A fallen hero: David Walsh

                                                               David Walsh

David Walsh, the sports writer, was one of my hero’s as I admired his journalistic tenacity and talent when he went after another sports hero and American icon that defined a decade or more, Lance Armstrong. He did not stop there. David looked closer to home in Ireland for yet another sporting hero, the cyclist Stephen Roche, and went after him in the year 2000 with the same zeal. David nailed Lance to the wall and rightly so but did not quite pull it off with Stephen. Overall it looked like David had slain Goliath and was mooching around for a more local victory but just not of the same high profile or pedigree. David was now the super hero himself by virtue of going after other imposters. There is always in anyones life a peak, whether it is in age or accomplishments, and the high point of David’s Walsh career was a man called Lance Armstrong. He has now fallen a lot further than Lance ever did or may ever do. This is in regard to David’s behaviour in defending the former Irish Times journalist Tom Humphries. 

                                                         Tom Humphries

Humphries went after a thirteen year child to groom her for his own sexual

gratification. He had sent her 16,000 texts in a three month period alone during that grooming and finally sexually assaulted her several times in his apartment. He was only found out when he handed his phone to his daughter to be donated to charity. He took out the sim card not realising his texts were still locked into the phone. His daughter read them and they were so graphic in nature that she handed the phone to her mother. At that moment Humphries wife not only knew that her marriage was over but the man that she was married to she had never known at all. She went to the police. That was 2010.

By 2012 David Walsh was and still is Humphries most ardent public supporter and tried to enlist a few more in that support. He asked another journalist, Paul Howard, to set up a sports magazine just for the benefit of Humphries. Paul turned him down. In a 2012 radio interview he repeatedly called Humphries a fine man. That opinion has not changed since. At least now we know what the definition of a fine man is by David’s standard when it comes to a man like Humphries where even Lance Armstrong or Stephen Roche cannot hold a candle to him. 

                                                           Donal Cusack

By 2017 David was back in court trumpeting again that Humphries, who is awaiting sentencing, was a great guy along with another fellow trumpeter, Donal Cusack. This character referencing is to try and make sure that Humphries does not get his three hots and a cot in a cell measuring 8 X4 where he belongs. Even in prison there is a moral code when it comes to child molesters. They rank at the bottom. Prisoners locked up inside have shown a more understanding of the problem than those outside underlining the rage that many of them have felt got them locked up in the first place. It must be remembered that Humphries only pleaded guilty just before the trial still looking like a rat in a trap still trying to find a way out.

Donal, a former all Ireland Cork GAA player, said, in defending his character reference about Humphries, was that he was helping a man in a dark place but failed to provide the same help to the child who had been raped with the same quality of empathy. She was no doubt in a more darker place and may never fully recover. David talked about the good volunteer work that Humphries did for the GAA sports company without considering that it was this very method he used to groom and finally assault a vulnerable child. The girl wanted to play camogie for her local GAA club and Humphries was the helpful coach.

Walsh said he could not abandon a friend. With a friend like Humphries then these two clowns have all the enemies they want who were once friends by defending him. Did Walsh and Cusack comfort his victim by their actions? No, they just made her sick to her stomach. 

The only lesson I have to remember is to beware of falling statues as they may hit you on the way down.

Barry Clifford

On matters of just boxing: The greatest ever, Floyd Mayweather

                                                                    Rocky Marciano

The great Rocky Marciano, who's record has proved if nothing else that he truly belonged at the top of the list of boxing's greatest, has finally been undone by the now greater Floyd Mayweather. I believe Floyd is the greatest boxer that has ever lived bar none which includes such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield to name but a few. What set Floyd apart from all of them, including Rocky, is that he rarely got hit for it was mainly him doing all the hitting. It seems that Floyd shares this opinion of himself as well and said it best as only he can in explaining why that is a fact:

                                                                   Mosley v Floyd

"What are we judging fighters on? Because if we are judging fighters on standing for a cause then it's Ali hands down. But if we are talking about the taking the least punishment and breaking records, it's Floyd Mayweather. Muhammad Ali paved the way for me to be where I am today, he's a legend but when we talk about breaking records we've got to talk about Ali losing his world title to a fighter with only seven fights. I have to take my hat off to Ali but I didn't give this sport 40 years to say that there's another fighter better than me."

