Politics .A profession without honour.

The headlines in today's Irish Independent reads "Coalition tells lenders to begin repossessions.".Further down the article it is clarified that this applies to domestic homes.
Let me remind ye of what the leaders of the coalition said on this issue in the pre-election debate on 14/02/2011, preceding the general election which put this coalition into power.

Edna Kenny."Guarantee that owners won't lose houses."

Eamon Gilmore "Head off bailiffs"

Now ye know .

Parking for Confirmation in Dunderry

Next Sunday 53 young parishioners will be confirmed in Dunderry Church.Great to see the Faith being handed on to so many children.
Some hits on my blog lead me to conclude that a number of parents are worried about parking on the day.
While no expert on the matter I am quite sure that there is more than enough public parking space to cater for all.
And have a great day.

"Smart "policing my ass.

In this tumbleweed Parish these last weeks the homes and gardens of three parishioners have been violated smack bang in the middle of the recent launch of the "smart"policing initiative otherwise known as the Gardai cutbacks and the "stuff rural Ireland yet again" Government initiative.
The scumbags have the upper hand here and are a perfect example of the type of person so representative of the post colonial multicultural Ireland so beloved of the liberal political classes living in their gated mansions with Garda protection just in case.
An elderly farmer has had his kerosene tank emptied in the dead of night.Likewise a village householder and community activist  of recent arrival.And to really show contempt for the community the GAA Club heating oil was robbed during the week.
The woman from Oldcastle interviewed after the tiger kidnapping of the Post Mistress had it right when she said "I am very sad.We used to be honourable people living in an honourable country."Now you cannot sleep safe in your bed at night."
The reaction from the Labour Party and the Minister from Justice is expected to be to blame Fianna Fail and the Christian Churches  and to send to send the grippers in to seize their lands and to set up atheist schools to educate all pupils in these skills so that we can look forward to equality of terror.
The media ,dominated as it is by men and women on their second ,third or fourth living wife or husband will no doubt fully back this anti Catholic excuse to the hilt as they tend to their multi sired or dam ed offspring.
The real people of rural Ireland ,who tend to eat their dinners whenever they have the price nowadays ,will knuckle down to try and protect what they have left after the grippers and their cheerleaders have had their cut.
Its no wonder that the locals ran Joan Burton out of Dundalk Shopping Centre last weekend.
They have turned this country into a lonesome  shit hole. 

Dublin never beat Kerry.

In my young days in Blanchardstown there lived a tramp we called Hairy,on account of his unkempt beard and head of long shaggy hair.He was a hippy before they arrived on the scene and a Dubliner before the group formed.He lived ,as I understood it in a caravan or shed in Ballycoolin and rumour had it that he was a former schoolteacher from either Kerry or Monaghan who took to his bicycle and kept pedalling until he reached Blanchardstown,where ho found the solace he sought.He never left.
He was a regular figure around the village for several decades.I never heard of him harming anyone nor of anyone harming him.Undoubtedly young boys,to show their bravado ,called him "Hairy"and ran like the clappers when he gave chase.
I know that for a period Jem and Lilly Byrne of the old cottages in Corduff fed him his dinner for many years.Their son Jim is my age and we were classmates in Blanchardstown Primary school.He was a good hurler and the late Paddy Murray reckoned that our class had the best hurling team never to win a Cumann Na Bunscoil championship because Jim suffered a broken leg before the final.
Anyhow Hairy made a living collecting glass  bottles and jars from the Municipal Dump in Dunsink.
You would meet him at all hours riding or pushing his bike through the village with two jute bags of bottles hanging from the handlebars.Even if you didn't see him you would hear him coming from the jingling of the bottles as they clinked off each other.
We knew him better than most as my father was an electrician and Hairy used retrieve all sort of elec tricial contraptions from the dump and bring them to my father to repair them.Some were repairable and Hairy would turn a few bob on them.
In the early 1970's I was a Junior X in the civil service.It was a good job.I was walking through the village the week before the first Dublin /Kerry final of that decade  in the best  of form when I heard the clanking of Hairy's bottles catch up with me on the footpath.
"How are you ,young Stephens"said he.
"Grand"said I."And who do think will win the game on Sunday"
"Kerry "said he."I think Dublin and I bet you a fiver that Dublin win."
"Do you not know that Dublin never beat Kerry and anyhow where would the likes of you get a fiver "said he.
That was me in me box.
Years later he graduated from the push bike to a Honda fifty.
He kept at the bottles and continued to hang the jute bags full from the handlebars as he went a long.On occasions  he used weave thus burdened between the white lines at the centre of the road,not a practice high on the RSA safety routine.
One day he crashed and broke a considerable number of bones.He ended up in Blanch .Hospital ,where he was shorn  and tidied  up for the first time in decades.I was told that he was like a trapped animal in hospital,he hated it that much.I was also told that he refused to eat his meals indoors and that they used to bring him and his meals to the woods to get him to eat them.IF this is true I applaud the hospital staff for their kindness.
He died a number of years afterwards.I was left Blanch.at the time and missed the funeral.But someone told me that members of his family."the most respectable people you could meet",turned up for he funeral.
I would love to know more about this man.

