In Brief

In a public televised debate, Mick Wallace, TD, said that the Garda should not have any discretion in the matter of issuing/cancelling penalty points.

The Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, reminded Deputy Wallace that he had benefitted from Garda discretion himself when caught using a mobile phone while driving.

The question was, where did the Minister get this information which was not in the public domain and was he entitled to use it in public.

It has emerged that the Minister got the information from the Garda Commissioner in the course of a briefing on the matter of penalty points. The Commissioner claims he was alerting the Minister about it in case Deputy Wallace referred to it in the course of debate.

Deputy Wallace did not refer to it and initially could not even remember the incident.

While I hold no candle for Deputy Wallace, whose behaviour has been disgaceful, I do not see how the Minister could be entitled to use such information in public, and were he to do so in the heat of debate he should at least apologise, and not just to Mick Wallace, but to the Irish people for a totally inappropriate use of information, fed to him as Minister for Justice, in a debate with a political opponent.

Apparently the debate was not hot and the Minister has no intention of recognising the gravity of what he has done. He has now apologised to Mick Wallace, if the latter was offended. That is not really the point and he has stoutly defended his action, dragging in spurious reference to the public interest and the public's entitlement to be made aware of where Deputy Wallace was coming from.

He has shown a complete inability to appreciate the seriousness of what he has done. This is surprising for a very experienced lawyer. One can only conclude that his stubborn stance comes from ego and arrogance.

Hardly surprising in one who is an aggressive supporter of the Israeli Government which is pursuing manifestly illegal and genocidal policies towards the Palestinians.

Clearly he should not just consider his position but should go, and stop undermining the credibility of others who feel obliged to jump to his defence.

My interest, however, is also in the Commissioner having supplied the Minister with this personal information. Did he know his Minister well enough to realise that it would be used sooner or later, and if not, why not.

I can recall, in my own public service career, being accused by a Minister of briefing him with partisan information. As far as I was concerned, at the time, the information was certainly partisan, but not in the domestic party political sense that the Minister thought. It was specifically designed to counter misleading British propaganda and I had every hope that the Minister would use it in the debate for which I was briefing him.


The current controversy, though, sounds like a different kettle of fish entirely.

Next time you're using your
mobile phone at a traffic light.

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ASPER

There are always new Government Departments coming on stream these days. This is the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It has been split off from the original Department of Finance for a variety of practical, political and personal reasons which it is not necessary to go into here.

My immediate interest here is the logo. Clearly a new logo was required. In recent times, Government Departments and some State bodies have tried to use variations on the harp. I suppose you could say that this retains a sense of consistency across Government but there are clearly limits to the number of variations you can come up with before the thing becomes unrecognisable. Or should I just say limits to the imagination.

Anyway that unstable looking thing above is, I assume, a variation on the harp, though Brian Boru might not quite know what to do with it should he encounter it on a dark night.

That thought provoked me into wondering what else it might be if it was let out on its own, and my thoughts are below. Additional thoughts are welcome. My imagination is limited, or my mind boggled, or I'm just too plain tired to carry on any further.


Before I leave you, I should explain that the new Department likes to be popularly (if that is the appropriate adverb) known as PER and its blog is As PER and ASPER in Latin is rough or harsh, so I'll leave you to mull over that one.

ReactionsA former colleague with a deep understanding of the national psyche and of the present cataclysm suggests:

Two redundant motorway junctions plus ten intermediate entrances to ghost estates.

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Cui Bono

I have in the past been accused of being related to Bono. Fortunately I was able to disprove this claim, at least to my own satisfaction.

However, in disproving it I ended up chasing his people and mine and so I may know a little more about his background than some of his fans.

While following up another angle, the other day, I came across what appears to be an interview Bono gave to Lynne Kelleher, in 2006 and which appeared in the Irish Mirror. It reminded me that journalists should really be very careful about what they write.

