Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

The fleadh taking place in Cavan town will be a great showcase for traditional musicians to display their skills and also to learn from each other. It will also be a spectacular opportunity for the general public to enjoy one of the most important and irreplaceable aspects f our national character. It is such a pity that the disabled are being locked out of taking part.

 Some historical talks have been organised to accompany the fleadh. They are to be given by Dr Jonathan Cherry (a good friend) and the multi-talented Dr Brendan Scott. Both these speakers are, thank God, able bodied. There has been no invitation to the wheelchair-bound and partially sighted Dr Ciaran Parker, who has written about all aspects of the history of Cavan town. But honestly, the sight of him in his wheelchair speaking without notes would not set the right tone at an even which obviously sets so much store by physical perfection.

 The reason why I haven’t been asked to speak is puzzling. Last February I was asked to lead a walking tour of Cavan town by Catriona O’Reilly, the County f Arts Officer, and a member of the fleadh’s organising committee. This was in conjunction with a festival taking place in Cavan town at the time. I naturally agreed, but I was unable to lead the tour because of a freak snowstorm that led to the cancellation of most other events. I was assured that the event would be rescheduled for a later date. A fee had been mentioned, but I wasn’t doing it for the money. Had that been now I know full well Dr Scott would have been invited instead. A snowfall wouldn’t affect him as he can walk on water – he certainly shows no problem walking through the shit he causes. And as for payment, it is only natural that in a time of budgetary constraints the council should ensure that all monies stay within the broader County Council family of employees, members and theitr families.

 Another puzzling aspect is why I was approached by a local writer associated with the fleadh. He sought historical advice and information for a number of short plays he had been commissioned to write for the aforementioned fleadh.   It seems a bit unfair to pump someone for information whom they were going to snub And whose very name was not to be mentioned.. Why didn’t he go to Dr Scott for his intelligence? No doubt because he or his friends knew he’d be disappointed.  I write this so that people attending the fleadh will no what a miserable crowd of back-stabbing, lying cheats have organised it.

One of Leo Tolstoy’s earliest yet finest stories is entitled “The Raid”. It was set in the North Caucasus and includes details drawn from Tolstoy’s own experiences fighting the Chechens. Yet I think a short story of the same namer, though without Tolstoy’s charm and poise, could be written about events in Cavan town, as they unfolded on the weekend beginning June 18^th. At that time, customs and excises officials raided a number of licensed premises in the town and seized alcohol that was being sold there, but for which no duty had been paid, thereby making its purchases price lower and the potential profit from resale higher.

 I have heard that one premises in particular was targeted, and no, I’m not going to repeat it. Suffice it to say that its owners are well connected politically at both local and national level. What’s more the premises’s dining facilities are completely inaccessible toe me and to all other wheelchair uses. This is not a legacy of the building’s age. It should have been diaphanously clear to the planning authorities who signed off on the plans, but sure, who cares about cripples? But the owners should know that there is NO difference between the ten euro note proffered by the cripple and the able-bodied citizen, just as there is no difference between the able-bodied note and the cripple at election time.

 It will be interesting to see if any prosecutions arise. They would be embarrassing to say the least, and for that reason I suspect the ‘phones in the DPP’s office have been ringing loudly. But then as the affair of Ivor Callely shows, there is one law for members of Seanad Eirinn, quite another for the rest of us.

 Going back to the short story I suspect that the denouement of this particular roman will be inconclusive.

This week’s RTE Guide contains a very interesting interview with the talented young British actor David Proud. David is of course, wheel-chair bound, and he has used with wonderful skillsto help overcome some of the prejudice and ignorance surrounding disability. He asks why is it that there are no condom machines in disabled toilets? I can answer cynically because it is considered by the £able-bodied” who make decisions, that disabled guys just don’t have sex. They haven’t got the proper kit, it is believed. They are incapable of performing “proper” jobs so it goes without saying that the sexual act is beyond them as well. And then so many of the “Voluntary organisations” which supposedly look after the disabled would never ask such a question, as invariably their patrons include more than their fair share of do-gooders. 

