Dunderry Fair 12/5/2013 .

Woke up this morning 8.00 a.m.Early for me but late for some.Mac Kenna ,Iaino ,Ollie and the crew were at it for two hours already.
The burning question.Was it raining.It was.Thursday last  the crew met.The weather was bad all week.Like the previous six months.Worst weather ever.Three fine days had flattered to deceive. Livestock were hungry and hay was being imported for the first time ever.The land was sopping.Would the car parking  fields support the traffic or would it be a swamp.The owners gave it their blessing .Show on and feck the begrudgers.And the elements.
It rained Saturday and it was raining now on Sunday.The crew could do no more.All in the laps of the Gods.
I lay down and listened with eyes closed.Less bustle than  previous years.Jennies starting up and clanking of metal against metal as pens for animals were fashioned from steel gates ,but muted I thought compared to previous years.Some bustle but muted.Not near as much traffic.But a buzz o.k.
Surely the weather would improve.Ninish and a drizzle.
Ate the fry and did a recce.Mass  at nine thirty instead of eleven. Fianna Fail are setting up outside the Church for the annual collection.They are not short of neck.Then again the present crew are worse if anything as the mass exodus from this unfortunate country accelerates.Only one independent political seen all day.The main parties know the score and keep away.They are not wanted and they know it.
I don't know how F.F,did but imagine not too well.Literally nobody  has a spare bob.Money  is as scarce as hen's teeth.
Talking of which the outsider of our house is where the sellers of foul are stalled.Chickens,hens geese ,ducks ,whatever you are having yourself.But nowhere nearly  as prolific as in former years.My friend Mark tells me that shifting birds (the feathered variety) is a hard task and he is trying to shift a dog  this year.I don't know if he did.Wouldn't be for the want of trying.And no, now is not the time nor the place for comparison with my own efforts in matters of the heart in my youth.The wife would kill me.I am not that brave.
Dessie Coffey is boiling the spuds up on turf fires to make the col cannon.I counted a dozen half hundred bags of spuds.Has his work cut out.And I spot a sign on a donkey's cart telling the Sheik to stuff his oil that we have our turf.We are bog men here.The carbon footprint that our few sods will leave wouldn't harm a mouse.Didn't stop the scrooges in the Government from taxing it though.And I see they have threatened tenants that they will deduct property tax from their wages if they don't rat on the landlords.And will delay repaying the money back to them.Guilty 'till proved innocent.These people have no scruples.
Decent people wouldn't bend so low to pick so little when dirt is so plentiful.Not those that govern us plainly.
Outside the Hall along the river Clady the farriers and the big horses congregate.I spot the biggest bellows I have ever seen.It was sourced in Tara ,made I guess over a century ago and the proud blacksmith is an East European.He is n making a decorative iron rail on an anvil mounted on a square log buttressed with bands of steel.There is a smattering of fine equines,from the Budweiser lads to the best of piebalds.
Later I would hear it announced that the shoeing of the two legged horse would be at 3.00 p.m.I saw no two legged horse and hared back to see what was it all about.What was meant was that two blacksmiths would concurrently shoe two legs of a four legged horse .
In the Hall the I.C.A.are selling tay and suchlike.In  the GAA Hall the Camogie ladies do like wise.
There is no charge in the latter instance ,just an expectation that a donation towards breast cancer research will be made in a bucket thus marked.
This is seemingly a continuation of the honouring of the late Maggie Morgan a Camogie Club member who recently succumbed to this scourge and a continuation of the field activities on this theme the previous Saturday.As the founder and president of the Club I am immensely proud of this generosity by our members ,especially our long standing ones who are now coming to the fore,and in awe of the modesty of Club Chairman Tom Byrne who sourced and presented a Memorial Cup in her honour the previous Saturday.Well done on this front and there is no need to be so secretive and  modest about  such munificence.It is indeed a fine and  praiseworthy gesture and deserves to be sung from the heights.
But such modesty is the hallmark of our community as the same Tom is scurrying too and fro in the finest machine we have dropping gates and barriers  here and there ,leaving pallets for stages to be  fashioned and being generally useful,all under the guidance and benevolent supervision of Head Honchos Sean , Iano and Ollie.
Mary Stanley is selling the most tasteful tarts and home baked ditties you can imagine as Sonny limbers up for the set dancing.
Gus and Olive and Tommy  and the Feeney ,Martin and Callaghan families are displaying sheep ,cattle .asses and drays and keeping their feelings over the death of Dinny under control,God help them.
I eye up a jackass belonging to Gus and Ollie.
There is method in my madness.I have a mare ass called Tilly .She is bursting with good health and running with our suckler cows.Recently I went down to check on a cow I was expecting to calve at 4.00 in the morning.The cow was calved all right but no sign of the calf.I explored further.Along the ditch stood Tilly with the calf at her bag encouraging the calf to suckle her teats.The cows was  distressed but afraid.I intervened and sundered this unnatural alliance,restoring calf to cow.The calf sucked.I turned to go but Tilly claimed possession again kicking the cow.I had forgotten my walking stick and got stuck in the mud and got help.We separated ass from cow.
Were Tilly a woman ,she would have not known man and was clearly broody in the extreme.I determined then to fix her,as  you might put it,at the first opportunity.I needed a jackass.Gus wasn't selling but another gentleman was.I purchased.His name is Obama as he was born on the day that Barrack was inaugurated.He has sired two foals already. He is smaller than Tilly but as they say ,a small jockey do have a big whip.
I was since told that the jackass is the symbol of the Democrats and an elephant of the Republicans so Obama is doubly appropriate if this is true.
Anyhow they went on honeymoon last evening and are getting on the best.Tilly seems to be an ardent feminist and I have renamed her Justine Martina Vincent as a tribute to three  journalists of  some fame who think little if anything of the rights of the unborn vis a vis the mother.Hopefully this won't be the first ass to seek an abortion if she allows Obama to tickle her fancy and if she keeps.There will be great fun naming her foal.No shortage of candidates to choose names from in the political and journalistic spheres should Obama fix Justine Martina Vincent.
The GAA boys are selling bric a brac and running a raffle and there are feck all stalls in the grounds.Nothing on the  pitch which is water logged.Proper order.A young fella from the place of the first written rules of hurling is selling hurleys .Prices are keen.I'd say he'd do well.
Our Mags sets up a stall in our gateway.She has written a book for  children and illustrated it herself.It is well presented.She has put together a number of knacky items in frames of an Arty slant.I hope she does well .She deserves to as indeed do all the stall holders who are trying might and main to beat this recession.
This is the first year that no butchers lambs are there for sale.Has nobody got suitable lambs hereabouts.Seemingly not.The weather again perhaps.