Ballinlough beat Dunderry in Div 2 League 17/2/2013

report to follow.
Because Dunderry Pitch was a swamp  the match was played in Dunganny where conditions were perfect.A fitting tribute to the vision of Fintan Ginnity who bulled through the purchase despite opposition at the time.
It's a gorgeous Spring day.Nice cut in the strong wind which blew towards the town of Navan.
Dunderry Team.

                                                Davy Jennings

Darren Callaghan                   John Kelleher                             Davy MC Cormack.


Finn Stephens                        Davy Callaghan                         Gary Newman

                         Liam Dempsey                           Conor Farrell

Bob Doherty                         Damian Clarke                              Aaron Newman


Stephen Coogan                    Keith Callaghan                             Ted Dowd

Selectors.Tom Hanley,Tony Coogan ,Gerry Conaty and Kevin Keaveney.
In his other role Hanley is a selector for the Meatgh u 21 Football team so there was no chance we could play Simon Carty who would be playing with the County on theTtuesday to  come..(For the record he had a blinder as Louth were routed.).
Ballinlough scored a minor practically from thr throw in and Swiss missed a goal chance immediately after.Kelleher breaks up a prolonged Ballinlough attack and offloads to Finn ,to Kelleher to Dempsey to Coogan whose attempted pass  overshoots the runway and the ball dribbles wide.
We get a free from kickout but Coogan mishits from about fifty yards out and ball goes wide.Bomber fields kickout and transfers to Keith to Bob who scores a minor.Benjy Smith breaks up Dunderrry attaack but ball is intercepte by Finn who scores a minor from distance.Swiss is at the end of a good move by Dunderry and takes his point.Dempsey is down and Finn fouls .No.11 scores the free.SWiss takes a free for a foul on himself but Ballinlough collect it and then Dempsey is fouled.Then Bomber is fouled and collects the  ball from the short free.He hits wide.From 35 yards Coogan hits a free awareded for a foul on Aaron Newman wide.Ted hits wide from a ball broken by SWiss.Doc sets  up Lar.Wide. Ballinlough waste a free and then Red runs up a cul de sac and is penalised for overcarrying.We intercept the resultant short free and in turn overplay it forcing Demnpsey to concede a free.They intercept and  Gary Newman concedes a 21 yard free which is converted.Finn lets long ball in to Ted who is pipped by the full back and Ballinlough counter attack.
Both teams engage in alternate keep ball excercises where passes are strung together like confetti at a wedding ,brought to an end by Finn tsaking a great point from play on the run down the wing.Swiss then hits wide twice in succession from play.Keith is blown for i overcarrying and Dempsey for another foul.Ballinloufg fail to capitalise.A further phase of confetti like passing by both sides ensues to no great result only the passage of time and the familiarisation of each and every plauyer  with the feel of the ball.The spell is broken by a Dowd point from play.
Peadar Byrne hits wide from play.The game peters out by the blowing of the half time whistle.

Take it Handy

The road between Dunderry and Athboy via the Meadstown Road is bad in patches and absolutely brutal in other places.The potholes encountered range from those which would burst a tyre to those which would break an axle.Now some patches of road are o.k. but others are anything but and to negotiate it you have to duck and weave if you don't want to destroy your car.
Going from Dunderry to Athboy the worst part of the road is as you leave Dressogue behind you and come to the left turn for Rathcairne.
There is a set of temporary traffic lights just the far side of the turn to alert people to the potholes.
One wit,and I take my hat off to him,has placed a sign at the butt of the lights ,on which is written "Take it handy ,shit road ahead."
This person is on the button.
If you think that this road is bad you should test your car on the stretch of the "Stony Road"for fifty yards before the gateway to Billy Bligh's house.(The road called the Stony Road runs from Kilbride to the Athboy Trim Road and reached countrywide notice when the Border Fox kidnapped Billy and his friends all those years ago.)
It is only a ,matter of time  until someone is seriously injured or killed.
Rather than pay money we are not obligated by law to pay for the bailout of the private banks which were off the wall in their business practices,the kapos who run our country for the benefit of the troika should fix our roads.
But there again we are only culchies and don't count.