                                                                        Ortiz V Floyd

The media called Floyd's opinion trash talk yet it is not just an opinion of Floyd's, it is the unvarnished truth. They grudgingly call him 'perhaps' the greatest fighter of his era. He is the greatest fighter of any era unless someone can conclusively prove otherwise by facts and the stats that has to go with it. Any opinion has to have substance before it can be elevated to anything more than trash talk itself.

                                                                   Hatton V Floyd

Ali, Foreman, Tyson, and Holyfield hit hard and got hit harder. All were knocked out not just once but several times in their careers. Ali would bear the very visible scars of these heavy hitters for the rest of his life and he would be mourned and pitied because of it long before he died.

                                                            Cassius Clay V Sonny Liston

You cannot define a period of a career alone as the best ever but only a career in entirety. Cheery picking is the time when Ali was 20 years old until they stripped him of his title and his superior fighting skills when he was 26 years old, which was the best Ali ever was or would ever be again. He was the young Mayweather then without doubt. When he made his comeback it was a slow Ali and getting slower, and this at only 29 years old. He had to learn then to be a slugger rather the pugilistic artist he once was. Long before all that, a very young Cassius Clay appeared in a cameo role in the movie 'Requiem Of A Heavyweight' in 1962; Cassius had yet to play the ageing Muhammad Ali who also had to step into a wrestling ring just like the ageing Louis "Mountain" Rivera had, the main character played by Anthony Quinn in the movie, as he tried belatedly to make some much needed money when it really mattered. It was art imitating life in the most tragic and visible sense and one that turned out to be a terrible brutal reality and a postscript of what was yet to come for Ali.

           
                                                              Muhammad Ali V Inoki                                                  

Floyd is still pretty boy Floyd and bears no scars physically or mentally except those from an understandable wounded pride. And that pride has been attacked on its own merit and little else and led by one very angry media emotion: jealousy. Floyd will beat that too for the only foe anyone has really in life is oneself and he is not into self-flagellation. Every aspect of his spending is analysed with the scrutiny of a mad accountant, every historical domestic spat heightened to more lurid accounts of what really happened. We all have but one life and he lives it as he sees fit and hurts nobody outside of a boxing ring. If it sells newspapers, truth or fiction, then 'what the hell' is the media narrative and don't let the truth get in the way of a good story; not that it ever did anyway. For my dollar I will always bet on Floyd "money" Mayweather as the best there every was.

                                                                    Mc Gregor V Floyd

It was the 21st of September 1955 since Rocky Marciano made 49 and 0, almost 65 years ago. It may well be a lot longer than that before Floyd Mayweather's record of 50 and 0 will be broken. One way or the other his legacy is secure as the greatest inside of any boxing ring; all the rest is just an opinion.

Barry Clifford

Loneliness

For those of us that are fortunate enough not to be lonely it is perhaps timely for us to remember those that are. These people live in Oughterard and throughout Connemara, and don’t stop there, they are everywhere and in every corner of this beautiful planet. They have no significant other in their lives because of feckless children, bereavement, depression, or were on a path where they never got around to having a partner in their lives because of shyness or believing that someone was going to get a share in their land. In the end the lonely persons were to be the only ones on that patch of green, a single person living a life now of regret.

There are a myriad of other reasons why this is so as well and scribes have spoken about it for centuries and will continue to do so as I do now. To be truly lonely can be comparable to the loneliness of a polar bear adrift in a vast soulless ocean where it is only him or her alone and always will be.  

It can be destroying in any countryside even more so for any person who is without the benefit or the distraction of a busy city life, and where the beautiful scenery is just not enough anymore; it can also lead to early illness and an earlier death. You may have noticed these almost forgotten people from time to time where ‘All the lonely people where do they all come from’ was so poignantly observed in the Beatle’s song Eleanor Rigby. They are all hidden in plain sight.

