was still in a foreign country though. The pennants and sashes were as foreign to me as tricolours and rosary beads were to him.
I thought of those Somme-soaked pennants when I read about McDowell's reflections at the MacGill Summer School last week. Michael McWho? McDowell. Remember him? The Rottweiler. The PD leader. The Tánaiste. He's been locked in the attic since his defeat in 2007 and now wants back into the political fray. "I haven't gone away, you know!"
McDowell spoke about our Orange neighbours. The Republic is not inclusive enough of their tradition. The Twelfth of July should be added to St Patrick's Day as a national holiday, he said.
I nearly dropped my bowl of shamrock.
The Twelfth? A national holiday here? That glorious day of picnics in the sun? The day when all traditions bond in a spirit of harmony to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne? I rummaged through my pile of old newspapers. I saw the faces of protestors in the Ardoyne wreathed in smiles as the PSNI removed them from the street and the joyful raising of a glass or two – to those unfortunate constables' heads. The Glorious Twelfth – it always brings out the best in people, doesn't it?
Does McDowell seriously think we need to adopt this as a national holiday? He rightly says there are republican "psychos" who want a Balkans in the north. Is making the Twelfth a holiday going to stop them?
To correlate Patrick's Day with the Twelfth is bizarre too. It's a shared Christian celebration. Protestant and Catholic can both identify with it. The Twelfth celebrates one religion's victory over another. The state has recognised, through constitutional change, that the north is a foreign jurisdiction. The Twelfth is a foreign holiday. Why not make D-Day a holiday too? Why not make France's Bastille Day a public holiday? Or America's Fourth of July? We took our lead from those Republics. What has Orangeism ever done for this island but divide it?
Has McDowell forgotten about all those who head south to avoid the Twelfth? Has he forgotten the three Quinn children murdered in a Loyalist arson attack during the Garvaghy Road protests in 1998?
McDowell says he is a Republican who believes in inclusion. So do I.
I'm happy to see President McAleese host her Twelfth parties. They show Loyalists that we are happy to co-exist with them and respect their religious and political views.
Where McDowell's argument falls down about the state officially celebrating Orangeism is that the Orange Order doesn't want to embrace our state. It's a bigoted, anti-Catholic organisation that refuses to move into the 21st century. It is intolerant to the core. It won't even accept its own Assembly's blueprint for changing the way contentious parades are managed. Why should our Republic celebrate intransigence and the effect it has on morons like the ones in Ardoyne? Or at Drumcree? Or at the Love Ulster Rally in Dublin in 2006?
I don't want Orangeism foisted on me in the name of inclusion or republicanism. I don't want to be associated with bigotry, sectarianism or hatred – whatever colour it comes in.
I don't want Republican or Orange extremism celebrated in my name. The Twelfth is synonymous with all that is bad – on both sides – about the north's history. Respect for the opinions of others is the cornerstone of real republicanism. That also means respect for the opinions of people here – and I'm going to hazard a guess that most southerners don't want to be associated with the Twelfth.
McDowell's lofty idea would be easy to dismiss as the intellectual ramblings of a failed politician if he wasn't shaping up for a political recovery. Last week, he refused to say whether he was about to form his own political party or join Fine Gael.
Even his detractors admit he is a man of principle. There may still be a political role for him to play. However, if this is the best he can come up with to win support then he needn't hold his breath.
On the same day McDowell made his Twelfth suggestion, justice minister Dermot Ahern spoke about a "difficult" decision the government has just made.
It is discontinuing funding for Justice for the Forgotten. The group representing victims of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings says it will cease to exist at the end of the month as it has no money. The 33 dead and 300 Forgotten victims are to be forgotten again.
How about a public holiday to commemorate them, Michael?

dkenny@tribune.ie

24 years on, the time is right for Self Aid II

Sunday Tribune, 18 July

Bob Geldof looks like a man who dusts his hair with talcum powder. The greyness isn’t natural. He’s too young for it. He actually looks better than he did when he organised Live Aid 25 years ago. The swine.
On Tuesday, I watched him talk about 13 July, 1985 and wondered how a quarter of a century had managed to slip by. The memories of that day haven’t faded. I still remember the overwhelming feeling of pride while watching Geldof grab the world by the scruff of its neck. Paddy Irishman had come of age.
I probably spent too much time reminiscing about this last week. It was an antidote to Batt O’Keeffe’s clueless witterings about the economy. I found myself wondering what it would be like if Geldof was running the country. Or, at least, doing a Live Aid for Ireland. Then I remembered that this had been done before. It was called ‘Self Aid’. I cringed.
The Self Aid concert against unemployment took place at the RDS on 17 May, 1986. It aimed to raise cash and get firms to pledge jobs. It was well-intentioned, but flawed. How could employers pluck new jobs out of thin air?
My skin crawls when I think about it now. There was this stupid notion that we could change the world, dude. It was all so Brady Bunch: “Hey guys, why don’t we put on a show right HERE!”
What made it worse was that it came right after Live Aid. It seemed low-rent by comparison, despite the presence of U2 and Elvis Costello. The ‘Aid’ inferred the Irish were the Ethiopians of Europe.
Despite the criticism, Self Aid was the biggest event of its kind the country had ever seen. 30,000 attended and thousands more watched on TV. It was reasonably successful, raising money and morale for a few hours.
Our native cynicism hadn’t been strong enough to abort it. Cynicism didn’t have Ireland by the throat back then. People still believed it was possible to change things. That same year, Ryanair took off and revolutionised air travel. That same year Bill Cullen bravely borrowed £20m to start his business.
The people who attended Self Aid were the generation that built an economy out of nothing. They also blew it, of course, but they showed Ireland’s potential.
The Ireland of 2010, by contrast, is dangerously cynical. Cynicism is valuable when it questions a suspect premise. When it becomes cynicism for cynicism’s sake, it breeds fear and inertia. People stop suggesting solutions for fear of being ridiculed. Unbridled cynicism castrates the imagination.
Niall O’Dowd put this best in the IT last week when he wrote. ‘[America’s] positive psychology creates an energy and a drive of its own … It is time for the Irish to stop admiring the complexities of their problems and start to solve them.’
I’m going to suggest something that will leave me open to ridicule. I don’t care if it does. I believe the time has come for Self Aid II.
In 1986, there were 250,000 unemployed and 30,000 emigrating. Today there are 450,000+ unemployed and 120,000 are expected to leave by the end of 2011. Mass anger has returned, so let’s put that energy to some use.
Self Aid One was an embarrassment, but it wasn’t a bad idea. Self Aid 2011 can learn from its mistakes. For a start, nobody should expect it to change the world. There should be no naïve job pledges.
Self Aid II should be an employment-generating event itself. Not long-term jobs, just a few days’ work surrounding the concert and the subsequent trust fund. Stewards, programme-sellers, burger-flippers, secretarial staff, could be drawn from the Live Register. Somebody smarter than me can figure out how to make this happen.
The trust would give money to charities that deal with the direct results of unemployment, like Vincent de Paul and The Samaritans. Maybe it could give seed cash to young entrepreneurs.
The gig would feature acts from U2 down along the line. It would showcase the young talent that’s out there too. Bands like The Cast of Cheers and the incredibly-gifted Bipolar Empire could get their break.
Why stop there? Get the Diaspora involved. Springsteen’s mother is Irish-American. Crowded House’s Finn brothers have Irish roots and have lived in Dublin. They could do their bit.
The acts could be introduced by our army of actors and film-makers: Gleeson, Neeson, Jordan, Cillian Murphy, Colm Meany, Colin Farrell …
Imagine an ‘FU Recession’ gig like that, with no lofty ideals, just an excuse to make a few bob and have a good time. Imagine the message it would send out. “This is not Greece. This is how we protest about the mess our government has made AND we’re making money out of it.”
I’m serious about this. I’m throwing down the gauntlet to anyone who can make this happen: U2, Geldof, Harry Crosbie, whoever. Don’t bother emailing me if you have nothing positive to say about this idea. Politicians, you’re welcome to get involved too. The country needs a morale boost. This is the way to do it.
It doesn’t have to be called ‘Self Aid II’ either. Call it Self 2011. Call it Open For Business. Call it whatever you like.
Just remember: self aid beats self pity, any day.
dkenny@rtibune.ie