Stamping in Rugby and Such Matters.

My father was a Welshman.An ordinary working class Welshman.Rugby is the sport of choice of the masses in Wales.Unlike here ,with a few honourable exceptions,where it has been traditionally the sport of the elite ,of those who aspired to prominence in the professional class.In hospitals it was and is the sport of choice of the consultants not the porters.In the Banking scene it was and is the sport of the Managers ,not the porters.In the Army it was and is the sport of choice of the Officer class not the privates.
In the way that some  plebs ape their betters,many's the son of a political dynasty which owed their popularity to the family's  prominence to GAA activity sent their sons to fee paying boarding schools which promoted rugby only, in order to advance their kids politically and socially.You  don't need me to point out the multiplicity of examples which abound in all spheres of life in the country.
I unanimously note that it was this elitist class which controlled this country and sold us down the Swanee, putting the Country back 40 years economically and which is continuing to suck it dry.
With the advent of professionalism the rugby heads are trying  a more populist approach and are succeeding to the extent that the National broadcaster is chock a block with fawning presenters,particularly middle aged matrons ,who gushingly profess superior knowledge of the activities of "Drico"or "BOD" or "Jonny "or "Dorcy"et all in accents that have more to do with Cheltenham than Caherciveen.
Both they and a certain type of countryman have gone completely over and remind me of the Indians in the Old Wild West who wore U.S.Army jackets and trilby hats to show how complete their conversion to the paleface way of life was.
Which may explain why not a single word of condemnation has issued by a fawning media against the thuggish stamping by  Cian Healy on a prostrate and defenceless English opponent.
I have no doubt that if it happened in a GAA match in Wicklow or a Hurling match in Laoise the electronic and print would have a field day ,deploring the behaviour of the Paddies and the Native game. Similarly had it happened in a soccer match.
Presumably this is one aspect of Rugby etiquette LIam O  Neill ,GAA President,will not wish to import into GAA rules,a la sideline content.Is he just aping "his betters" in the same that Kelly the Kerryman did to popularise the game of rugger.
My father adored Rugby,I played Hurling and Football for nearly forty years.I was sent off once.That was for exacting retribution on an opponent who hit a team mate a punch from behind,without warning.I detested sneakiness and never did nor would hit an opponent held down and unable to defend himself no matter what.I regard it as the ultimate in cowardice.I still hold the same views.
Therefor I regard the universal and sickening lack of media criticism of this man's actions as an abomination.
It is high time to have a root and branch clear out of the National broadcaster and the broadsheets.
Incidentally I did play a little Rugby in my day.I found the Football skills a huge help.However I also found that the players who contributed least on the field of play had the most to say after the game.Bit like football and hurling only a lot more so.
And definitely like our populist commentators.Yep the empty vessel does indeed make the most noise.

The "cat "had the answer

Years ago it was rumoured that someone in the locality had invented a template that produced passable imitations of the old half crowns (2 shillings and six pence in old money)and that such imitations were in circulation in this part of Meath.
At that time the children's allowance was a half crown per child.
The Gardai did door to door enquiries in this locality seeking intelligence on the matter.Every house was called to and the occupants interviewed.
Tradition has it that when the CAT was asked if he had any knowledge of a money making machine in the county he replied by pointing towards his groin and saying that it was the only one he was aware of.
Boom  Boom.

Dunderry GAA Selectors 2013

Inter Football               Tom Hanley ,Gerry Conaty,Tony Coogan.Kevin Keaveney.

Inter Hurling                Flange Mc Guinness,Mickey Horan,Gerry Mc Laughlin.


The mentors of the other teams are not yet to hand.

Dundrry GAA Executive 2013

Hon Presidents.     Jack Devine,Joe Clarke,Shamus Cregan,Ned Howley,Mick Daly,Tim  Coffey,Phil Mulhaire,Daithi Stephens,Phil Cahill,Pat Coffey.