 I’d love to tell David about the plight of a certain partially-sighted guy who couldn’t always see the condom machine, and who was too embarrassed to ask. He knew well that it would be a waste of time contacting the National Council for the Blind of Ireland on this, as on any other problem. What would Archbishop Clifford say?!

 David also mentions another piece of unbelievable ignorance – that disabled people don’t swear. Of course, if they do it is because they are angry and they are still having problems coming to terms with their position as God’s accursed.

Yesterday I had to pay a visit to Cavan town. This was no big deal. I am in a wheelchair and I was going to an address in Wesley St. (not the FAS office). The problem was caused by the kerb, which was so high that my wheelchair couldn’t traverse it. Luckily (indeed very happily) the charming young lady who was with me held my hand as I got out of the wheelchair and gained access to the footpath.

 Cavan town is a nightmare as far as wheelchair and disabled access is concerned. I must ask Where is the Irish Wheelchair association? Its top honcho in Cavan, Bridget Boyle, enjoys a special relationship with Cavan County Manager, Jack Keys, so I’m sure that she could make usual representations. But then what business do I, or any wheelchair user, have to be attempting to follow an independent life? Should the only journeys I make outside of my home not be in the IWA state-of-the- arse” Mercedes minibus to their centre at Corlurgan, where I can spend the day with other wheelchair users, before regaining my seat on the minibus (a sparkling existence)?

 The [problems regarding disabled access in Cavan can be solved cheaply and with common sense. Dished footpaths can be installed, though unless they have a corresponding dished footpath on the other side of the street facing them they are worse than useless. This would not be expensive. I would go so far as to say it would cost less money than the fees and travel expenses paid to “access auditors” from Scotland to come and write glossy reports about Cavan, a location unknown to them. The considerable gaps in their knowledge being supplied by local disabled people who are expected to “shadow” them – for free of course.  ,

 All in all I enjoyed my little trip to Cavan town – a journey most people take for granted. What’s more I had the pleasure of momentarily holding the hand of a pretty lady – sometimes being in a wheelchair has its advantages.

Rosie, my sister Gill and myself have received an invitation to an event to be held in the Irish Wheelchair Association headquarters at Corlurgan, on May 28^th. This is a play about disabled people and starring disabled people from Co. Cavan. It is a most worthy project and I wish it the greatest success to those taking part.

 There are a number of aspects that trouble me however. First, as far as I can discern, the play has not been written by disabled people, but by an able-bodied dramatist, maybe commissioned by Cavan County Council’s Arts Office. There seems to be the implication here that disabled people’s thoughts are too raw and coarse to be consumed by the general, able-bodied public, and have to be interpreted by someone else. Is it about disabled people’s journeys but in the words of the able-bodied? Apart from those unfortunate enough to suffer from aphasia or any other condition that causes loss of speech, all the disabled people I know (including myself) can speak very well and clearly.

 Bound up with this may be the assumption that disabled people wouldn’t be able to formulate their thoughts intelligently, let alone write a play.

 As I have a prior engagement I won’t be able to attend. This should not be seen as a snub by me towards those taking part in the play, who have my boundless respect and admiration. Unfortunately I feel I know what is going to happen. The event will be turned into a photo opportunity. My good friend Brian Mulligan will be on hand to take the pictures of the disabled who will be lined up for the shot. They will thus appear as nice, well-behaved and non-threatening cripples. This will then appear in the pages of the Anglo-Celt as exhibits in the ego-trips of those able-bodied people who want to appear caring. It might be said that the disabled are therefore being cynically used.  Bridget Boyle will be there of course, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t have her friend Whacko Jacko Keys there. Bridget enjoys the privileged position of being the only disabled person he deigns to communicate with.  Another sure show will be the chairman of the County Council, Winston Bennett, who will play the role of the self-important courthouse jester by wearing a silly chain round his neck. (Now men who wear jewellery are often ridiculed and called names like “trannies”. What’s more the only people I know who are called Winston are from the West Indies.)

