Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

China in your hands A Kerry priest in a very rural part of the Kingdom once preached a very long and elaborate sermon on why the chapel should invest in a chandelier. After Mass a number of the parishioners went to see him in the sacristy to express their disagreement. First, they said, only half of the people in the parish knew how to spell chandelier. There was no one in the parish who could play one, and what the church really needed was more light.  Now I freely admit to plagiarising that joke from the great collector of Kerryman jokes Des McHale. I’m not really plagiarising it: I make no claim that it was ever mine. There are many people who take up other people’s ideas. They may very well develop and elaborate the idea, before passing it on in time. If they are courteous they will acknowledge the debt they owed to the other person. That’s the currency of intellectual debate. But then there are those who take huge swathes of others’ work and claim it as theirs, not acknowledging the real author. And what’s more, they get away with it. Added to the element of dishonesty is the fact that the plagiarist is usually able to profit by their deceit, and profit from what they have stolen in a manner and to a degree which is usually denied to the original author. There is nothing as bad as realising that your work has been plagiarised. It is truly sickening. You feel, well, violated. It’s not unlike having your house burgled but, worse, then seeing the burglars set up a stall along the road-side to sell your stuff.A rather noisome individual here in Cavan, who lived in the fool’s paradise that he is a journalist, used to call me a plagiarist – on what basis I do not know. I think that it may have been that I wrote (as I continue to do) in a fluid and elegant manner and that I do not struggle with language. Nobody born and bred in Cavan as I am is supposed to possess such literary facility, so when I write well I must “lift” it from somewhere else. Now the said individual probably doesn’t know how to spell plagiarise – he doesn’t know how to spell anything else. He is certainly not aware that plagiarise comes from the Latin plagiarius, a kidnapper. I’ve had quite a number of children who have been kidnapped; not held pending payment of a ransom mind you, but kept in atrocious conditions until they are sold off into slavery or prostitution. But like any other offensive behaviour plagiarism ultimately demeans its perpetrators. They aren’t very bright – if they were would they steal others’ work? Can they not do something for themselves?  This was a period of my life upon which I have turned my back. However, a few days’ ago I found a website belonging to Butlersbridge Central Primary School, only a few miles from Cavan town hosted by an organisation called SIP.  It celebrated the life and work of Cavan-born architect William Hague (1836-99) whose family came from the Butlersbridge area. As I read I was seized with a very painful sense of déjà vu. It was mostly taken from the page of my old website devoted to William Hague. Yet not a word of citation of my site, indeed not a mention of yours truly at all.  This site claims to be the work of the children of the school’s third and fourth class. But such an oversight cannot be laid at the children’s door. The kids are not the plagiarists. No child does anything in school without the approval of its teachers. Now I was not entirely unknown to at least one of the school’s teachers. I designed Butlersbridge Central’s first website. The school was thus amongst the first to gain a web presence in Co. Cavan. The teacher of the third and fourth classes, Ms Evelyn Brady, was the person for whom I did the web pages, and while they might not have been the finest example of the webmaster’s art she was entirely satisfied with them. Why wouldn’t she be? She got them for nothing.  Web design isn’t rocket science. Some primary school kids could easily design a very workable if perhaps pedestrian site. Yet this site is very slick. I would hazard a guess that professional web designers may have had a part in it. On the basis of my far less sophisticated web design Ms Brady’s school had received commendation from I think, the Irish ministry of Education. It was one of a handful of Irish schools then having its own website which were being held up as technological trail-blazers. She was certainly an eager pursuer of extra largesse, pursuing the political route. I do not say there is any link but she was frequently seen at Fianna Fail Ard Fheiseanna.  All of these painful, (and I mean painful) memories came flooding back, and they were far from welcome. I had tried to close the lid on this Pandora’s Box. But as I looked at the site I recalled something else. There were various buildings attributed to Hague which caused me to exclaim: “Well that’s not right for a start.” Then I discovered mention of buildings he could never have designed, because they’d never existed.  I suddenly remembered it all, and its recall caused me to clap my hands with glee.  About seven years ago I heard that Evelyn Brady was seeking funding for a new school website concentrating on William Hague. She had, by this time, broken all ties with me – something which was not entirely unwelcome. The fact that I wasn’t invited to participate in this new scheme didn’t surprise me. I wasn’t feeling well and I hadn’t the energy for brown-nosing, but I was determined that Evelyn Brady wasn’t going to get her hands on my work. I asserted my moral rights as an author on the section of my website devoted to William Hague and reminded readers that it was covered by my copyright, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this would dissuade the avid plagiarist. So I added some new, previously unknown yet entirely fictitious works to the architect’s curriculum vitae, attributing to him works which were never begun and never even dreamed up In the first place. And then I turned my back on my website, on my interest in Hague and local history. It was all too disgusting, a small malodorous pond inhabited by sharks. I wasn’t well. I was finally diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis the following year and I completely forgot what I’d done.  The idiots in Butlersbridge, meanwhile, in their eagerness to steal my material had taken the paste along with the jewels that they’d been seeking. People are free to plagiarise whatever they like from my on-line writings. Go ahead, I can’t stop you. I can assert my moral and legal rights as an author as much as I like. Why not show a bit of class and just ask me whether you can you use the stuff. I’ll usually say yes and I won’t charge anything. But if you must steal stuff which isn’t yours you shouldn’t believe it’s going to be true or accurate.  I’m reminded of the words of the T’Pau song from 1987. Would-be plagiarists should remember the things they steal may very well end up being just
China in their hands.