Mainin 93 years young, is churning butter in a mini churn from pasteurised milk.Brendan is helping her .His wife was very good to me when I was in Navan Hospital.Mainin is of sound memory.I need  information from her on events a century ago.She has it. We don't talk nearly enough to our elders.I recently heard it surmised that Collier the Highway man of yesterday was from Bellewstown ,Robinstown.Was he ?A century ago it was known as the  town of the high collars.
There was a Battle in Curraghtown during the Civil War.Two men died.The Free Stater died in the house of Smyths of Curraghtown ,the same Smyths who are in partnership with Harrington in the Auctioneering business in Navan.And a neighbour of the Smyths in time gone bye,after defying his two sisters in announcing his engagement reckoned without  feminine disapproval and vengeance.They castrated him when he fell asleep.The weaker sex me hole.
I forget the names but a bursary exists to this day to help out newly weds from a trust set up by this unintentional eunuch..Can you just imagine.
He should have practised as advised by the old adage"Love many ,Trust few,Always paddle your own canoe."
At the front of the Church the settled travellers from Navan display their wares.They have resurrected the trade of making the old horse drawn caravans and two are on display and a tin smith displays his wares.A basket weaver weaves his baskets sitting in an edifice like a monk's cell he has fashioned from reeds.Mickey displays his vintage Model  4 Ford .Beside him a vendor of all things equine displays a tub trap in immaculate condition.A few short years ago it would be gone in the blink of an eye.Now even the horsey set seem to be feeling the pinch.Did it sell ?I don't know.
And beside them again are Alison and Anita,two of the finest,who transmogrify the wool of Jacob sheep into cloth via the age old method of spinning wheel and loom,all hand or foot operated.These items are made in Holland.No one in Ireland is making them.Enterprise Ireland please note.
The names of the parts are fascinating.We have bobbins,whorls,flyers,feet treadles,heddles and shuttles,both rigid and flying.Later these ladies had to move to the porch of the Church and abandon their canvas shelter as they were drowned in the downpour.
Announcement."Paddy Keally and Professor Paddy Wall will officially open the Fair this afternoon."
Our Paddy is ninety years young and the definitive local historian.His son John is following in his footsteps and is putting the final touches to a book on Dundery G.A.A. Club ,a job of work in being for some time because of the loss of the century old minute book of the Club.He has interviewed all the key people in the Club,including myself and our history is in his hands.Professor Paddy was a close friend of Dinny Feeney and gave a eulogy at his funeral which displayed the closeness of their friendship and his shock at his tragic death.
Dinny's father Tom is in private conversation with Mairtin Melett..Dinny died tragically,Mairtin's son  in a traffic accident.Mairtin found Dinny.These men suffered un natural trauma.God help them.
As the morning Angelus tolls there are few punters around.The maors are stewarding the maors and any stallholder who steps out of line is lit upon .Too many stewards too little to do.
I nod to Mick Mingue and Iiam O Farrell of the GAA Club.These close buddies are scoping the horizons for punters ,worried perhaps that  if they don't materialise the sponsorship of the Club will be affected.They could be spotters for a hit man waiting to finger the as yet absent target.
The River Rescue people pull up in their motorised column and their troops disembark .
The bands start up and the show is on the road.The singer asks the Almighty to turn off the tap.
I seek shelter in my home.All thirteen grandchildren are there  with their parents.Aisling,Cormack,Ciaran,Niamh,Tom,Sarah,Kate,Ciara ,Senan,Padraic,Emily ,Liam and Chloe are present and correct.Liam is in period dress,with a country cap on his 7 month old head and would go on to win a prize in the bonny baby contest.Our special child Ciaran is overwhelmed by the noise.Myaha and Ellie join them.
I grab some shut eye.
An hour later I awake.My good friend Breeda Mc Kenna drops in for a cuppa.We chew the cud.A Camogie and Farmers Mart fanatic,she is a breath of fresh air to converse with.We share a hatred of the ever enveloping and smothering bureaucracy increasingly paralysing Ireland.We are not alone.
At three I venture with the man bag and a few bob into Geraghty's field.The Country Band is in full flight."Sweet Caroline"is belting out.And the chorus of the fiddler who took on the Devil has the toes tapping.There is a crowd.They are sopping but hey you only get wet the once and once saturated don't get any wetter.
The set dancers are at it in Geraghty's hay shed.Clever divils are under shelter.Place is packed as they give it diddy to the tunes of a deadly box man,whose music has the toes of even the most cynical tapping the beat .There are rows of small straw bales lined up for people to rest on and Henry and Carmel are wathcing them closely to stop distressed traders from swiping them to place atop the mud in front of their stalls.
The main "gateway" through the field is a swamp kept navigable by scattered scraws of straw.Food stalls and toy stalls galore and whirly gigs of all sorts and description.all there but no where as many as last year,never mind in the inaugural years before the bubbles burst. You have to admire the determination of the punters as they have a go on the attractions at two Euro a go.But then they have good rain gear,which the recession has made affordable.
Only one stall there selling tools and such like.I buy a chain for the tractor and the stallholder can easily afford the fifteen minutes haggling time the sale takes.It is a sign of the times that the numbers selling these items have almost vanished. And no sigh of the pickpockets either.They are the new wealthy
It lashes down and the Scout's tent advertises shelter and food.I am drowned and return home for shelter.
The crowd swells to decent proportions and the day spins out.Most locals turn out but some,especially those with small kids took off elsewhere as they hadn't the wherewithal to afford even the reasonable prices charged for entertainment.
The six o clock Angelus tolls and the tired livestock and punters head for the hills.At 6.15 on the button the sun peeks through for the first time.I kid you not.
At 7.00 the Black Crow does flag man for a tractor collecting gates and barriers and the clean up begins.Those with any go left in them head for a pint or to Trim for the official opening of the Pitch where Meath face Louth in a challenge.
The Pubs are the silver lining in these clouds.The determination of the Government to close them is twarthed for the time being.
I join the lads for a few sociables later.Current and sole holder of the Timmy Kennedy Cup for football excellence,T.J.Garry drops in for a jar and a chat.He came home from Australia out of the blue to surprise his Ma,Momica for her fiftieth birthday a week ago.He is in horses order and as mad about football as always.A nice guy he returns there this week to meet his brothers ,cousins and friends living and working there,including Tomas,the son of Mairtin earlier mentioned .
We badly miss the hundreds of economic emigrants from this Parish in Australia and America and all over the world who we missed so much today as we do every day. We pray that the gob shites who got us here and keep us down get their just deserts,.The sooner the better.
Given the weather and the economic climate the Fair Committee did the very best they could.Fair dues.