Heroism and inspiration shine from a grimy street

Sunday Tribune, 11 July

The couple from Limerick were spoiling for a row.
"It's you lot in the Dublin media that give Limerick a bad name."
"Us? What about the gangs?"
"You only ever print bad news about Limerick."
"Is it our fault Limerick's gangsters are exceptionally vicious? What about those toddlers who were firebombed in their car? What about Roy Collins? Should we ignore these stories just to spare your feelings?"
I knew I was getting nowhere with them, so I made a joke about Angela's Ashes and the conversation changed. This exchange took place in the southwest last weekend, but it's happened several times before, whenever someone from Limerick has heard I'm from the "Dublin media". There's a perception that we have it in for 'Stab City'. That we only ever print bad news about it.
If that's the case, then last week's papers would suggest the "Dublin media" has it in for the entire country – and not just for Limerick. There was bad news everywhere.
On Wednesday, I read a Donegal coroner's plea for a national debate on suicide. The rate has increased 25% since the recession began.
I read about murders in Dublin, heroin-dealing in Carlow and repossessions everywhere. I read that Nama's initial figures were wrong. I read that long-term unemployment is here to stay.
There was some good news, but it rang hollow. Fianna Fáil says its financial plan is working. Recovery is better than expected. It doesn't feel like it.
If the government-sponsored 'good news' was intended to inspire us, it didn't work – and we desperately need some inspiration right now. Half a million have been robbed of a living by our gangster bankers. We need to know that it is possible for the little man to fight back.
That inspiration has not come from the sources we should expect it from. Our leader, Brian Cowen, reportedly made an "inspirational" speech to his parliamentary party last week. Why couldn't he give us a similar speech?
Another leader, Michael O'Leary, is a man who could inspire us to achieve great things. Last week, he was again wasting his talent by being negative. He said he was pulling winter flights because of the tourist tax. His company is also making it difficult for ash-stranded passengers to claim back their expenses. O'Leary is one of the most creative business leaders Ireland has ever produced. Why can't he be creative on our behalf now?
Last week, I found myself wondering if this country had lost its gift for inspiration.
Then, on Thursday, that inspiration arrived unheralded and from an unlikely corner. A hero emerged from Southill in Limerick. Steve Collins is his name. He is worth 10 O'Learys and 100 Cowens.
Prime Time's 'The Collins Family' was one of the most outstanding documentaries RTE has ever produced. Steve and Carmel's son, Roy, was murdered by the McCarthy-Dundon gang because a 14-year-old girl was refused entry to his family's pub. Roy had two children. When you see his picture it feels like you know him: he has an open, humorous face. The face of a man you could have a pint with.
Despite death threats, the family fought his killers in the courts. It's difficult to fully understand the torment they are suffering. The price of courage has been a son and a €75k 'contract' on Steve's head.
"It's just lose, lose, lose, lose – it's a kick every time," says Steve. As he is speaking, a group of morons drive by and shout abuse at him.
There is one moment that sums up the pain he's enduring. He and Carmel are sitting by the Shannon. Steve talks about giving Roy's fishing gear to his friends.
"It's like every day you're giving another little bit of him away." He breaks down and the sound of those words catching in his throat is deeply affecting. Here is a tough man whose heart has been ripped open.
Carmel's moment is equally devastating, due to its understated delivery. "I often say I'd be better off down there beside Roy… Maybe if I got him cremated I could take him away with us… but I won't leave here."
Watching the Collins family disintegrate was a profoundly sad experience. That sadness was followed by anger. I'm sure I was not the only person watching to want a State hit squad to wipe out the McCarthy-Dundons. This is OUR country. Why should Steve Collins be subject to their 'laws'?
The State owes the Collins family its gratitude for standing up to evil. They have my gratitude for dissipating some of my cynicism. Steve's assertion that he would "do it all over again" shows that true heroism still exists. I hope Cowen, O'Leary and the rest of our so-called leaders watched Steve Collins's masterclass in leadership. His family are proof that it's still possible to be inspired by our country.
In Ireland, you go looking for inspiration from your leaders – and find it shining on a grimy street.
I hope the couple from Limerick are reading this. Your city may have produced the McCarthy-Dundons, but it's also home to the Collinses. While we have people like them living among us, this nation can achieve anything.

dkenny@tribune.ie

You want to be Irish? Are you right there, Mikhail...

Sunday Tribune, 4 July

Everybody loves the Irish. The Yanks love us so much they're going to snap up the government's new Certificates of Irishness when they're back from the printers.
The Israelis love us so much they're stealing our passports to murder terrorists in other countries.
Our latest admirers are the Russians. They think we're so cool they used Irish passports to set up an inept spy ring in the US. Everybody wants to be Irish these days.
With this in mind, I'd like to give you a preview of my new tome, The Little Buke of Ireland (or How to be Irish). It's to help foreigners become like us, so they can blend in when they're spying, murdering or just gawking at the Cliffs of Moher.
Firstly, to be Irish you must…

1) Refuse to accept the bleeding obvious. Recession? What recession? Brian Lenihan announced it was over, last week. This was on the same day we recorded our highest ever unemployment figures. While cynics sneered, no one pointed out those figures are wrong. Unemployment is bound to be higher than 450,000. What about those who don't get the dole? The self-employed? Or those who have been unemployed for over a year and don't qualify any more?
Maybe the recession's over for you, Brian. For the rest of us it's (lack of) business as usual.
2) Have a stupid piece of advice for all occasions. Bill Cullen should set up a factory to manufacture old rope. He's been making a fortune out of selling it for years. His latest advice to the unemployed is to work for nothing. Business legend Ben Dunne doesn't agree.
"Bull! Absolute bull! It's an insult to ask somebody to work for nothing," he told Hot Press. He's right. Even Bill was paid a penny for selling apples back in prehistory.
Maybe they should become partners in the Old Rope Factory. 'Bill and Ben' has worked before you know.
3) Be a knocker. A builder in Navan has been ordered to knock down his home as it was built without planning permission. Despite the obvious turmoil involved, it's hard to feel too sorry for him. The house is a palatial "FU" to the planning process.
Building non-compliant houses and then asking for retention was one of the slimier aspects of the boom. Hopefully this ruling will lead to more demolitions. This could finally give a positive spin to the phrase 'a nation of knockers'.
4) Be a world-beater. To be Irish you have to succeed despite the begrudgers or fail on a spectacular level. Champage corks popped at Anglo last week as it entered the Guinness Book of Records as Worst Bank in the World. Maybe Ireland should aspire to be Worst Country Ever. It could be a good marketing hook. 'You've tried the best, now try the rest. Ireland: world-leader at being crap.' I like it.
5) Take 'T' to China. 'Mr T', that is. One of the best business decisions of the past month was made by Wei Quoinhas. He's exporting Mr Tayto's crisps to 1,200 outlets in Shanghai. It's the start of the process of softening up the Chinese. Get them hooked on Tayto and they might buy into Brian Cowen's plan to make the midlands a hub for Chinese industry.
We could take it one stage further. Why not sell the whole country to China? Ireland could then become the 'Hong Kong' of the west.
Just think how much that would annoy the Brits.
6) Squeeze everything you can out of the system. Despite having the second-worst Dáil attendance record in 2009, Bertie Ahern still cost us €114,000 in secretarial fees. The Irish Times last week reported that, as a former taoiseach, he's entitled to a free secretary for life. Angry about that? I am.
Take a memo, Bertie: you're a waste of space.
7) Overvalue everything. We did it with houses and now the country's lawyers are continuing the tradition with their wages. On Wednesday, Taxing Master Charles Moran expressed his "disgust" at the costs sought by some of the country's top wigs.
He reduced a €2.143m legal bill to €393,472 and described the costs as "revolting". Isn't it time we started revolting against this privileged class of moneygrubbers?
8) Sell something that's free. Clare County Council is to sell views of the Cliffs of Moher for €6 a pop. They've been free to look at for millennia and now, because an unwanted interpretive centre is losing money, the cliffs are pay-per-view. What next? A fee to look at the sky on sunny days? 'Sky pay-per-view'. Hasn't that been done before? Why must we always treat tourists like saps?
9) Get your priorities straight. This final module in our guide sums up everything you need to know about being Irish. According to the latest figures, last year we spent €2.3bn on cigs (up 3%) and €6.5bn on booze. Despite cutbacks we spent €8.6bn partying. Compare that to what we spent on food: €7.5bn. The ultimate Irish answer to hardship is to say, "Sod dinner, I'm off to the pub."
So there you have it, Mikhail. If you want to become an Irish 'Mick', get the pints in. And when the barman shouts "Have you no home to go to?" just wink and say, "Not any more."

dkenny@tribune.ie

Green-caped crusader? More like hooded hypocrite

Sunday Tribune, 27 June

John Gormley is having an identity crisis. Last February the environment minister was a Frogman. Now he's Batman.
Gormley has approved a €60,000 survey of the rare long-eared bat. He wants to know how many there are left. One species facing extinction surveying another. Earlier this year he allotted €70,000 for a survey of frogs. What next: half a million to study red squirrels? (Watch out, Enda, he's coming looking for your nuts.)
Batman Gormley went on a crusade last week to clean up Gotham City. You could almost hear the 'Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na – BATMAN!' tune as he announced an inquiry into the planning policies of the country's local authorities.
From a Dublin perspective, this seemed like a welcome development. The county's mountains are pimpled with ugly high-rise buildings that should never have been built. Someone is going to be held accountable for this. Finally, it's brown trouser time for the brown envelope men.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it isn't. Batman has decided that he will only investigate six councils countrywide. It's too impractical to investigate all 34. That sounds like an admission of defeat even before his inquiry begins.
Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council, which allowed the building of high rises along the mountains, isn't one of the six. Dublin City Council is the only authority in the capital that will be scrutinised. Not that that scrutiny is likely to make any difference.
On Wednesday, that council said none of the six has received details of any individual complaints being investigated or even the inquiry's terms of reference. Batman has yet to say who his "independent" investigators will be. He has also yet to announce their budget. It sounds like Batman is flapping his cape around just for show. Why? Like everything else about Gormley, this is about an illusion.
Gormley sold out his Green credentials for the illusion of power when he teamed up with Fianna Fáil. I always imagine them sniggering behind his back every time one of his plans falls on its face.
Remember how he tried to steal their thunder by announcing that there would be a direct mayoral election this summer? Is it happening this summer? No, Cowen scuppered that plan.
What about the domestic water rates? He said they would be introduced in 2012. He'll be lucky. The only people who pay for their water now are businesses. Yet last month, an Irish Independent investigation revealed that councils are not chasing defaulters. As few as 23% are paying up. It doesn't augur well for Batman's domestic water rates plan.
Batman isn't even a good politician. He nearly caused a backbench revolt by forcing his stag-hunting legislation through as the drink drive limit was being lowered. Both are seen as attacks on rural life. His stubbornness could have brought down his own government. Not that I would have a problem with that. The sooner they're gone, the better.
The Fianna Fáil backbenchers' attitude spoke volumes, by the way: 'sit quietly while billions are given to the banks and go mental when stag hunting and drinking are threatened'. Batman Gormley's planning probe is just another in a long line of Green illusions. Like the cage-rattling over Nama. Or the stag hunting. This is Gormley trying to look tough.
The reason why Batman is setting up this pointless probe is to scare local authorities in advance of his forthcoming Planning Bill. He's worried they won't implement its measures. If he can't get them to collect water rates, what hope is there of getting them to comply with his new legislation? What Gormley can't grasp is that every time he tries to grab a headline and trips up, it makes him, and the Green agenda, look ridiculous.
As the outcome of this planning inquiry is likely to be just a name-and-shame, he's going to look even more ineffectual once it's over and no heads have rolled. The money and energy Batman will waste on this planning probe could be better spent on just about anything else. Even counting the country's bats and frogs.
Gormley wants his Planning Bill to be his legacy. His real legacy, however, will be the M3 running through Tara/Skryne. In case you've forgotten, that road – which opened this month – will be tolled by a foreign company for 40 years. If it doesn't meet its projected revenue then the taxpayer will pay the toll shortfall. His party had vowed to fight it and yet he became the road's most enthusiastic supporter. He will be forever remembered as a Green hypocrite.
In October, this paper revealed that Batman took a ferry to Holyhead in 2008 to appear environmentally friendly – but had a Mercedes travel from London to collect him. He was attending a climate change event. The car cost us £2,200. After the event was over, Gormley flew home. The hypocrite. This revelation came as he was decrying the extravagance of the political expenses system. The hypocrite.
Batman wants to be seen as a clean Green fighting machine, while at the same time sleeping with the enemy. Gormley doesn't realise that he IS the enemy. He's setting up a pointless planning probe while serving with the crowd responsible for the country's disastrous property boom.
Forget stag hunting. This is just another case of Gormley running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