Sometimes you might notice them in the check out line of a supermarket, complaining enough just to make conversation. It is often the curmudgeon at the bar giving harsh voice about the young or how it was better in their day. What they are really hoping for, awkwardly so, is the wish that they are interesting enough to you that you will hang around long enough to at least listen a while and see beyond the fact that they talk just a little too much.

It is sometimes supposed that they seem to drink too much when is in fact the only company or friend that they have, as long as they can afford it. What can anyone, other that observe that loneliness is more than a state of mind, do about it? A lot.

If we just take one and preferably two hours a week to visit a person on their own, it will not make a whole lot of difference to our week but mean everything to who you choose to visit. It is as simple as that. You won’t have to try too hard to find out where they are. Even just a few phone calls every week to a person that feels they don't even exist anymore takes a lot less effort and time. For the person on their own to be relevant is to breathe itself and encourages the wish to continue to do so.

If you don't have a lonely person in your life perhaps it is time to find at least one. The local community centre is a good place too start, or the local retirement home, or ask a friend do they know somebody that needs somebody.  Someone always does.

Barry Clifford

Ancient Viking Laws For Living

Be not a braggart for if any work done be praise-worthy, others will sing your praises for you

The unwise man is awake all night worries over and again. When morning rises he is restless still, his burden as before.

Go you must. No guest shall stay in one place forever. Love will be lost if you sit too long at a friend’s fire.

Be your friend’s true friend. Return gift for gift. Repay laughter with laughter again, but repay betrayal with treachery

Moderately wise a man should be, not too crafty or clever. A learned man’s heart whose learning is too deep seldom sings with joy 

A farm of your own is better, even if small for everyone’s someone at home. Though he has two goats and a coarsely roofed house it is still better than begging.

A lying tongue had bereft him of living and life, and all without reason or right

Deceit sleeps with greed

Even three words of quarreling you shouldn’t have with an inferior

The coward thinks he will live forever if he keeps away from fighting; but old age won’t grant him a truce even if the spears do. 

Tell never an evil man if misfortunes thee befall

Wake early if you want another man’s life or land. No lamb for the lazy wolf, no battle won in bed.

John Waters said

                                                                   John Waters (left)

On social welfare recipients:

“There should be no question, in a free and fair society, of the forced redistribution of earned income to assist those who are, for whatever reason, negative contributors to society.

Imagine how you would feel if, instead of having to subsidise your work- free neighbour, you had to accept direct responsibility by talking him into your home and catering to all his needs. How long would you tolerate him hanging around your sitting room, eating your corn-flakes, and flicking around your Sky package?”

On Paedophlilia:

“They (the media) don’t regard paedophilia as a serious matter at all. If clerical abuse did not exist in the church, I greatly suspect that we would by now have a campaign to legalise paedophillia from these quarters (the media).

Was it the case that the thrust for acceptance of paedophilia was stymied only by the emergence of the clerical abuse scandals in the Church, which the left saw as an opportunity to destroy the authority of the Church?”

On closing the Irish embassy in the Vatican because of their cover up of the sexual abuse of children:

“An opportunistic act of neurotic bigotry by militant atheists seeking to impose their myopic beliefs on the rest of us. The closure of the Irish Embassy in the Vatican is further evidence that we are now governed by the most bigoted, anti- religious administration in the history of the State.”

On secular education:

“ A ‘secular’ education sets out to produce citizens, consumers and functionaries rather than human beings animated with affection and curiosity. No longer will our children be told that they are Christ’s chosen ones, but instead the accidental offspring of the pointless oozing of primordial slime, units of meat and bone, existing for random junctures by bread and rules in a pointless, meaningless, and indifferent universe.”

They call this ‘rationalisism,’ but have no idea where it will lead. Like chimpanzees with hammers poised over the engine of a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, they gibber their stunted nonsense and set enthusiastically to work.”

