EEC

With all the 1916 commemorations going on this year and all the talk of the path to sovereignty, or whatever you want to call it, I was reminded of a line from the protest song EEC:

Déanfaimís dearmad ar Pearse agus Connolly

The song was written by Aodh Ó Domhnaill and sung by Na hUaisle.

In the course of the referendum campaign on Ireland joining the EEC in 1972 it blared from loudspeakers on top of the vans of those campaigning against our joining the Common Market and it opened many a protest meeting around the country.

It is a good song and has worn well through the years. It has a particular resonance in more recent times as the EU has lost its way and the arrogance of its élites becomes more insufferable by the day.

The song opens by pointing out that we really had no choice in the matter as we always follow the Brits. Ag sodar i ndiaidh na nUasal is a familiar version in Irish of this process. And here we are with the Brits supposed now to be pulling out and what are we going to do?

The chorus mentions Sicco Mansholt, who was the Agriculture Commissioner of the day, running the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which was the only actual policy the EEC had been able to cobble together in its 14 year existence up to then. Needless to say this policy appeared very attractive to Irish farmers as a way of escaping from England's Cheap Food Policy which had been limiting the expansion of Irish agriculture and denying a fair return to its producers for decades. In fact the then Irish Foreign Minister, Paddy Hillery, was campaigning for a YES vote on the basis of The CAP and the Long Runs the latter being the expected opportunities for Irish manufacturing in niche corners of the enormous EEC market.

The song goes on to take a poke at our TDs (parliamentarians) who are portrayed as already addicted to dinners of frogs and spaghetti, and who now speak Irish with a French accent. The farmers will be leaving the land for jobs in industry when full employment kicks in, by which time the Germans will have bought up all the land. Let's forget about Pearse and Connolly and all this national sovereignty lark and sell our souls for the thirty pieces of silver on offer. Sure aren't we all Europeans now.

Well I'll leave you to figure out for yourself how prophetic or otherwise the song is proving. You can hear the original below.

EEC sung by Na hUaisle

Flies like a dart, darts like a fly

It's taken them 24 years to cop on to this concept.

No wonder they haven't thought through the toilets yet.

This is the conflicting position between Pearse (formerly Westland Row) and Tara St. You board a DART at Tara St. and you have to wait for Howth or Malahide, or Greystones, to have a pee.

I was in Dún Laoghaire station recently and asked a porter where was the toilet. "We don't have one. It was vandalised". End of story. Cross your legs and pray to your Deity.

Unbelievable.

I could think of a few targets for that dart in the poster.

Smokers die younger

I was waiting for a DART in Westland Row (sorry Pearse) Station the other day when I spotted this sign.

Now, I am sure this is a sign of the concern Iarnród Éireann has for its nicotene addicted passengers. And you have to admit that it is pretty ingenious.

Westland Row Station has a roof over it and is, no doubt, classified as an enclosed space under the No Smoking Act. So the company remind you that, if you go right to the eastern extremity of the platform, you can smoke with legal impunity, be it basking in the summer sun or suffering a wet brass monkey freeze in mid-Winter.

So it's a toss up between accelerated cancer or pneumonia?

It just brought home to me how the life expectancy of the smoker has been curtailed, throughout the country, in the interest of prolonging that of the non-smoker. I hope the non-smokers among us appreciate Minister Martin's trade-off and light the odd candle next-door for our still smoking brothers and sisters.

A Terrible Beauty

My son recently drew my attention to the insanity of the current pre-election poster campaign where candidates are frantically vying with each other for the attention of the passer by.

Unfortunately some of these passers by are driving motor cars, and to make matters worse there seems to be no rule against the candidates vying with the vital traffic signals either.

This unbelievable example is in Pearse Street, Dublin, at the junction of Sandwith Street.

Mind you, a perusal of the entrails would make you wonder if the traffic signals were trying to tell Bertie something - settle for the Park, or, no left turn, for example.

But it really isn't funny and shows an absolute contempt for one of the causes all the political parties are pledged to, namely, reducing road deaths. Oh yeah?

There are many other issues in this campaign, not least of which is how far Bertie might be prepared to go to recruit a partner to keep him in government.

The entrails below, in Kildare Street, Dublin, just beside the Irish Parliament building, suggest the possibility of an unholy alliance in the next Dáil, appropriately underscored by the the former Free State Senator whose poem A Terrible Beauty is Born says it all.

Enjoy the campaign and don't blame me for the result.