Letters To The Editor 2005-04-08

Most Irish people would be deeply ashamed and as disbelieving as Thomas if they were aware that many elderly Irish women struggle to live without as much as one cent from the state.

Yet the unpalatable facts are that hundreds of elderly Irish women do not receive an old age pension and most of them are in their seventies. They made neither pre 53 nor post 53 contributions as they raised a family and were homemakers. Article 41.2.1 of the Irish Constitution states "by her life within the home, women give the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved."

How hollow this statement rings in the ears of elderly women who try to exist without individual means, property or pensions!

As an interim measure, a caring government could award these vulnerable people an allowance of €50 per week. To many of your readers this might seem a very trifling sum, but to these ageing mná na hÉireann it would make an enormous difference in their lives and restore a small measure of dignity and independence to them.

Surely 40 or even 50 years of homemaking and child caring earn women the right to receive at least €50.00 per week from those who govern our democratic republic.

Pádraig Ó Cleirigh

Co Dublin

Forget rule 42. What about the rights of local residents at Croke Park?

Urinating in your gardens and against your walls, vomiting in your streets, constant tapping on your windows and doors, sleep deprivation due to late night social functions, littering your streets and gardens, cars blocking your driveways, people kicking your cars. These are just a few of the issues experienced by local people from the large events at Croke Park. What other community in this country would put up with this attack on their quality of life?

For local residents the GAA's rule 42 is irrelevant. Support by local people to increase the large events at Croke Park would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. This is a quality of life issue. The right to move freely in and out of your community and the right not to have your privacy and property interfered with. Most people take these rights for granted but they are being violated every summer due to the GAA activities at Croke Park.

The authorities at Croke Park show no respect for the local community and at every opportunity actively work to displace and disrupt their quality of life. An example of this being the GAA's recent objection to a new drinks licence for the community and social club on St Joseph's Avenue which provides vital social and leisure activities for both old and young people. Not only does this displace social and cultural activities but threatens the jobs of locals employed there.

The different sporting, media and political pundits who in the name of pluralism call for the opening up of Croke Park to other sports show absolutely no regard for the impact it would have on the 20,000 or so people who live in the vicinity of the stadium. The GAA have very powerful political and corporate connections and to local people it seems that they are using these connections to allow them, with impunity, to steam-roll over or disregard the concerns and rights of local residents.

On top of the disruption from GAA games, with the proposal to open Croke Park to soccer and rugby games on weekdays and Saturdays, local residents are being asked to accept disruption all year round with increased intensity.

No meaningful benefit has accrued to the local community by having a "flag ship national stadium" in its neighbourhood.

It's the local community that takes the pain while the GAA and their supporters make all the gain. Fundamentally, GAA activities at Croke Park are having a negative impact on the quality of life of local people. The GAA are responsible for the disruption, so they have an obligation to put this right. Until this happens, the local community are totally opposed to increasing the number of sporting events at Croke Park.

Patrick Gates

Chairperson Croke Park Area Resident's Alliance

Writing in Village on 6 November last, Brian Hanley informed your readers that the debate on the British false surrender at Kilmichael in November 1920 was "increasingly sterile" in comparison to the "much more serious" issue of the killings in Dunmanway in April 1922.

Brian Hanley was given the opportunity to question Canadian historian Peter Hart on these issues in the March/April edition of History Ireland. Hart has alleged that Tom Barry lied about the false surrender by British Auxiliaries at Kilmichael and he also alleged that the IRA pursued a sectarian campaign that lead to the deaths of protestant men in Dunmanway.

Hart has been the object of serious criticism by Irish historians Meda Ryan and Brian Murphy. They assert that Hart has got it seriously wrong on both issues. Hart has been accused of deliberately withholding information from secret British intelligence files that conclusively show that there was no sectarian policy whatever on the part of the IRA in identifying informers in the area surrounding Bandon in West Cork, which includes Dunmanway.

It comes as a surprise therefore that Brian Hanley concentrates on the so-called "sterile" issue of Kilmichael and ignores the allegedly "much more serious" question of the Dunmanway killings in his questioning of Peter Hart.

Hart asserted in the interview that he could not answer his critics in detail. He takes space, however, to label the critique of Meda Ryan (a woman historian) "not rational", and irrelevantly claims that as new research by Brian Murphy on British propaganda is not yet published he "can't comment" on Murphy's criticism (which has been in print since 1999). Hart did boast of delivering a detailed refutation (last December) to a select audience of postgraduate students in Maynooth, where Brian Hanley works. The talk was entitled, grandly, "The Truth about Kilmichael". This was a talk that, alas and in truth, few heard about and even fewer attended. Peter Hart promised, however, that he would publish a detailed defence… eventually.

In the meantime Brian Murphy will address and refute the allegation of IRA sectarianism during the War of Independence in the Imperial Hotel in Cork on Friday 15 April at 8pm. Unlike Professor Hart's recent semi-secretive outing in Kildare, all are welcome to attend, to listen to the evidence and to make up their own minds.