Can anyone take this man serious bar himself; he even calls himself a journalist. Finally the Irish Times realised that he was not a journalist either and got rid of the self professed bard. Phew! Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am free at last. 

By Barry Clifford

Life's looking glass

“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him/her, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy. “

“ If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

“ Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.”

“ In interactions with others, instead of trying to be right, why don’t we try to be kind?”

 “Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.”

“ It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either.”

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives the better.”

W W Dyer

In matters of war

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on"

Ulysses S Grant. American civil war general

"During war, laws are silent"

Cicero. Roman philosopher and statesman

  

"Let us be frank: provoking military-political instability and other regional conflicts is also a convenient way of deflecting people’s attention from mounting social and economic problems. Regrettably, further attempts of this kind cannot be ruled out."

Vladimir Putin. leader of Russia

"When the swords flash let no idea of love, piety, or even the face of your fathers move you."

Gallus Julius Caesar. Roman military leader

"I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest"

Napoleon Bonaparte. French general

"We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers."

Robert E Lee. American civil war general

"It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready."

George S Patton. American World War 11 general

"One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic"

Joseph Stalin. Russian World War 11 leader

"My Patience is at an end."

Adolf Hitler. Leader of Germany 1939

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On matters of hate

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

James Baldwin

“Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them.” 

Elvis Presley

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

William Shakespeare

“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”

Graham Greene

“People hate as they love, unreasonably.”

William Makepeace Thackery

“Those who hate rain hate life.”

Dejan Stojanovic

“September 11… I will never forget feeling scared and vulnerable… I will never forget feeling the deep sad loss of so many lives… I will never forget the smell of the smoke that reached across the water and delivered a deep feeling of doom into my gut… I will never forget feeling the boosted sense of unity and pride… I will never forget seeing the courageous actions of so many men and women… I will never forget seeing people of all backgrounds working together in community… I will never forget seeing what hate can destroy… I will never forget seeing what love can heal…”

Steve Maraboli

“See what's inside a drop of water. The whole seed of the universe. Come, come. See what's inside a drop of blood. The composition of life. It's all there. Hate as well. We approach the mystery of life, but it's impossible to understand the mystery of hate. The kind of hate that causes people not only to kill, but to want to erase you from the census of births. I have to concentrate on that mystery. Read everything there is. It has to be in a drop of blood. It has to have its chemistry.” 

Manual Rivas

“This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself through you.”

Philip Roth

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.”

David Mitchell

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It seemed a good idea at the time

As I’ve wandered through the business landscape over the past 4 decades, I’ve often observed people making business decisions that I was pretty sure were going to end up somewhere between bad and appallingly, astronomically bad.  And I’ve certainly been guilty of making a few of those kinds of decisions myself.

Almost without exception, my bad decisions and those I’ve seen others make resulted from one of three things. The decision-maker: 1) didn’t bother to get all the relevant facts; 2) made invalid assumptions based on ego, wishful thinking, or fear; and/or 3) didn’t trust the input of their own advisors. As you read through the following, feel free to be entertained and feel superior – but I’d suggest you also take them as cautionary tales; great examples of what not to do:

1) How many zeros? In 1977, the senior execs at 20th Century Fox made an astonishingly short-sighted decision. They signed over all product merchandising rights for any and all Star Wars films to George Lucas – in exchange for a mere $20,000 cut in Lucas’ studio paycheck. The combined revenue from merchandising is estimated to have exceeded three billion dollars, and continues to grow annually, making it the most lucrative deal ever struck between an individual and a corporate studio in entertainment history. (This one is courtesy of my wonderful reader Dr. Ilona Jerabek, from an article on her website.)

2) And your hair’s weird, too.  In 1962, the Beatles auditioned at the London office of Decca Records.  The executive in charge of talent rejected them: he thought they sounded too much like a currently popular group called The Shadows (who?), and he told Brian Epstein, their manager, “We don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished.” Well over 2 billion Beatles albums have since sold worldwide.

