Taking Back Our Institutions One Building At A Time

When the Free State was formed in 1922 one form of tyranny was replaced by another and that tyrannical force was the Catholic Church of Ireland. In our more diverse and enlightened world that is Ireland today it is easy to forget that it was only 25 years ago that this country started to emerge from that blended tyranny of State and Church. 

The late 1990’s decade could be argued as one of the most progressive in Ireland’s free state history. At it’s beginning, the Industrial school institutions and Magdalene laundries still hummed in harmony; Fr. Michael Cleary and Bishop Eamon Casey’s children were doing well, and indeed these two hypocrites were doing well but their girlfriends and mother of their children were not. Condoms, divorce, and the contraceptive pill were still banned as hundreds of children were still being raped and abused by the clergy and the files of Fr Brendan Smyth went missing along with thousands of others and the remains of dead babies. Homosexuality was still a crime punishable by prison.

It looked like another 2000 years might pass before this religion, grounded on fear and superstitions, would ever be called to rights or righteousness. But by the year 2000 itself all of this would change and changed utterly it did. The truth would hurt a religion of fiction like all religions are, and the blows of that truth keep hammering away at a Church that cannot come out then or now from it’s catatonic state. 

It took the moral and just courage of the young people of Ireland to change the church and expose their crimes; most of the old were too brainwashed to change to matter. All that remains is to sort out the property and wealth that this Church had acquired illegally during the darker ages of this fledgling State, acquired from a craven and fearful people more afraid for their mortal souls after death rather than the doing the right thing before it. At least the constitution is on the side of the State and all it needs is the political will to carry through the death kneel of this wholly and corrupt church. 

Article 44.2.2 of the constitution rules: “The State guarantees not to endow any religion.”

That means in clear legal terms not to furnish or give to any religion an income or property or properties. Article 44 makes illegal all properties or income given to the Catholic Church past or present. It throws a wide net across all the schools, colleges, and universities here, which are almost entirely owned by the Catholic Church; this includes the monies received to pay teachers, and the rent plus lease payments given to them by the Irish State every year that runs into the millions of euro. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Walmart would be proud of the Catholic Church’s corporate know how and accomplishments thus far and all entirely based on the currency of fear and nothing else. 

It is a secondary point that a “Catholics First” admissions policy in a National School is not allowed either under article 44.2.2 of the constitution. That is of the least concern to the Church and will give in easily here and to the principle of non- discrimination of single mother teachers or those who are gay or lesbian. These are only catholic morality based issues and will not affect the Church’s bottom line on their financial sheet which is all it cares about. 

But hell, fire and brimstone along with the best legal minds that money can buy will be brought to bear to stop the State regaining lands and buildings or from diverting monies elsewhere from them where they believe that it is their God given right to ownership of same. The State will win this battle if they can only find the courage first to engage in the fight.

It is a fight though that has to be fought before Roberts Emmet's epitaph can be truly written before or after a united Ireland. Ireland cannot unite fairly or freely in union with all it’s citizens until religion is left as a personal choice rather than the choice of government, either in governance or spirit, in order to break bond and not bread with any one of them. It is also illegal to have done so or to have continued to do so in the first and last place. 

The drip drip of religious abuse will continue to reveal itself in any case in the arena of knowing but pretending nobody knew. 

Barry Clifford  

Photo Minute: It's A Team Effort Baby!!

Dogs 'deliberately deceive owners' to get what they want, new study reveals

                    Pet dogs will deliberately deceive humans in order to get something they want.

Cats might have a reputation for being a bit sneaky or scheming - but, according to science, we really ought to be keeping an eye on dogs if we're worried about our pets running rings around us.

A new study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, has found pet dogs will deliberately deceive humans in order to get something they want.

Researchers at the University of Zurich studied 27 dogs, pairing each one with two human partners: a "co-operative" one who would allow the dogs to eat treats, and a "competitive" one who withheld the treats.

