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.

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.

Readers of the above restaurant review will see the high esteem in which I hold the restaurant and staff of the Radison – SAS hotel

A place where the ordinary people of Ireland are still unwelcome

at Farnham – but that’s as far as my admiration goes.

 It seems to me absurd that motorists cannot drive their vehicles to within a comfortable distance of the hotel. Instead they must hand over the keys of their vehicle to valets who will park them out of sight and at some considerable distance away. When they wish to leave the hotel, their keys must then be handed to another valet who will fetch their car. The employment of a small army of valets must add considerably to the running costs of the hotel – costs which are then passed on to guests. But then I suppose such a luxury hotel caters for people who aren’t worried about such trivia as exorbitant prices.

 The main foyer is huge; dominated by classical columns, a polished floor and a rather incongruous table that could do duty for a Séance or some attempt to get in touch with “the other side”. It is ringed by a number of seats and smaller tables, set back in little alcoves. Indeed were they concealed by curtains they would make excellent confessionals. But it does nothing to take away from the brooding and chilly atmosphere of this foyer. This is fine when filled with milling crowds, but when filled even with a few people the general atmosphere is of the ticket hall of a large continental railway station after the last train has left. The only people you expect to see are badly dressed, cigarette-touting scavengers and sweepers, yet even they are absent from the SAS Radisson hotel.

 The hotel contains a number of truly ridiculous trinkets, one being a Steinway Grand Piano. As someone who loves Chopin I would never call a piano useless, except when it carries a sign forbidding anyone to play it or touch its keys. In Florencecourt House they have a beautiful original fortepiano, dating from the look of it to c. 1800. It would be outrageous for anyone to attempt to play such an instrument, but a Steinway Grand Piano, which looks quite modern and in generally good shape, to be thus left outside of the possibility of use, is bizarre. What would our Minister for Health, Mary Hernia, who is known for her gargantuan appetites for food, five-star hotels and piano players make of this?

 I an assured by guests that they find the hotel comfortable, and I have no reason to doubt this. On my admittedly few visits there I have found the hotel to have a very cold and somewhat austere atmosphere. In the fine Botanical Restaurant one’s attention is grabbed by the excellence of the food, which is just as well as there is little to look at. In the evenings one sees through the windows a line of bright, regularly spaced bright lights which, for some reason, put me in mind of the illuminations around a high security prison.

 As most people know I am confined to a wheelchair. In order to gain access to the second floor of the hotel I must use a lift – nothing strange about that. In the Radisson Hotel the lift is concealed by a length of full-length curtain down a rather dimly-lit, and dare I say creepy corridor. It’s a bit like one of those self-service ‘photo boots. The lift is quite small and you don’t operate it by merely pressing the number of your desired floor but by continuously holding some button or dead-man’s-handle device. Not surprisingly I have re-christened the lift as The TARDIS. And then when you eventually arrive at your floor there is no smooth egress from the lift, as you have to pass over a rather annoying lip. It seems obvious to me that the provision of access for the disabled in the hotel was an embarrassing after-thought, a strange situation considering that one of its operators is the Scandinavian Airline System, but then they’re operating in Ireland where is has long been accepted by the Powers-That-Be that the disabled could never afford to go near a five-star hotel.

 My most recent visit there was as a guest of my dear and most generous friend, Joseph Donohoe of California. Joe is a really gifted man and an engaging conversationalist. He said, on one occasion, “I’m sure you could do something for the hotel”, knowing of course that my gifts extend far beyond that of the mere historian. I thus told him how, it must be ten years’ ago, I had received a telephone call from the then owner, Mr Roy McCabe, whom I found to be a most accessible individual. He invited me to go out to Farnham to see what they were doing there, and he undertook to be my guide. We finished are most amiable conversation with the undertaking that he would contact me shortly to firm up a date and a time for my visit… I have never heard from him since, and knowing him to be a busy man of business I did not contact him. I found the manner in which I was apparently dropped, and deemed unworthy of any further communication puzzling, though sadly far from unprecedented. Had someone, somewhere poured poison into Mr McCabe’s ears about me? I do hope not, but I would not be surprised if this had happened, though people should be given an opportunity to defend themselves against calumny and calumniators. You know, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not all out to get you.

 Like most people in Co. Cavan I have nothing but hatred and contempt for the Maxwells, the previous owners of Farnham House, who were a group of grasping hypocritical tyrants. They were descendants of mongrel foxes from south of Glasgow who unceremoniously grabbed land from not only the native Irish but from their fellow settlers.