 The drama has been assisted by Cavan County Council’s Arts Office. I used to enjoy very close relations with the office’s staff but I seem to have dropped out of their orbit. I cannot understand why the Arts Officer, my dear (or at least I though dear) friend Catriona O’Reilly never told me about this project. No doubt it would have been inappropriate for her to have contacts with me. How could she own up to being the friend of someone who has said such dreadful things about poor Brendan Snott and his neurotic predecessor in the Ballyjamesduff County vomitarium? She could have contacted me by ‘phone while out walking were she afraid that contact me through her office would be overheard.

 I cannot second-guess the play’s contents, but I do hope that it is realistic and not a dire panegyric singing the praises of the Irish Wheelchair Association or telling of Cavan’s disabled community’s gratitude to Cavan County Council for putting them on the housing waiting list – and keeping them there – where they know that any criticism of the council’s policies will earn them backward movement on the said list. Funny thing is that I don’t think there are that many houses being built, but no doubt the council will restart their construction once they get some of the 25 million euro they’re owed by developers.)

 Now I am confined to a wheelchair, although thankfully I can walk for about half a mile each day. The play is called Our Journey, but I don’t feel it’s my journey, as nobody ever contacted me for my input. This is not prompted by churlish resentment. I do believe that my story, which is not superior to anyone else’s, might be of interest. It is certainly of no lesser value, but it seems that some of those behind this project just don’t want to hear it. They may think that it would be too embarrassing and too likely to offend “certain people”. Yet my disabled journey is a joyful story. I see my disabilities as gifts from God; they are challenges which have been given to me and which I see myself as having a duty to overcome as best I can. I know that there would be many who would bristle with discomfort were I to say the unutterable, that I am actually proud of my disabilities and how I continue to deal with them on a daily basis.

 But it seems as if there are some in Cavan who want to ignore me. The great lie is spread that I am angry.  I am portrayed as someone who has never accepted my position as a cripple, one of God’s accursed. My outlook is heretical, because I do not humbly accept my disabilities as the actions of a wrathful God, (and it goes without saying that the people who think this know God well). What is more I refuse to come to terms with the “fact” that no mater how many books I write or languages I learn I can nevcr, never be as good as the laziest and most incompetent able-bodied person.

 I am therefore not worthy of charity, (not that I want it), or kindness. The nun who used to wipe clean the blackboard when she would see me attempting to discern what she had written, and who forbade any of my classmates to give me their notes, was thus justified because I had stood up to her tyranny. I haven’t changed. In the past I have offended the petty local establishment and thumbed my nose at organisations like the knights of St Columbanus. Did I not go to a Protestant school and refuse to kiss Bishop McKiernan’s ring? I must therefore be punished by being airbrushed out of Cavan’s reality like someone who doesn’t exist, never has and never will.

 Let me repeat that I wish the event all the very best luck. At least I was invited. In the past Tess Kennedy of the Irish MS Society, which has close links to the IWA, has invited me to give talks on local history and other subjects to members in St Christopher’s, and I hope that those who attended enjoyed themselves and found the experience as instructive and rewarding as I did. This action stands in marked contrast to that of the National Council for the Blind in Cavan. Now both Tess and Bridget Boyle knew of my skills and abilities, and both of them were well aware of my contributions to the sadly defunct Cavan Echo. They have never been afraid to count me as a friend and indeed an equal.

 No doubt Dr Snott, so long employed by Cavan County Council and taken to their collective heart, thought that he was a real clever boy when he accepted the invitation to speak from the NCBI on a topic that I had worked on for over two decades. The apposite adjective for him is, I believe unprintable even on my blog.

I sincere congratulate Sean Connick ion his promotion to a ministry of State. Sean and myself have one thing in common. We both have to use wheelchairs. I hope that Brian Cowen’s actions are not motivated by tokenism here. Sean has shown himself well able to perform the arduous and difficult tasks associated with government.