"During the test," the researchers explained, "the dog had the options to lead one of these partners to one of the three potential food locations: one contained a favoured food item, the other a non-preferred food item and the third remained empty.

                                                                  Our pets run rings around us.

"After having led one of the partners, the dog always had the possibility of leading its cooperative owner to one of the food locations. Therefore, a dog would have a direct benefit from misleading the competitive partner since it would then get another chance to receive the preferred food from the owner.

"On the first test day, the dogs led the cooperative partner to the preferred food box more often than expected by chance and more often than the competitive partner.

"On the second day, they even led the competitive partner less often to the preferred food than expected by chance and more often to the empty box than the cooperative partner.

"These results show that dogs distinguished between the cooperative and the competitive partner, and indicate the flexibility of dogs to adjust their behaviour and that they are able to use tactical deception."

Researcher lead Marianne Heberlein told New Scientist the animals "showed an impressive flexibility in behaviour. They’re not just sticking to a strict rule, but thinking about what different options they have.”

Adam Boult

Ireland 1916: 40 under-16s were shot in a single week

One of the 40 children shot during the 1916 Rising was peeling an orange on Grafton Street. A baby was killed in her mother’s arms. Dublin was a dangerous place that week

Poor children of Dublin collecting firewood from the ruined buildings damaged in the Easter Rising. Photograph: Getty Images

At the time of the Easter Rising, Dublin was a packed city, even more so than today. Many of the suburbs had yet to be built, and most of the families were crammed into filthy, overcrowded, disease-ridden slum tenement houses, overflowing with malnourished children. For example, there were 107 people in one house at No 7 Henrietta Street.

Into this teeming mass 1,500 Irish nationalists and 20,000 British soldiers (many of them Irish), all armed with shotguns, revolvers, rifles and even artillery, fought each other in battles across Dublin city centre.

Around 300 civilians got caught up in the crossfire and died, including 40 children aged 16 and under.

“It was very intense,” says broadcaster Joe Duffy, who has written a book on the children who died. “It was pouring bullets, and there were lots of children about.

“About 25 of those children who were killed lived in tenements. You don’t sit in a tenement because there’s literally no room to sit.

“There’s no fridges, so you have to get your food twice or three times a day – your bread, your tea, scraps of vegetables. By Wednesday and Thursday the food situation was critical.

“The kids were sent around to get some food. I know looting is the popular word, but they were scavenging for stuff. It wasn’t the London riots, they weren’t grabbing PlayStations – they were going for fairly basic stuff.”

One of the 40 children killed, John McNamara (12) of York Street, Dublin2, had his head blown off while peeling an orange on Grafton Street.

“Both sides said they were going to shoot looters. Because there were no inquests, we don’t know who shot them, but it’s not a blame game, it’s about remembering these kids.”

Some were in agonising pain for weeks.

Eight-year-old Walter Scott received a gunshot wound to the head, and made it to Mercer’s hospital near Stephen’s Green. He died five weeks later. His father was dredging master in Dublin Bay, quite a good job at the time.“There were children who took a bullet in the leg and died before they even got to the hospital,” says Duffy.

“You’re talking a different world. There were no antibiotics back then. All the hospitals were in the war zone. A lot of the doctors couldn’t get in.”

Two two-year-olds were killed on Easter Monday morning when the Rising began.

Sean Francis Foster was shot through the head as he lay in his pram during a firefight between rebels and British soldiers at North King Street.

“Sean’s mother, Kate Foster, was going to help out with the Feis Maitiu at Father Matthew Hall, and her brother was setting up a barricade by the Four Courts with the rebels.

“She told him to go home, then he told her to go home, then a gun battle broke out. She runs to Father Matthew Hall, and her two-year-old is shot in the head in the crossfire.”

There was another child in the pram. Sean Foster’s father had been in the trenches in Europe and it was discovered this father had been killed two months previously.

Sean Francis Foster wasn’t the youngest child to die. Christina Caffrey, who was eight months younger, died from a bullet wound outside her home at Corporation Buildings on Foley Street in the north inner city. “She was shot in her mother’s arms. They were heading back to the tenement by Amiens Street and a gun battle broke out, a bullet went through her hand and into the back of her child, who died.”

The total number of children killed was not known, even among historians, until Duffy started his research.

“It’s taken 100 years. It’s unbelievable. This book is the first time that the life and death stories of the children, and their aftermath, who were killed in the Rising will be told. They were all killed between the two canals and between the Custom House and Heuston station as it is now. That was the killing zone.

“People will be gobsmacked at the picture of children’s lives that day. Fifteen of those who died were from middle-class lives, some of them very well-off.”

Dublin may have been the most violent place in the world for a child in Easter Week 1916.

“The first World War was on at the time in Europe, but the child casualties for the whole war are relatively low because it was mainly fought in the trenches in the countryside. I can’t find anywhere else that week that even comes close.”

Darragh Murphy

The Law One Line At A Time

Most laws in Ireland by themselves are easily defined while the more vague ones cloaked in double speak are a tad more challenging and requires a bit of testing in court to set the precedent for their meanings. That is in essence the script based formula for why anyone needs a solicitor or barrister in the first place. laws were formulated in ancient times in order that we might all get along until the lawyers worked diligently too since then to make those same laws unintelligible for the less informed or for those in a dangerous and frightful hurry and not being aware who the real enemy is, and it may not be the defendant that they seek redress from.

Solicitors/lawyers feed you one line of legal information at a time and months apart because for them ignorance is bliss; by that time it may well be over for you whether you won or lost in the court system. They are legally accountable to no one least of all The Law Society Of Ireland for they are as toothless as a plumbers union is for plumbers. But there is hope for the client if only an effort is put in to their  own case by themselves before they go from client, whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant, to becoming a victim of a very corrupt legal system. That journey starts off by leaving the fear outside the hallowed halls of justice and leaving emotions there too and putting on the robes of a practical mindset based on simple objectivity. As you read further, below is a simple real- life illustrations of what you may face and the danger you might find yourself in when you find out that the hired professional friend was really the hired professional foe. 

A man named Tom goes to his friendly solicitor because he feels he was defamed by another man named Jack. Tom’s solicitor tells him that he has a great case (and he had) and would be happy to represent him. Tom wins. He was awarded €50,000 plus costs and his lawyer, feeling the love now, decided that those costs would be another €50,000. Facing down a judgement totalling €10o,000, it looked like Jack’s goose was cooked. It would've been except Jack could not afford an egg from a hen let alone one from a goose. Eight years have since passed since that case and no one thought to inform Tom, least of all his solicitor, that Jack was as poor as he claimed he was during all that time. The question is why not? The simple answer to that one is that it was not in Tom’s solicitor’s interest to tell him. The reality for Tom is different now from that heady day when he thought he had won the case and costs. Surely there may be must be some mistake!

No mistake. Tom’s solicitor intends to get paid whether it is from Tom or Jack. At least he knew absolutely that his friend Tom has lots of money. The solicitor’s job was only to win the case legally. If he had an ethical imperative or moral position as a gentleman in all of this it would have to have been the duty of care to Tom to tell him that even if they won and Jack had no money, then it would have to be him that would have to foot the bill. If that had been done in the first instance then a minor case need not have become a federal one and would most likely never have been undertaken. Then again, there is no money in the truth for solicitors, only financial penury for their victims, whether it be defendant or plaintiff, that are otherwise called clients in a world where the sun shines everyday. 

Everyday you hear of people fighting their cases all the way to the Supreme Court, the most expensive court in the land. There is only one law and one winner in the court on the final day. That day may not be the end of a nightmare but the beginning of one for that winner or loser. Just this week in London two greedy sons tried to disinherit their stepmother and beloved wife of their now deceased father. They wanted to have reduced her inheritance from £125,000 to £100,000 by claiming that their father’s last will was invalid. It was valid. This was over just £25,000!!!! Real justice will be served on these idiots and not the skewed justice they sought. They will now have to come up with another £132,000 between them on top of their full inheritance which goes to court costs awarded against them. Those court cost were £200,000. The judge was shocked that this case actually got to court while the widow's dignity and inheritance remained intact.

In the tall grass somewhere was their solicitor who knew the script before they did and the final act. He will face no court for just knowing what these idiots did not- one line at a time. Sometimes justice is served on a hot plate of irony.

Barry Clifford

The tides of March

           It was on March 17th in 180AD that the emperor Marcus Aurelius died

Beware the XVI Kalends of April. No, that date doesn’t have quite the same ring as the Ides of March, although it was only two days later – ie March 17th – in the Roman calendar: as described by the strange custom of skipping ahead to the next milestone, the 1st (or kalends) of April, and then counting backwards, in this case by 16 days inclusive.

But however you arrived there, it was on March 17th, 180AD that the emperor Marcus Aurelius died, an event at least as ominous as the assassination of Caesar two centuries earlier.

If you’ve seen the film Gladiator, you know the story, roughly. As played by Richard Harris, the emperor is a sad but wise old man who sees too clearly how useless his son Commodus (Joaquín Phoenix) is. He wants a proper Roman general (Russell Crowe) to succeed instead. But before he can arrange this, death intervenes, with suspected assistance from the natural heir.

Aurelius brought the curtain down on an era that Gibbon believed had not been bettered anywhere before or since

So much for the opening scenes of the cinema version. As for history, the demise of Marcus Aurelius also provides the starting point – or more accurately, the end of the beginning – of one of the greatest books ever written: Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The last of the “Five Good Emperors”, Aurelius brought the curtain down on an era that Gibbon believed had not been bettered anywhere before or since. Thus he writes, early in his masterpiece:

“If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian [in 96AD] to the accession of Commodus.”

It was a time, Gibbon argued, when the absolute power with which Rome ruled a vast empire was in perfect balance with the “virtue and wisdom” of its leaders. Of the last two – Antoninus Pius and Aurelius – in particular, he added: “Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.”

When he wasn’t slaughtering human opposition, it was animals, including once – notoriously – a giraffe. And then there was his sex life, degenerate even by Roman standards

Commodus had no such object. He fancied himself as a gladiator, mainly. He fought hundreds of public fights, their outcomes presumably preordained, and further outraged public opinion by awarding himself from the general gladiators’ fund “a stipend so exorbitant” it required a new tax.

When he wasn’t slaughtering human opposition, it was animals, including once – notoriously – a giraffe. And then there was his sex life, degenerate even by Roman standards.

Here, as everywhere, Gibbon had done the research. “The ancient historians have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty,” he wrote, adding: “it would not be easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the decency of modern language”. A little disappointingly, he left it at that.

Christians against lions

Mind you, getting back to gladiatorial sports, it should be noted that the wise old Aurelius had presided over them too. Indirectly or otherwise, his leadership also saw an upsurge in events that pitted Christians against lions. But then Gibbon might not have been unduly disturbed by this.

He blamed the new religion, largely, for the empire’s demise. There was also a more general decline of civic virtue, he lamented, in which citizens lost their willingness to live hard, soldierly lives. In the meantime, too many people were seduced by Christian promises of the better world awaiting them to make the necessary sacrifices in this one.

In any case, one small consequence of the Roman decline that set in from the 2nd century onwards was that a certain, mist-covered island west of Europe was never added to the imperial collection.

It would have been an “easy” job, Gibbon suggests, quoting the historian Tacitus, who was in turn quoting Gnaeus Julius Agricola, conqueror of Britain, to the effect that “one legion and a few auxiliaries” would take care of Ireland.

Not everyone agreed. “The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola,” adds Gibbon in a footnote.

But the invasion plan was never tested. When a British Roman conquered Ireland two and a half centuries later, it was in the name of the new religion. And among the far-reaching results are that what used to be the XVI Kalends of April is now known, much more popularly, as Paddy’s Day.

Frank McNally

Photo Minute: Galway in original colour 1913