She tells us how Bono's parents' mixed marriage put him off organised churches. She goes on

He said he felt his late Protestant father, Bob, was excluded from the family on Sundays when he and his brother would go to mass with his Catholic mother Iris.

While his parents did come from two rival Christian camps, it was actually the other way round. Bob was the Catholic and Iris the Protestant.

Both Bob and Iris lived on the Dublin Artisans Dwellings Company Estate at Aughrim St. My relations, who are also from that estate, told me that Iris was a looker, but because she was a Protestant the lads were told to stay away from her. Bob Hewson clearly paid no attention to that advice.

I imagine the mixed marriage did cause some grief in the respective families. Bob and Iris were first married in the Church of Ireland in Drumcondra on 19 August 1950, where the witnesses were from the Rankin (Protestant) side only. The couple settled in Haroldville Avenue in Dolphins Barn, where they were persuaded (quite likely by the local curate, Father Muleady) to remarry in the Catholic Church, which they did on 28 December 1950. The witnesses at this marriage consisted of one Hewson (Thomas Leo) and Father Muleady's housekeeper.


The two marriages of Bono's parents
In his biography of Bono (2005), Mick Wall tells us about the wedding in the Protestant church in Drumcondra, and goes on to say that their union would "some years later, be blessed by a Catholic Priest". What he doesn't tell us is that this "blessing" was in fact a full marriage and so notified to the State by Father Muleady. I have been trying to find a word in the English language to describe this phenomenon, so far without success.

When his own turn came, Bono married in the beautiful All Saints Church of Ireland in Raheny.


All Saints Church, Raheny
I have titled this post Cui Bono, not very original I'll admit. The meaning is a question Who gains?. It seems to me that the winner here is Father Muleady, by a mile.

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Real Dubs

In this year of the GATHERING the people of Cork have decided to issue their own passport. In spite of an initial hiccup towards the end of last year they have produced a very acceptable document.

I really don't see any reason why the Dubs should be left behind in the local patriotic stakes. The document illustrated above is my contribution.

You will notice that it is only available to those real Dubs who were born between the two canals, so please don't go distributing it to others.

Mind you, given that the three main maternity hospitals are situated within the canals you'd have to be a real culchie not to be entitled to one of these.

Enjoy.

[Department of Foreign Affairs please copy]

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Cracked or What?

What you see above purports to be a Google Street View^© cat. In its photomapping of the world's towns and cities Google Street View has picked up many strange phenomena but it appears this cat is not one of them.


This is the osriginal photo and it comes from Ottowa, Canada. But never mind, we're never short of true examples nearer home.


This is a Google Street View of Hawkins Street, Dublin, from Burgh Quay. The tall building in the centre of the picture, on the site of the old Theatre Royal, is the headquarters of the Government Department of Health.

The Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly TD, has been afflicted with all sorts of problems since he took office. He has been accused of rowing back on various pre-election promises and, most recently, his Minister of State resigned, citing difficulties with the way the Minister was running the show, and particularly the role played by old style lobbying in influencing the location of health centres. There is also the implication that Reilly's gruff style fell far short of the collegial model needed for the smooth running of the ministerial team, not to mention the two party coalition Cabinet.


Some may feel that these disagreements are in large part down to a conflict of personalities and styles, but Google Street View reveals that there are more serious structural problems involved here. The very building itself is clearly in a state of unresolved internal conflict which threatens to tear it apart.

From an aesthetic point of view this would be no great harm as it is one of those 1960s type office bloxes that shot up all over Dublin at the first whiff of 20th Century economic progress. Some might simply put it down to The Curse of the Royal, a magnificent theatre which had been part of the city's lifeblood for yonks.

I first noticed this particular flaw in the building when researching my Dr. "Who" Reilly cartoon some weeks ago. The resulting cartoon is below.


