It is usual in most parts of the democratic world to wait until someone is dead a decent time before they are commemorated by having a building, a road, or a fountain named after them. Cavan town is an exception where it is accepted that egotistical nobodies can be commemorated before they have gone the way of all flesh. I refer to an area near Drumalee Cross which I pass on my daily “fun run” which proudly bears the moniker Cullivan Court. As the building is partly owned by one Gabriel Cullivan, formerly a town clerk of the town, I assume that it has been named in his honour, and not that of the well-known and much-loved architect , the late Phil Cullivan. This is like an annex of Wall Street being renamed Boesky Boulevard or Madoff Parade. While such dreadful and unseemly self-promotion may appear tasteless, it must be remembered that Mr Cullivan, as a former employee of that shower of vindictive cowards Cavan County Council, can do what he likes – he has done it in the past – and should anyone demur, one of the sycophantic elected members of the council would propose a motion of “tanks to Mr Cullivan for his sterlin’ work” on behalf of himself and the people of Cavan over the years.

I need hardly mention that one of Cullivan Court’s biggest tenants is none other than the HSE – another crowd of arrogant, incompetent  anda superannuated shites. All that is needed there is the erection of a pillar surmounted by a statue of Mr Cullivan, maybe sporting the green leprechaun suit he wore  at the opening of the County Museum fifteen years’ ago and which was commented upon with so much mirth and derision by the then County Arts Officer, Ms Catriona O’Reilly. (I know that the present County Arts Officer is also  called Ms Catriona O’Reilly but she is altogether a different person from the one I referred to.

I expect these comments will meet with a frisson of disapproval, maybe even a threat of legal action, but my response is Bring it on baby! Some of them may even say that I shouldn’t be going so far on my fun run. Am I not confined to a wheelchair, and should I not come to terms with my disability like other cripples in the county by accepting my permanent inferiority to Cavan County Council, its employee and their families (more or less the same thing) by awaiting the grant of a council house?

 The Gonzo Theatre

 I am unfortunate enough to have mobility problems, which I am endeavouring to overcome. A number of events associated with the fleadh are to take place in locations to which I (along with other disabled people) would have trouble gaining access. One of these is The Gonzo Theatre above the Imperial. This sounds like a really cool place, while pictures appearing in Fuckyez Magazine suggest that it offers numerous possibilities for the practising ornithologist. As far as I know you can only get into it by a flight of stairs. This is not Philip Doherty’s fault. Philip is an exceedingly talented writer who has the rare gift of being able to work in a variety of genres. Philip has furthermore undertaken to help me get to the Theatre, something that would be possible as stairs do not present an impassable barrier to me. I am sorry that, until now, I haven’t felt well enough to take him up on his kind invitations.

Lie down croppy boy!

There are, I feel, some associated with the Arts in Cavan who are not in the least worried whether I can get there or not. Have I not bitten the hand that fed me? They may be surprised that “a cripple” or someone in a wheelchair would want to attend a show, along with “normal” people. Why can’t “they” be content with their own entertainment provided in venues like the IWA centre in Corlurgan, featuring plays that have been written especially about them? Or they could “shadow” (for free) consultants and “access auditors” employed by the county council (no doubt not for free) to draw up reports pointing out access black spots.

Coming to terms

Maybe I’m writing this because I am angry, or because I haven’t “come to terms” with my disabilities. True, if “coming to terms” with my disabilities means participating in a racket whereby the disabled are bribed into a state of submission as they wait for their number to come up in a council house lottery, I have not “come to terms” and never will. But I do not accept that I should “come” to someone else’s terms.

“Them” and “us”

I was ill for a number of months but I now feel much better. I am able to walk further than I ever could and I am determined to the best of my abilities to use a wheelchair less and less, partially because I see its use as a label of imposed separation. I do not and never have considered myself as belonging to that group referred to dismissively as “them” but rather to the collectivity of Cavan’s town people called “us”.

Very few people can share the sense of outrage and despair I suffered last year as I saw people from outside my town being invited to speak on its history. These experts “had their degrees” i.e. they had PhDs. But do I not have a PhD awarded in 1992? Maybe there are some who cannot “come to terms” with the fact that a PhD could be earned by a partially sighted individual?   Don’t get me wrong: I am not preaching a narrow parochialism or stating that only Cavan natives should be allowed to talk about its history. But when there is a Cavan native who can talk about it, and in an entertaining way, why should that person be ignored just because he has been blacklisted by some cowards in the council executive or because his father is not a town councillor?