Brother Devane,a fair man.

As a Dublin culchie in Brunner from 1964 to 1969 I hadn't it easy.Having battled daily against a succession of peer bullies for the first three years I thought I had it bet.But no, ,not just yet.
I lived too far away to go home for lunch due to time constraints and used bring a packed lunch which I ate in the school premise.There were a few like  me in every year.Just me self and two others were from outside the Pale and the remainder were jackeens who lived within the city boundaries but too far away to make it back in time for class.
In my Inter Cert .year the class room we occupied had to be accessed through a room occupied by the Leaving Cert. class.18 year olds against 16 year olds.
One lunch hour while returning from the toilet through the sixth year room a Leaving Cert. pupil who I barely knew grabbed a hurley as I passed by and without provocation or reason lashed me full force across the arse and the back and proceeded to break his heart laughing as did his buddies.O Looney
(not his real name) thought it hilarious.I was in fierce pain and carried a black bruise for many weeks after.
Despite his strength ,weight and age advantages I lost it in an eruption of rage and sowed into him.I was shorter and got him  down where I had the advantage.I was mad with pain and anger and got the upper hand and was administering some of his own medicine when a crowd materialised and cheered us on.Then silence and a hand on my shoulder."O Looney ,leave Stevo alone.""Get up both of ye."O Looney,hold out you two hands ."And he gave him six of the best.On each hand.The tough man cried.I trembled."You Stevo ,out to the corridor."We couldn't be seen.I put one hand out."I was only defending myself "said I ."I know full well you were."O Looney is bullying children these six years and his victims were too terrified to report him" said Kerryman Devane.I'll hit the wall hard with the leather  a dozen times and you roar each time it hits the wall."I'll get your bag and stay home for two days."Swelling should be gone down by then."And it was.
Brother Devane died in Croke Park years after supporting Kerry.Or at least I hope this is how he died.

Anti Rural bias of Government has roots in labour Party.

In my blog on Blanch to Brunner 1965 I outlined how I was persecuted by certain other pupils because I was a culchie in their eyes and therefor entitled to be bullied and picked on.In fairness to the Christian Brothers and the other teachers I was never picked on by them either on this account or for any other reason.I considered them a fine and fair body of men.As far as I know I was never considered a lesser person because I was a culchie.
I am shocked ,but not surprised to read the recorded  comments made by Aodan O Riordan  to a constituent on the piecemeal way that Labour would see  to the widespread availability of abortion in Ireland starting with the X case and broadening it thereafter ,about which more anon.
In relation to T.D.s representing rural Ireland and its inhabitants he is quoted as saying"I mean em,you have to realise ,em,somebody representing somewhere like Monaghan,now my wife is from  Monaghan,start talking about  abortion rights in Monaghan and ,you know you don.t get too far.Or Donegal or Mayo  or you know.""The idea of being a good rural T.D.is you go to Mass  and you are a good Catholic .You are against abortion and everything is fine.""You know ,as I say ,my wife is from Monaghan and I go there and sometimes I just scratch my head at some of the ,just some,of the ,latent latent homophobia "".The ,em you know,it's bizarre .You think Irish  society has moved on."
Clearly Andy Riordan looks down his nose on Catholics,Countrymen and heterosexuals.He has previously railed against Christian prayer.How he condescended to marry a Monaghan country woman is beyond me.She must be delighted that he considers her neighbours to be so contemptible.
What is altogether more worrying is that he is a school teacher in central Dublin.And no doubt would insist on his right to teach there and have the anti Catholic and anti Rural prejudices he has.
Now I don't know if he lets his mask slip on theses subjects in school.In my schooldays there was no doubt about the tendencies  of the teachers in these matters.A teacher who has your undivided and unsupervised control for 6 hours a day invariably imparts his prejudices or beliefs on gullible pupils.
If Andy displays this  guff and nonsense in his class room I am delighted that it was Brunner I went to in 1965 before he was born.
Seeing as he is pushed out at every opportunity by Labour in the public arena all the Party must be like minded in their approach to rural people ,especially Catholics. This  contempt has found expression  for example in a provision in the proposed legislation on abortion that Catholic hospitals allow and participate in  the killing of unborn children in their hospitals.This is the equivalent of legislating for the extermination of Jewish unborn in Jewish Hospitals or Muslim unborn in Muslim hospitals.
Labour has totally outflanked Fine Gael on this issue.The hair on the tail of the dog is waggiing the dog.And the Labour President is using his position  to belabour the Fine Gael led Government on its approach to the economic direction of the country.A pincer movement.
The  blue rinse brigade of Church goers who led the canvass for this Government must be delighted that they have opened the door for the intentional killing of the unborn.Although I have heard that some are confused.
And when next you wonder just why your rural schools,police stations ,pubs and shops close down in increasing numbers just scratch your head and wonder who thinks of you the same way that the cartoonists  in Punch magazine portrayed you a century ago.Walking apes.

Start of Summer ?

The last 6 months have been an unmitigated disaster weather wise and from a farming perspective.Fusty hay and poor silage were the order of the day,with a few a few notable exceptions.It was cold wet and miserable.Our cattle just aren't able for six months of pure misery and the death rates of both cattle and sheep were well up on last year.Farmers are using edible straw mixed with molasses and fierce expensive nuts to sustain life at the moment.Many haven't the price of fertilizer.
Despite the farming community being broke this merciless Government is proceeding apace with the inequitable Local Property Tax and the levy of the carbon tax on briquettes and turf.They will kill off  farming in the same way that retailing ,the pub trade and manufacturing is dying  if they don't take their fingers out of their holes soon.
How soon till the first human death from Ocras or exposure in Ireland ?
I did however notice that the cowslips ,wild primroses and dandelions are beginning to peek through on the roadsides.
Would the Lord be good enough to come to our rescue ?Do we as a nation deserve his mercy ?Will He send a summer of plenty.Or will he despair at the hysterical clamour to allow the killing of the most defenceless of his unborn flock.
We pray He shows more mercy than we do.

Where's your pride Sir Bob, Sir Terry and Sir Tony.

The fact that Margaret Thatcher was an anti Irish racist  bigot and that she considered that the Irish could not be trusted and were all liars,as stated by her to Peter Mandleson, came as no surprise to me. I spent six months in England in 1969 and you would have to be a fool not to pick up two facts viz:-
(a)That the Conservatives epitomise  the essence of Englishness.
(b)That when the stiff upper lip is bared  ,the Irish are regarded as an inferior race by these racist bigots.
This type of prejudice condoned the genocide of the famine and approved the caricature of the Irish as apelike monkeys in Punch magazine at the time of mass starvation in the 1840's.
Now  three men ,Bob Geldoff,Tery Wogan and Tony O Reilly are Knights of the Realm and are Irish to boot.
Now that they know what the real English truly think of them will they have the guts to tell them where to put the Knighthoods or will they continue to flaunt them.

Two of the best flee to the rest.