 The Maxwells, upon their elevation to the Irish peerage inn 1756, adopted the title “Barons Farnham” supposedly after their place of residence in Co. Cavan. Farnham sounded ever so genteel – far better than the place-name Fernan or Farnan, shown on the original early Seventeenth century Plantation maps, signifying a pave where alders grew. (This was first pointed out by the late Oliver Davies in the 1940s, and he may not have been the first to know it.)

 Their involvement with the Anglican Church certainly did the latter institution no favours. They took a leading role in the so-called Second Reformation of the 1820s, when many gullible people in England were fleeced into providing large sums of money to promote evangelical movements in Ireland to win the Irish peasantry from the “darkness of Popish obscurantism”. Apart from a few converts, this campaign was a fiasco. One of the means used to win converts was the provision of food to the starving and malnourished, most of whom gladly took the offered provisions in return for a very brief conversion to Protestantism, but once they had consumed enough food they returned to the religious practices of their birth. Their preference for Protestants, to fill jobs in the house and on their estate, attained almost farcical proportions. I have noted before how the Lord Farnham of the late nineteenth century was urged to fill posts on his estate with “English Protestants”. A policy of employing only Protestants might have been defensible to a certain extent; so too might have been the opinion that the best people to employ for certain tasks were Englishmen, as they had greater knowledge and experience in the performance of some tasks; but to seek only “English Protestants” was absurd. Not only would it have excluded the composer of “Land of Hope and Glory” – sir Edward Elgar, a close friend of King Edward VII, and an English Catholic – but it showed that the Farnhams’ anti-Catholic bigotry would have left them with no qualms whatsoever about employing the greatest English jailbirds, many of whom had been baptised and brought up in the Church of England.

 But their religiosity did not extend to all areas of human activity. Folklore still current, though not recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission, tells the tale of the “Human Hunts” enacted at Farnham. Local girls were stripped and hounds set upon them. They were pursued through the Farnham House demesne grounds and some managed to gain sanctuary in the grounds’ many trees. They were only liberated from their sylvan refuges by some of the young “gentlemen” staying at the house who would carry them away from the fangs of the baying hounds on horseback – though in return for unspecified favours. Perhaps the management of the hotel might seek to stage a re-enactment of the Human Hunt one of these days, while the management of Cavan County Museum might care to dwell that the perpetrators and participants in such activities are probably among the portraits of the Farnhams they hold, so gladly donated to them by a former Lady Farnham. (It might be interesting for some of the ordinary inhabitants of the Farnham area to look at these portraits, and see how frequently the features reproduced could be discerned amongst their ordinary neighbours.)

The decision by Donal Og Cusack to admit to being gay is a tremendously courageous one. But his sexuality shouldn’t have

Doma; Og Cusack

anything to do with the fact that he is a great Gaelic games player. Hopefully it may provide an alternative role model for players at all levels of the game. They’ll now realise that it is possible to operate at the pinnacle of the sport while eschewing the long-accepted and too long tolerated stereotype of the GAA player i.e. a heavy-drinking, philandering, wife=beating thug who nevertheless sits beatifically through Mass, and who is willing to do anything his church tells him. Let’s hope more players are able to stand up to the hypocritical homophobes in the association, most of whom would shit themsel at the sight of a ball hurtling towards them.

This weekend’s revelations about ministerial beauty treatments in five-star hotels, trips on elephants to India etc., show us one thing. Not only are our rulers robbers: they are also shameless LIARS! But then, I suppose what better type of person to have at the head of that crowd of liars the HSE.

And then there is Minister Parafin in India. I for one wouldn’t mind if she was participating in a suttee ceremony. Maybe she was on a fact-finding mission after which she would have told social welfare recipients about the joys of lying on nails.

But you know, if I were an employer trying to fill vacancies there are things which would automatically exclude certain candidates. If they had to deal with money I would certainly not employ anyone about whom there was even the whiff of dishonesty, while anyone with criminal associates would definitely not be taken on. But even though our government ministers are supposedly – theoretically – our servants, we can’t get rid of them. In fact we are being held hostage by a criminal clique And anyway those waiting so eagerly in the wings to grab power are as bad if not worse than those already here.

In the past I have referred to the Minister of Health as Mary Hernia. I think a far more apposite name would be Hairy Mary.

As for the Greens, I wonder whether John Gormley remembers what Michael Collins said after signing the Treaty in 1921? Clue: it was something about death warrants. Well gormless Gormley has not only signed his own death political death warrant, but that of the Green Party as a whole. As they say in Italy. Chi va con lo zoppo impara zoppicare.

