Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

So the votes have been counted. The Irish people have opted for a continuation of a third-world hospital system, schooling characterised by inequality and class over-crowding, and the perpetuation of a “cute hoor” culture with significant levels of background corruption and the protection of criminality and illegality so long as the perpetrators are party members, supporters or donors. 

While I’m no economist I do know that much of our current “feel good” sense can be called the aero affect, as it is based on bubbles. The biggest is based on property prices. I am, however, an historian and I know that bubbles have a nasty habit of bursting – I have written a book on the subject. And when bubbles go “pop” a lot of people are left feeling rather bad – in fact much sicker than they could ever feel from eating dozens of bars of Aero. But sure, what matter? When that happens (as it surely will) we can always blame the fucking foreigners, the unemployed, the disabled, the travellers – the usual suspects – and we’ll keep voting for Destiny’s By-Children for ever and ever.  The thing about getting kicked in the hole is that, after a while, you start to like it.

  Once again the people of Cavan Monaghan have shot themselves in the arse. What has Fianna Fail ever done for Cavan or Monaghan, except see it as a grazing area on which their sons, daughters and relatives  can graze, earning huge amounts of money in consultancy fees and stealing people’s ideas. The larceny of intellectual property is something Fianna Fail members in Cavan are particularly good at.

When people from Monaghan are compeled to wait hours for treatment in an already crowded hospital in Cavan, knowing that a bed is not to be taken for granted, they can be grateful to those people who at the election thanked Fianna Fail for running down their hospital.

I feel ashamed of most of those pubic (sic) representatives returned for Cavan – Monaghan. I know one thing: with one exception they don’t represent me. It’s not as if there weren’t good candidates. I am particularly annoyed that Joe O’Reilly was not successful. He has worked hard and has come up with some very good and forward looking ideas. That was probably his undoing, for evidence of a brain, and furthermore its use for independent thought, are highly suspect. He belongs to the modern, progressive wing of Fine Gael, whereas the party in this constituency, it can be argued, is still dominated by the “Deacon Blue” faction, with strong links to organised Catholicism and which looks back with nostalgia to the days of the Army Comrades’ Association. This faction contained, it can be argued, would-be candidates who were mad not to have been given the chance to run themselves, including the descendant of a political dynasty who has a very poor opinion of the unemployed and the charm of a skunk with haemorrhoids. There is, of course, another Fine Gael faction in the constituency which we can call the Torty section. As everyone knows a torty or tortoise-sheel cat’s coat is a mixture of black and pale orange.  

Joe is probably contemplating entering the legislature by the scenic route. My advice to him, as to anyone else who thinks of standing for election in this benighted hole, is: Don’t bother. The hoors aren’t worth it.

On Wednesday, 23rd of May, the launch took place in Cavan’s Central Library of a report on the “Dara has the Craic” project. This is a joint initiative between Cavan and Kildare County Councils which aims to improve accessibility to council services by people with various forms of disability.

The event was marked with the usual banal panoply of publicity. A photographer for the local rag was in attendance to capture some of the main actors in the proceedings in the usual toy-soldier poses. I’d die were my face to be included in that “hue & cry” which has carried the craven images of so many scoundrels in its time. 

The launch was taken up by speeches, though I must say that the standard of eloquence and delivery of most of the speakers was excellent.

The “Dara has the Craic” project is a worthy endeavour, combining serious thinking with an essential element of fun,  which obviously enjoys the sincere commitment of all those involved in it. Most speakers mentioned the important part played by consultation with the disabled in its overall design. But the fact is that until I received an invitation to attend the function I had never heard of the “Craic” project, nor indeed had any of my friends in the disabled community in Cavan. So when the speakers described the amount of “Craic” activity and consultation that had taken place, I wondered whether I had been on another planet lately – perhaps I’d been on another form of crack..I must emphasise that I am not blaming Cavan County Council for this lack of communication. One of the things I have noticed was a reliance on disabled  organisations for putting forward the needs of the disabled. When registering there was a very distinct column where I could have identified the name of the organisation to which I belonged, but as this was not applicable, I left it blank – though I was tempted to write “Knights of St Columbanus” or maybe just “KKK”.