I often wonder about the accuracy of the emigration figures and just exactly how they are compiled.In relation to the native Irish ,I think that they are greatly understated.Certainly the evidence of my own eyes and ears suggests that this is so.
One neighbouring GAA Club has just one player remaining in the country from a very successful under 16 football team of fifteen of seven years ago.Another neighbouring Club has lost nine adult players  since last year and two have returned leaving a net loss of seven.These are small populated rural clubs,like ourselves.
The lost generation of those in their twenties,the anguish of parents bereft of their children and grandchildren,the brutalisation of the populace by the imposition of austerity ,the inability of the middle aged and elderly to sustain any decent level of lifestyle, the plague of suicides,the granting of increasingly draconian powers to Government agencies ,the attempt of the Government to bully the judiciary into submission and to make it just a rubber stamp for Government ,the lack of decent employment for nearly half a million people,the fear of losing your home,the impossibility of those without homes of securing one and marrying and raising a family,the relentless pursuit of those who owe money and have nothing and never will if they stay here,the determined attempts of Government to turn the populace into informers on their neighbours ,the total abandonment of hope by the majority of decent people,the denigration of religion by a largely bigoted electronic and printed media and certain politicians and academics and the tired untrue cliches about the return of green shoots by the jigger pokers ,have kick started the exodus from the country of the next generation up,viz.those in their thirties and indeed older.
I had cottoned onto this trend some time ago.It is now gaining momentum.This generation just can take no more. Still living at home with the folks,mad willing for work of which there is none,no prospects of settling down here because they will never have a roof of their own over their  heads and facing the prospect of never being able to afford to have children if they stay here,e are voting with their feet and heading of as far as they can get.
This week we lost two of the finest people I know to the emigrant plane.Both in their thirties .Both who burst themselves when work was to be got. Both with loving families and at the heart of communities that can ill afford their loss.That mourn their loss.
No decent society can afford the continuing  loss of such decent people .
I am beginning to wonder if the three principles Hitler enunciated when he invaded Russia during the 1940's are  being deliberately implemented here.These are "Rule ","Administer," "Exploit".
There is no other reason for the imposition of such misery on us.Nor any need for it.
To Keith and Sean bon voyage.

Man's best and warmest friend.

A dog is a great companion.A dog doesn't nag or sulk or whinge without reason.A dog is faithful unless you abuse its trust in which case you don't deserve any loyalty or affection.A dog knows things humans don't.A dog can sense decency and just knows a cruel person instinctively .
Certain people are dog magnets.My uncle Joe was one such.I have photos of Joe taken in the nineteen thirties and forties when he had only better than rags to wear and there was invariably a contented dog or dogs frolicking around him.
A dog can sense the imminence of death in its master/mistress in my opinion.I saw this at first hand when my uncle Tommy was diagnosed with imminent death from cancer.His dog Judy used be all over him before he went to hospital.When he came home to die she refused to have anything to do with him.She just knew.
Anyhow Joe had always two dogs and sometimes three.Always collies.He was a farmer and some character.Also a bachelor,he suffered most of his adult life from maniac depression,bipolar they call it now.His bed was over a hundred years old and had springs and a net of metal mesh under the mattress that were so well worn that when he got into the bed his body gradually  jack knifed downwards so that his arse nearly hit the floor while his head and feet stayed on the level.
The family home in which he lived was built from stone drawn from the quarry then at the Moat in Navan by my grand aunt Maggie with an ass and dray.There was no insulation full stop.
Even with blankets and the old LDF coat on board it was cold in winter.But Joe's feet were never cold.One of the collies,Captain being the last ,was always trained to lie on the blankets on the foot of the bed over his feet.His tootsies were always as warm as toast,even on the coldest night.
Many's the night I spent with Joe at bedtime talking about this and that.As a matter of record he told me to my face that "I was thick but dacent".Not a bad epilogue I suppose.
Anyhow he was wont to smoke a fag or two before retiring and then he would say goodnight and pull the sheet and blankets over his head,Within minutes he would be sound asleep.The face stayed under the blankets until he awoke.
A stranger if he saw the bed would never think that Joe was asleep in  it ,as all that was visible were bedclothes with no sign of a head ,a hanging matress in the middle and a dog lying at the end of the bed.
If I wanted to know if Joe was in bed the dog lying at the foot  of the bed was a dead giveaway.

Joe had no patience.When he said" good night" he  meant it..Then immediately the blankets and sheets came over the head and off he went.No offence meant.
When he was near death in Mullingar General Hospital I was advised by the medics of that fact and told a great friend of his that time was short and a visit soon was advised.The particular man was so busy that he said he would get hard to make time ,but did so .On a tight schedule.One hour to travel there,one hour to converse and one hour to get home.
I visited Joe every evening and was there when the friend arrived."Well Joe any craic here"? "Not much Jack ,they won't let me smoke"."How's Dunderry doing in the football"."Didn't hear"."Goodnight Jack ,I'm going asleep now".Threw the blankets over the head and that was it.
57 minutes saved.Actually Joe rallied for a while .The immediate  cause of his grave illness was shingles which the medics couldn't clear up and which were rapidly killing him.
I went to a Mr.Leavy in Athboy who had the cure.He couldn't go to see Joe bur prayed over a towel,gave it to me with instructions to rub it on Joe's body where the shingles lay and listed for me the prayers to say.I did this and to nearly everybody' s great surprise but not mine, very suddenly the shingles cleared up fully.But he did die shortly afterwards of other natural causes.
Yep man's beat friend and ,in Joe's case in any event,warmest.

Abolition of Communion and Confirmation grants further attacks poor Catholics.

Child poverty is common in Ireland.Most working and unemployed try to keep the good side out and do their utmost to protect their children from deprivation and mockery from their peers.Decent people would die for their children and to protect them.
Children can be cruel..They pick on those who are different.In my own case I was the eldest of nine.My mothers people used take us under their wing for the summer in Dunderry and send us back to Blanchardstown togged out for the year.Part of the outfit was hob nailed boots,which were grand for Dunderry but regarded as culchie regalia by some sophisticates in Blachardstown.The amount of taunting and bullying we suffered as a result haunts me to this day.Imagine the result were we to go about dressed in clothes that were noticeably inferior to those worn by our peers.
We  were dressed simply and cheaply for our Communion and Confirmation.Everybody was similarly dressed.
Now we have an odious Government ,a marriage or partnership of the Rancher's Party and a Labour Party which is supposed to look after the poor.
I guarantee you that the children of Fine Gael supporters will be well togged out for their ceremonies.The atheist and aggressive secular Labour Party does not give one hoot about the poor Catholics in this country who cannot afford to tog out their children in a  decent fashion,If the children of the poor do attend the ceremonies dressed in an inferior fashion to their peers they will be subject to the same type of bullying and sneering I was subject to all those years ago.
Only  it is worse now with the widespread use of cyber bullying and commonality of child suicide,an event never heard of in my day.
Broke and broken hearted  Catholic parents will probably stop their children from receiving the sacraments rather than make them an object of ridicule.
This attack on Christianity is par for the course for this Government and this secular European Union.
It follows on from the Taoiseach's oral  attack on the Vatican,the withdrawal of the Irish Ambassador from the Vatican, the  attempts of the Government to seize Catholic schools and the sneering of certain Labour Deputies at the Christian prayers at the start of Dail and Seanad secessions .
The womb raiders are trying to terminate preborn Catholics before birth,are actively discriminating against third and fourth children and more  by paying a lesser allowance for them (Catholics tend to have more children than others),are now making it difficult for them to receive the Sacraments , preside over emigration figures that are on a par with the famine years and are indifferent to the increase in suicide by the beleaguered middle aged and elderly
The  complete anti Catholic package you might say.
All this while press ganging the household tax from those they know well cannot afford to pay.Of course the well pensioned or paid and expense paid Mary Robinson and Marie Geoghan Quinn ,a Euro Commissioner ,are extended free of charge the executive facilities in Dublin Airport when the frequently pass through on business of the utmost importance of course.
Shining examples of Mna na hEiireann.
But that's what you would expect from a Government and a Union who sees nothing wrong with forcing two human beings to sleep in a public toilet and which refuses to give then m any assistance whatsoever.Talk about Trevallion.
P,S.
Since I wrote this article it is reported that the Labour Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has intimated that he wants to cut back on the times given to Religious instruction in Catholic Schools.Just another piece of the anti Catholic ethos that permeates this Government.
Just twenty years ago I got a hint of the way that certain Labour supporters were thinking when a supporter of whom I wrongly though reasonably well asked the Question what the Irish for Priest was.When I replied "Sagairt ",he smiled and said "no its paedophile"and doubled over laughing at his own wit.
This hatred is long fermenting and is now bubbling to the surface.