[Note: (11/5/2013)  In the original of this post yesterday I took the cat to be genuine but was uneasy at not being able to see the patchlines. When I went to try and source it I discovered it had been tricked. I have amended the post accordingly. I also found that Google Street View had already (7/5/2013) acknowledged this on its fun page. ]

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Hayes Cross

This is the Hayes Cross at the centre of Raheny Village. It commemorates Margaret Hayes who became a doctor, went to India as a missionary, and died shortly afterwards. You can read about her here.

It was moved around the village between various locations before finding its final resting place here at the centre of the village.

It has just been cleaned and is now much more eye catching as a result.

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The Midas Touch

I have reported elsewhere on the making and screening of the incredible documentary Lorg na gcos: Súil Siar ar Mise Éire from Midas Productions.

The film looked back on the making and success of the original Mise Éire on the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of that film. It was also a tribute to George Morrisson who made Mise Éire and the Midas team were very lucky that he was still around and willing to take part in this retrospective. The result was stunning.

After its broadcast on TG4 (28/12/12) the film was entered for a number of awards. By far the most pestigious of these, from an international point of view, was the International FOCAL Awards, the finals of which took place in London last week.

The film won the award in its category Best Use of Footage in an Arts Production The photo above shows Cleona and Colm proudly accepting the award.

The film is also entered for the Gradam Cumarsáide in this year's Oireachtas, and we will then see if the home adjudicators are as discerning as those at the heart of our former empire.

I have to declare an interest here, before someone else does it for me. I have a bit part in the film. But it wasn't that which moved me to tears at the screening. My own small involvement with the making of the film only served to impress me with the creativity and professionalism of the team and of the fantastic use they made of what material was available to them.

This, I'm sure, more than anything else is what carried the day for them at the FOCAL awards.

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The Friendly Reaper

I was browsing in my local library the other day when the above volume caught my eye. It was big; it was thick; and the pages had that golden edging that you frequently get on bibles in church. What, I wondered, was it?


On closer inspection it had the intriguing title "Éire mar ba mhian le Domhnall Ó Lubhlaí" or, I suppose, "The Ireland Danny Lovely would like to see". Danny has long been known in Irish language circles for his Irish language colleges (Coláiste na bhFiann), a sort of Irish language bootcamp, and for his espousal of the "Modh Díreach" or the Direct Method of language teaching which avoids use of the mother tongue as opposed to the Translation Method which doesn't.

So I decided to have a look see.

I had to prise some of the pages apart to separate their gold edging, which suggested that I may have been the first person to actually look through all the pages.

It is an odd book in many ways. It is big at over a thousand thick A4 size pages. It is very heavy and it is not clear that the binding will withstand the intensive use that is meant to be made of the book in teaching the language. It has no ISBN number and no address is given for the publisher. In fact Google can't find the publisher whose name is listed as "Foilsitheoirí an Aithréimithe".

While I personally favour the Direct Method and realise that this requires a fair amount of illustration in the book, I really thought the layout (including multiple giant fonts) and language conjured up the image of a disturbed and obsessional mind.


Of course, I may be reading this book (published in 2011) with an unfair degree of retrospection, because allegations which were floating around some years ago have now resurfaced in the public domain, and a full scale Garda review is now under way into Danny's alleged sexual abuse of young persons over many years.


The above is one of the many colour illustrations in the book. At least it grabs your attention. Whether it is also autobiographical is a matter that the author is no longer in a position to clarify.


A certain inconsistency in his view of women is manifested in the above illustration, one of many low grade black and white drawings in the book. While the "girl" is purported on one page to be nice and on another to be beautiful, my own view is that she is neither and is very reminiscent of the Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson) or even a once upon a time lady from Corca Dorcha.


Cailín deas crúite na bó is all very well but the image suffers from the retrospection I mentioned above.


This purports to be a "person" taking an oath to make us free. The author's view of person in this context is clearly a military person, not surprising given the author's own background.