I am one of the many disabled people in Ireland who do not actively belong to any association. There are many reasons for this, but let me just say that I choose not to. I suppose I have found over the years that these are not motivated by what I see as my best interests. They often seem more interested in perpetuating a pigeon-holing of the disabled. One of the speakers, Mr Malone, who is County Manager in Kildare, stated the need for a “bottom – up” approach to the question of dealing with accessibility issues. But it is important that the “bottom” in such a model is correctly identified. There must be mechanisms put in place to cleary communicate with all disabled people, not just those who attend frequently pointless tea-parties and other meetings where they are talked down to as retards. It often seems that there exists a Disability establishment, to which I don’t belong and have no desire to belong. I just wouldn’t fit in because I am too articulate and slightly too well-educated.

Communication was an important theme of the contribution of my good friend Josephine Brady, the county librarian.  She mentioned how many disabled people were genuinely surprised at being asked for their input. This in turn led to genuine shock on the part of the “Craic” members. But surely they must realise what has been happening here? So-called voluntary organisations supposedly representing the interests of the disabled have been operating for years, but they were the last people to ask the disabled what they wanted. They “knew” what the disabled wanted – what could they want?  They were satisfied,  with their lot, at the bottom of the heap, imbued with that necessary humility and learned helplessness which told each disabled person that they should keep their mouths shut as society owed them nothing. (I must say though that the National Council for the Blind, thanks to the tireless work of its local social worker Bernie Rawls, no longer falls into this category.)

In its provision of services I cannot fault Cavan County Council. The area that I suppose I know best is the library. The new central library is a bright and happy place. Yet there are areas where Cavan County Council is still failing to make my life as meaningful as it could be and where its intervention is necessary not just for me but for many others.

Bridget Boyle in her contribution, stated that so much of the accessibility issue could be boiled down to the phrase “I want to go where you go.” Well let us see how far that phrase can be applied in the streets of Cavan town. I am able to travel by wheelchair thanks to the wonderful assistance of my girlfriend Rosie. Yet because of uneven surfaces and high kerbs this is not always a very comfortable activity for either of us. There are remarkably few dished footpaths in Cavan town, and many, probably most, are solitary. The sight of one dished footpath lures you off the footpath with the belief that there will be a corresponding dished footpath on the opposite side of the road, or at least nearby. Sadly, this is not the case, and so having left the relative safety of the footpath you and your assistant are then forced on to the open street, in the midst and at the mercy of the oncoming traffic, which I must say is usually very sensitive and patient. On at least one occasion we were forced to retrace our footsteps back to the original dished footpath from which we had alighted.

In an eloquent and incisive contribution Cavan County Manager Jack Keyes made the point that so much of the improvement in the delivery of services can be seen in the context of improvements in customer service. The customer / client must be at the heart of any transaction in either the public or the private sector – I’ve read enough Ram Charan and Tom Peters to know that. It is indeed perverse to think of any commercial entity which trades but which turns away custom. But yet here in Cavan town there are at least two restaurants that do just that. Let us return to what Bridget said: “I want to go where you go”, so what if I want to go to one of those two restaurants whose eating areas are on the first floors of buildings and who do not provide a lift or any other form of access to someone with impaired mobility? I am not talking here about restaurants in old buildings where the insertion of lifts would be prohibitively xpensive, or restaurants where the operators merely rent a floor or a few rooms and is in no position to provide adequate accessibility because they don’t own the building. No, I am talking about those developments which have occurred on green-field sites, or where the internal partitions have  been ripped out to make way for eating areas. I can’t get to them. Is there something wrong with my money? But I don’t want to darken their doors, for there are enough truly accessible restaurants in this town. It is sad that the two restaurants in question do have significant links with Cavan County Council, pointing to a degree of regulatory capture. The developer of one is a former employee of Cavan County Council, while one of the owners of the other is a serving member of Cavan County Council, whose business partner is an outgoing member of Ireland’s upper house.

All in all, I was sorry I attended the event. There is something about the presence of a photographer from the Anglo-Celt lining people up for The Shot like the camp commandant arranging a mass execution which makes me feel sick. I suppose I felt depressed at just how out of the loop many disabled people are in Cavan. 

I really believe in the commitment of the present county council executive to improving accessibility. Gone thankfully are the sad old days of which the two examples I have outlined are a desperate legacy, and when laughter was definitely suspect. But the council must back up its words with actions. It is obviously thinking hard about what to do, but contemplation has  been at a premium in Cavan County Council, a disagreeable, often painful activity, soon eschewed in favour of hackneyed positions and comfort zones. I for one will be keeping a keen, independent  eye on what happens.