Dunderry footbal genes surface in Mayo.

Older residents and families will well remember the late and great John Conroy from the Meadstown Road.He was a great GAA man,first with Dunderry in his youth,then with St.Teresa's in London and then again with Dunderry on his and his family's t return to the ancestral home in his fifties.He was a great personal friend of mine right up to his sudden and unexpected death.
Anyhow a son of  his Michael ,who moved to Mayo some years ago, has a son called Tommy Conroy,who I hear is a nifty and talented corner forward.
He is a minor and a little birdie tells me he has a chance of figuring for Mayo this year.
Keep an eye out.

Friday 5th April 2013 a sad sad day in Dunderry

The pain was palpable.Two funerals the same morning in a tiny village of one shop, two pubs a  school , a Church and fifty houses.The community managed well. The Coffey funeral was at 11.00 a.m.,the Feeney funeral an hour and a half later.The Coffey mourners were in the graveyard before the Feeney mourners arrived in the Church.Two desperate sad occasions.One life lived to its fullest span,exceeding the four score and ten,the other tragically cut short in its  prime.
There is no convenient time to die.no matter what age you are.
The locals know and love the bereaved families.Every house was represented.Both families were consoled ,if consolation is possible.These people will not die in the minds of their families .There is not a day that I don't think of those who went before me and I expect everybody is the same.Our religion tells us that life is everlasting and that there is a Resurrection of the body on the Last Day.The Church was overflowing for both funerals so that many,many more were left outside than were inside.Thoughtfully outside loudspeakers were mounted.Lapsed and a la carte Catholics were not long getting back into harness.Just scratch the surface.
Many stayed in the Church from before 11.00 a.m. to after 1.30 p.m.to pay their respects to both.Thousands of mourners from outside the Parish turned up ,both on the Thursday night and the Friday to pay their respects.Many came from abroad.
Dinny's brother P.J .came home from America.Daughters Blaithnid and Siobhain came from Australia and England respectively.Joe Coffey came from England and the Fagan brothers also came from England.Gerry Coogan came from the States.
I'.m sure there were more.
Cromwell could not scatter us better than our own.
Normally at funerals you get at least some animated chatter as the non locals scan for the "boys",i.e.the boozers and the "wild men "to sidle up to and have the craic.All the while paying respect to the bereaved and thanking the Lord it is not themselves.
But not on Friday,with a few exceptions.You could cut the sadness with a knife.Why .why oh why.Were there some there who may have pushed too far ?You would go mad wondering.
There were those there who have gone through this process in their own circle.The first thing  a family thinks of in the morning and the last thing at night,.You could see it in their faces.
Under the governance of our own it is getting too common by far.
A Day  of Reckoning will come and authors of the glib cliches will get their just desserts.
Friday evening at six meself and Liam prayed hard.Everybody here is doing likewise.
We don't need more days like this.

Death of Alacoque Coffey,Dunderry.

With the tragic death of Dinny Feeney the death of probably the oldest woman in the Parish has gone relatively unnoticed except by those nearest to her and her many friends and neighbours.She was 92 years old and a she was a very pleasant and charming woman.She lived in Churchtown ,Dunderry and for many years called in to visit us with her great friend Dot Rattigan on her way to or from the Bingo in Dunderry Hall in the days when when the Bingo was well attended before the smoking ban emptied it effectively.
She is survived by her sons Pat ,Francie and Joseph and daughters May and Evelyn and many grandchildren and great grandchildren and a wide circle of friends and neighbours.
GAA fans will remember well the exploits of Pat and Francie on the football fields of Meath when the graced the Dunderry football team which won the 1970 I.F.C. of which my uncle Tommy Mac Cormack was manager and of whom he was a great friend.
Pat is a regular at Dunderry Mass and Francie often drops into the Church for a private prayer.I met him recently on one such occasion and he said  that he often prays for Tommy MC Cormack and Peter Brady who ferried them around the football fields of Meath a half century ago ,when cars were as scarce as hen's teeth.Great to see that someone remembers them with affection.
The remains will arrive in Dunderry Church at 7.00 this (Thursday ) evening and will be brought to Dunderry Graveyard after 11.00 a.m. Mass tomorrow (Friday).
ON my own behalf and the wider GAA community I extend my sincere condolences to her family.friends and neighbours.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.

Dinny Feeney deceased.

On Easter Monday last Dinny Feeney died tragically.He was 57 years young.His land mearned mine at one side and we often interacted in a farming as well as a sporting and social sense.I fround him to be an absolute gentleman as a neighbour.It is in the nature of things that sometimes animals stray ,either one way or another.Between us these matters were not a problem. A gentleman through and through.
We spoke Sunday night at mid nigh at the birthday bash of his brother Tommy.I had a few on board and not having seen him for a while,compared notes about the shortage of fodder and we parted extolling the decency of each other.He seemed the finest.
I hurled and kicked football with Dinny.At that stage we were not in the first bloom of youth.He was hard and fair and gave it all he had.He worked that hard at the farming that he had little time for training.He was an exemplary farmer.
Feeneys always kept ponies and horses.Dinny ,his wife and children were avid horse people and great hunt supporters.
Lately himself and his wife Niamh joined the Lycra cycling brigade and took to it like ducks to water.
I drank with him,played football and hurling with him,farmed alongside him,had the craic with him and had the great pleasure of training his daughters, son ,brothers and nieces and nephews  in hurling and camogie.
Like  everybody else in the Parish I am shattered ,heartbroken and in a state of shock .
His remains will be reposing at his home tomorrow Thursday from 4.00 to 8.00.
The funeral  will be to Dunderry Church  on Friday at 12.00 noon,burial afterwards at the local cemetery.
To his devastated wife Niamh,son Thomas,daughters Blaithnid and Siobhan,father Tom ,brothers Tommy and P.J.,sisters Anne ( Callaghan )and Olive (Martin ) and his many nieces and nephews we extend our sympathies  in these their darkest hours and days.
Dinny and his extended family were at the core of the GAA Club for generations and indeed the Camogie and Fair Committee ,to mention but a few of the clubs he was involved with.His untimely death strikes at the very heart of the community.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.