Click for larger image
God knows how many young boys may have been abused over the years. The extract above is from Danny's introduction to the book where he reminisces on events and amusing incidents creating a sort of family album in words. I'm sure many of those mentioned in this introduction won't thank him for it. The above extract refers to Liam Ó Maolaodha, and I have no hesitation in reproducing it as Liam has come forward with allegations against Danny.


And finally, above, what might have been the end of the story were it not for the benign intervention of the Grim Reaper. Danny died in March 2013.

All the illustrations are from the book

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Who stole my chicken?

It is, admittedly, a readymade dinner. Simple fare you might think. But you'd be wrong. There are layers of complexity behind this apparently simple quick dinner item.

In the first place, the relationship between the name of the dish and the actual contents/ingredients is not straightforward. The bird in the title is nowhere to be seen in the list of ingredients.

So where has the chicken gone. Has it simply crossed the road in the meantime.

A closer look at the title reveals that this dish is not as simple as you might have first thought. You might have thought it was vol-au-vents, particularly as that is preciseley what they looked like.

But you'd have been wrong. It's vol-au-vots, which, in the best French circles, means a spate of thefts of people's pets. So, if the chicken saw the title, it's no wonder he crossed the road, pronto. So would I have in his place.

However, if you are thinking of buying one of these, be reassured. When it comes out of the oven or the microwave the chicken is actually back inside.

So if he really crossed the road, he did it to save himself for you.

That surely merits a Légion d'honneur at least.

Do they award those things posthumously?

And to fowl?

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Mayday

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Raheny's Loss

Rev. Jim Carroll
Rector of All Saints' Raheny
1992-2013
Raheny's loss, on this occasion, will be nobody's gain except maybe for Jim and his family. And I'll bet they will miss Raheny as much as Raheny will miss them.

Jim has been Rector here for the last 21 years and is enormously popular, not just within his own religious congregation, but throughout the village and its catchment area, and also in Coolock which is part of the Raheny Church of Ireland parish.


He has been privileged with a fine house and an absolutely magnificent church.

The church has, however, needed significant renovations to the roof and belfry, and the heritage status of the building has called for work of the highest standard. This led to a serious funding drive, to which the Roman Catholic parishes of Raheny and Killester contributed. The peak of this activity was surely the bible reading marathon on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.


After keeping the parish, and Raheny at large, informed of progress in the fundraising, the appeal sign has now been converted into the thank you sign above. The money was raised, the roof was fixed and the bell is now ringing again.

The Church of Ireland Parish Newsletter has come out with a special issue covering Jim's period in Raheny and his imminent departure. I'm told that Andrea has done a marvellous job on it and the proof of this and of Jim's popularity is that the entire issue has now run out. I'll come back to it here when I get my hands on a (hard or virtual) copy.

Jim and Valerie's departure also rates a column and a half over two issues of the Raheny News (21 & 28/4/2013). The issue of 28/4/2013 also led with a headline item on the fundraising described above.

My own contact with this church is relatively recent and dates from my (now departed) 90 year old cousin from Cill Éanna across the road filling me in on one aspect of Jim's colourful background. I later ended up more or less accidentally taking part in the first King James marathon. Some time after that episode I was run off church grounds by the BBC who I was informed were making a film about Jack the Ripper inside in the church. Dramatic stuff, but it turned out to be not quite so dramatic. Full marks to Jim, though, for getting involved in this interesting enterprise. By way of a parting shot, in the closing months of his ministry, he gave us Martin Luther, in a compelling reminder of the this heretic's continuing relevance to modern Christianity.

He took his last service at 10am on Sunday (28/4/2012), and what a memorable service it was. The church was packed to overflowing - standing room only, and the mutual involvement between Jim and Valerie on the one hand and the community/congregation on the other was celebrated in great style.

I think it is probably the only Protestant service I have ever been at, but I don't expect ever to be at one which surpasses it. It was a fitting tribute to Jim and Valerie's dedication to their congregation over 21 years (and in deference to Jim I had better make some effort to give Jesus a mention!).