New CSB website

I’d like to tell all my readers about the new CSB – Cock-Suckers of Breifne – website. Naturally, it’s given over to narcissistic self-publicity on behalf of the soi-disants experts on local history, including that bad-assed cowardly scumbag The Honourable Dr B. Squirt, who appears in at least one photograph surrounded by druids. This was taken in association with a special novena held at the Ballyjamesduff pigsty in which they were praying for a miraculous increase in visitor numbers, so as to fend off the growing phalanx of calls for the pigsty’s closure as a costly white elephant.

 It is so reassuring for people like The Honourable Dr Squirt that, even at a time of swingeing public spending cuts, he inhabits a nice little sinecure enabling to get paid from the public trough even in the midst of economic recession. And it’s all thanks to daddy.

 Some in the pigsty have hit upon a new way of getting the punters in  – a pilgrimage. The pigsty has recently been recognised by the Sacred Congregation of Wights and others doing the work of God as a site intimately associated with the life of Blessed Oliver J. Hannigan, patron of blue plumbers, haemorrhoid sufferers and general pains in the arse

 Already miracles have been reported. One pilgrim from a Ballyconnell heritage group said: “For years I’ve been plagued with the piles, but since visiting Ballyjamesduff Pigsty I haven’t needed the Anusol once.“

 Another prized exhibit is the original confessional in which the late Fr Brendan Smyth confessed his craven sexual obsession for young children to a former bishop.  The hallowed prelate was a great idol of Dr Squirt’s, who considered him the greatest living expert on the O’Reillys, even though he was dead.

(Never having visited the site I don’t know whether I’m mentioned on it. I earnestly hope not.I’m more than happy to be thereby snubbed by that crowd of narrow-minded, bigoted, obscurantist budgie brains. Indeed I take it as a great compliment, as I thereby join other fine students of Cavan’s locl history who are now sadly deceased.

 Dr Squirt doesn’t like me; as I am not and never have had aspirations of becoming, either a poodle or a prostitute his likes are of no concern to me. But given that he has never met me I wonder what’s the reason for his problem? Many people have said it’s down to his jealousy towards me. Anyone who is jealous of a partially sighted individual who spends much of his tine in a wheel chair deserves our prayers – not a job – but then he could be in no better place. Aithnionn ciarog ciarog eile.

 People reading the above must be aware that it springs from my own opinions and does not aim to be in anyway factual. What’s more, there is no malice, which is more than I can say about the attitude of the pigsty’s “research officer” (!) towards me. I believe it constitutes fair comment, though there will be those who say it’s unfair comment. I reply that I consider that the only form of comment to which these people are entitled is no comment at all.

 I hear he’s writing, not just one book but two. I wonder what the titles are? Maybe the semi-autobiographical All Hands on Dick, while the second might be a history of clerical child abuse in the diocese of Kilmore. Most ordinary writers have to struggle with the financial demands of daily life while they complete their work, as well as with hectoring editors, but the Honourable Dr Squirt has his nice County Council sinecure to cushion him. But after all he is such a great writer, greater than any other who has ever worked in the benighted hole of Cavan.

I know how much this will annoy Brendan and his friends, peoplke like the equally jealous yet ill-informed Barry Leddy.

I wish these aspirant councillors would stop plaguing me for my vote. The fact is they are now wasting my time, as I’ve already voted. You see one of the few privileges of being a cripple in Ireland is that you have a postal vote, and are thereby freed from participating in the polling booth pantomime.

How did I vote? Does anyone really expect me to vote and tell? In the European elections I voted for Susan O’Keefe, a talented and brave campaigner. I also voted for Joe O’Reilly. This is a personal vote and must not be seen as displaying any support for Joe’s party, but I will never forget the fact that Joe attended my mother’s funeral. This was something I can never forget, nor can I ever thank Joe enough for.

And then there was the County Council election. I’m not going to tell who I voted for, except to say that I voted for the only out-going member of the council who had the courtesy to attend the launch of my book last October, an event he really enjoyed. I sent invitations to all the other councillors. Now Joe O’Reilly contacted me from Strasbourg to apologise for not being able to get to it, and Anthony Vesey was in Baku. As for the rest …

I only voted for one person, but that was all I was able to vote for. The ballot paper was printed on rather bright red paper which made it difficult for me to read the names of the candidates. I’m sure if I looked too long at the paper it would have given me a headache. Those who will have the task of counting the votes will have hellish difficulty, as the mark of a pen appears almost indistinct and you have to peer closely to see the choice(s) made.