Somalia’s capital has witnessed some of the heaviest fighting since the country descended into anarchy. On one side were the forces of the “transitional” Somali government, backed by Ethiopia and the Ugandan army (the only soldiers to have so far volunteered for the African Union’s Peace-keeping force), with the tacit backing of the US, or at least those people in the American administration who know where Somalia is; and on the other the remnants of the Islamists who controlled the city for six month’ last year plus elements of the Hawiye clan. The fighting has now subsided, with the government forces apparently coming out on top.

Some of the desperate souls who fled the fighting have begun to trickle back and there are attempts to install some form of normality in the city. This appears to be a very Somali form of normality.

Infrastructure has been non-existant for years. Mogadishu is like a lesson in what happens in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries when government stops. Those who could afford protection bought it, either in the form of b0dy-guards or weapons. Businesses, which had apparently more to lose, did have more to pay and so they acquired small arsenals of weaponry: machine-guns, RPGs whatever was available (and anything is at the right price). Anyone who couldn’t afford these “must-have” accessories just survived as best they could. I don’t like ethnic stereo-typing, but the Somalis have a great propensity to trade. Many people went into the service sector, maybe offering tea and beverages in buildings no sturdier than lean-too shacks. For many this was the only hope of survival. For a while a handful were able to get remittances from relatives working abroad through Islamic Cash transfer bureaux, but these were all decried as money-launderers for Al-Qaeda by the Americans and so this outlet soon dried up.

But what does this new spirit of normality mean in practice? The city is now ruled by a mayor and his chief of police, both former warlords with gallons of blood on their hands. They have ordered the handing in of weaponry, including that held by businesses for their own protection. They’ve also ordered the demolition of illegal buildings, including those lean-to structures that offered many a lifeline to survival.

I don’t know what is going to happen in Somalia. I fear the worst though. One thing that may happen fairly soon is that President George W. Bush will say that the solution to the country’s ills is democracy and a democratic election. Now there’s a recipe for disaster.

Reports from the west African country of Guinea indicate a worrying excalation of insubordination among the junior ranks of the country’s armed forces. Random attacks on public buildings have been reported from throughout the country. The cause of the unrest is apparently the fairly old problem of soldiers not being paid adequately. Insufficient reporting and transparency often lead to more senior officers pocketing their underlings’ pay. The soldiers are left without the means of subsistence but they are left with something rather useful in the short term for survival – their weapons.

Guinea saw some serious turbulence earlier in the year when a general strike was called to protest at the continued rule of President Lansana Conte. The strikers were initially fired on by an apparently loyal army, leading to over one hundred deaths, but many observers wondered how long it would be until the army would turn the weapons on their masters. This fear on the part of Conte’s circle probably led to the decision to give in partly to the protestors’ demands and appoint a new prime minister.

Conte is reckoned to be seriously ill. A power-vacuum, filled by allies jockeying for power and influence in a post-Conte Guinea, has already formed. Yet the news of a potential mutiny amongst the soldiers should perhaps create the greatest fears.

Surely Guinea’s rulers are aware of how dangerous an issue like unpaid military wages can be. Do they not recall what happened in neighbouring Liberia? In 1980 two disgruntled NCOs, one of them a semi-literate master  sergeant called Samuel Doe, decided to take their grievance over unpaid wages directly to then President William Tolbert. They gained entry to his bedroom and stabbed him with their bayonets, later throwing his lifeless body out of the window. This event was the prelude, in the short-term, to an orgy of blood-letting which consumed many of Liberia’s elite. In the long term it led to two decades of fighting and mayhem, which have only recently been brought under control.

It is disappointing that many African states, nearly a half century after independence, are still so inherently unstable that a matter such as unpaid wages for its soldiery can threaten the very survival of the state itself.

The following is inspired by the father of Magical Realism Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Rather than being a truly factual account of politics in the constituency of Cavan – Monaghan it should be viewed as a type of fable, containing elements that may be true.

The constituency should be a five-seater but through a rather desperate attempt by Destiny’s Soldiers (cousins of Destiny’s Child) to hang on to electoral decency a certain doctor, whose son is a priest as well as having ambitions to be taoiseach, was made into a peacock. As a peacock he has presided over the meetings of the nation’s most pre-eminent poultry coop for the past five years, often interrupting other birds with his dry Carrickmacross cackle.

I live in the Cavan end of the constituency and we have no interest in the Monaghan crowd whatsoever. They’re a different breed. Life is quieter here is more predictable with a very stable population. It is said the stability is due to the fact that whenever a new baby is born another man has to leave the county.

Recently a certain minister of state called Brendan Smith attempted to launch his electoral campaign with a splash, He got a red carpet and a big bouncy castle, and because Daniel O’Donnell and Bruce Forsythe were already booked he had to do with Noeleen Dempsey. Brendan was there with his backing vocalists and all the party activists who had, over the years, damned him as a complete and utter waster.

Because of the day that was in it he wanted everyone, including himself, to look really sexy. Party colleagues had a change of clean underwear as well as a special dousing of Brute, while the air was heavily laden with the aromatic odours of Preparation H. The local comic, better known as Fukcyiz Magazine (sic - and believe me it is) or the Angle Clit was on hand to give really good coverage, no awkward questions about the health service or regional development, you know what I mean.

But Brendan’s party was gate-crashed by a nasty little journalist from a rival publication to Fukcyiz, one that has balls and spells things correctly. He had the temerity to say that Brendan and the band were not beautiful. What was more, and this was the unkindest cut of all, he even hinted that Brendan might be a future compere of Countdown. Brendan was apoplectic. He wanted to be the compere of Countdown right now, not when Des O’Connor eventually falls off his chair, and he wants to enjoy Carol’s tender teasing before she is replaced by a younger model.

The minister of state was in a state. He was pissing himself with rage, breaking bricks with his arse. He contemplated standing outside the offices of the newspaper, shouting “Boo” to people as they left. But his friends persuaded him to  withdrew his advertising from the offending newspaper, which they felt, as a free newspaper was more dependant on advertising revenue and thus more vulnerable to such victimisation.

This has had a very unfortunate impact. You know what happens when a guy who is weak but otherwise harmless tries to be Mr Macho? Yep, that’s right. Brendan has been made to look like Mr Muscle Who Loves The Jobs You Hate. He has been left with his pants down and his USB adaptor dangling in the breeze.

I mean, come on Brendan. Irish politics is a contact sport. You’ve been a TD for nearly fifteen years now and you’ve been involved in politics since the mid ’70s. Imagine you were on the football pitch and a member of the other team (or maybe your own) says something unflattering, maybe implying that that’s not all mud on the back of your shorts. You don’t give him a Zidane do you, or if someone in the crowd calls you a wanker you don’t jump in for a Cantona. No, you take it on the chin like a man Brenda.

Removing his advertising was the mark of a desperate person who was scared shit-less of actually fighting his corner and standing up for something. Does he really think he’s not going to get elected?

It was also the act of a petty-minded and corrupt local political establishment which cannot enter into any debate or accept anything except silly, hackneyed praise, where everyone is happy and prays for those whom God has placed above them and where nobody has ever told when they’re being abused, and where, in the words of the Trems Silence is Golden. This was really an attack on freedom of expression.

But it is so pathetic. The newspaper to which I refer is the mouthpiece of the local establishment. It is filled, like a communist-era broadsheet from some far-off Autonomous Republic, with pictures of the local godfathers and godmothers, usually arranged in toy-soldier poses over the caption “Pictured (l to r)…” as they attend, wine-glasses in hand, some reception or launch. Anyone who criticises the paper, for example over its incapacity to print a paragraph without a plethora of spelling errors, is blacklisted, as I have been. But in the Internet age there is something really sad about a local rag which has seen better times attempting to silence its critics by exclusion from its pages. It’s a bit like King Canute trying to command the waves to go back.

Cavan-Monaghan and Ireland as a whole needs representatives with courage. Brendan had said that the reason why Bertie the Barrow-Boy had not promoted him to ministerial office was that Bertie didn’t like him. I’m beginning to think maybe Bertie knew a thing or two about character.

I have known Brendan Smith for up on thirty years and for most of that time I would like to consider him a friend. I have also said that he is a fundaamentall decent human being – unlike many of his party colleagues. He no doubt views these colleagues as friends, but surely he is savvy enough to know that friendship and politics are contradictions in terms. He also is hopefully fully aware that the members of his backing group are just waiting for him to put a foot wrong or decide that he is, to use a local phrase, going to throw up his arse, and then Brendan and Destiny’s Soldiers will have a new lead singer.  

So nothing happens in Macondo, nothing ever has happened here, and nothing ever will.