Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A network of local branch libraries is a sine qua non of any democratic society, including Ireland. In areas where distances are long, library services cannot be concentrated in central locations without running the risk of turning areas in the littoral into emotional deserts. These branch libraries can be adjuncts of the central county libraries, providing the usual lending services and browsing facilities, while also being catalysts of activity in areas like local history and the arts. To this end the role of branch libraries, such as that in Belturbet, ought to be expanded, not curtailed.  What’s more branch libraries are used on a daily basis. They do not occupy inaccessible perches.

Education is a life-long process; it ought never to be left solely to schools, and indeed it is often only after the pupil leaves school that he or she starts to learn effectively. Local libraries offer a venue for people of all age groups to acquire knowledge and confidence. Increasingly, libraries have collections of language-learning facilities as well as films on DVD available for loan. In this way people recognise that libraries can be fun places, as closely bound up with recreation as with education. Running costs can be defrayed through a small annual subscription.

We must never forget that knowledge is power, no matter how it is acquired. It is also seen by some as dangerous – no more so than when it is acquired informally, outside of conventional channels of education. The present government talks much about “the smart economy”, but in reality this is mere froth and it would be scared shitless of a smart populace. In fact those who hold power seek to disempower people and so the acquisition of knowledge is curtailed and made more difficult. It is within this context that the closure of branch libraries must be viewed. Of course they pursue their policies through their storm-=troopers in local government who loyally pursue their agendas. They are always avidly assisted by local, democratically-elected councillors. In the 1950s a local politician in Cavan (whose identity I have diplomatically forgotten) once supported a cut in library funding on the grounds that the “the people know too much already.”

The staff of Cavan County Council are my dear friends. I think it is a backhanded compliment to their skills and professionalism, and to the fact that they hold their jobs on merit, that the library services are being threatened. If the library staff had been colonised by the sons, daughters, relatives and well-wishers of councillors and council employees, it would be far better protected against cutbacks in its staff and would be able to waste money like confetti, contemptuous of any need to provide a service to the public                        

I am conscious that my defence of Belturbet library may actually damage the campaign being pursued by those wishing to maintain it.  I’m not paranoid, I assure my readers, but there are a small handful of people at one time or another employed by Cavan County Council (whom I’ve never met) who have a propensity to lie about me, circulate vile rumours about me, undermine my activities and air brush me out of areas of Cavan life as if I had never existed. It is a reflection of the society we inhabit that such people, alas, have the ears of powerful people.  I am also too sadly aware that some of the above may be deliberated and mischievously misquoted, or quoted out of context, or otherwise distorted by some in the pursuit of their nasty ends.