I never thought I'd see a Tory PM apologise for Bloody Sunday

Sunday Tribune, 20 June

"There are soldiers in those bushes. They're probably aiming at us right now. Say nothing. Just keep walking."
I shuddered at the prospect of gunfire.
"And there's a sniper on the roof."
I looked up at RTÉ's flat roof and thought I could see the glint of sunlight on a gun barrel. I imagined tanks rolling along Nutley Lane and bombs going off in Ballsbridge.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that soldiers were stationed in Donnybrook during the 1970s. They were there to guard RTÉ against an IRA incursion. I still remember, on trips there with my journalist father, the clang of the steel doors locking the newsreaders into the studio.
The soldiers at RTÉ were a reminder that we lived on an island where violence was never too far away. There was no shortage of these reminders.
I remember my father yanking me past men handing out de Valera remembrance cards at the GPO in 1975. "IRA sympathisers," he muttered.
I remember, in 1971, a last-minute detour on the way to Laytown took us away from Talbot Street – minutes before the Dublin/Monaghan bombs went off.
I remember a letter bomb being safely detonated at the end of our road. It had been sent to a well-known Republican who was away on holidays and was being looked after by his Protestant neighbour.
There was 'Tom', our uncle's brother, who had carried his dying wife across Belfast's rooftops in the aftermath of a bombing.
Even in comfortable south Dublin, the Troubles were never far from your mind. There were times when you thought the news reports couldn't get any worse – they did. Then, in 1997, something unthinkable happened: the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, peace set in.
Over the years, I found myself saying "I never thought I'd see the day when …" on a regular basis.
I never thought I'd see the day when the IRA would cease fire. I did.
I never thought I'd see the day they would destroy their arms and enter Stormont. I did.
I never thought I'd see the day when the SDLP would be eclipsed by Sinn Féin. I never thought I'd see the day when McGuinness and Paisley would be called 'the chuckle brothers'. I did. There have been so many 'I never thought' moments that I can't remember them all.
The north is no Disneyland, but it is transforming itself. Peace, not violence, has passed the point of no return. The former slaughterhouse now frequently surprises us with inspirational days. Days like last Tuesday.
I never thought I'd see the day when a Tory PM would apologise for Bloody Sunday. Its whitewash was proof of how much the establishment detested the Irish.
When David Cameron apologised, I felt the same swell of emotion I had when the Guildford Four were released. I sensed history closing one door and opening another. There was the feeling that this might be the North's last 'I never I thought I'd see the day' moment. What other spectacular announcements are left to be made now?
This felt like it might mark the end of the Peace Process. Some date will have to mark the moment that peace was finally achieved. Was Tuesday 15 June 2010 that day?
This apology shows that lasting peace may now be possible between nationalism and the establishment. It has also ensured that a united Ireland is now further away than ever before.
When the crowds in Derry applauded Cameron, they showed how much Northern Ireland is becoming normalised. Derry 2010 is vastly different to Derry 1972. It's bidding to become a UK City of Culture – a sign of its new-found self-confidence and sense of place.
One of the dividends of normalisation has been a growing Catholic middle class, thriving in new-found stability. The south, on the other hand, is now the unstable part of this island. We once saw the North in its death throes. It now sees us struggling to survive. It sees record levels of house repossessions. On Monday there were 75 cases before the High Court. It sees record levels of unemployment. Last month it rose to 13.7%. It's 6.9% up North. Even with a Tory government in place and spending cuts on the way, Northern Catholics are better off staying within the UK.
One of the gambles republicanism took when it disarmed was not whether it would be able to sell its new strategy to its grass roots. It was whether it would be able to sell a united Ireland to the affluent new middle class.
The added measure of normalisation that Saville has brought has made this more difficult. It's no longer a foregone conclusion that nationalists would vote to cede from the UK. Republicanism now has to make a united Ireland attractive.
Dissidents will try to turn the clock back, but they won't succeed. It would take another Bloody Sunday for that to happen. Tuesday proved there will be no more Bloody Sundays.
A united Ireland slipped further away last week. We can just hope we never see a day when the greater Republican movement tries to force its arrival again.
We can just hope we never see a day when soldiers are back hiding in the bushes of Dublin 4.

dkenny@tribune.ie

June 20, 2010

Let big-mouth Leo talk himself out of a ministerial job

Sunday Tribune, 13 June

Leo Varadkar's nephew is my godson.
I just want to get that out of the way before someone discovers it and tries to suggest that I'm a secret Leo supporter. Nothing could be further from the truth. I would never vote for Leo. I am not a fan.
That said, I want to make it clear that I'm talking about Public Leo. He comes from a lovely family and I hope they understand the following is just business.
Last week, Leo was back stirring the pot and annoying potential allies. During a Private Members' Bill debate, he tried to pick a fight with Labour – now the state's most popular party. He said they were ideologically closer to Fianna Fáil on government spending than Fine Gael were.
I wonder if Leo would sign my copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'd make a fortune on eBay with it.
On Tuesday, Leo the Lion got a mauling from Olivia O'Leary in her Drivetime column. She started by calling him "a really smart 10-year-old: bumptious, unsquashable and really delighted with himself – and confident that everyone else will be too." This was going to hurt.
O'Leary said that when right-wing Leo starts "throwing ideological stones", political problems arise. Enda needs to rein him in if Fine Gael are to successfully woo Labour.
Ask anybody in Labour, she said, which Fine Gaeler gets up their nose most and they will say US Republican-wannabe Leo (followed by John Deasy and Lucinda Creighton). Come the day of reckoning, with Labour and Fine Gael frontbenchers jostling for portfolios, Leo the Lion may have to lie down with the lambs in the backbenches.
Leo knows Labour can't stand him. So did he heed O'Leary's sound advice and exercise some diplomacy? Of course not. He did what any bumptious 10-year-old would do: he posted a comment on social networking site, Twitter. "Someone send Olivia O'Leary a Labour Party membership application. She's let the mask slip once again." You could almost hear him stamping his foot.
Leo's use of Twitter may mirror his political personality. As of noon last Friday, he had 762 followers on the social networking site. He only follows 12 people himself (his apostles?). Leo leads, you follow.
Since joining in February, Leo has not tweeted directly to any of his followers. Leo talks, you listen.
We know his views on just about everything. Over the past few weeks he's been popping up everywhere from right-on Hot Press to on-right the Sunday Independent Life magazine.
We know that Leo is an ideologue. "I would be free-market centre right," he told the Sunday Independent, adding that Bismarck was his hero.
We know that Leo doesn't do clinics. He sees them as a waste of time. "Lots of people don't understand what the role of a politician is." I think you'll find they might, Leo.
We know where he stands on immigrants. Olivia O'Leary mentioned that Leo once suggested that unemployed immigrants be paid to go home. That was actually a cheap shot. Leo wasn't calling for deportation. The EU backs that plan: it has granted Ireland €600,000 from its Return Fund to help hard-up immigrants go home.
We know where Leo stands on drugs. He admitted to Hot Press that he has smoked cannabis. Whether this is really an 'admission' in politics any more is doubtful. Some might see it as a way of "getting down with the kids". As the political equivalent of wearing your baseball cap sideways. It's at odds with his assertion in the Sunday Independent that he's "always been 30".
We know where Leo stands on abortion. He told the Sunday Independent he's against it. He says he's not religious but would "accept a lot of Catholic social thinking". He didn't mention contraception, homosexuality or divorce though.
Leo said he was not in favour of legalising abortions for victims of rape.
Stop there.
What if the woman had been raped by her father, like Barbara Naughton was, from the age of nine until she was 18? Would he have denied Barbara the right to abort? Barbara has called his comments "ludicrous".
In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled a woman had a right to an abortion if there was "a real and substantial risk" to her life. What if that risk was from the victim herself? Should she not be protected from suicide? Leo believes this would lead to abortion on demand. The next step, he says, would be aborting babies with disabilities. Where does he think he's living? Nazi Germany? Does he really think we'd start aborting disabled babies?
You could dismiss Leo as just another US Republican-wannabe, if there wasn't a chance he might some day be a minister. Do we want another minister with right-wing Catholic beliefs? Remember how Bertie Ahern enabled the church to cap compensation for abuse victims?
O'Leary said in her column that when there's a coalition on the horizon "a smart politician plays down ideological differences. Leo, however, can't stop waving the ideology flag". Maybe Leo thinks he's smarter than he actually is. I hope so. I hope he keeps annoying Labour – so we won't have to suffer him as a minister. I hope he keeps roaring like a lion king – and never gets within an ass's roar of the throne.