 This is not the first time I’ve congratulated Sean. I sent him a message at the time of his first election. Sadly he never replied.

 Sean has the opportunity of becoming a real role model for disabled people. He can demonstrate that we deserve a real chance to contribute to society, and be more than the obsequiously nodding backing groups to the often short-sighted actions of those who take responsibility for promoting the disabled.

As I have said myself and Sean have one thing in common. He has just been appointed to government, and yet I languor in obscurity. Sean has worked hard for his promotion, and deserves to be able to reap the rewards of his efforts, yet I’m supposed to just sit here and quietly accept the ongoing attempts of some people in this locality to rubbish me and my work.

Some might say that I somehow deserve my lot because of my outspokenness. But all I’ve ever done is call attention to waste and shortcomings. There are attempts also to portray me as some type of angry hothead who has never come to terms with his disabilities. I see my disabilities as gifts, yes gifts from God. Rather than raging against them it is up to me to work my way through and around them, as Sean Connick and many others have done. I remember once seeing an interview with him, where he said that, like everyone he had his good and his bad days – so do I. The most important thing is to keep going on and feel that you are making a positive contribution to the world around you.

The National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI) which claims to represent the interests of the bind and partially sighted in Ireland has organised a meeting for next Thursday. The “Special guest” will be Dr Brendan Scott who will talk about the Franciscan Friary in Cavan.

 Brendan Scott is the same person who organised a conference on the medieval and early modern history of Cavan to which were invited specialists from as far away as the UK and America, though an expert who resided in Cavan, namely myself, was not invited. This was a deliberate snub, motivated by Dr Scott’s perception that there had been “trouble” between me and the museum, though it had been before his time.

 Some months earlier Dr Scott had unsuccessfully sought to replace me as a contributor to the Cavan Echo. I think it is obvious that Dr Scott has same issues regarding me. Though I’m damned if I know what they are as I’ve never even met him.

 This is the person the NCBI has invited as a special guest. Now it is bad enough that the NCBI does sweet FA to promote the interests of the blind, but quite another when they are siding with those who attack them. The invitation has cleared Dr Scott at a stroke of any accusation of discriminating against a partially sighted and disabled scholar. How could he have done such a thing he can say, when the National Council for the Blind itself invites him as a special guest – and in clear preference to the person whom he discriminated against.

 I am reproducing here an article I wrote for the Cavan Echo about Cavan’s Franciscan Friary, that I wrote in October 2007. But how silly and impudent of me to make such a claim when it is obvious I never wrote this at all. I have merely dreamed that I have written this, when in fact my hand and brain were in fact being directed by my double Dr Brendan Scott. It’s copyrighted. It was Francis Bacon who said “Opportunity makes the thief.”

 Given my expertise on the areas I have offered to give the talk instead, based on my own material, but the NCBI has responded to my offer with deafening silence. No doubt they are part of the voluntary sector in Cavan who are captives of the County Council, their members cowed into silence and acquiescence of discrimination by the promise of council grouses. While Whacko Jack presents himself as a guardian of disabled rights as he poses with yet another group of expensive, external consultants.

 By the way Brendan, does it make yo0u feel big and macho to pick on a disabled person and to steal from a cripple? You’ll have no luck you miserable bastard.

 Cavan’s Franciscan Friary

 Cavan Echo, October 19^th 2007

With the break-neck level of building development in Cavan town it can often seem as if the oldest surviving structure is a post-box or a petrol-tank. This accolade belongs however to the tower of the Franciscan Friary in the town’s Abbey Street, formerly known as Church Lane.

 Founding father

 The foundation of the friary, for monks from the Franciscan order or Ordo Fratrum Minorum (OFM) was the first surviving reference to Cavan in any of the surviving annals. The person who founded the friary was the recently-installed chieftain of East Breifne, Giolla Iosa ruadh O’Reilly, who more than anyone helped to re-establish the power of his family after the debacle of Magh Slecht half a century earlier which had seen the death of his father, grandfather, half-brother and many other relatives.