3) We’re a serious business, thank you very much.  In 1876, William Orten was President of Western Union WU +0.72%, which had a monopoly on the most advanced communications technology available, the telegraph. Orten was offered the patent on a new invention, the telephone, for $100,000 (worth about $2M in current dollars). He considered the whole idea ridiculous, and wrote directly to Alexander Graham Bell, saying, ”After careful consideration of your invention, while it is a very interesting novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial possibilities… What use could this company make of an electrical toy?” Two years later, after the telephone began to take off, Orten realized the magnitude of his mistake, and spent years (unsuccessfully) challenging Bell’s patents.

4) Say cheese! The Eastman Kodak company developed the first digital camera in 1975, then proceeded to sit on it (and the core technology for the cell phone, as well).  They decided not to develop it because they were afraid it would cannibalize  their film business (at one point they had a 90% share of the US film market.)

5) Say cheese, part II. In the early ’80s, Fuji entered the US film marketplace with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak management believed that US consumers would never abandon their homegrown brand. In 1984, Kodak passed on the chance to be the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Fuji won the rights, which gave them the strong foothold they needed to catalyze their growth in the US marketplace.

Kodak never fully recovered from these and other poor decisions; in 2012 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

6) Did anybody phone home? In 1981 Amblin Productions called the Mars Company and offered a simple cross-promotional opportunity: How about if we use M&Ms in our new film, giving you free publicity, and in return, you can promote our film in your packaging? The advertising and marketing folks at Mars said “No.”  The film was ET the Extra-Terrestrial, and the rest is history.  Reeses Pieces, the not-nearly-as-well-known M&M competitor, saw sales jump 65%  in the months after the film was released featuring their product.

7) Hot under the collar.  In 2000, Gerald Levin, the chairman of Time Warner, was so confident in the deal he had made to merge with America Online, that he decided to forego placing a collar on the transaction. A collar enables the seller—in this case Time Warner—to revisit the terms of the transaction if the buyer’s stock falls below a certain price. Almost as soon as the merger was announced, and before it was completed, the Internet bubble burst and AOL shares plunged 50%. Without a collar, Time Warner wouldn’t be able to renegotiate the deal. Time Warner execs urged Levin to re-think the deal, but he didn’t.  The rest is history, and Time Warner shareholders are still paying for his stubbornness.

Of course, it’s easy to see the folly of these decisions in retrospect; hindsight is 20/20, and no one can make the right decision all the time.  But I suspect if each of these unfortunate executives had approached these decisions with a little more curiosity, a little more open-mindedness, and a little less certainty about the rightness of their position….we might all be using Western Union Kodak smartphones.

By Erika Anderson 

Morning White Dove

                                                    Elvis Presley

A full-blooded Cherokee Indian named Morning White Dove was born in 1800. The white in the name referred to her status as a friendly Indian. Those that were called ‘red’ were classed as warlike or who had sided with the British redcoats during the American revolution. All this was lost, one way or another, on Morning White Dove for she was friendly enough that by the time she turned eighteen years old she married a white southerner named William Mansell. For him it was an easy choice made even easier for there was not too many white women on the America frontier back then to choose from. 

William learned much from the union. He gained old Indian knowledge of the terrain, of forests and prairies, crops and game, medicine lore, healing plants, and the ‘setting of broken bones’. Morning White Dove in return had got a hard working man, a provider with some ambition, and that could sing a song or two when pressed. The world gained from them much more.

The mix of this handsome couple would help define the looks and spirit of one man many years later, for without them he would never have been born at all. Morning White Dove and William Mansell would go on to become proud parents of three children whose eldest was a son called John Mansell. 

In his turn, John would go on to become the great- great grandfather of Elvis Presley.

A very young Elvis Presley

Barry Clifford

The power of the written word

Wuthering Heights by Emile Bronte:

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett:

Perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest than I go to than I have ever known.

Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde:

When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage.

The Dead by James Joyce:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark

The Stranger by Albert Camus:

And I too felt ready to live my life again. As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes, I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before. 

Trainspotting by Irvine Welch

He had done what he had wanted to do. He could now never go back to Leith, to Edinburgh, even to Scotland, ever again. There, he could not be anything other than he was. Now, free from them all, for good, he could be what he wanted to be. He’d stand or fall alone. This thought both terrified and excited him as he contemplated life in Amsterdam.

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Photo Minute: Lessons in pride

"All this blow drying my hair better lead to something."

"Easy easy does it; she fancies me, she fancies me not"

"Its just son, I am a hell of a lot bigger than you."

                                           "God, do we have to go looking for dinner today."

                                                     "Yeah. You and who's army buddy?"

                                                           "Yes, I love you too hon."

Photo Minute: Hanging around

Kevin Myers’s fall is a long time coming

         The writer has been spewing evidence-free bile about women for decades

The most heartsinking suggestion about the Kevin Myers fiasco is that it took a foreigner to finally stand up to him. Myers’s defenders have – rightly – drawn attention to his erudite, ground-breaking military history lessons, the courageous stances on occasion, the sublimely-written eulogies to beloved friends.

Inconveniently, however, his real draw lay elsewhere. It was the much riskier jape of routinely conflating free speech with hate speech. To much of his fan base, the kind who insist on confusing “equal pay for equal work” with communism and/or shrieky feminists, he was the lone, fearless, un-PC voice, always happy to say the unsayable, usually laced with casual offence.

“One of my flaws is to deal with major issues in throwaway lines,” he conceded on RTÉ’s Today with Seán O’Rourke show yesterday. Some of us managed a wry smile at that one.

If some gloated over his comeuppance on Sunday – largely the result of global social media pressure – it was not because he had become a problem for the Brits instead of us, as some suggested. Or because a 70-year-old man had lost his livelihood. It was because this battle goes back a long way and is a dangerous one.

No decent man or woman can afford to shrug off the rank misogyny of last Sunday’s column

If a message, however dodgy, is hammered home relentlessly enough from an authoritative platform, it can change the course of history.

In the early 1990s, as a Brussels-based Daily Telegraph columnist, Boris Johnson, almost single-handedly shaped the toxic British view of the European Union with his myths of straight bananas and standardised condom sizes, and lit the lie-strewn path to Brexit.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, by the simple repetition of “Lock her up” and “Build the wall”, persuaded voters to take him seriously but not literally. Evidence schmevidence. Johnson, Trump and ilk have prospered mightily on the back of lies, half-lies and dog-whistles.

Rank misogyny

This is why no decent man or woman can afford to shrug off the rank misogyny of last Sunday’s column, or those proudly un-PC voices that denigrate women as dull, mediocre, workshy wailers and shriekers, and men as the pitiful victims of feminazi justice.

All of 20 years ago, I challenged Kevin Myers in print, when he argued that the only reason a decent man was in jail was because of spiteful, whiny females.

In his view, three young American women had totally over-reacted when their guest, a powerful, 6ft 5in, 20-stone, insanely-intoxicated garda, rampaged through their house, gin bottle in one hand, glass water heater (eventually smashed against a wall) in the other, threatening to kill one woman, purposefully smearing his blood on another, tearing off their night clothes and forcing them to barricade themselves in a room.

It was doubly silly of them to bring charges, considering it took only a dozen gardaí to restrain him – after which he escaped overseas, before finally appearing in court, where his defence was based on his being abused as a child.

A tragic situation for sure, but who would you take to be the baddies in all this? The drunken, violent assailant – a male? His drunken companion who slept through it all – a male? The cousin – a male – who allegedly raped the defendant every day when the latter was only nine-years-old? The judge – a male – who sent the “time bomb” of a defendant to jail?

‘Vindictive feminism’

Nope. It was the wimmin. The only reason that garda ended up in jail, Myers argued furiously over two columns, was because of  “a vindictive and politically correct feminism which reduces the world into stereotypes of male aggression and female victims. [It is] a frivolous and wholly unnecessary proof that our courts care about women, especially American women”.

No charges would have been brought, he asserted, “had the victims of [the garda’s] madness been Irish and male” (remember, the other male in the house at the time had been allowed to sleep on, unassaulted).