Dunderry numb in Shock

This Parish has suffered more than its fair share of tragedy this while back.I thought that we had seen it all.I was wrong.Everybody was rocked to their foundation today by a tragedy of unimaginable sadness and despair. I am devastated.
Time will enable fuller reportage.

Easter Weekend Church times Dunderry

Dunderry.
Sat. 30/3/2013      7.30 p.m.Solemn Easter Vigil
Sun.31/03/2013    11.00 a,m. Mass

Kilbride.
Sat.      6.00 p.m. Mass.

Robinstown
Sun.     9.30 a.m.Mass

Labour Party in total freefall.

An earlier blog of mine on the issue of Labour's hatred of rural Ireland has been borne out by the fact that out of 24,300 votes cast only 1,112 were for their misfortunate candidate.About 4.6 % of the vote cast.This compares to 8,994 out of 42,752 in the general election of two years ago.21% of the votes cast.
While there was a huge wave of sympathy for Helen Mc Entee  the winner ,on account of the death of her father by his own hand , it is only a remote possibility that any true blue Labour supporter would have voted for her for sympathy reasons, as a second preference vote would have been just as good.

So I would guess that all Fine Gael diehards in the constituency did come out to vote for her and maybe about another 2,000 or thereabouts because of respect for the work her father and grandfather put into the IFA and the GAA. In my view about 33 % of people are fairly comfortable financially under this Government and these wealthier people belong to Fine Gael.(The Patsy of the ranchers.)

I would guess that keeping this 33 % sweet is the overarching policy of Fine Gael if they want to have a second term in Government and this is what they will do,Labour or no Labour.
Labour has long lost its natural base of the working and labouring classes.If there are only 1,112 tradesmen ,labourers and working class people in East Meath then I am a monkey's uncle.
Under the authoritarian influence of those who kicked away from Sinn Fein ,via Sinn Fein the Worker's Party via the Workers Party via Democratic Left to take over totally the reins of the Labour Party , it has been shaped into an anti Cathollic , anti Christian,stridently feminist,niche for  aggressive secularism and atheism,a rallying point for pro choice womb raiders and a promulgator of the gay lifestyle over and above that of the nuclear and extended family.
There is no point reiterating that when all the principal leaders of Europe were honouring the Pope on his elevation to the shoes of the fisherman in Rome,our two buckos ,who are way  too educated for God ,were away in America sucking up to Obama.
People do not forget that Gilmore,the Labour leader  broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican  ,in what is a 90% Catholic country.
Nor do they forget that Burton  actively discriminates against third and fourth children in the Budget by treating them as less worthy of financial assistance than their first and second siblings and cut the mobility allowance for the most severely disabled members of society.And introduced a household charge etc etc etc.

I would say that only a totally out o f touch lunatic would parade Ivana Bacchic from Trinity mouthing about gay marriage and spouting pro abortion views at the start of the Labour campaign,But she did and they did.
I hazard a guess that the 1,112 votes they gathered represents the gay,atheist ,anti Christian and pro abortion sector of the constituency,although  Sinn Fein may also have captured a slice of the womb raider vote ,given their strong pro choice policy.
The only chance Labour have to survive is to jettison the former Workers Party infiltrators and over educated third level anti Catholic bigots and aggressive secularists and atheists from its ranks and revert to being a Party that promotes the well being of the working classes ,as it once did.
Otherwise the downwards slide will continue and accelerate to hover around the 263 votes (1.1 %) that the eviscerated Workers Party and former comrade of the Labour leader e Seamus Mc Donaugh got.

Gonad politics to the fore.

Prior to and subsequent to the election of Shane Mc Entees daughter to the Dail I heard a number of female politicians and commentators ,some of whom are so hateful that they are pushing for a gender quota in politics because they know full well that they have no chance of election if the were to run on their merits alone,  laud her because she is "young " and a "Woman".As a middle aged ,some would say auld man ,I take fierce exception to  remarks of this nature as being sexist in the extreme and ageist to boot.
 If the criteria for selection and election depends on the sex and age of the candidates it would cut to the chase and save a fortune were the gonads alone of all the candidates photographed and displayed beside each other so that the electorate could decide which set they fancied more and whose owner would be more suitable for the Dail on that account only.
There has to be a limit to nonsense or am I naive ?

Time please gents and ladies.

How often our revelry was deflated by the cry of the publican at closing time of "Time please ladies and gentlemen,time.Ye have to leave.The polis are outside.No ye  can't stay here.Have ye no homes to go to ?"
Those were the days,only a few short years ago.The days when some polis  had little more to do than rack up brownie points by "doing" the publican and  customer after hours and wait in ambush for the drinkers with a few on board to" do them for driving over the limit.
The days when every politician worth his /her salt pleaded with the publican for the use of the pub to hold his clinic.The days when pubs were places where you could have a smoke and a decent drink with your friends and neighbours without  being weighed down by the incessant hectoring of the health Taliban about the political correctness and certitude of their puritan and Cromwellian views .The days before joy was banished and misery,"pain " and subjugation elevated to the pinnacle of human expectation.( I must admit that it defies logic and flabbergasts me how a medical profession ,some of  whose practitioners must rate as the greatest and most cowardly of humankind for the callous murder of countless billion  of helpless  unborn children ,has the temerity to lecture anyone else on proper behaviour.).
The days when you would notice that your neighbour was missing from his usual stool and enquire after him and look him up afterwards.The days before successive governments and clueless politicians and civil servant advisers turned pubs from "Public " houses into deserted excuses for funeral homes where despairing publicans and disillusioned customers share and swap stories of misery.And where each have to face out in all weathers to have a smoke to satisfy the health Taliban fronted by a medical profession of know alls who regard those who oppose them as neaderals beneath contempt.
The scourge of cancer is endemic .Smokers with a terminal prognosis absolutely dread going to hospital  in the knowledge that these Taliban will even in their final days deny them the comfort of a smoke.Many older people,I suspect, commit suicide  in this knowledge,knowing that if MRSA doesn't got them something else will .
Happy those who can finish their days in their own homes free of these interfering busy bodies.And I have heard one such interferon fanatic state that he would have no compunction policing people's homes to see that this evil was suppressed.I suppose that a profession which routinely murders the defenceless unborn has no problem in bullying those that survived gestation and that this is just a natural progression.
The smoking ban heralded the epitome of State bullying so far and heralded the death knell of the pub trade.It is unashamed bullying on a massive scale,nothing more and nothing less.The Seamin na Caices that conceived this ban and implemented it,heralded the destruction of rural society and having got away with it ,introduced successive punitive measures against a populace who are too programmed and fearful to "take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them".In a democratic sense of course.
Anyhow time was when the ownership of a pub,any pub,was a thing to be desired .As was a mid sized farm.
A man of my acquaintance once said"If you have a son you actively hate ,give him a 45 acre farm on condition that he makes a living from it exclusively and generates enough income to support a wife and family.This should break his spirit in a short time."I thought he was nuts.It was me that was nuts.And you could now substitute or add a rural or small town pub instead of a farm.Imagine the poor ludraman who volunteered for both.
Land has held its value.I doubt you could give away a pub at present were it to be run as a pub.And finally,the publicans were way ahead of their time in the cry "Have ye no homes to go to" as a considerable number of people will find out soon.The Government and the Central Bank are demanding more evictions,despite the pre election false promises of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste on the matter.