Chair            Mick Minogue

Asst              Liam O Farrell

Sec              Gus Martin

Asst             Keith Callaghan

Treasurer    Declan Carty

Asst            Sean Mc Kenna

PROs          Michael Newman
                    Eileen Bruton

Lotto          Michael CAllaghan

Scor           Tommy Nally

Irish          Hugh Geraghty

Community     Daithi Stephens
 
Insurance     Mick Minogue

Coaching      Sean Kelly

Schools        Darren Yourell

Safety           Billy Bligh

Co Board     Tommy Nally
                     Stephen O Rourke

Trustees.   Phil Fay,Gerry Callaghan,Billy Bligh.

Dundrry Camogie Executive 2013

 Hon President.       Daithi Stephens

Chair                       Tom Byrne

Asst.                        Evelyn O Shea

Sec.                         Tracey Fitzsimons

Asst                         Suzanne Kelly

Treasurer               Mark  Stenson

Asst                         Evelyn Griffin

PRO                        Caroline Duffy

Child Protection   Marie O  Neill

Impediments to progress increase.

I have had more contact and further personal experience of the smothering of initiative and the  soul destroying bureaucracy,impediments and barriers that an over fussy ,uncaring and self righteous civil and public service put in the way of those making huge efforts to improve themselves and cater for community development.
I suppose that those without a voice and of limited experience are easily intimidated in such circumstances and that their complaints,if they are brave  enough to make them, are often taken with a grain of salt by those who put them down and of nuisance value by those whose function it is to oversee these incompetent and uncaring officials,
What worries me and has this long time is when these complaints are voiced by people who are currently active and working for competent organisations when they  experience at first hand the shameful treatment of people by other organisations in the public arena.
They are aghast at the way these organisations administer their duties and are often in a state of shock on first encountering their way of avoiding doing business.
People willing to work and see work done are throwing their hands up in despair and emigrating by the new time as a result,if not doing worse.
Unfortunately for the country it is the wrong people who are forced to get the emigrant boats and planes.
Soon I will be naming organisations and the names of the responsible officials.

Baile Gib in 1963

My father was a Welsh man and Welsh was his first and favoured language.I often heard him speak it on the phone of the next door neighbour,the Rosses,to his mother in Wales. He died before his mother did and even at 100 years of age she spoke Welsh fluently and English haltingly.He lived in Ireland since I was less than a year old and had little opportunity to speak his native tongue,except on his rare holidays back to see his Welsh parents.
He did encourage us to speak Irish and because we had a school teacher that was good on this subject we picked up a reasonable grasp of it,although we never spoke it at home.I would class the Irish we spoke as a Dublin version of it with Clare bias and it had no affiliation with any of the recognised dialects.
Going to Irish college in the summer was not on for us.We just couldn't afford it.But the DA was a rabid trade union man and the Union .I cannot remember which,put up a scholarship each year for one child of its electrician members,which was the occupation of my father.
In my last year in national school I applied for the scholarship.There were a number of applicants for the  one position and we were all interviewed in the Union premises ,as Gaelige, by a man with a Donegal blas which I had great difficulty understanding,it being the first time I heard it.I remember thinking that he had even greater difficulty understanding me.
To my great surprise I won it and was packed off to a college in Gibbstown for two weeks .I cannot remember having any money going and cannot remember the precise location of the college.
It was boys only and there was a small tuck shop.Irish exclusively was actually spoken and we all enjoyed our time there .as far as I can remember.ON the first Sunday a sports was held.I was a fair athlete then and won a goodish number of events.The prizes were vouchers for the tuck shop.I was well set for the following week.
Each morning we sang the following song:-
"Sinne Clann brea og na hEireann,taimid laidir,feariul gcroi,
Ni labhairimid ach Gaelige ,ar nos ar gcinnire,
Ma thaistin uaitse saoire tar anseo go Bru na Mhide,
Sinne Clann na hEirean n o,sinne Clann na hEireann O,
Anseo, i Bru na Mhide."
What brought this back to me was a recent trip through Gibbstown when I found myself humming this song to myself.
Happy days indeed.

