Léargas

Walking on the Big Pool in the Bogmeadows December 28th 09 BLIAIN ÚR FAOI MHAISE DAOIBH. The water in the big pool at the Bog Meadows was frozen. So was Your Man. So was I. We watched seagulls kiting down over the MI. They dipped over the big pool and wheeled around gliding down to the water. Or the ice. It was Saint Stephen's Day. ‘Yeeehaa’ Your Man chortled. ‘Luk at that’. Instead of gracefully alighting into the pool the gulls skidded along the icy surface, slipping and sliding into each other. ‘Slip sliding away, slip sliding away’ Your Man hummed. ‘I wonder what they think of the ice?’ ‘They thinks its cold’ I replied, ‘and slippy’. ‘I know that’ he said as we made our way away from the waters edge and up towards Saint Galls. ‘But they wud nivver have any experience of ice. Wud they?’ ‘Unless they came from the Arctic’ I offered. ‘That’s a quare distance’ he mused. ‘Swallows go to South Africa’. I continued. ‘So does big Mick and wee Seamie’. ‘On a plane’ I parried, ‘Swallo...

December 21st 09 Beannacht Over the weekend I had a notion that this blog would be a good place to cogitate over family and life and its burdens and all that goes with that. I thought I might deal with some of the events in the life of my clan and in my own life. Events which are now in the media. But on reflection it’s too near Christmas for all that. Maybe some other time. But not now. For now I want to thank all those people who have been so good to me and my family. Búiochas to the professionals who have been so kind to us. And to friends and comrades who have phoned and texted and sent solidarity greetings. And emails. And others who don’t have my contact details but who sent words of support through third parties. Or cards. Thanks also to others who approached me on the street like the woman who came to me after Mass to say her family were in the same situation. By the time I got home that day four people told me the same thing. And that was before I did the interview with RT...

December 18th 09 The Skibbereen Eagle flies again! Will they, won’t they – agree a deal in Copenhagen on climate change? Like the Skibbereen Eagle this Blog watches these matters. The Heads and representatives of almost 200 states have been locked in discussions for over a week trying to reach agreement on tackling a problem that has global and life and death implications for billions of citizens. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees the last twenty years has witnessed a doubling of natural disasters. That means there has been an increase in floods, tsunamis, cyclones, and earthquakes. They have also been more destructive. Consequently, last year around 36 million people were displaced by these events. While all of this is grievous for those affected, changes in climate has also meant changes in weather patterns leading to serious droughts, and the extension of deserts across the world. The loss of glaciers in the high Himalayas threatens water provision i...

December 14th 09 HAPPY CHRISTMAS TAOISEACH. In ‘A Christmas Carol’ Mr. Scrooge provides a Christmas bonus to Bob Crachit, Tiny Tim and their family; increases Bob’s take home pay, and sets about improving his working conditions. It’s a heart warming story of compassion overcoming greed. In the Irish government version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ the Christmas bonus for the disadvantaged is axed; the take home pay of workers is cut; and there is no compassion for poorer communities. It is the workers who are being forced to bear the burden of an economic crisis made significantly worse for citizens by an incompetent government. There were alternative measures that could have been taken. This Blog set out some of them in recent weeks. They include the need for those who can afford to pay more to do so. They require substantial investment to be directed into job creation and the public services. These are common sense measures, properly costed and affordable, that could begin to turn the econo...

December 11th 09 Comhghairdeas agus Lá Breithe Shona do Mac Bride Principles The MacBride Principles--consisting of nine fair employment, affirmative action principles--are a corporate code of conduct for U.S. Companies doing business in the north of Ireland. The Principles are named after Nobel Laureate Seán Mac Bride, a founding member of Amnesty International and former Chief of Staff of the IRA who launched them in 1984. Their focus was on tackling the generational structured discrimination in the north and they were based loosely on the Sullivan Principles which were aimed at the Apartheid South African government. In the USA the MacBride campaign was well fought by Irish America. The Mac Bride Principles were adopted in many States and Cities as law. Eventually in October 1998 the House and Senate passed the MacBride Principles -- as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1999 -- and President Clinton signed them into law. It was a long hard battle which was resis...

December 7th 09 Branching Out. ‘Everybody should plant a tree they will never sit under,’ said your man. He was in one of his moods. It was Saturday morning. We had dashed from Wicklow to be at Stormont for 10.30 on Saturday morning. The Stormont estate is huge but due to the developing relationship between this Blog and the Minister with responsibility for tree planting on the demesne, another little bit of land was being conceded to subversive native trees. Go raibh maith agat Sammy Wilson. First we take Manhattan. Then we take Berlin. The tree planting project had started as an effort by this Blog and the Ulster Camogie Board to plant Ash trees for hurling sticks, then it moved into a partnership with The Peoples Forest who have a great mission to reforest Ireland and from there into an effort with others to get into the Guinness Book of Records by planting one million trees in one hour simultaneously in different places. So camogs, footballers, hurlers, rugby hulks, the indefa...

December 4th 09 The lesson of history There is understandably enormous curiosity among everyone this Blog meets about the current crisis in the political institutions and the sharp words that have been exchanged between the Shinners and the DUP. At one level it’s about the tranfer of powers of policing and justice but at another deeper level it’s about the principles of equality, and justice and democratic change, underlying the Good Friday Agreement. The reality is that the northern state was created to ensure a unionist majority and unionist domination. And the status of nationalists was institutionalised, in a way not seen in Ireland since the penal laws, into that of inferior and third class citizens. You know the record of discrimination and injustice and repression. This Blog intends to return to this theme next week. So, after decades of one party unionist rule and British direct rule, the political institutions are about delivering equality and partnership into every facet of l...