European Union legalised robbers.

Hereabouts we are plagued by thieves robbing our heating oil ( that is if we can afford to buy it.).Everybody ,especially the rural isolated,are advised not to keep cash at home but to place it in the safety of a bank.It was bad enough to put it there knowing that the Revenue could lift it from your account if they decided they were owed money.
Now the European Union is resorting to legalised theft from the bank  accounts of the people of Cyprus.Elected thieves lining up the booty for their outlaw buddies.No difference in principle ,just method.
And then we have the obscenity of  our Government,spurned on by our Central Bank driving our Banks and others to evict our people from our homes.
Not happy to destroy our banking system and load our foreseeable descendants with insurmountable debt ,the responsible institutions are now in the process of destroying the Credit Union movement less it rescue us from the clutches of the moneylenders ,where they want us to be to keep us on our bellies.
Whether she meant it or not  and I would assume not,the performance of Josephine Feehily.Chair of the Revenue on national television  was threatening and chilling. The amount of power the Revenue  and every other Government Dept. and Quango have accumulated over the citizenry if frightening .She has more powers at her disposal than any other person or institution in the State in my view  .And I include the judiciary in this.
This is not her fault.The legislators have granted all these powers to her.The politicians don't want the responsibility of exercising these powers themselves as it would affect them in the ballot boxes.
It is unprecedented for the Chair of the Revenue and indeed the Secretary General  of the Dept.of Finance to publicly endorse Government policy so enthusiastically.They ought steer clear of politics unless they want to become part of the political machinery and put themselves up for election.
As a former Revenue employee, who  stumbled lately on  the fact that the Revenue were enforcers for Cromwell in his campaign of genocide in this Country,I am not enamoured at all.
But have no doubt about it,the civil servants will implement the policies of their political masters if they can at all.
It is high time that the E.Union be either reformed root and branch from the ground up or be disbanded entirely before we are all ground down under the armies of political jackbooted bullies who run the show.

Cromwells Policies to be reintroduced by Irish Government.

The genetic abhorrence of Irish people to eviction and forcible resettlement is rooted in Cromwell's reconquest of Ireland and the routing of the landowners and householders to Connaught ( to hell or to Connaught,the mass emigration of the fighters who opposed him to continental Europe and forcible e migration of women and children to the slave colonies of the sugar plantations and such like of the Empire.
He set out to destroy a Nation and subjugate it and to destroy a Catholic Religion so then cherished.It is therefor nauseating to see a native Government allowing the reintroduction of the same tactics by enabling legislation against an Irish race who saw Cromwell down,particularly as the leaders of  the Country are from the West (Connaught)and should have the genetic revulsion against this type of activity strongest in their genes.
Whether eviction is disguised as "repossession,,"voluntary surrender"or whatever you are having yourself it nonetheless amounts to eviction.Not only this but banks are pursuing destitute defaulters viciously for the outstanding balance after the creditors are evicted even when they know full well that they have Nada.
Not only Banks .but creditors of all sorts,including the State, are queuing up to persecute,terrorise and do down unfortunate and decent people who did and do no more than try and feed and shelter their families
Families are being destroyed,suicides are being caused,abortions are being forced and economic emigration is higher as than it ever was.
The law and the State take the view that the creditor or borrower takes all the risk when he borrows and that the lender takes none of it and the law is loaded in favour of the lender ,the State or whatever.
Let us be honest and stop whispering about "pain"and say what is really happening here.It is death by the drip,the cutback ,by suicide ,by economic abortion .by forced emigration ,by threat ,by plamas ,by jiggery pokery,by no longer wishing to be a burden on the State,by any name you wish to
add yourself .
And remember what happened to Cromwell.His body was dug up long after he died and his remains hung drawn and quartered and his beheaded skull displayed on a spike.
Those who  facilitate eviction from the family home,the persecution of our people and the exile of maybe two generations would do well to remember the lessons of history before it is too late.
Even one eviction from a reasonable family home is too much and the relentless persecution of a large minority of the people must stop forthwith.

Anti Catholic Bigotry rampant in some quarters.

The likes of Vincent Brown,Sinead O Connor,Ray Darcy,Olivia O Leary,Kathleen Lynch  and a host of other well known figures in the public eye like to sneer at Catholicism at every opportunity.They may think that this has no consequence.
The amount of hatred and pure bile these attacks provoke is well illustrated on facebook at Meath Anti Eviction Ireland .
I would say that the rhetoric against the Jews in pre War Germany was not as overt as the pure bigotry spewed out at that site.Look it up for yourself and judge for yoursself.
And the people mentioned in the first paragraph can take a bow for the stuff they they disseminate and the "passions "they produce.

O Leary rant and Lynch claims suspect?