Life begins at conception

The current controversy about the DNA evidence of horse meat in what was passed as bovine meat has greatly helped me in figuring  credence to the claims of the Pro life side that abortion is indeed murder,
A scientist friend of mine has confirmed to me that as soon as the egg fuses with the sperm the resulting entity acquires a distinct DNA separate from that of the mother and father.If this does not prove conclusively that the newly created being is a new person in its own right ab initio I don't know what does.
In taxation terms Paye/Prsi and VAT  which are collected by registered persons are regarded by the State and the Courts as Trustee taxes as they are collected from business activities for the benefit of the State and society in general and the registered person holds them as trustee only.
A woman's womb is  uniquely designed for and functions as the nurturing space for the development of the unborn until he /she can survive in the outside world.
In a very real sense she is trustee for her family and society for that unborn child until it is delivered and the case that the deliberate destruction of a new and distinct life is other than murder is not easily understandable.
Catholics have it right.

Dundrry Elders have it right.

Most people pronounce Dundrry as Dunderry ,with an "e"in the second syllable.And many including myself have called Dundrry Dun Doire (the fort of the oaks) in Gaelic.It seems certain that this is wrong and that my uncles ,aunts and grandparents were 100% correct in pronouncing it as Dundrry without the "e".
In 1347 a civil dispute was contested in Trim Court concerning lands at Fulpotstown (Philpotstown) near Anderneiri.
It seems certain that this was a corruption of "An doire na Ri" or the King's Wood.In time this transmuted into "Dundrry".So the old boys
were right after all.
This makes sense as there are still a fringe of trees from Dundrry to Joe Clarke's Cross in Fulpotstown.
This gem is from "A History of Dunderry"by Paddy Keely who can remember from his youth people who lived through the famine and one man whose folk memory went back as far as 1597.

Culture of Death well bedded in England

See my earlier item titled "A little something to send him on his way", in which I shared my unease at the way in which a good friend had his death expedited in a nursing home in England and in which I opined that the English medical profession had become desensitised to taking life because of the prevalence of the abomination of abortion for decades.
The exploits of Doctor Harold Shipman who murdered several hundred of his patients ( no one knows exactly how many) and the recent revelations that the abortionists have understated the number of the unborn aborted because they had perfectly correctable cleft palates or club feet , supports my theory that a very real culture of death stalks the sick beds and abortion mils of Great Brtiin
Put simply,if it is o.k.to murder the innocent and defenceless unborn ,it is but a small and logical step to "help on their way "others who are socially inconvenient  and troublesome.

Were I to tell you that an investigation into a hospital disclosed that :-
         Up to 1,299 patients died needlessly in one Hospital

• That they and hundreds more were left without food  or water and in filthy conditions.
• That they were so desperate for water that the drank from dirty flower vases.
• That there were despicable catalogues of of clinical and managerial failures.
• That there was appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people.
• That elderly and vulnerable patients were left unwashed ,unfed and without fluids,
• That they were deprived of respect and dignity.
• That some had to relieve themselves in their beds because they were unable to get to the bathrooms and were offered no help to get there.
• That they were left in excrement stained sheets.
• That people unable to eat or drink themselves were left unfed and without fluids.
• That prescribed medicines were not given.
• That here is no guarantee that this was confined to one hospital and may be endemic."

would you assume ,as I did initially,that it must refer to a concentration camp of the second world war or a Japanese camp from the same period or a torture chamber of a regime that would deny its existence.
Well you would be way off the mark.It happened in Staffordshire Hospital in Central England between January 2005 and March 2009.
Now the next time the womb raiders alight from their broomsticks and want this culture legislated for here and the English template copied here ,send them off or back to that Country to reap the rewards they so well deserve in their old age.
Of course this is no surprise to me .Rampant secularism rages there and the mollifying influence of Christianity is on the wane there.
The secularists have won the day and the Godless are in power,
God help what was once a reasonably civilised country,if only for their own..

Irish slide into Dictatorship expedited.

You know all this guff that the politicians come out with about  parish pump politics distracting them  from their true purpose of being legislators in Parliament.And about the way that it was necessary to fully consider proposed legislation in the national interest.
Well given that the voting fodder who masquerade as legislators in both the Dail and Seanad passed a Bill into law without even reading it, never mind understanding it and that a President who coaxed a mandate on the grounds of propriety signed it blind,we can see what they are truly made of.
We are now a Dictatorship pure and simple,with our legislators just passing into law whatever the Taoiseach and Finance Minister dictates.Just what you would expect in a Europe historically dominated by dictators and fascists of one hue or another and continuing that entrenched tradition.
Yep Germany has achieved with the ink of a pen what Hitler could not achieve with five million men.
And our dictators have dropped our collective  trousers and bent us over to facilitate our collective financial rape and that of our children and our children's children.
I hope ye have unanimously noted this.