 Poorest of the poor

 The Franciscan order had been founded by St Francis in Italy in 1209. Their members were dedicated to rigorous and absolute poverty. At first they renounced even the principle of holding property in common. They spread like wild-fire throughout Europe, even reaching remote parts of Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia within a century of their foundation.

 The Franciscans had been particularly successful in urban areas, so their success in the north of Ireland, which was still devoid of towns, was unusual. The first monks may have come from Dundalk or Drogheda, or from friaries elsewhere in Ulster, such as Downpatrick and Carrickfergus. These were under the control of the Anglo-Norman earl of Ulster Richard de Burgh. The earl was generally on friendly terms with Giolla Iosa, who named one of his sons Risteard after him.

 Nothing survives today from this foundation. An eighteenth-century antiquary wrote that Giolla Iosa built a chapel and marble mausoleum at the friary. This might have been too ostentatious for the friars though who were wedded to simplicity in all aspects of life.

 Arson around

 Many of the buildings were of wood. In 1452 much of the abbey was destroyed in a fire caused by a careless monk called O Mothlain who was reading his breviary by candle-light, although The Annals of Ulster infer that he had partaken too freely of wine. In May 1575 the friary, with much of the town of Cavan went up in flames, though on this occasion a highly-placed arsonist was to blame. The wife of the then ruler of Erfast Breifne, Aodh Conallach, had a grudge against one of the residents of Cavan and set fire to their house. Alas for the town and the friary the flames spread. .

 Old peoples’ home with a difference

 The friary soon developed a rather non-religious aspect closely linked to the ruling house; it became a strange mixture of a retirement home and political refuge. Fifteen years after its foundation Giolla Iosa gave up the reins of power to become a monk in the friary where he died and was buried in 1330. His son Cu Chonnacht (whose descendants eventually settled in the Munterconnaght area of Co. Cavan) also retired there to die in 1366. His time at the top had been marked by tension with his brother Pilip, and Cu Chonnacht’s act of renunciation of the world may have been all the sweeter because he knew the friary afforded the right of sanctuary to all who lived there.

 The old order changes

 For many years a mistaken belief was held by some historians that the friary had been founded not by Franciscans, but by their brother mendicants the Dominicans or Ordo Praedicatorum (OP) There was a change in the rule followed by the monks in 1503 when the then ruler of East Breifne, Sean Mac Cathail O’Reilly, successfully petitioned the Papacy for the friary to change from the mainstream conventual branch of the Franciscans towards the much more rigorous and fundamentalist Observantines, which had been founded in Italy in 1368. but which was sweeping all before it in Ireland.

 A bishop’s residence

 The friary was important in the local secular church, to which in theory it did not belong. The last bishop of the diocese of Tir Bruin before it changed its name to that of Kilmore, was one Donat O Gabhain, and in the 1430s the Franciscan friary was his residence.

 A falling off

 It is probable that, like many other religious institutions in sixteenth-century Ireland it suffered from a falling-off of membership and religious discipline. It seems to have survived the various troubles of the sixteenth century intact. Nettercliff’s map of Cavan town c. 1590 shows a plain rectangular building with a tower on the site of the present tower,

 Kindly move aside

 With the extinction of O Raghailigh power and the advent of English rule this church was pressed into use as a place of Protestant Divine service. During the upheavals of the middle of the century it changed back to being a church of Catholic worship, only to be once more seized by the conflict’s victors for their religious uses.

 A final resting place

 Before this it had, according to tradition, served as the burial place of Eoghan ruadh O Neill, the military leader of the rebellion in Ulster, following his death at Clough Oughter in November 1649. Other traditions in the Clough Oughter area dispute this though. It had certainly been a place of burial for the O’Reilly chieftains throughout the later middle Ages. The late Philip O’Connell recounted another tradition of the unearthing of stone-lined coffins during repaving work in the nineteenth century.