It’s doubtful if a female columnist would have got away with such targeted, evidence-free vitriol

Even though the garda had disclosed his childhood abuse to his family 10 years earlier and had spurned all offers of treatment, the women should not have reported him. What were they to do?

This, remember, was 20 years ago. The clear intention was to shoehorn women – any women – into a particular narrative of victimy, spiteful bitches. It was the kind of hateful, utterly unsubstantiated assertion that regularly reduced colleagues to howls of rage.

As an aside, it’s doubtful if a female columnist would have got away with such targeted, evidence-free vitriol.

There have been a lot of “throwaway lines” over the years, such as that old chestnut of his, repeated on Sunday, alleging the non-existence of brilliant female mathematicians. Try that one on Nasa or Bletchley Park historians.

As for “that greyback, testosterone-powered, hierarchy-climbing id” which apparently entitles the ambitious male to all the pie, and which “feminised and egalitarian-obsessed legislatures are increasingly trying to legislate against”, I give you the inevitable outcome: the mighty testosterone-powered greybacks of North Korea, the Philippines,  Turkey, Russia Poland, Egypt,Venezuela, the US . . . Can we have our money back when the first nuclear missile hits the US?

By Kathy Sheridan

The pogroms against Sinn Féin will continue

On the dawn of the new millennium the Anglo Irish agreement was agreed among the people of both sides of this Island. In essence it sought to put aside its past and sorrowful history. Forgiveness would be a more personal matter that could not be written in the big or small print. For the most part the agreement has held together and grown naturally with the new generation that did not have to read the murderous headlines or have some of them written about their loved ones in the obituary columns on either side of the divide. Sinn Féin is today part of that new generation that is also not going to go away, as all of the mainstream political parties would otherwise wish along with more than a few independents.

But their biggest enemy is a prejudiced media long aligned traditionally with any political party that delivers what it seeks to gain for their paymasters higher up the food chain. If proof was needed the Celtic Tiger proved it by exposing them as nothing more than Hyenas running a pyramid scheme that left the bottom feeders choking on its hot air. The rancid smell still hangs heavy in the nostrils from the corruption. The only freshness from it all, for me at least, is Sinn Féin, and more importantly the party that evolved from the ashes of a bitter sectarian war that brought the elders of that battle together with this new generation that have known nothing, for the most part, but a tempestuous truce but one wrapped in peace nevertheless. For many that will be as good as it gets but is a beginning many thought would never happen in their lifetime. If, and as I believe it will, it can only get better. 

Sinn Féin’s enemy today is not north of the border but south and is the enemy within. But they have long known that, it was just the problem of getting everyone else to know it too. This changed in no uncertain terms in huge gains in the local and European elections of recent past and that foothold keeps increasing as well north and south of the border and there is no going back 

What Happened? The media and its paid scribes started the long march of miss-steps, walking backwards on gained ground they had long believed was sure footed. They had believed in their own hype and lies and indeed success for far too long, and had allied themselves traditionally with the forces of law and disorder that masqueraded as a Police force. If doubt still remained, Alan Shatter removed it, regulated finally to the backbenches as the latest former Minister Of Justice who supported that disorder while Maurice Mc Cabe, the courageous whistleblower, held his nerves of steel behind a kindly and benign face. 

But let not Sinn Féin fall into the same sleep their tormentors did for that would be a big mistake. The Pogroms will continue, the usual suspects rounded up at every media opportunity and just before an election, and the smear of accusation rather than the burden of proof will still be the weapons of choice. 

What brought it all together in the end was and is the new generation electorate. One familiar with the Internet and digital media that has long sailed past the barriers of the Irish sea; and know what is said between the lie and the truth, and what is written as a fact rather than lies by omission of that truth. It is also symptomatic of healthy outrage seeded in political awareness that has sadly been lacking since the acceptance of corruption and accountability as a social and un-punishable crime. Interesting times ahead indeed and may they be better ones too.
Barry Clifford