dkenny@tribune.ie

June 13, 2010

Callely and the senators have become the untouchables

Sunday Tribune, 6 June

"Points of order, when there's disorder, are out of order." As gobbledegook statements go, Ceann Comhairle Seamus Kirk's utterance was up there with the best of them.
The leader of the Dáil was frantically trying to calm down an unruly opposition who were revolting over what Enda Kenny called a government "whitewash".
The coalition had decided there would be a limited sitting this week, without votes or Leaders Questions. There would be no discussion of the forthcoming bank reports. Coincidence? Kenny and Eamon Gilmore didn't think so. Kenny said he "wouldn't stand for it" and sat down. Comrade Gilmore spoke of a "one-party state".
Captain Kirk fought desperately to save his Cling-ons and beamed Bernard Durkan (FG) out of the chamber. His expulsion reminded me of that old Johnny McEvoy song, 'Mursheen Durkin': "Goodbye Bernard Durkan/shure we're sick and tired of workin'".
This was democracy in action, Irish-style.
A toothless Dáil will now resume at 2.30pm on Wednesday. The Seanad isn't sitting at all – not that anyone would notice.
This enforced Seanad mid-mid-mid-midterm break will have caused one particular senator some serious consternation. Ivor Callely now has to wait two weeks for the next stage of the inquiry into his €81,000 expenses claim. Clontarf-based Callely, in case you haven't been paying attention, has been claiming travel and accommodation expenses to and from his Cork holiday home. Callers to Liveline, however, have pointed out that he's regularly seen jogging around Clontarf. Perhaps he jogged from Cork?
Or sailed up? Last year, a kimono-clad Callely was interviewed by gardaí after an embarrassing yachting accident.
Callely blames the Oireachtas for his €81k bill. He should have the right to give the Oireachtas two residential addresses. It's all very Pee Flynn. Doesn't anybody know how hard it is to run two homes, a constituency office and a yacht?
Kimono Callely is in deep water but, potentially, he's not alone. On Friday it emerged that senator Larry Butler has been claiming accommodation and travel expenses from Kilkenny. His official residence is Foxrock. Is there a pattern emerging here? Callely has again highlighted a system that says it wants to reform itself, but can't.
It's like giving a glutton a job in a sweet factory and expecting him not to gorge.
While the new attendance/expenses checks are to be welcomed because they show up spongers, they're powerless to do anything about them. People like Callely don't care what we think of them, so long as they get paid. They won't reform their mindsets. What kind of a brain thinks it's acceptable to claim €81k in travel expenses from a holiday home? That money would maintain eight people on the dole for a year. Even though he's unelected, Ivor is untouchable. Under the constitution, a senator can only be removed by disqualification or feet first. It's up to them to resign in a scandal.
In England, on the other hand, the Lib Dems have promised legislation to sack MPs guilty of serious misconduct. It's hard to see Irish politicians voting for legislation like that. They're hardwired to ride out scandals and wait for public opinion to move on.
For example, last week Mary Hanafin tut-tutted about Callely's lack of transparency. However, she still refuses to give up her old teaching job with its pension entitlements. How many of us had forgotten about that?
Callely will hope, as the inquiry drags on, that we will forget about him. Just as we may have forgotten about the debate to abolish the Seanad. It's now been nine months since Enda Kenny said he wanted rid of it. The Seanad weathered that storm and is still sheltering Callely's ilk.
Fianna Fáil rushed to say they would be taking the whip from Callely on Thursday. Spare us the righteous indignation. He's one of yours. You put him in the Seanad when we booted him out of the Dáil. You shouldn't have given him state expenses. But then, Fianna Fáil always rehabilitates its villains. Look at Beverley Flynn.
The Callely 'censure' was just a sideshow to distract from Fianna Fáil's gagging of the Dáil in the week the bank reports arrived. That 'gag' was yet another affront to democracy. We're also still waiting for the three outstanding by-elections to be held by an unelected taoiseach.
Ireland is crying out for radical reform of the political system. Now that Callely has put the spotlight back on the Seanad, the government should use the opportunity to finally reform it. To show some symbolic regard for democracy. The mandate is there. In 1979, we passed a referendum to widen the Seanad's representation and open voting to all our universities. It's not universal suffrage, but it's a step in the right direction. Thirty years on and the will of the people has still not been acted upon. An undemocratic institution has been propped up by the suppression of democracy. Fianna Fáil must now give us, at least, the limited Seanad reform we asked for – or move to abolish it. Without reform, all the accountability procedures in the world won't make the Seanad value for money. It will still be a doss house for political hacks like Kimono Callely.
Callely once said that "if people are known to be abusing the system… be tough and throw them out". Hopefully, they will prove to be prophetic words.

dkenny@tribune.ie

June 6, 2010

Despite their cockiness, I feel sorry for today's teens

Sunday Tribune, 30 May

The nun on the Honda 50 was displaying a lot more leg than good taste required.
"Jesus, Joyce, pull your skirt down. Your knickers are showing."
Joyce's bloomers were bright pink and disturbingly tight.
"Seriously, you'll get us arrested for indecency," whined the vicar with the 'Bosco's a B****x' tee-shirt riding alongside. Joyce responded by hiking the skirt up to waist-height.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeee!" she squealed, spreading her legs and letting the wind whistle up her habit as the Honda 50 spluttered along Hudson Road.
Mark Joyce cut a memorable figure. You don't often see six-foot-two, rugby-playing nuns going "wheeee" on a Honda 50. I've often wondered if Joycey developed a 'taste' for it. If you're reading this… don't bother to let me know.
It was May 1984 and 'rag day' at Presentation College, Glasthule. School was finally over and we were blowing off the last puff of childish steam before sitting the Leaving.
Forty of us cycled in a fancy dress convoy (I was a hippy), to Dalkey for an egg battle with the girls from Loreto. They were a scary bunch. Rumour had it that two had already been expelled for "accidentally" gluing a real-life nun to a toilet. They won, ambushing us in a hail of porridge and raw eggs. I remember trying to lasso one of them from my bike as an egg exploded on my mullet.
I was lucky. The Loreto girls gave another boy a porridge wedgie – the worst kind. I'll never forget his shrieks as six of them lifted him up by his underpants and porridge squelched out over his waistband.
There was no sign of eggs or ripped jocks as I walked past the school the other day. The current girls from Loreto, with their photofit hair-dos and orange tans, are far too civilised for egg warfare. Like thousands of other Leaving Cert students, they heard the school gates clang shut behind them last week. They are now facing into No Man's Land – the area between childhood and adulthood, Leaving Cert and results. Just as we did in 1984.
Thinking back last week, I remembered all the pressure not to fail. Would I have to repeat? Would I be left behind as my friends moved on? Would I be back in school as they studied alongside girls and drank subsidised beer in student bars?
Fourteen years of school was compressed into a few weeks, followed by two months of trying not to think about results. July and August were spent mostly hanging around, broke, literally sharing a cigarette and squeezing the last life out of friendships that wouldn't survive into adulthood.
It's easy to dislike this generation when you view them through 40-year-old eyes. We had little and they have too much. They're narcissistic. They have Facebook to broadcast their every humdrum thought. Would the teens of 1984 have embraced such self-promoting technology? Actually, yes, we would have. We didn't have Facebook – we had CB radio. Remember that? Facebook is this generation's CB radio. We had the same need to connect with the world.
Take away the money and today's teens are essentially the same as we were. They even have some new problems, such as cyber bullying. We could just shut the front door. Or conflicting signals about sex and love thanks to the broadband porn revolution. Then there's the wider availability of drugs to mess up their heads.
When the 1980s' teens look at today's crop, all they see is pushiness and money. We tend to forget it wasn't always fun being a hormonal teenager. I suspect we're a little jealous of today's kids. Now they're about to endure real hardship, the fortysomethings are enjoying a little schadenfreude at their expense.
On The Late Late Show recently, Bill Cullen said young people should stop complaining and get on with life. A businesswoman evoked the fighting spirit of the '80s. The theme was "if it was good enough for me…"
This trite guff is wearing thin. The reality is this: during the boom, Ireland spawned a generation of spoiled, middle- class, latch-key kids. Life lessons were replaced by over-indulgence. They would have everything we didn't have. It's no wonder so many teens appear so shallow to non-parents like me. They were bound to grow up that way.
The main difference between 1984's teens and today's is that we had no great expectations. We didn't know anything other than being broke. It gave us a mental toughness which teens now lack. The absence of self-entitlement protected us as we crossed No Man's Land.
Today's Leaving Cert students are not prepared for what lies ahead. Despite their cockiness, I feel sorry for them. We had it bad, but they're in for an even more frightening jolt of reality. They were told they were guaranteed a job after college. Now they will have to learn just to survive.
Some people reading this will be relishing the prospect of spoiled teenagers experiencing what we did. Just remember this: those teenagers are the people who will lead the country in our old age. Not so funny now, is it?
If I had a choice between leaving school in 1984 or 2010, the decade of nuns on Hondas would win hands down.
I wouldn't be a teenager right now for anything.