 Going out for a slash

 Some antiquaries also testify to the survival of a tombstone belonging to the legendary Myles the Slasher, but as “Myles” did not die at the Bridge of Finea but passed away in France such a monument must have been a figment of their imagination.

 Continuation

 The church continued to be used as Cavan’s parish church throughout the eighteenth century. The monastery was knocked down and its materials used for the construction of a barracks for horses nearby.  The surviving tower possibly dates from the eighteenth century. The grounds were used as a cemetery until the late nineteenth century; amongst those buried there were the first barons arnham.   

The end of the road

It was obviously too small of a building to act as Cavan’s Parish Church. In 1807 work began on a new structure on land donated by the Farnhams. Construction was delayed by the ongoing Napoleonic wars but by November 1815 sufficient buildings had been completed to allow the first services to be held there, thus condemning the structure in Abbey Street to obsolescence; one of the last services held there took place on Christmas Day 1815.

While still used for burials the site soon became overgrown, a condition only recently reversed.  The inside of the tower itself was used as a dumping ground and alfresco public convenience. Some of the original wooden structures of the church survived until the 1880s, for in December 1888 the Anglo-Celt recorded a fire on the site, which by then had attained the importance of a sanctuary as the burial place of “Owen Roe”.

© Ciaran Parker 2007

I have since learned from among others Dr Eamon McDwyer of a long-current tradition that Eoghan ruadh O Neill was buried in 1649 at a site on the Bridge Street side of the abbey.

In today’s post I received an invitation to a talk organised by the National Council for the Blind (NCBI). This is to take place in Cavan’s library and the speaker will be Cavan County Museum’s Dr Brendan Scott, who will talk about the Franciscan friary in Cavan, a subject of such great relevance to the blind and partially sighted.

 Now I know that Dr Scot and his miserable friends, who are such avid readers of my blog, would love me to spill my guts on my blog about this. But to be honest, I can’t be arsed. However, I never realised that Brendan Scott of Belturbet is such a low-down, cowardly, cruel cur.  His father seems such a nice man though.

 As for the NCBI they once again prove themselves to be useless. Indeed, one must question their role as a charitable organisation which claims to be representing the interests of the blind and partially sighted. When they want someone to give a lecture they don’t turn to the partially sighted person in their locality who has a PhD in history as well as years of lecturing experience. They claim ignorance of his existence, even though he is no shrinking violet, and in spite of also being confined to a wheelchair, leads a very public life. Instead they have to ask the County Council and the County Manager’s little darling. In the light of my description of him I think this speaks volumes.

The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is the largest voluntary organisation working on behalf of the blind and partially-sighted in Ireland. It has helped, I am sure, thousands of blind and partially-sighted people over the years and is no doubt continuing to do so. However, because it relies on workers in various localities, whose experience of dealing with the blind varies considerably, I feel that its work has been patchy. It has, with difficulty, shaken off well-entrenched “Victorian” attitudes towards disability.

I beg leave of my readers to share my own experiences of the NCBI. Growing up in Cavan I must admit I felt that the NCBI treated me as something of a freak. My ambitions to better myself were tolerated as a fad which I would work myself out of, once I discovered that no matter how hard I worked I could never hope to aspire to be treated equally.

In 1988 I had a serious confrontation with the government when the Department of Social Welfare tried to throttle my attempts to study for a higher degree in Trinity College Dublin. I eventually won, but I had to make sure the NCBI took no part in my case, as it was manifest from early on that their support would have been given to the other side and against me. An NCBI official decried how unreasonable I was and then screamed at me that I was fighting “the law of the land.” I wanted to live independently in Dublin, something I achieved, though at a financial cost. The same NCBI person asked me why I’d never sought accommodation in a blind hostel.

When I came back to Cavan I was introduced to the NCBI’s then case worker in the area, Ms Bernie Rawls. We got on like a house on fire. For one thing Bernie treated me like an equal and never looked down on me. She was of huge assistance in getting me specialist software and computer hardware, as well as being a constant source of advice and friendship. Sadly, Bernie resigned from her post, and in her final letter to me she told me her NCBI replacement would be in touch with me. This was more than five years’ ago, and no one has contacted me since.