Jim's last stand: a last look at the church notice with his name "up in lights".

Time to call in the painters.

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Virtual Penalty Points

I was just checking out the fountain trough at the Ambassador/Gate/Rotunda in Google streetview (thanks Niall McAuley) when I noticed that Google offered the option of travelling north on the roadway on the east side of Parnell Square.

The Google arrows on the ground confirm this. But the traffic arrows tell you you are not allowed to do it.

So might we be picking up virtual penalty points here to be cashed in who knows when?

At the Pearly Gates, perhaps.

God forbid.

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Warhead

This is a picture of a Warhead, in fact a WMD Warhead.

Whether it is also a Cowardly Warhead is something you will just have to figure out for youself, preferably after reading this link.

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More Virgins

At this stage we should be used to divine apparitions and moving statues and the like. We have had our fill of them over the years.

But they're off again. This time it's the Unnoticed Virgin of the Blackstairs (above). I'll let the Kilkenny People describe it for you.

Situated just two kilometres outside Graignamanagh near St Mullin’s, rising high above the picturesque Carrigleade golf course are the Blackstairs Mountains. A bizarre formation in the rock, gravel and the heather, with a scale in the hundreds of metres, is striking at a glance – and even more so when gazed upon for longer. It appears to depict the Madonna and Child.

Damn the bit of Virgin I can see, but then I'm an unbeliever and She may be a bit selective in the company She keeps. I'm sure the local Parish Priest, the Bishop, and all the local non-RC denominations will have their hands full making sense of this one. Not to mention Fáilte Ireland in the year of The Gathering.

Unbeliever and all that I may be, that didn't spare me a recent encounter with a Virgin of my own (after a manner of speaking).

I answered the front door recently only to find that the Sumac tree in the front garden had been blown over, and uprooted beyond repair, by the storm of the previous night. The only thing left was to cut it up and burn the logs during the next cold spell.

I may, however, have to draw the line at interfering any further with the trunk of the tree (below). No doubting what you're looking at there.


So, what, I ask myself, is she trying to tell me?

Should I

• stop Knocking Knock? I think I'll await my RIC great-grandfather's report on that apparition before I take it seriously (pace Canon Horan and Pope John Paul II).
• put it up on eBay? But then there is the trade descriptions act and all that sort of legal stuff to contend with.
• burn it? It might be the other lad trying to tempt me, but then again it might not.

or

• just keep trying to improve on my Photoshopping? Yes, that sounds just about right!

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Homer nods ... again

Lost for words: portrait of
literary giants up for grabs


Click for larger imageThe caption reads

LITERARY GIANTS: From left, Louis MacNeice, TS Eliot, Ted Hughes, WH Auden and Stephen Spender at the Faber party

So who's who then? Five names, three people. Into won't go.

Ah, the arrows. Now I see all five (below).

Why did they first hide two?

The same photo twice, the first with the wrong crop.

Oh dear !

Yesterday the Central Bank, today the Sunday Independent.

Pillars crumbling.

Good thing Brewster isn't still around or they'd never hear the end of it.


Click for larger image

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A Government Easter Egg

Last Sunday, in the very early morning, the clocks went forward. That was probably just as well as everything else seems to be going backward.

It emerged in the course of this gravity defying exercise that Alan Shatter is the Minister for Time. Clearly not the most taxing element in his portfolio, reminding people twice a year, to go forward in the Spring and backward in the Autumn.

That got me meditating on the distribution of Cabinet portfolios, and the Alice in Wonderland world we live in, and it occurred to me that this particular portfolio might be more appropriate to another member of Cabinet.

But then I realised that that particular Cabinet member is already the Minister for E=MC². Giving him charge of the speed of light, which is supposed to remain a constant, would surely constitute a conflict of interest of the highest order?


What a confusing world we live in.