dkenny@tribune

Let's protest to get things done, but one issue at a time

Sunday Tribune, 23 May

May 1985 and a skinny 18-year-old walks up the back stairs of the Irish Press. He has a magnificent mullet and is wearing drainpipe, sky-blue trousers and gleaming white shoes. He (okay, me) looks like a toilet brush with legs.
"You'll wreck those shoes with all the ink here," an equally-mulleted runner told me as I settled in to my first night as a copyboy. He eyed them covetously.
He was right. Within an hour of running along the metal gangway with copy for the caseroom, they were blacker than a printer's fingernail. I sold them to him for a tenner. He used to carry around a tube of white polish to keep them gleaming.
It's a trivial detail to mention, but to me, 25 years on this week, this shows how indelibly the Irish Press inked itself onto my synapses. It would become my fulcrum for the next decade.
I remember the chemical tang of the dark rooms and the clutter of the newsroom. The bundles of pencil-subbed copy and the aroma of Pritt Stick. I still hear the tinnitus-like ringing of phones, the clatter of Linotype printing machines and Farah-slacked old lads singing "My, my, MYYYYYYYYYY... DELILAH!"
I recall the years slipping by in Mulligan's and the verbal sparring which sometimes turned physical. A drunk colleague once told me: "Journalists shouldn't fight with each other."
I was scathing. "Why? Because we're some kind of specially-anointed brotherhood?"
"No," he replied. "Because we're crap at it."
I see the old Linotypes being replaced by Harris computers and Burgh Quay hushed into a sleek, silent age. Two months after starting in my white shoes, there was a strike and printers who had worked there for decades were laid off. That was 25 years ago this week.
Ten years later, and also this week, I was the one being made redundant.
The dispute is largely forgotten now. A stand-off between the NUJ and management led to 40 journalists sitting-in at Burgh Quay. I was one of them.
Rebelling against The Man was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. I loved the attention. Sky News filmed us waving from the windows. Celebrities, even the Irish soccer team, showed up to show support. The country was behind us.
We worked on our own paper, the XPress. It was our 'War News'. After four sleepless nights we left to be greeted by 1,000 cheering journalists who had marched on the Dáil. The rest of that summer was a haze of marching and producing the XPress. I watched old, jaded hacks being rejuvenated by 'the struggle'. Then summer burned itself out and hope faded. People fell away. I worked on the last XPress in September. After 10 years of learning to edit, write and drink, I fell away too. The Irish Press was dead.
Depressing reality and the sudden gut-punch of mass redundancy hit home. Some would never work again. Some would drink themselves to death.
Sitting here now, 15 years later, I think I knew all along we'd never win. My protest was about pride. I actually hated the Irish Press. It had devoured my 20s.
The hundreds of redundancies to come at Pfizer reminded me of what it's like to face losing your job. I know what they're going through – I've been made redundant three times. No amount of marching will help. There are times when you can't win and must aim instead at squeezing the best out of a bad situation. You target specifics like beefing-up pay-offs. You aim for the winnable, realistic stuff.
You don't behave like Richard Boyd Barrett. Last Tuesday, his Right To Work campaign protested at Leinster House for the second time in a fortnight. Previously, some of the group tried to 'storm' the Dáil and gardaí drew their batons. Éirígí, who are agitating for a socialist republic, were involved.
I have voted for Boyd Barrett in the past for his work in Dun Laoghaire. Last week, I regretted it for the first time.
His campaign has undermined all future protests by its sheer bloody pointlessness. What does 'Right To Work' mean anyway? We all know we have that right. How is this campaign going to create jobs? This was purely about pushing Boyd Barrett's and Éirégí's unrealistic socialist agenda. Other marches by people with specific grievances will now be marked by heightened security. Elements among the radical socialists want this. They want batons to swing in a Grecian frenzy.
This was self-indulgent "down with capitalism" stuff. Single issue protests are the only way to achieve change – not fighting an 'ism'. Boyd Barrett knows this. He fought a single-issue battle to save Dun Laoghaire's baths and won.
The medical card and head shops campaigns worked because they had single, achievable targets. The media campaigns against TDs' expenses worked for the same reason.
Ireland will never be a socialist republic. Social justice can only be achieved bit by bit. Public protest is integral to this – but not the pie-in-the-sky crap we've seen from Boyd Barrett's crew.
The Right To Work march was as effective as my marching to save the Irish Press. Boyd Barrett needs to stop dreaming of his utopia and start trying to achieve something.
What do we want? For you to stop wasting our time with pointless marches. When do we want it? Now.

dkenny@tribune.ie

Sometimes the growing pains just never go away

Sunday Tribune 16 May

A story in the news last week reminded me of an old friend. Before I get to that story, I'd like to tell you about him. Forgive me for being nostalgic, the pay-off is important.
The first time I saw Brian we were both 13. I wasn't impressed by him. He looked like a shaper as he stalked the schoolyard in his navy Eskimo anorak, hands in pockets, clicking the studs on the heels of his George Webbs.
I think our friendship started with a fight. If it did, it would have been all 'hold-me-back' posturing followed by a flurry of missed kicks at each other's crotch, ending in a headlock. Brian, as it turned out, was no shaper. Like me, he fought like a girl. He was also gregarious, insecure and infectiously funny.
We became friends and sat beside each other, trying to cause as much disruption as possible. We slagged everything, as all 14-year-olds do to deflect attention away from themselves. Clothes, hairstyles, even bikes were fair game.
Brian had a 20-gear Asahi racer, while I had a crock of crap masquerading as a Chopper. He never let me forget it was crap – especially as it didn't have a crossbar.
"It's a girl's bike."
"It's not. It's just… streamlined. It's a streamlined Chopper."
"But it folds in half."
"It's a Chopper."
"It's a girl's bike and you're a girl." The bike was eventually 'stolen'.
Our afternoons were spent listening to records or cycling around looking at girls. At night we'd slip through back gardens, avoiding dogs, to steal apples which we never ate.
Brian and I learned how to smoke together. We could only afford foul tipped cigars. I accidentally stubbed one out on my arm while we swung from a tree, making monkey noises to annoy the lawn bowlers at Moran Park.
We would ride around with cigars between our teeth, thinking we looked like Clint Eastwood: two short-arses playing at being adults from the safety of childhood.
Brian and I went to our first disco together. We herky-jerk danced like mad to Madness to impress the girls. The more we ran on the spot, the more they liked it – so local stud, Brian Mac, told us. What he didn't tell us was that he had spread the word among the girls that we were "special needs boys" from a care home.
"We're 'in' there," I said, as one waved sympathetically at us. We ran faster on the spot to impress her even more.
Brian was the reason we fell foul of our neighbour, Sinéad O'Connor. Yes, that Sinéad. When we heard she had split up with a classmate, we stood outside her house calling up at her window. We believed this would encourage her to go out with one of us. Instead, it terrified her. Her sister chased us down the road. (Sinéad, if you're reading this…).
The day Brian moved down the country was the bleakest of my life up until then. I couldn't tell him I was going to miss him. You didn't say that to your mates.

Years passed and we lost touch. We picked up our friendship again when he eventually moved back. Then we both got night jobs and lost touch again. We orbited the same crowds, but never seemed to meet up.
In November 1992, Brian walked into his local and settled a few small debts. He was in good form. He was 25.
Later that night, Brian turned the exhaust pipe in on his car. He killed himself. No one had seen it coming.
I try not to think of his final moments. How alone he must have felt. How his family felt when they heard the news. How whoever found him felt. How I felt.
The 14-year-old who shared my growing pains was gone. The reason why is not important now. I have other questions. What would his children have been like? Would he have enjoyed my wedding? Would we still be friends, tilting at the bar in Finnegan's?
Brian – that's not his real name – came back to me last Wednesday when I read that the Marks & Spencer model Noémie Lenoir had tried to kill herself. I was surprised at how hard that story struck me. Lenoir is young, beautiful: people like her don't kill themselves. People like Brian don't kill themselves.
Newspapers generally don't carry suicide stories because of the 'Werther effect', where reporting might encourage copycats. Sadly, Lenoir's attempt will have sown the seed in some minds.
The suicide rate here has risen by 35% since last year (CSO) as more people succumb to depression. (www.samaritans.org)
Two years before Brian's death, I suffered a prolonged period of desperate sadness. I was luckier than him: I learned from it. I think of what I could have said to him had I known what he was going through.
I could have told him we all crash emotionally, but we don't have to burn. It's possible to walk away from the wreckage. I would have told him that he didn't really want to leave, he just wanted the feelings to stop. I would have told him that the darkness passes.
I would have told him that he will always be my friend.
I would have told him that he was never really alone.

dkenny@tribune.ie

Deluded Tiger cubs still have their heads in the sand

Sunday Tribune, 9 May

"You did well," my father said as he herded the coins off the table into the palm of his hand. "I'll make it up to a pound and we'll turn these into paper."
Dressed in my new black blazer, tie and slacks, I felt like a man who had come into some huge inheritance. I'd buy a car, I thought. Or, at least, all the sweets in Robertson's.
Later, at my Communion lunch in the Killiney Court Hotel, I heard the note crinkle in my pocket as I cut into my first steak dinner. I have a picture of the occasion. I'm all self-conscious elbows and skewed spectacles trying to look grown-up.
The picture is a reminder that my Communion Day was a watershed, spiritually and financially. It was a religious awakening, and also the day I came to covet money for the first time.
It's still the same for Irish children. We do mixed values from an early age in Ireland. We just do it on a bigger scale these days.
Across the road, 25 years later, two friends who made their Communion on the same day changed my view of money again. The well-known chef and the Entrepreneur drove to Killiney beach after a typically indulgent Celtic Tiger meal. They brought a bottle of vintage Victorian-era port.
"We drank it as the sun came up," Entrepreneur told me the following day, "then we tossed the bottle in the water." He expected me to be impressed. I felt sorry for him instead. The moment when two men bush-drank expensive port was when the Tiger reached its tacky apotheosis for me.
I realised then that Entrepreneur had the same concept of money as I did on my Communion Day, when I mentally plundered a sweetshop. I realised he, and to a lesser extent me, were like children who had lost the run of themselves.
Last week, Nama chief Frank Daly announced the final round-up of those who lost the run of themselves and won't accept the Tiger is dead. Those who cling to their "extravagant mindsets" are in for a shock. Trophy homes are at risk. This was welcomed as the proof that the Tiger is finally dead.
It isn't. Despite the hardships, it's still alive – in the equally extravagant mindsets of the other, non-developer, sections of society. There were three outstanding examples of this last week.
On Sunday, the Sunday Independent editor published a photograph of himself lolling on a knoll with a doll. He lay in the grass at Trinity with model Rosanna Davison and listened to her explain "her side" of her "controversial moonlight flit" to Marrakech with developer Johnny Ronan. If you're not familiar with that story, don't worry – it's really not worth reading about.
Rosanna was "shocked by the level of interest in this story". She wasn't the only one. I'm loath to have a pop at another paper, but a full broadsheet page, written by an editor, on the witterings of a former Miss World?
The Rosanna story didn't do anything for the news agenda of the day, but it did help perpetuate the myth that the Tiger days of endless alcopop launches and whirlwind holidays were still roaring along.
Do readers really buy into this? Or do they just read these stories to sneer at the likes of Rosanna? I don't know. Either way, they sell newspapers.
The second example of the Tiger's premature obituary was the funeral of Eamon Dunne. The so-called 'Don' was responsible for 17 murders. He was given a full-on gangster funeral, surrounded by tough-looking men with shaved heads. Tony Soprano would have been envious.
Gangster pomp like Dunne's funeral didn't exist before the Celtic Tiger. Before people like Dunne became rich selling cocaine to Ireland's bright young social set.
The Tiger's darkest side appears to live on.
The third example is the tackiest of them all. Last Monday, Kilkenny City hosted Ireland's first Communion Expo. It was modelled on a wedding fair. There was "complementary curling", "colour confidence consultations" and "goody bags" with "pampering treats". Up-style hairdos ranged "from €30 to €45". One woman planned to spend €1,500 on her daughter's "big day", including a hotel lunch for 30 people.
This Communion/Wedding construction is one of the most obnoxious by-products of the Boom. It's all about one-upmanship. It's vulgar and wasteful. It uses Ronseal-coloured children as accessories. It sets them up for bitter disappointments later in their young lives. 'This week you're a princess bride, next week you're Cinderella as daddy goes on the dole'.
This Communion fair shows that it's not just developers who are in denial about the boom years being over. They're not the only ones that believe this is just a blip and we'll soon be restocking our cellars. 'Ordinary' people are too.
The Celtic Tiger will never be dead while newspapers continue to sell society girls as role models and idiots prop up drug gangs by buying cocaine.
It will dwell in the Irish psyche until parents stop passing the message on to their children that 'bling is still in'.
If that doesn't stop, the generation making their Communion this month haven't a prayer of ever realising that the Tiger is never, ever coming back.

dkenny@tribune.ie

Crispgate ads should be taken with a pinch of salt

Sunday Tribune, 2 May 2010

The young woman appeared to be playing rugby in her underpants. Her cleavage was spectacular. It looked like Peter Stringer and his bald twin were hiding down the front of her shirt. 'Are you staring at my crisps' read the legend. Of course I wasn't.
I was staring at her eyes. She had lovely eyes…
Hunky Dorys' latest billboard campaign had Ireland's tub-thumpers spluttering in indignation last week. Largo Foods has used scantily-clad female rugby players, like the one mentioned above, to promote its product. One poster says 'Tackle these' as a pneumatic woman legs it down the pitch. It could have been worse: it could have read 'I'm a hooker, maul me'.
Not since those paintings of Brian Cowen in his jocks appeared in the National Gallery has there been such a commotion over a picture.
Catholic group Iona decried it as "grossly offensive and demeaning to women". The advertising standards people received a number of complaints.
That bastion of Irish metrosexuality, the IRFU, was so incensed that it instructed its legal people to examine the claim that Hunky Dorys are 'proud sponsors of Irish rugby'. The ads were in "bad taste", it clucked.
Feminist TV presenter Anna Nolan was one of the few commentators who didn't believe the ads were sexist. She loved the campaign and was dismissive of those who were insulted by it.
So who's right: Nolan or the IRFU? Are the ads offensive? Every woman I asked last week gave the same response: WHO THE HELL CARES? There are more pressing matters to worry about. Like paying mortgages, etc.
For the record, I detest sexism. That cuts both ways, though. If these ads are off­ensive, then I should be offended by ads that use sexual stereotypes of men.
Am I offended by the Galaxy chocolate ad which features an oily gigolo dressed in a skimpy towel?
Or the Diet Coke ads. That window cleaner should have sued those ogling secretaries for sexual harassment. Shouldn't he?
Or the razor ads that promise to make me a babe magnet? I've been shaving for 25 years and still nothing's happened. Mind you, shaving with Gillette seems to have worked for Tiger Woods.
Or what about all the ads that show men as lazy and useless about the house? Or all the times I've heard the line "all men are bastards".
Am I offended by any of the above? Of course not. Why? Because I just don't care enough. Sexual stereotypes will always be used to sell products. That's life.
There are plenty of other ads that are more demeaning of women than the Hunky Dory ones. There's the Boots ads, for example. Why is it that when a group of women appear on TV they must be accompanied by 'Here Come The Girls'? The Boots ads portray women as stupid, vacuous and obsessed with make-up.
The ads for Gillette Venus razors are offensive too. 'I'm your Venus, I'm your fire ...' etc. None of the women I know are vain 'goddess' muppets like the ones portrayed in those ads. Thank God.
And don't get me started about the Bodyform ads with all those glowing models smiling through their periods…
What was really annoying and offensive about this non-debate about crisp ads was that there were other, serious women-related issues to get outraged about.
Last week, the governor of Mountjoy's Dóchas unit, Kathleen McMahon, resigned in protest over the state of the prison system. The plight of Ireland's women prisoners was overshadowed by the Hunky Dory story as the week wore on. That was truly offensive.
On Tuesday, we read that Mary Harney is still making a mess of rolling out the cervical cancer vaccine. After a year of dithering and spinning, Harney says the second jab will be administered while the nation's schoolgirls are on holidays. Many will miss out as a result. Harney's attitude to this issue is far more offensive than the sight of a model in revealing sports gear.
Some readers will criticise me for not taking a zero-tolerance line on this crisp ad. The problem is that knee-jerk responses to equality issues can sometimes do more damage than good.
Overuse of the sexist card lessens its impact. Mary Coughlan learned that when it backfired on her last February. She incorrectly accused Charlie Flanagan of being sexist when he criticised her abilities. She came across as a bully.
The disproportionate response to Crispgate will reinforce the false notion, in some quarters, that all feminists are humourless, prudish killjoys. Through their over-reaction, the offended parties have promoted the very thing they despise. The Hunky Dory ads got blanket coverage. The papers got to write prissy editorials and use the 'offensive' pictures over and over again. They should be more selective when sounding the alarm bells in future. The intention of these tacky ads is not nasty – it's to provoke a response. It worked.
If Anna Nolan says the campaign isn't offensive, then that's good enough for me. Is anyone prepared to call her a sexist?
The best thing to do with ads like these is to take them with a pinch of salt. And possibly some vinegar too.

dkenny@tribune.ie

May 2, 2010

Down the Hatch: Teddy's celebrates its 60th birthday

Daily Mail, 26 April

It’s Saturday, the first of July, 1950 and a small hatch in a whitewashed wall slides open. A queue has formed on the shaded side of the road opposite Dun Laoghaire’s sea baths. It snakes its way from the People’s Park down to Number One Windsor Terrace. Adults and children, dressed in their weekend best, chatter and count coins. Suddenly, the queue jerks forward as a hand reaches out from the window. It’s holding an ice cream cone, swirled and peaked to perfection, with a crumbly Flake rooted on its slope.
There is a rattle of coppers in a till. Teddy’s – the most famous ice cream parlour in Ireland – has opened for business.
Half a mile down the road, another crowd is queuing in silence. It’s waiting for the mail boat to England. Ireland, still reeling from the Emergency years, is bleak and broke.
The contrast couldn’t be more pronounced. The cheerfulness of Edward ‘Teddy’ Jacob’s shop-front is a show of defiance to the miserable ’50s. It’s a joyful affirmation that, no matter how grim life is, you’ll always find summer queuing at Teddy’s window.
Post-Celtic Tiger, it still is.
Teddy’s is more than just an ice cream shop. It stores memories of water wings and blue skies. Of standing under the fountain in the baths or chasing a beachball at Sandycove. Of sticky ice cream leaking through a cone. It reminds you of a time before mortgages and bills.
Teddy’s red sign is as identifiably Dublin as the Pigeon House’s candy stripes.
From Friday, that sign will also hang in Dundrum shopping centre as Teddy’s expands its little empire (there’s one in Enniskerry). The owners are opening a new parlour and grill to mark the 60th anniversary of Edward Jacob’s entry into the ice cream business.
Edward, although a public figure, guarded his privacy. Even when he passed away in Thailand in February, his death notice didn’t give a date of birth. Just “sadly missed by Austin and many friends.”
“He was never keen on people talking about him. If he was interviewed about the shop, he would say ‘please don’t mention me’,” says current owner, Yasmin Khan.
Edward was raised on Ulverton Road in Dalkey, where the locals Christened him ‘Teddy’, because of his flamboyant, Teddy Boy, dress sense.
He built his landmark shop in the former garden of the last house on Windsor Terrace. As business boomed, Teddy expanded into the house with a gift ‘boutique’ and a café/grill, where couples drank coffee after the Pavilion and the Forum.
The café and boutique – like the cinemas – closed down, but the heart of Teddy’s survived. Even as the emigrants queued up again in the jobless ’80s, customers still queued for Teddy’s comforting brand of nostalgia.
In 1994, he retired to the south of France but, to maintain tradition, he sold Teddy’s to his ice cream supplier, Brian Kahn. South African-born Brian’s late wife had lived beside Teddy’s mother in Dalkey.
Brian’s daughter Yasmin now runs Teddy’s with the same passion that Teddy and her dad brought to it.
“I started working here when I was in school. The shop has always been an important part of my life. When I took over I was told, ‘If it’s not broken don’t fix it’.” It wasn’t broken: she didn’t ‘fix’ it.
When you enter Teddy’s, you step into a ‘reverse Tardis’: it’s smaller than it seems from the outside and ungoverned by time.
The counters are made of dark wood and beneath their glass are clusters of Dairy Milks and jellies. Along the wall is a row of jars filled with childhood favourites: mint humbugs, cough sweets, bon bons, sherbert lemons … I’m drooling.
“We’re going to produce our own apple drops,” says Yasmin. “They will be red and white – Teddy’s trademark colours.”
The sweets are still weighed out by the quarter on Teddy’s original scales and served in paper bags. Remember the taste of paper-clad bull’s eyes?
In the corner, behind a cooler, sits a Dublin legend, Rita Shannon. She’s been working at Teddy’s for over 40 years. She came to fill in for someone who was on holidays and just never left.
“Teddy was a lovely man,” she says. “We were always like one big, happy family. I love it here.” She recalls when Teddy’s would stay open until 2.30am, while people sat chatting on the wall beside the baths. In the winter, when the shop is closed, she still comes to sit and look at the waves.
From her hatch, Rita can see the generations changing. Many middle-aged parents queuing today remember their first childhood sighting of Rita. In your earliest years, she was a disembodied hand that passed cones to your parents. Your rate of growth could be gauged by Teddy’s wall, as each summer you got nearer to the sill of the hatch. Finally, you made eye contact with Rita. You were ‘grown up’.
“We’ve seen people come and go,” she says. “If we don’t see people for a long time we wonder what’s happened to them. You get attached to them. You miss them.”
People may come and go, but widowed Rita won’t ever lack for company.
“She’s like a granny to me,” Yasmin confides, adding that Rita’s even gone on holidays with her and her husband Craig.
She proudly lists some famous names that Rita has served: Bono, Sinead O’Connor, Tubbers – all happy to queue and chat with the locals. “Everyone is equal at Rita’s hatch.”
Yasmin loves her job. “This is the kind of place you could never give up,” she says. Like Bridie, who passed away in 1988. Rita and Yasmin are convinced the shop is haunted by the former ice cream swirler.
“Bridie always worked late into the night. After she died, the machines started playing tricks on us. They turn themselves on at night…”
Teddy’s traditionally opens from St Patrick’s Day until October, although it’s now common to see muffled-up walkers queuing for cones in mid-November. It’s all-weather ice cream.
“On a good Sunday, we can serve 5,000 customers,” she says. “The average is 3,000.” Those impressive figures are reflected on Teddy’s Facebook page. It made 5,000 friends – from South Africa to America – on its first day.
Those friends hadn’t forgotten the Teddy’s taste of Teddy’s ice cream, which is made to a “top secret recipe”. Yasmin is giving nothing away.
I’m handed a cone, the first one I’ve had in years. I bite into it. It’s gorgeous: thick, cool and sweet. Childhood memories race back.
Will the new Dundrum shop sell ‘designer’ ice cream? Will there be Yummy Drummy flavour, I ask.
“It will be plain vanilla and sold from a hatch,” Yasmin says, emphatically. Without any syrup. Tradition must be upheld.
Outside, a businessman crab-walks against the light breeze blowing in from Scotsman’s Bay. His jacket is sheltering a 99. Schoolkids are running along Windsor Terrace, money at the ready. The sun is shining and cloud-shadows skitter across the sea to Howth. There’s timeless, summer-like feeling in the air. The feeling that Tigers and recessions will pass, but Teddy’s will always be here. And so will Rita Shannon, sitting at her hatch, swirling memories for another generation of children.