Please forgive me if I have stepped on some people’s corns. I used to play an active part in the cultural life of this town: I would love to do so again.

Epilogue

(By the way, readers needn’t worry about “who he’s getting’ at”. I’m only getting at the same crowd of superannuated, impotent, God-forsaken fuckers as usual. Apologies to anyone who can’t rise to the occasion or get a hard on; I honestly didn’t have you specifically in mind.)

 Some months later the invitation arrived, but to the composer’s disgust the first screening was to take place in a cinema well known for showing “porno” films. Swallowing his he went along anyway, but decided to keep a low profile, so he sat at the very back, alongside an elderly pair.

 The film left nothing to the imagination; there were graphic scenes featuring masturbation, group sex, anal sex and oral sex, while towards the end there was even some scenes featuring a dog having sex with a woman.

 When it was over the highly-embarrassed composer bent over to the couple beside him and explained that he was only there because he had written the film score, to which the old woman replied: “We’re only here because that was our dog.”

As a true republican I know I wouldn’t be welcomed there  It all makes perfect sense now – the only historians that have been invited to take part in the fleadh must have an unimpeachable Fine Gael pedigree.

… and to those who might say “Isn’t it a shame Ciaran can’t write something better…” let me answer in the letters used by Kevin Bloody Wilson – DILLIGAF

 All I know is how Cavan County Council have treated me – very badly. They took away the job I had with them, though it was not much of a job. The pay was abysmal and I wasn’t even entitled to holidays, though I took them anyway. Then they have sought to wipe out my reputation as a historian, to the extent that I don’t exist and no one is brave enough to mention my name in some circles. But their most recent dastardly act, carried out ostensibly with the co-operation of the Department of the Environment, has been to take away my ability to vote in this year’s elections, along with that of my 91-year-old father.

 These cretinous acts belong to a mere handful of self-important nobodies in the organisation. The vast plethora of employees are simple, decent folk, though some of them have far too much time on their hands, yet this is a problem of ineffective management. Some of them used to be my friends, but during my recent illness only three came to see me or enquire after me.

 If Cavan County Council is corrupt I fear that it certainly isn’t alone among local authorities,, but then this sorry state of affairs merely represents their superiors in the Department of the Environment. They now have the impudence to assume that every household in Ireland pay a household charge, but let’s call it by its proper name: a poll tax. As for the minister he has the cojones to stand up to his officials. In fact, he is about as effective as a life-size mascot at a hurling club match in his native Kilkenny.

 But we in the “developed” world, especially Ireland, need not feel too smug about this. There are certain broadband blackspots in Irelanmd, such as the area aroundf Miltown and Baker’s Bridge Co. Cavan. Residents here cannot get a broadband link “for love or money”. Instead they are told to be satisified with dial-up connections, using telephone lines which are antiquated and which carry an annoying beat making them useless for voice communicationn let alone high-speed data. There is the possibility of gaining broadband access by mobile ‘phone, but this is prohibitively expensive, and it would no doubt work out at way above forty times the amount I’m expected to live in by this corrupt government.

 One other costly alternative is to buy broadband access via satellite from a company like ABB Telecom based in Kinnegad. The only problem is that, after getting the money for the service and equipment up front, these are never delivered. I know – I swallowed the saccharine balderdash of their web page last February, and no satellite dish was delivered,. Instead ABB Telecom attempted (unsuccessfuly) to extract a monthly fee from my bank account for a service which wasn’t being delivered. It’s now September and I’m still trying to get my money back. I’ve been left out of pocket forsix months for a service which is not being delivered and which probably was never going to be delivered in the first place.