I recently heard Olivia O Leary seriously  denigrate the nuns that worked in the Magdalene Laundries ,sneer at the Catholic ethos and viciously attack the wearing of cardigans by women as an attempt to smother female sexuality,especially if worn by nuns.Considering that she herself was educated by nuns in a boarding school ,presumably having been sent there by her parent or parents ,this is a prime example of biting the hand that feeds you.This should serve as a valuable lesson to nuns not to waste their compassion on the education of   middle classes who ran Irish society for decades and who put the people in the laundries in the first place. She is not the only Catholic hater to so bite the hands of those that educated her and not the only person who feels free to denigrate the Catholic Faith working in RTE, an institution funded by a populace of which 80%  expresses itself to be Catholic.
Remember the Father Reynolds lible case where RTE blatantly lied about the Priest."Group Think " at fault the report found.Has it gone away?
Within a few days Kathleen Lynch of the "more faces than Big Ben sisterhood "and a paid up member of the" Jigger pokers" gave credence to a report that a woman was admitted to the Magdalene Laundries because she missed Mass.
I am sick in the craw of people like belittling my Faith ,severely doubt that the Magdalene Laundries were the places of hardship claimed in certain quarters and severely doubt that Kathleen Lynch's claim is true .I would be more inclined to listen to her had she not withdrawn the mobility allowance that enabled a minimum of independence to the most severly disabled people in the country the same day.
Had the nuns done it in  years gone bye I  am sure that these two ladies would be choking with rage and spewing bile by the new time.
The anti Catholic bias of RTE revealed itself further this evening on Mary Wilson's show when she gave full vent to a priest called Flannery (whose brother I think is a Fine Gael grandee and which may explain a lot),who made reference to certain Cardinals present in Rome as having been "tainted "by association with the Vatican and therefor not being worthy of elevation to the Papacy.In my innocence as a Catholic  I always thought that The Holy Ghost g had a big say in this choice and am not surprised that this Priest has difficulties with  the Church. Maybe he thinks that he himself is the only one qualified to take up this mantle.Off with him so.I am sure Bishop Sinead O Connor would back him for one.
I am certain were his brother to refer to anyone in Fine Gael  headquarters as n being" tainted by Fine Gael policy he would be run out by Edna post haste.
He was followed on the interview by John Cooney," veteran religious affairs correspondence of the Irish Times.",who waxed lyrical about the desire for a Pope who favoured same sex  marriage,women priests and married priests est c etc etc.He seemed to have a Scottish accent.He should therefor know that all these are de rigeur in the Church of England and maybe thought that he was at such a Synod.
Joe Duffy Made a disgrace of himself and all Dubs last week by the nature of his hectoring,bullying and ganging up with another loudmouth on an elderly Tallaght  Priest whose views disagreed with his own.
I suspect that the reason RTE has to resort to such loudmouth bigots is because no decent Catholic will have anything to do with them .
Anyhow I will be reading the Mc Eleese report soon and will give an unbiased summary.

I get very worried when I see spokespeople looking for non adversarial compensation.What are they trying to pull?.Ancient Catholics are publicly tried in open Court and no sympathy whatever is shown to them.What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.And I would not favour giving compensation to anyone put there for murder of infanticide,which a minority were.

Smart policing off to flying start hereabouts.

Last Friday evening the GAA Club put a huge effort into a fundraising drive called "Dunderry has got talent".A massive amount of work went into promoting it and the whole Parish and all the voluntary organisations in it supported it financially and by putting on acts of varying descriptions.To the huge credit of the Committee of the GAA Club It was a financial as well as a social success.And of necessity it was widely advertised and well supported.
Nearly all my immediate family attended and my daughter in law Aoife competed in a double act with the next Mariah Carey ,Megan Byrne .Powerful music and singing I am told.I stayed at home to mind the house.I never allow it to remain empty.This is because I know full well that there is a strong likelihood it would be robbed.Theft from  occupied and unoccupied houses around here has become endemic.
The latest craze is the theft of heating oil .Last Friday a local family made the huge mistake of supporting the well advertised Talent Show in block.Yep the thieves took the opportunity to steal their heating oil.Eight thefts I believe and rising.
Between the unlawful fleecing of the populace due to theft and the legalised extortion of decent people by a Government who are no more than kapos for the foreigners ,the rapid demise  of what was not too long ago an honourable country is accelerating rapidly.

Between two Balls.

The widespread loathing of most people towards the property tax and the concern and debate over the question of valuation of property for the purpose of calculating that tax has brought to mind an almost forgotten tale my uncles used relate about the unfortunate occupants of a house,which because of its location was in  effect valueless.
There was nothing structurally wrong with the house at all.It was just as sound as the neighbouring houses.Its ills lay in the old adage of "location,location,location."
It was the middle house of three houses on the same side  of the road and adjacent to each other.There were no other houses for a half mile either before you passed the first house nor for the same distance after it.after the last one.
In this part of the country the male unmentionable is known as a" b..in."The family in the first house you met were called Ball as were the family in the last house you met.The family in the middle house were Mc Cormacks.The father of the house was known as "the  B..in mc Cormack "and the entire family as "The Bu..in Mac Cormacks".
They sold out and the appellation stuck to the new occupants ,who were Dowds.And so it went.
This house is hard to sell.Probably impossible.
No offence meant to the Balls ,decent people all.

Labour party hatred of rural Ireland surfaces again.

The Labour Party has long since been taken over by clever former university student leaders who never did a day's physical work  in their lives.I would guess that between all of them they would not have the making of one welt or callous.Unlike the Party when actual  labouring families did in fact look to the Party for representation.Both it and Sinn Fein are in competition for the working class vote,according to the conventional wisdom..Although why this should be is a riddle to me.Both are hell bent on the eradication of preborn children if it suits the mother's wishes a.k.a. known as the right to choose.And both boast to understand the needs of working people.
As previously stated I doubt if the leadership of either party have a callous or welt between them.In the years when Labour did represent the working man and woman there were people in it  who did understand the drudgery and hard work necessary to make a lining from a small or medium farm of land.And who also understood that many small and medium  sized farmers were illiterate or had no education beyond primary level.Not that these impediments stopped them from eking out a living by dint of the sweat of their brow,whether here or with Mac Alpine.
Many hundred of thousands of these unfortunates died as chastitutes because they could not afford to have families because of the lack of opportunity caused mainly by the lack of good jobs which an education would advance.
Incidentally many many young men in their thirties who have the paramour but no prospect of a job nor a house are leaving by the new time so that they can marry and settle down in a country that treats them decently.I fear that this age group too will take off to join the twenty to thirty age group so conspicuous by their absence in rural Ireland at any rate.
Both this country's politicians and those of broader EU ought to be ashamed of themselves for negating the population growth of this country which was defying the slow decline and imminent death of most western European countries.See what abortion has done for them.And our very own tomb raiders want to replicate that here, the curse of God on them.
Any how I digress somewhat.
The point is that it seems to me that the out of touch Labour party wants to reinstate drudgery and all that goes with it in rural Ireland by insisting that the  children of small and medium sized farm families should have the asset value of their parents farms worth over 750,00 taken  into account when assessing eligibility for d student grants..
I know that no woman in her right head would marry  a farmer totally  dependant on say a sixty acre farm for a livelihood for the maintenance of themselves and even a small family.This is because the income would be so low that a job as a fast food employee would be greater. And the  income of a teacher or acrchitect is stratospheric by comparison.Quinn and the city based TD's haven't a clue what they are talking about and should try to eke out a living on a fifty or sixty acre  farm before they  further destroy and decimate rural Ireland.Or else talk to some of their small farmer members if they have any left .
But then again the men and women without welts and callouses probably don't even care.  

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.