O'Leary will get us back with a getting-off-the plane tax

Sunday Tribune, 25 April

Michael O'Leary had that look on his face. The one where he appears to have a bad smell lingering around the end of his nose.
His horse, War of Attrition, had run a spectacular race at Punchestown. It was a day of celebration. He should have been feeling magnanimous. He wasn't.
"I'm not paying for a holiday for someone who bought a Ryanair ticket for €10," he told reporters. It just wasn't "fair".
O'Leary was going to break the European law that says airline owners have a duty of care to stranded passengers. He'd see those spongers in court. Here he was, working his racehorse's legs to the bone, while they were sipping Slippery Nipples in Santa bleedin' Ponsa – at his expense. The man of the people would take on the people. Now pour the Krug and stop hogging the foie gras.
O'Leary sees villains and idiots everywhere. If it's not freeloading passengers he has to contend with, it's stupid airspace regulators. He believes the latter's blanket-ban on flying was an over-reaction. Was it really? Is O'Leary an expert on volcanology?
It had been a week of over-reactions. There was the traditional 'Irish' over-reaction, where we went looking for someone to blame. In Ireland, there's no such thing as a culprit-less crime. If an earthquake opened a chasm in O'Connell Street, we'd all be on to Liveline blaming the Corpo. "Nearly fell into it, Joe. Disgraceful."
Last week, stranded callers struggled with not having any heads to roll.
"Joe?"
"Go ahead, Mary in Santa Ponnnnsaaa. You're on the LAVA-Line…"
"I'm going to sue that bleedin' volcano, Joe…"
Even singer Tony Kenny phoned the LavaLine with a tale of woe. Tony and half of Ireland's showbanders were stranded in a Ford Transit somewhere in Europe. Quick, I thought, let's seal the borders before they get back.
It struck me that I'd heard this LavaLine conversation, in reverse, a month ago. It was during the passports fiasco. People had waited weeks to get passports and now had to wait a week to get home.
That's Ireland for you: you can't get out of it quick enough – and you can't get back into it quick enough.
There was the inevitable media over-reaction too. Sky News had me believing fall-out was on the way. "The ash is descending. If you get runny eyes – go back indoors immediately." Is that ash on your collar? Please, God, NO! It was akin to the bird flu scare advice: "if you see a swan sneezing or a chicken with a Kleenex, DO NOT APPROACH IT".
While we were phoning Joe and Sky was sounding the air raid sirens, Europe was continuing to over-react in a way that actually helped matters. Airspace regulators had seen a huge cloud of ash and didn't know what to do. Rather than take any chances, they stopped us flying. It was a nuisance, but better to over-react while working out what to do in future, than under-react.
O'Leary, unlike the regulators, has a woeful track record at judging crises. His reaction to swine flu was to tell us to stop whingeing and take "a couple of Strepsils". Strepsils weren't much use to the people that died.
His talk of disproportion is a bit rich, considering his airline will stop you flying if you're 20 seconds late at check-in. Hand luggage slightly too big for the measuring frame? Can't fly. Wrong ID with you? Can't fly. Now he's getting a taste of his own gamesmanship. The rules may be disproportionate and unfair – like Ryanair's – but they're still the rules. They're OUR rules – and that must really hurt.
O'Leary blames the EU, the regulators and his passengers for shafting him. He even blames God. O'Leary discommoded by an act of God? Who's this 'God', anyway?
He's pursuing that great tradition of looking for culprits when there are none. Instead of whingeing and threatening stranded passengers with court, why doesn't he bully the companies whose insurance he sells into sharing some of the burden?
O'Leary thought that by breaking the law he could bully stranded, and in some cases broke, passengers into the Hobson's choice of suing or taking the financial hit. This backfired when the regulators smacked him and he had to back down. It was gratifying to see. For once, officialdom stopped the Great Unwashed being trampled on by the elite. For now, at any rate.
O'Leary will get us back, you know. The phrase 'reasonable expenses' is a bit arbitrary. This is a man who wants to charge you to go for a leak, after all. He'll dream up some way of getting that money back. He may charge a Getting Off The Plane Tax (€200). Or start selling Volcano Value Packs (contains parachute and map to the ground).
He probably started angrily dreaming up ways of getting even after he'd finished celebrating at Punchestown. Right after he'd ordered that bottle of Krug.
Last week, as the banks crisis continued to rack us, and Seanie and Fingleton continued to enjoy themselves while we counted coppers, as life seemed so bloody unfair, we finally had a reason to laugh. So thanks, Mick. I'd like to see a picture of O'Leary with his horse today. Just to check which one has the longer face.

Have you ever seen Peig on a souvenir tea towel?

Sunday Tribune, April 18

"On will too tine?"
"What?"
"On. Will. Too. Tine?"
Gaeltacht headmaster, Mr P 'Fart' Faherty's face hovered over mine. His moustache smelled of mince and onions.
"Knee higgim," I replied.
"What?"
"What?
"An bhfuil tu tinn: Are you bloody well sick?" I had a hangover to rival anthrax-poisoning and we both knew it.
"I've a pian in my bolg," I said. Mr Fart stamped around the bedroom looking for evidence of contraband drink. He even looked in the bin, where all he found was an empty Yellow Pack shampoo container and a Dettol bottle. The vein in his forehead squirmed. If anger could have 'fadas' and 'shayvoos' all over it, then his did.
"The shmell of alco-hawl is dishgushting, so it is," he shpluttered in his thick Connacht accent. I could see the hairs in his nose shrivelling in the fumes of my hangover.
"I think I'm going to be sick," I said.
"As gaeilge!" he shrilled.
"I'm going to be sick… with a fada over the 'I'?"
I retched theatrically and he backed off. "I'd shend the lot of you shcoundrel hoors home exshept there'sh no boat off the island till Winsday next."
He slammed the door, shpluttering and farting in annoyance.
I was 16. I have always thought of this as the real dry run for my Leaving Cert oral Irish exam. Unlike the orals that are taking place this week, my interview with Mr Fart could have had tangible consequences: ie, a boot up the backside.
I hadn't shone in that test, but I had 'passed'. I had gotten away with it.
I've always associated Irish with 'getting away with it'. I also associate it with excruciating boredom. The kind that lasts three weeks and drives you to drink smuggled vodka out of shampoo bottles. Mr Fart should have checked that bin more thoroughly. I got away with that too.
School was all about 'getting away with it'. In Irish class we'd risk handing over history essays instead of gaeilge ones to our half-blind teacher, 'Harry Weed'. I used to spend the class seeing how many Blu-Tac balls I could get to stick to his tweed jacket. Poor Harry. I think we broke his brain.
The chief problem with Irish was the humourless, dry way it was taught. Pádraic Ó Conaire's 'M'asal Beag Dubh' ('My Little Black Ass') may have sounded like a Harlem porno mag, but was as interesting as watching donkey poo drying.
Who can forget Peig Sayers? "I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge." Now there's an image: Peig doing the splits over a hole in the ground.
She's off the syllabus now, but little has changed. Schoolkids still don't love Irish. RTé reported last week that more students are seeking exemption from doing it on learning-disability grounds. However, half of this year's exempted Leaving students are sitting other language exams.
Some parents are using the exemption to get their children out of studying what they see as a difficult subject. It's entirely understandable. Dropping Irish means a better chance of more points, which means a better chance of a job. Irish should not be compulsory for the Leaving Cert – its outcome is far too important.
Still, it's perplexing to think that parents will brand their kids 'special needs' to get them out of doing something difficult. To teach them it's okay to break the rules if you can get away with it. Maybe I'd do the same if I had kids. Maybe abusing the exemption is our generation's revenge on Peig.
We had no need for Irish and were never given any reason to love it. Gaeilgeoir fundamentalism was a major turn-off. This fundamentalism was in evidence again in Clare last February. County councillors complained that they had spent €30,250 translating three development plans into Irish, but nobody wanted to buy them. Then-Gaeltacht minister Eamon Ó Cuív insisted the practice should continue nonetheless. Idiotic wastefulness like that turns people against Irish.
What gaeilgeoir fundamentalism also ignores is that Ireland loves English. Whenever we market ourselves abroad, we point to our great writers: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce. They all wrote in English, not Irish. Have you ever seen a souvenir tea towel with Peig Sayers' face on it?
Gaeilge can't compete with that kind of marketing. For it to appeal to a wider audience it has to dumb down. It has to be conversational, not literary. It needs to be promoted as Ireland's secret language. The one you can insult foreigners in, when they're eavesdropping, for example.
Perhaps Mary Coughlan should commission an Irish slang dictionary (with curse words). Or employ Richie Kavanagh as a special adviser. He topped the charts for six months with his 'Aon Focal Eile'. It was awful, but at least he got people spouting a few words of Irish. That's more than Peig ever did.
If we stripped the earnestness out of Irish, people might start using a phrase or two. That's the best that can be expected. A cúpla focail is better than foc-all, as Richie and Mary might say.
I need to wash my mouth out after saying that. Now where did I leave that
Yellow Pack shampoo bottle?

dkenny@tribune.ie

April 18, 2010

Two reasons to be cheerful: Hassan and Hussein

Sunday Tribune, 11 April

There are days when you just have to get out and walk. Push the chair away from the PC, fling the radio in the bin and bang the door closed. Walk with your eyes half-shut and your fingers in your ears, in case you see a headline or overhear a conversation about bankers.
There are days when you have to block out the constant bad news. Last Thursday was one of those days. I walked for hours around the coast at Sandycove, trying to think of something positive to write about. I'll write about spring, I thought. I'll talk about the stretch in the evenings and the warm, collar-loosening breeze tripping in from Dalkey Island. I'll say "forget Nama, Anglo and financial haircuts. Forget about economic green shoots – the green shoots of spring are here. Take a walk. Enjoy the sunshine. It's free."
Horse crap. A sunny day isn't going to make me forget my mortgage. Or you yours.
I stopped to buy milk and was drawn to the Herald's front page. There was a picture of two babies, asleep in each other's arms. They were nose to nose.
I'm not a 'goo-goo, ga-ga' merchant. I won't thank you for showing me photos of your tots napping, crapping or being 'adorable'. This picture was different. It hit me in the solar plexus and forced a lump up into my throat.
On Wednesday, twins Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf from Cork underwent an operation to separate them at the chest. I thought of their parents, waiting 14 hours, hoping for good news. I had nothing to measure it against. All my own worries were dwarfed by the boys' tiny faces.
Walking home, I thought about the Ireland they would grow up in. I imagined them in 20 years' time, riffling through the newspaper coverage of their operation. I saw April 2010's other stories spilling out of the pages.
Last week's news kicked off on a raunchy note, with Dan Boyle sending everybody porn. Next time, Dan, just send me flowers. 'Dan Boyle' and 'porn' are words I never want to see in the same sentence again. Dan's Twitter account had been hacked.
The following day, Dublin's city councillors asked to be trained to use Twitter. Coincidence? They discussed how much this training would cost.
Question: who needs to be paid to be 'trained' to use Twitter? Are our city councillors really that thick? Evidently so.
Councillors weren't the only public servants finding ingenious ways of wasting money. Judge James O'Connor wasn't impressed when he heard the authorities had spent €1,500 escorting a prisoner from Dublin to his Kerry courtroom.
What was the prisoner's crime? He had failed to display a tax disc. If ever a story summed up state-sponsored wastefulness, this was it. No wait, there's another story that sums it up better.
Another desperado is driving around with gardaí in tow at our expense – to the tune of €170,000. That's what Bertie Ahern's state car bill cost in 2009, as he promoted his book. Bertie needs his car, as he hates being in one place for too long. That place is the Dáil. He spent just 12 minutes there for Lenihan's Nama speech before shouting "Quick! To the Bert-Mobile!"
I'd love to be his driver. Ever see the ending of Thelma and Louise, Bert?
Twenty years from now, Hassan and Hussein may turn the page on Bertie and switch on Liveline. Joe may still be talking about banning head shops. Last week, minister Seán Connick told Hotpress he had an open mind about them. Hopefully, despite out-of-touch politicians trying to be 'cool', the twins won't grow up with a head shop down the road.
Hopefully, they will grow up healthy and strong enough to hurl for Cork – while half the country's adults are getting their cholesterol checked. According to a Kelloggs survey, 55% of Irish children don't play sport. The Celtic Tigers spawned pampered Celtic Piglets. Piglets who may have to pay extra to fly Ryanair. In 20 years' time, the airline will probably have introduced the 'tax' on overweight passengers it dreamed up last April.
It may also have introduced a loo charge. 'Spend a euro to spend a penny'. Last week, it hiked baggage charges by a third for July/August. Fat, bursting for a pee and wearing layers and layers of holiday clothes to avoid bringing another bag – that's the future of aviation, Ryanair-style.
As I walked along the coast, fuming over the general crappiness of life, I tried to focus on that picture of the twins. I eventually realised why their struggle meant so much to us. We needed something to take us out of ourselves. We needed to set aside the bitterness and feel positive emotions again. Humanity was at work. Hassan and Hussein gave us a brief respite from last week's cynicism and selfishness. Nama, Anglo, Bertie, Ryanair: none of them matter to the twins' parents. They have a higher priority. It's a matter of perspective.
At home on Thursday evening, I switched on the news. I crossed my fingers. You probably did too. Hassan and Hussein were stable after their operation. It was the news we needed. It was something to write about.
Sometimes the green shoots are there. You just have to know where to look for them.

dkenny@tribune.ie

April 11, 2010

Leave us with the only pillars of society we really love

Sunday Tribune, 4 April

It was the most boring day of my life. The memory of that school trip around Dublin Port and Docks is so watery, I keep expecting these words to slide off the page.
The best thing about it had been the anticipation. We gabbed for weeks about the messing we'd get up to. Our stomachs rumbled at the thought of the special packed lunch: ham sandwiches instead of Easi Singles, a bar of Dairy Milk, Tayto, a can of Club Orange. We prayed it wouldn't rain.
It rained. I've never seen rain like it. It ran into your mouth and up your nose, into your ears and under your anorak hood. It was like being water-boarded.
It was so wet we couldn't leave the bus and just drove around for hours, in almost zero-visibility, as the driver droned on about tonnage and fuel depots. Lunch was all gone by 11.30am. The fun of writing rude words on the fogged-up window soon wore thin. The bus stank of that wet-dog smell peculiar to classrooms and damp children.
Eventually, the rain eased and we were thrown off to look at a stack of palettes.
A man with an 'eff you' expression was leaning against them. He cupped his hand around his cigarette and sucked on it as if he was siphoning petrol from a garda car. He was a 'Real Dub'.
"D'youse know wha' dem lads are really for?" He nodded in the direction of the striped towers at the Pigeon House. We shook our heads.
"Day are, in fact, a pair of barber's poles belonging to my cousin, Mad Barry the Barber."
"He must be a big man, mister."
"Oh, he's big all right. And you should see his barber's razor. It done DIS to me…" Before we knew what was happening, Real Dub had ripped all the hair off his scalp and shot his bottom teeth out of his mouth.
"Arrrrrgggghh!" he roared and we scattered, screaming, back to the bus. A boy from Eden Villas wet himself. Another boy said it was just as well his "ma had made him wear his brown trousers".
The bus drove off to roars of gummy laughter from behind the palettes and someone saying: "Jaysus, Paddy, you're some bollix with that wig. Put your teeth back in."
The Pigeon House towers have dominated my mental landscape of Dublin since then.
As I grew up in the '80s, they became synonymous with Dublin's drabness, and emigration. They were the last thing you saw as you left the country by boat or plane. They were also the first thing you saw coming back. As time passed and life improved, they became a welcoming sight. They were as Dublin as eating Burdock's chips in the rain. They symbolised home.
Last Wednesday, the towers stopped puffing clouds out over Dublin. They will probably be demolished as the Corpo hasn't listed them.
The Mail ran a story on Thursday about a €1bn plan to turn them into giant windmills. It was a particularly good April Fool's joke and I nearly fell for it. After the week we've just had, you'd believe anything. We're bailing out Anglo for billions. Hahahaha! April Fool's? No, we're serious.
Our lives have been signed over to pay for the debts of developers who saw Ireland only as bricks and mortar. The Pigeon House towers are now being looked at in the same way – to maximise profit for the ESB.
They are more than bricks and mortar. They are rooted in our culture: featuring in our art, movies, music videos. When they were operating, they symbolised an elegant city which was rough around the edges. They were like two old hard chaws, smoking and working away, looking down disdainfully on the pretentious gits below.
The city's contrariness is stacked up in them. They say "welcome to this glorious kip – Dirty Dublin. What're you bleedin' lookin' ah?"
The depth of emotion over their destruction says a lot about how Dubliners view their city. It's hard to imagine the same reaction to the Spire being uprooted. Dubliners made the towers 'ironic iconic', unlike the Spire which came pre-packaged as a symbol.
You can't force a symbol on Dubliners: they will always choose their own – from the contrariest of places. Last month, 15,000 people signed up to a Facebook campaign to honour Dublin character 'Dancing' Mary Margaret Dunne who preached on O'Connell Street for 30 years. The city missed her. Dublin may have stopped producing characters, but it hasn't stopped loving them.
There was an outcry last year when it seemed another Dublin symbol was doomed – remember the spice-burger crisis? Characters, burgers, chimneys… these are the things Dubliners believe define them, not grand structures. They're the symbols of a city that can't take itself seriously. A city that gives direction by pubs rather than street. ("It's near Mulligan's.") That sees two grimy chimneys as being as symbolic as the Eiffel Tower.
Tearing them down will feel like another victory for the developers. They've taken enough from us. We need these high-rise towers to continue symbolising our modern city with its modest, low-rise attitude.
Last week, Nama began pulling down the former pillars of Irish society. As Ireland changes, these are two pillars of society that deserve to remain standing.

dkenny@tribune.ie

April 4, 2010