The Town council ballot paper was printed on pink paper, and the colour photographs of the candidates made them look as if they had a temperature or had just emerged from a sauna. I’m not saying who I voted for, but I will definitely identify the party I did not vote for and the reasons. As a recipient of a blind pension I, along with all other pensioners, will not receive a Christmas bonus this year, a “hard” decision made with glee by the Lady Bountiful minister for Social Welfare (Mary daughter of Des Hanaffin). The amount was small, but Fianna Fail, along with their green tale, have shown themselves to be nothing more than a group of shameful scrooges.

In spite of my warnings not to canvass my home in Cavan, some aspirant councillors nevertheless chose to ignore my warnings. I was genuinely sorry to have missed Brian McKeown and Des Cullen. Des is a good lad and his mother unfortunately has MS.

Other candidates put in “material” which should really be submitted to a comedy contest. For example, I quote from the Fianna Fail document. In the section headed “Disability Services” we read:

“Fianna Fail is committed to improving services to make them more accessible for people with a disability, including physical access to buildings, health services, public transport, training and employment” – how sweet!

There is a pub / restaurant in Cavan town, jointly owned by an outgoing Fianna Fail member of Cavan County Council and a Fianna Fail member of the senate. The restaurant is on the top floor, but as there is no lift, this is inaccessible to people like myself who are confined to a wheel-chair. Now some buildings are old, and those operating restaurants only rent a portion of them; so resources for installing lifts are limited. This particular building received extensive renovations before the opening of the restaurant, but the local planners obviously didn’t insist on a lift. No doubt they, along with the premises’ owners, consider that “cripples” are too poor to patronise the restaurant – and certainly the political party to which they belong is determined to make them even poorer. I recall a story about a shop-keeper in the American “Deep South” who was subjected to insults because he allowed “niggers” into his premises. He responded: “The colour of their skin may be black, but their dollar bills are as green as the next man’s”.

As for their commitment to improving employment possibilities for the disabled, it is the same as that of Fine Gael – it goes no further than making sure that any of their family who are disabled have nice jobs.

I know that once the election has passed the masks will slip. Instead of being nice and courteous as they seek my vote they will resort to being as hostile and indifferent as in the past. Perhaps they may be even more hostile, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not threatened with vexatious legal action by some of these scoundrels.

The sentence handed down to Frank Dunlop shows once again how blind and socially prejudiced the Irish courts are. He’d have got a heavier sentence for having multiple welfare claims. But this reiterates what every one knows: Irish jails are for poor people – knackers, people from the other side of the tracks who aren’t members of golf clubs.

There is another peculiarity of the Irish judicial system. Those who are prosecuted can get time taken off their sentence for the trauma of the prosecution itself. The fact that they have been outed as crooks and the resultant loss of social cachet is viewed as something deserving pity and the commiserations of the court.  There is a glib saying in the ‘states; if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

But then there are the personnel of the judicial system: judges, barristers, solicitors. They wouldn’t know justice if it jumped up and bit them on their penises, though from what I have heard some of them are willing to pay a lot of money for the experience in the North Inner City.

In a recent post I wrote how the dogs in the street knew that the physical, sexual and mental abuse of children by some Catholic religious orders was systematic and widespread. Perhaps it will take another commission working for ten years to “reveal” another self-evident truth: that the “sweetheart” deal arranged between the state and the religious orders on compensation of victims was drafted and composed by civil servants who were either members of or sympathetic to right-wing Catholic lay groups such as Opus Dei and the Knights of St Columbanus. Those same urban hounds are also well aware that the minister who signed off on this deal and who now seeks to defend it, was probably a member of one of these organisations. Dr Michael Woods liked to appear as the innocent, almost simple north-side politician, singing “One Day at a Time Dear Jesus” on Irish television, but he was also the minister who unleashed a vicious campaign against welfare recipients under the guise of unearthing “social welfare fraud”. I believe the agreement between Woods and the religious orders is possibly the most flagrant and biggest piece of fraud in the history of the state.

The members of these lay Catholic groups, and the vile and depraved individuals they protect, are truly evil. They masquerade as so good, often wrapping themselves up in the raiment of religiosity. But in fact this is just a confidence trick, to conceal their inner baseness and wickedness. I am convinced that if Jesus Christ were to appear in Ireland today he would be “dealt with” by these people; there wouldn’t be a trial or anything so public as a crucifixion. That would create a scandal, and the last thing the Knights or their friends can tolerate is a scandal.

But I know that anyone who speaks out about these heinous fiends faces years, decades, probably a lifetime of victimisation at their hands from which there is no reprieve.