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Fasten your Seatbelt

This is the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast. In the 1980s it was exposed as a centre for paedophile activity and some staff were tried and imprisoned.

In the light of what is now coming out all over the UK and the Channel Islands about the extent to which this type of activity was covered up, the inquiry into Kincora has been reopened. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to the unmasking of the many powerful and famous people, both from north and south of the border, who are alleged to have availed of its services.


This is Kincora in Abbeyquarter, Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo. A different Kincora entirely and one of very happy memories. It's just that the re-emergence of the name Kincora, and the bay windows, reminded me of some youthful adventures in my father's home town.

The house was a child's paradise. At least, one room of it was. And that is where my older cousins' toys were kept. They had gone off to become priests and I had the run of their toyboxes, full of model soldiers and the like.

What comes to mind every bit as much as the toys was the day I took the small tricycle on to the steep hill road outside the house.

I leapt up on the tricycle and went shooting down the hill. It was only then that I found out the tricycle had no brakes. And the bottom of the hill was the main road which could have any class of a vehicle trundling or speeding along it.

What was I to do?

I was quickly gaining speed and had got beyond the point of putting my foot into the spokes - that would have taken me straight to the moon, or beyond, and left me permanently toeless. And even if there was no traffic on the main road when I hit it, my speed by then would have ensured a serious injury.

There was only one thing to do. There was a long high bank along the right hand side of the road.

In the flash that it took for this looming disaster to hit me, I turned the wheel and crashed into the bank. I emerged battered but not broken.

The real mystery is how a child who could make an intelligent, dangerous, but necessary decision in a flash, turned into today's ditherer and procrastinator.

One for my psychiatrist, perhaps? Or will I just wait till I finally get to the other side, if there is one?


Kincora, the steep hill road, and the disappeared bank.

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NoBo

For a good while now, Pearse Station, in the centre of Dublin, has had this jazzy integrated café on the platform.

"Which platform?", I hear you ask. Why the South Bound platform of course. Isn't that where all the quality travel from and it's not called SoBo for nothing.

Now, there are lots of myths about the DART. There is even supposed to be a DART accent. Quite how that could be is very hard to understand when you look at the variety of ABCDE areas through which that train passes. Of course, the quality live on the Southside and it is to them that the DART accent refers. Some of them might be jumped up quality, but quality nonethless for the purpose of this exercise.

This DART accent corresponds to what in my day was the Mount Murrion accent. This was a sort of neutralised transatlantic accent which signified that you at least, and perhaps even your people, were neither up from the country nor residents of the inner city.

So the SoBo café went with the accent, so to speak. And those freaky Northsiders could always risk missing their train if they stopped for a cup of coffee, as a northbound DART could have come and gone in the time it took you to negotiate the underground passage from southbound to northbound platform.

Now, at last, there is an end to this discriminatory foolishness. The northbound platform has acquired a Mocha Bar and can confidently cock a snoot at it's SoBo rival. So there.

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Where is it ? No. 13

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

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Dr. Larkin has done it, again. See his solution in the comment below. Constance's dog it is.


I only noticed the dog recently. I had photographed the monument, well, Constance, previously but never noticed the dog.

But here is a man with a sense of history who keeps his eyes open as he travels the city. Northside or Southside, no matter.

Congratulations Felix.

Want to try your hand at No.4. I had thought this one of the most difficult as I only noticed it by chance myself, but I now realise it can be solved by pure logic and an imaginative use of the computer from the comfort of your own home.

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

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Lift Up Your Hearts

This is an age when children as young as whatever are now largely computer based: playstations, laptops, iphones, ipads and what have you.

So imagine my amazement, when I went out for a walk the other day, to see the above on the pavement in front of me.

I don't know how far back BEDS go (what are beds Mum?), but they were certainly a permanent feature of my days as a child.

Hopping on one leg, pushing a polish tin (what's a polish tin, Mum?)through the numbers.

Cheer you up, it would.

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