            … To be continued

On September 15^th 2009 I received a letter from the National Council of the Blind outlining the work of their very worthwhile EYE CAN program. The letter was accompanied with a request for a monthly payment towards it. It goes without saying that this was, in normal times, a worthy cause, but I felt that such a request was slightly inappropriate. Those in receipt of the non-contributory blind pension occupy a position astride the poverty line, and there are more than enough calls upon our limited income. What was more everyone knew that the aforementioned blind pension was facing a cut in line with the evil prescriptions of the McCarthy report.

 I was anxious to explain the position I was in and why I, and most other blind pension recipients, would have been unable to contribute to the EYE CAN program, no matter how much they wanted to.  I also wanted to find out what the NCBI was doing about the prospect of benefit cuts. Had it made a submission to the government? Could blind pension recipients help? Could they, for example, lobby their local politicians?

 The letter I received had been sent in the name of the NCBI’s director Des Kenny.  There were no contact details, such as an e-mail address. However, I eventually found a way of sending a letter to Des via e-mail. I did so in late September 2009 and I have never received a reply. 

 I subsequently found out that the National Council for the Blind had indeed made a pre budget submission, but without any involvement from those poor wretches whom it represents. This submission was, I feel, not quite as strident or rigorous as was necessary, and I take the liberty of reproducing a paragraph of it here.

      “The report by the Commission on Taxation recommended that the Blind Person’s
        Tax Credit be discontinued, in favour of a direct payment. NCBI broadly
       agrees with this recommendation as the Blind Person’s Tax Credit currently
       only benefits people in employment. However, NCBI would like to be involved
       in the consultation around what this direct payment should be before giving
       our full backing to this decision.”

 The NCBI’s Communications Officer, Ms. Fionnuala Murphy, added

        “These recommendations are drawn up in conjunction with our community-based staff, who have regular contact with people      who are blind or vision impaired and keep themselves up to date on the issues that people face in their daily lives.”

 Let me repeat, nobody from the NCBI has been in contact with me for years. Nobody can say I’m a shrinking violet when it comes to expressing how I feel.

 For one thing, I would have refused to even engage in a budget based on the recommendations of Colm McCarthy. This was an unoriginal and dishonest right-wing blue-print for rolling back government involvement in the economy. But such churlishness would have been pooh-poohed by some as outrageous behaviour towards people who pretend to no more about things than I do. And then people like government ministers, senior civil servants and economists might have been in a better position to make donations to things like the EYE CAN project, and their generosity should not be met with ingratitude.  But would a more strident, dare I say macho stance towards the McCarthy recommendations have mattered? They were followed almost to the letter.

 I haven’t heard of the response (if any) by the NCBI to the cut in the blind pension benefit. It may have occurred, but fell below the news radar. In any case, not everything that happens in this country gets reported, no matter how news worthy it is. Another name for it is censorship. I somehow doubt that there response has been as robust as mine, as when I call Minister Hanafin a liar, a name to which she is more than entitled. Maybe there are those who have been conned into believing that if they’re nice to Minister Mary she won’t cut the blind pension in the next budget, or indeed might augment it by a few euro – that is, if Mary Hanafin is still a minister at the next budget. Her involvement with blind charities in the past is well known, and she certainly publicised it in her attempts to gin election to, amongst other bodies, Fianna Fail’s so-called Committee of Fifteen.

 I noticed that the attempts of some blind and partially-sighted people to protest against the cutbacks were met with frowns of disapproval by those who said such protests would achieve nothing, that the government no matter how evil or corrupt it might be, is all powerful and that the blind and partially sighted are pretty much on society’s bottom rung. But the biggest elephant can be driven mad by the smallest flea. As Dolores Ibarruri (La Passionaria) once said, it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees.