Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A view of the world from an Irish hole

Month: May, 2009

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A victim of abuse

I have learned that a good friend of mine, now sadly deceased, was the victim of a serious assault from a priest during his youth. It happened when he was a boarder in a diocesan secondary school. On his fifteenth birthday he received a present of some money – quite a large sum by the standards of the time. So excited was he that he began to jump up and down on his bed. He was observed by one of the priests who decided to offer some physical chastisement. So badly did he beat my friend that he needed hospital treatment. This would constitute an assault, but did the priest suffer for his actions? No, for no policeman would arrest him, no lawyer would prosecute him, and no judge would sentence him because he was a priest. But what sort of person beats up a child? He was certainly bigger than my friend at the time. What was more this coward could act in the full knowledge that his actions wouldn’t be resisted, for no one would hit a priest. To do so was to earn eternal damnation, not only for one’s self but possibly for one’s descendants.

My friend’s choice of career therefore, appears somewhat bizarre, for he trained to be a priest himself. Once ordained he was appointed to the teaching staff of the institution where he had been assaulted and indeed brutalised. Although I always found him to be the most harmless and inoffensive of men he had the reputation among students of being a “villain” and a “demon”. I have heard that he was given to outbursts of hysteria accompanied by physical violence towards students.

In later life he was appointed to a parish where he earned a reputation as a kindly pastor. In fact he tried to do the work of three men, even though his health wasn’t up to doing the work of one.

He was a most talented historian who has not received the recognition of those who have seized control of local history. Some of these people know all about silencing even the mere whisper of clerical abuse.

I don’t seek to lessen the evil acts of my friend or to call for understanding. Hr was a victim, firstly a direct victim of physical abuse, and secondly of a system which viewed physical violence by adults against adolescents as somehow acceptable. Like so many victims of systematic abuse he became a perpetrator.

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Cavan County Museum in Ballyjamesduff

Residents of the town of Ballyjamesduff have recently complained of a sickening stench of putrefaction. This seems to be coming from the Cavan County Museum. A spokesperson for Cava   has admitted that the problem happened when a staff member went for a crap, and he was that full of shit he blocked up the whole system.County Council

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Child abuse

The report of the commission on child abuse has publicised what the dogs on the street knew – that physical, sexual and mental abuse of “inmates” in certain institutions run by the Catholic church was widespread, systematic, institutionalised, and carried out with the tacit knowledge and approval of the hierarchy.

We should not tarnish all the religious with the same brush. There were many who took no part in this; there were others who were aware of these activities but who were powerless to act. They knew that to stand up to this would be rewarded by victimisation by the church authorities.

Commentators in leafy, liberal Dublin suburbs seem unaware that the climate of fear and silence which accompanied these crimes still persists in many areas of Ireland. Those who committed them and more importantly those who abetted them in their actions, are often still very influential and they, together with their friends in Catholic lay organisations, often have a stranglehold over local societies and communities.

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Back in The Organisation

Lately, some Fine Gael local election candidates were unwilling to canvas my house in Cavan, not because of my warnings to them to desist, but because they said “There’s no point – sure that’s a Fianna Fail house”. (!) This is news to me even though I’ve much to thank the Party for (and much to curse it for too), but is it perhaps one of the reasons why yours truly was not invited to participate in last year’s conference in Cavan County Museum by the son of Cllr John Scott (FG. Belturbet?)

I’m off to make a ‘phone call to Seanie Fitzpatrick to ask him for a few bob.

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May 8, 2009

Ah sure ya might as well – the County Council elections

I read in a recent edition of the Cavan Echo that the HSE (add an IT to it and you get what they are) have reduced the expenses payable to psychiatric nurses and support workers in the community. This is but one more example of the cowardly actions of a bankrupt government, which is actually pursuing a mild form of Nazism through its actions.

Have the expenses which county councillors pay themselves for attending useless junkets been reduced? I somehow feel the actions of a qualified and experienced health professional are more important than the wasteful and self-aggrandizing crap they get up to.

But these are the very scum who are coming around asking us for our votes. No wonder some aspirants want to get onto the bandwagon, Personally, I wouldn’t let any of them round the house. Who’s to say they’re not casing the joint?

In the last local elections I cast a blank ballot for the county council. I was going to spoil it by drawing phallic iconography on the back, or maybe applying labels to some of the “rabbit-in-the-headlights” mug-shots, with pithy yet pertinent legends like “wanker”, “trick”, “bastard”, “thunderin’ eegit”” etc. but I couldn’t be bothered. I’ll probably do the same this time too. Now there are one or two candidates standing who are not turds, whom I like and genuinely respect, but that’s just it. I cannot consign someone I respect to the role of a runner, a mere go-between between the public and an incompetent, arrogant, unaccountable, incompetent and probably corrupt county council executive.

I would like to give a plug to my good friend and fellow bon viveur Anthony P. Vesey. Alas I don’t have a vote in his electoral area but I hope he does well and really gives it up the arse to the blueshirts.

(No doubt there will be some gobsh … readers who will be offended by what I’ve written above. Yippee!!!! While others will have to have it read out to them or repeated third hand before they get offended. I’m sorry but I do not see the value of giving the name of a pearl to a turd.

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Aged roses

I see in Breffni O’Reilly’s column in the Cavan Echo that the Sligo Rose has been disqualified because she is too old. As a gentleman (if only by name) who is a connoisseur of the more mature woman I naturally concur with Breffni’s comments. I am also someone who finds the Rose of Tralee pageant a cringe-producing charivari of stage Irishness.

With regard to regulations on the contestants one thing I want to know is do the organisers still insist on the girls passing a virginity test?
of the canI see in Breffni O’Reilly’s column in the Cavan Echo that the Sligo Rose has been disqualified because she

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The European elections

Paschal Moonpig

Paschal Moonpig

I’ve been looking at some of the candidates for Connacht – Ulster. They include Paschal Mooney. Did you ever write to Paschal’s Lonely Hearts Club? I did – twice, but neither letter was broadcast. If I remember the first one went:

Dear Paschal, My name’s Gordon and, putting it in the mid Atlantic lingo so beloved of your fans I’m looking for a guy to keep an eye on my ass. In particular I’d like a big, strong, butch male to share my little cottage with who I can play Hide-and-seek with through the Glory-hole. I’ve no trouble getting some rough trade, mostly still in the closet, but I want somebody delicate and sensitive who’ll come with me to Knock.I’ve always been strictly “non scene”. I’ve never camped it up, as I’m anxious not to offend the locals. That’s why I’m big into religion. I’m a pioneer and I’ve designed a special Pioneer butt-plug for long serving members.

My second letter went:

Dear Paschal, Your listeners can call me Declan. I’m a fellow county man of yours, and God it gets horrid lonely up here on the side of the mountain surrounded by nothing but bog and forestry, and if it wasn’t for shaggin’ the odd sheep I’d go off me head. There was one sheep that meant more to me than all the others. She had a lovely cute black face. We were goin’ to get married in Rome. Father McGilafinnan had given his blessing, but the hoors wouldn’t let her on the plane. It was the saddest day in me life when I sent her off to the abattoir and I haven’t ate a lamb chop since. Now I’ve got some sort of oul’ infection, and I don’t know whether to go to the doctor or the vet. My perfect partner must have a bit of class, a merino maybe, who’d like GAA and going to the pub and who wouldn’t bleat unless spoken to. Ya couldn’t play us an ou’l request could ya? I love that Jim Reeves number “I love you ‘cos you’re ewe.”

Other candidates include that Declan Ganley. I just don’t trust him. He has had business dealings in Albania, and the only time most businessmen ever have business dealings in Albania is if they are rash enough to go there to try and get their BMWs back. And then there’s that blue whinger from Mayo Jim Higgins.

Actually I will vote, but I’m not going to tell anyone how. Suffice it to say that I owe the candidate in question a deep debt of gratitude for something he did a few years’ ago.

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Is Ballyjamesduff museum worth a mass?

Hey, want to know something? A little bird has told me, (all hush-hush and on the QT mind), of plans to close down Cavan County Museum. There wasn’t going to be any formal announcement until after the local elections.

The county councillors knew it’s a white elephant. It’s costing too much and it’s not exactly pulling in the punters, but the FFers were too yellow to pull the plug. What’s more they were looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame. The Blueshirts were friendlier to the museum for “family” reasons, and they may be its saviours if they do well in the elections. They will want to keep it open as it’s a good source of jobs for relatives. What’s more one member of the party wouldn’t want to see it closed down as he’d then have to find a job for his son who, unlike him, is fuck all use as a plumber.

Sources close to the museum have revealed that, all going well, a conference is to be held there later in the summer – and at public expense – looking at the history of the Blueshirts in Cavan, with special emphasis on their commitments to family values, as well as the contribution of Cavan Blueshirts to the fight against communism, free-masonry and miniskirts in Spain. This conference will be opened by a special mass, to be broadcast live on Northern Shite radio.

But the museum’s parlous financial situation may have been solved without recourse to local neo-fascists. It has always enjoyed the closest of links with the Knights and other shadowy Catholic lay associations and it seems that some fellow pilgrims in the Civil Service have come up with a few million euro from a Department of Finance reptile fund. In return the museum is to be made into a Knights’ / Opus Diaboli retreat centre, where senior civil servants, politicians and businessmen can relax around a decade or two of the Rosary, and take a break from running the country into the gutter, while reading the latest publications from Four Courts Press.

This religiosity may prove a challenge to the born-again agnostic curator, but he has apparently mused philosophically that Ballyduff is worth a mass.

Seriously, were the museum to close though, it would be a tragedy for the decent people who’ve worked there like Savina and Pat Reilly from Mountnugent. Pat’s had a tough time of it and I always classed him as a close friend.

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