Republic – Page 57 – Slugger O'Toole

“History is like a knife..”

Pete Baker on September 29, 2008, 3:10 pm

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The report in the Sunday Tribune on the Oireachtas Select Committee on Education and Science report on teaching modern Irish history contains a compelling argument. History teachers said they avoided Northern Ireland because it “can raise discriminatory attitudes in class and name calling”. There was little support for introducing it in the classroom, they said. Other reasons given by teachers for avoiding the subject were they felt they lacked knowledge of the subject and believed they could not compete with …

“Brian Cowen is a lucky leader..”

Pete Baker on September 28, 2008, 8:23 pm

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The BBC NI Politics Show unveiled a new feature today, a monthly report from their Dublin correspondent Shane Harrison. In the first instalment he outlines the likely impact of the credit crunch on a Republic of Ireland economy in recession and argues that, despite all the problems, compared to Gordon Brown, Taoiseach Brian Cowen is a “lucky leader” – it probably helps that TDs have other priorities.. Pete Baker

“It is very complex..”

Pete Baker on September 26, 2008, 2:40 am

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The Republic of Ireland’s economy is now officially in recession after a second successive quarter of negative growth and, as he told the BBC’s Noel Thompson, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is back to being a “constituency politician”.. Policing, and St Andrews, was dealt with at the beginning of the interview on Hearts and Minds today, by the end the discussion had moved on to the Lisbon Treaty, referenda, and the Mahon Tribunal.. Pete Baker

PDs: “…a one-generation party of conviction politicians”

Mick Fealty on September 22, 2008, 7:47 pm

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The Irish Times has an aptly succinct and laconic account of the demise of the Progressive Democrats. Not least on the factors which lately brought them to the end: …time, energy and public support eventually ran out after 10 continuous years in government with Fianna Fáil. The PDs turned out to be a one-generation party of conviction politicians. Its control of the high moral ground was compromised when it flip-flopped over support for Bertie Ahern’s unorthodox financial dealings in the …

“with the best will in the world, no sane person could believe his stories..”

Pete Baker on September 17, 2008, 4:15 pm

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Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s eventful, and final, day at the Mahon tribunal is reported in the Irish Times. AFTER YESTERDAY’S evidence, it is not inconceivable that the tribunal will fail to clear former taoiseach Bertie Ahern of the allegation that he received money from developer Owen O’Callaghan. It is already clear that the tribunal has reason to find that Ahern has failed to explain the large amounts of money lodged to his accounts in the 1993 to 1995 period. But, …

“So there was no connection with the meeting of a month earlier?”

Pete Baker on September 16, 2008, 10:09 pm

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Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was back in front of the Mahon tribunal this week. In the Irish Times Miriam Lord surveys yesterday’s appearance Much of the evidence yesterday concerned his dealings with an American investment company called Chilton O’Connor, and a scheme to build a national stadium in Dublin. This appeared to be tied into O’Callaghan’s plan to build a shopping centre in Quarryvale. The late Liam Lawlor and Frank Dunlop were also involved. Ahern told the tribunal he met …

The NO campaign and its counsel of despair?

Mick Fealty on September 11, 2008, 3:01 pm

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On Lisbon, Ciaran takes issue with John Maguire’s passionate espousal of ‘popular sovereignty’. In the course of his argument Maguire asserts that “a well-functioning polity depends on trust, to be earned by representatives from citizens, and not vice versa.” Well, yes. But then surely that’s precisely what the electorate do every time there’s a general election? Ciaran: I don’t see how it’s ‘perverse’ to say that some decisions are better left to the people we hire to make them. Sneering …

More from the Republic joining the British Army

Mick Fealty on September 6, 2008, 12:00 am

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In my first year in England on our way to Liverpool from Portsmouth, my first car broke down. Cutting a long story short, the three of us split up and hitched instead. My last lift was in a brown mini filled, as it happened with four Scouse squaddies. It turned out they were all huge and in the Irish Guards. Two of them had cousins on the Falls Road. It’s an old tradition. Now it seems more people from the …

“is a matter the Government has to consider in due course..”

Pete Baker on August 28, 2008, 4:05 pm

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RTÉ reports that Taoiseach Brian Cowen has not ruled out a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, as those other battle lines are drawn. Meanwhile the Irish Times notes a Danish newspaper report SENIOR IRISH officials met their Danish counterparts in Copenhagen earlier this month to get advice on how Ireland could opt out of significant provisions of the Lisbon Treaty in order to resolve the impasse created by the outcome of the referendum in June. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten …

“The cardinal has not made clear why religion should get a free pass..”

Pete Baker on August 26, 2008, 11:26 pm

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In the Irish Times there’s a fairly comprehensive rebuttal of Cardinal Séan Brady’s “criticisms of the European Union’s approach to religion” – as previously noted here. Another blow in the Church v State [Lisbon] clash? A democracy has a duty to make laws in the interests of all. As an entity whose population is religiously diverse, the EU cannot legislate purely on the basis of the theological convictions of a single faith without violating this duty. Furthermore, in democratic public …

“Every four or eight years, Ireland is forced to rally round young men from this class…”

Mick Fealty on August 26, 2008, 3:22 pm

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I want to come back to the Olympic theme in more detail both here on Slugger and elsewhere. But this piece by Fintan O’Toole is worth flagging up for the pure politics of it, than anything to do with sport. The Ross O’Carroll-Kellys of elite Equestrianism failed to deliver, whilst the frequently maligned urban working classes once again provided the country with its only Olympic medal glory (boosted partly by the strange failure of the US and Cuba). As so …

“Senior Irish and British officials currently sound like prophets of doom..”

Pete Baker on August 22, 2008, 9:24 pm

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In the Guardian, Henry McDonald on the deadlocked Northern Ireland Executive and the mother of all DUP-Sinn Féin battles to come in September. The mother of all DUP-Sinn Féin battles to come remains the policing and justice question. According to reliable sources Peter Robinson and his team met a senior delegation of Ulster Unionists at Westminster last week during which the first minister spoke in rather hardline, belligerent terms about the issue. He, and indeed Gerry Adams (who has also …

“Light entertainment has always been his forte..”

Pete Baker on August 22, 2008, 3:14 pm

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In the Irish Times, Miriam Lord turns TV reviewer on the occasion of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern guest-presenting RTÉ’s The Road to Croker. The politician turned presenter stayed in his comfort zone throughout the show, with two stars of the great 1970s Dublin football team opening proceedings. You can’t go wrong with Paddy Cullen and Jimmy Keaveney – anecdotes at will. “We’ll be asking two Dublin legends where it all went wrong,” said Bertie to the camera. We’re all wondering …

Ireland’s two speed performance at the Olympics…

Mick Fealty on August 19, 2008, 12:27 pm

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What’s been astonishing at this Olympic games is just how well the British appear to have performed in comparison with past outings. Ireland’s performance in comparison begins to point not at lack of talent (of course it is a more limited pool) but structural weaknesses in the way sport is funded. Generally, Northern Irish competitors have with Team GB fared much better, hitting finals in several sports and in the case of Wendy Houvenaghel from Upperlands in Co Derry who …

RTÉ.. and the ongoing rehabilitation of Bertie Ahern..

Pete Baker on August 12, 2008, 2:30 am

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Former Taoiseach, now international negotiator and current Fianna Fáil TD, Bertie Ahern is to be a guest presenter on public-owned RTÉ’s show ‘The Road to Croker’ later this month. The RTÉ Authority, to whom RTÉ’s Executive Board reports via the Director General, was recently re-appointed by the Republic of Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.. Still, it will probably help take the public’s Bertie’s mind off those recent Mahon Tribunal appearances.. Pete Baker

Union flag: storm in a flowery teacup?

Mick Fealty on August 11, 2008, 3:41 pm

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Over in Letterkenny the local radio station has been playing host to a minor controversy we thought was the sole occupation of those of us on the other side of the border. When officials from 12 countries came to judge the town’s entry for the Entente Florale competition, some local people objected to the flying of the Union flag as part of a tribute to the visiting group. Gregory Campbell from the DUP was quick to seize on the story. …

“easily fooled by symbolism and rhetoric..”

Pete Baker on August 11, 2008, 2:59 am

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A timely quote from Anthony McIntyre in a Sunday Times article by Liam Clarke on the publication of Good Friday, The Death of Irish Republicanism, as the Sinn Féin leadership struggle to reconcile themselves with the “indigenous” ground rules. “Republicanism is effectively dead. It is dead as a strategy that can deliver anything. It can’t cope with the principle of consent, it can’t out-manoeuvre it and it can’t overcome it, so it has had to reconcile itself with the British …

At long last, a bridge across the narrows…

Mick Fealty on August 7, 2008, 8:37 pm

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Stretching the bounds of the terms of the blog, but this one is personal. One of the problems Donegal has always had (before and since independence) is drastically poor transport infrastructure. Especially for people living at the tips of those long, scenically beautiful fingers of land on peninsulas like Fanad and Rosguill. For years the only way across was by boat. And then taxi on to wherever it was you wanted to go. Now, at long last, there is a …

Murphy remanded on bail until the end of December

Pete Baker on July 31, 2008, 1:48 am

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Already delayed longer than expected, the trial of Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy will be delayed further. His legal challenge to the validity of the order from Dundalk District Court sending him for trial in Special Criminal Court was previously rejected, but the “good republican” has now been granted a judicial review of the decision to try him at the non-jury court on tax evasion charges. The High Court proceedings will be heard on 18 November. [And thence to the Supreme Court? …

a ‘profane use of the sacramentals’

Pete Baker on July 29, 2008, 11:04 pm

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It isn’t exactly a return to the extraordinary repressiveness of the first 50 years but RTÉ are right to challenge a Broadcasting Complaints Commission ruling that the use of images of “rosary beads, a priest’s collar and a bible or breviary”, as a background to a factual report on the Ferns inquiry report, were “likely to cause offence contrary to taste and decency guidelines.” Apparently one viewer had complained about what he claimed was a ‘profane use of the sacramentals’. …