 In an attempt to provide appropriate courses fitted to people’s needs, a special course is to be offered for senior managers who have problems who lack basic numeracy skills. The problem was highlighted by the recent budget overruns associated with the fleadh, and then by a recent survey which showed that the problem was widespread. amongst senior highly-paid management, and not confined, as had previously been thought, to janitors. The course will start with an introduction to the numbers, followed by simple arithmetic using the fingers. Course participants will then migrate to learning tables. Those who pass the course successfully will then be able to start working with calculators

 It is hoped that this course will be more successful than previous ones which aimed to help senior executives in local government with low literacy and letter writing skills. It transpires that even after completing previous courses many participants were not able to type even simple salutations on keyboards. Instead they were only able to scratch simple words like “cat” and “shit” in chalk or crayon on toilet and lift walls in the County Council offices. What’s more, when presented with a letter they fell back into old behavioural types, preferring to play “Spot the Ball”. Alternatively they would seek to gain the identity of the person who had written to them and who deserved a reply, and spread vile and unsubstantiated rumours about them. It is said that the walls of their offices (which reek of the nauseating odour of Preparation H)are festooned with photocopies of press photographs showing football players looking blankly into space, upon which lines in red and black ink have been drawn.

One of the most egregious examples of the way in which the achievements of Cavan’s disabled have been rubbished came last March. The National Council for the Blind, the largest Irish charity working for the benefits of blind and partially sighted people in the country, wanted to hold a meeting in Cavan’s County Library, run by Cavan County Council. They were encouraged to organise a talk on “local history”. However, they didn’t turn to the partially-sighted holder of a PhD in history in their midst, someone who had years of experience as a writer and lecturer on the subject, (myself) but to the council’s dream-boy Dr Brendan Scott, son of Councillor John Scott of Belturbet. Unfortunately the NCBI’s organiser here in Cavan, Ms Helena McDonald, did not realise how she was being set up, and I didn’t realise what was happening until I received an invitation to the event, featuring the aforementioned Scott as “special guest”. Alas Dr Scott, though holding a doctorate in history, is such a craven example of humanity that he felt it was but one more occasion for him to humiliate me and to repay me for the “trouble” that had existed between me and the museum (though before his time), that he jumped at the occasion to give a talk on Cavan’s “Franciscan abbey” (wherever that was). He accepted this invitation so as to rub in my disability to me and at the same time to say that, even though I had a doctorate and considerable experience as a historian, he stood higher amongst the miserable scum of Cavan Co. Council’s establishment. Years of experience has shown that many of the greatest academics are not people you’d willingly associate with, but I wonder do Dr Scott’s colleagues realise what a craven piece of excrement he is? I’ve never met him but since his appointment to Cavan’s County Museum he has pursued a vendetta against me, something in which he has been aided by many in the county council’s executive, including its highest members.

 Now I had thought of Cavan County Library as a home-away-from-home and its ever-helpful staff as friends. I had enjoyed carrying out research there. Sadly, one of the other users of the library did not feel I belonged there, and complained of my whispering into my hand-held tape-recorder. I do not know the identity of my accuser, but I think I’d be able to pick him out in an identity parade. Libraries can be noisy places, yet I ensure that I do not add to the existing background noise level in any way. It was quite clear that I was a wheelchair user and that I needed to use a low-vision aid in order to read text, but a fellow human being responded to my plight not by seeing whether he could help me in any way, or even ignore me, but by making a complaint that I was causing a disturbance. I can assure my readers that my whispers were less loud than the noise made by him and his troupe of hangers-on, who seemed to think that they owned the library’s research area and to resent the presence of strangers there. This was disturbing, but more disturbing was the fact that the library authorities took these vexatious complaints on board. This was enough for me to be banished from the library to the eyrie of the Genealogical Office that has a rather disturbing view over the County Council car park, and it can only be reached by a rather narrow and awkward lift. I was rather embarrassed when I was told of my fate, for no matter how justified I personally felt it was as if I were a schoolboy who had been caught out picking my nose during Morning Assembly. My non-presence ion the public parts of the library frees the county library of the obviously too distressing visage of a partially sighted library user. How capricious is Father Time. I have in my possession a photograph from the Anglo-Celt from a number of years ago, showing me using a piece of magnification equipment in the main body of the old library. I am obviously an inappropriate fixture of the newer library.

 (Let me add that I do not blame the rank-and-file of the library’s staff for this sea change in my fortunes. I feel that this has come from higher up, and from those who do not like being called “Whacko Jacko”. Let me assure him that this epithet is mild compared to the one I feel he is more entitled to.)

 And what is more they may have been persuaded to add their names to Cavan Co. Council’s housing list – even though few houses are being built. But should they be so rash as to consider complaining about the quality of access for disabled people in the county, their temerity will be dissuaded by the knowledge that they are harming their places on the housing list.

 Perhaps this is their journey.