Jack Lane

Millstreet, Co Cork

May I add my name to the now long list of congratulations to both Olukunle Elukanio and the students of Palmerstown Community College for their successful campaign to "Bring Olukunle Home". It was a mammoth task, which, as Fergal Keane put it in last week's Village, was a "credit to them and their school".

Under close media scrutiny, Olukunle's deportation was found to be unjustified. With this revelation, the minister acted correctly and reversed his decision. It was fantastic to see democracy working so effectively.

However, at what now seems like a crossroads in Ireland's immigration policy, we have to ask: Is this democracy? Yes, the people spoke and the state answered, but only after street protests and a massive public outcry.

I want to know what happens to other deportees; the "little guys", the unpopular student, the anonymous worker, essentially the person who doesn't have protests and media campaigns backing them up.

We seem so willing to supply strict policies to faceless "immigrants", but unwilling to apply them to individuals to whom we can relate. That was the key to the "Bring Olukunle Home" campaign – unmasking the anonymous immigrant, presenting a person we can empathise with.

At such a time as this it is the duty of the people and the media (this is where you come in) to demand an immigration system where we can all stand over each individual case as well as the system en masse.

These changes must come soon, as more and more Olukunle's will be deported, only this time without the benefit of a public campaign in their name. We have to construct a system where they don't need one.

Michael Pidgeon

Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin

In his letter (Village 2-7 April "Understanding 1916") Pierce Martin commits the classic error of Irish historical revisionism, he argues from the British perspective. It is that perspective which attempts to define colonial domination in "democratic" terms and approaches the entire spectrum of Irish resistance to that domination with the mindset, "How dare we rebel"!

But it is interesting that he compounds this error by arguing against the wrong point of view as propounded by Gerry Adams concerning the 1916 Rising. In failing to grasp the true political meaning of the Easter Rising he proceeds to prostitute his own interpretation on the altar of opportunistic denunciation of Sinn Féin, worthy of any column space in the Sunday Independent. But to what end?

Even the most cursory examination of the present position of Sinn Féin would clearly illustrate how far removed that organisation is from the political ethos of the Proclamation. And one can clearly surmise that the Sindo's tirades are having little impact. I can only conclude that the reason Pierce Martin creates "straw man" is to mask his own deeply flawed analysis of the events of 1916.

The Irish people are a sovereign people and it is this sovereignty which forms the basis of the right to Irish independence. This is what 1916 was about. Irish independence is a right and not just a good idea. When the layers of excuses and revisionism are peeled away you are left with the naked proposition that Ireland is either entitled to its independence or it is not. The only concensus to be reached between the Irish people and a British government is a recognition of our sovereignty as the only basis of right upon which the "law of the land" can be enacted.

The charge that those in 1916 were trying to destroy a "developed democratic system" is as spurious as the charge that the imperial slaughter initiated by a cadre in World War I was to secure the freedom of "little Belgium". It was the position of Home Rule that it was morally and politically just to kill German soldiers for Belgian freedom but not so to kill British soldiers for Irish freedom. In the statistic stakes Home Rule created the greatest level of bloodshed in the prolonged political interaction between Ireland and our neighbouring island. Children, non-combatants and all the more emotional exploitative category of victim that Pierce Martin desperately employs for credence are there in abundance, and no doubt warrant a Garden of Remberance, or two, given their number.

What Pierce Martin fails to realise is that democracy and colonialism are irreconcilabe and no less so in Ireland. There is a democratic imperative to end colonialism because colonialism cannot concede any semblance of democratic legitimacy.

The General Election of 1918 is proof of this point. The concensus of the Irish people was outlawed by the British government not on the basis of electoral percentages but on imperial policy. It was the pursuit of this democratic imperative to end such unjust practices which conferred democratic legitimacy on those who fought in 1916.

German aid was no less intentioned than French aid to Tone or Emmet or American aid to the Fenians. To try and read some dark ulterior motive into it is mischevious and was comprehensively rebutted by GB Shaw when he wrote after the executions; "...an Irishman resorting to arms to achieve the independence of his country is doing only what Englishmen will do, if it be their misfortune to be invaded and conquered by the Germans in the course of the present war.

Further, such an Irishman is as much in order morally in accepting the assistance from the Germans, in his struggle with England, as England is in accepting the assistance of Russia in her struggle with Germany". Emmet, in his Speech from the Dock also rebutted the charge of seeking to establish French imperial rule in Ireland.

1916 is best remembered, like the victims of British colonial policy in Ireland, by realising that one was concerned with the complete ending of the other. Let us equally remember that neither Gerry Adams or Pierce Martin, in their actions or interpretations, are capable of realising that end.

Colm Mc Aonghusa

Co Dublin

Your correspondent Pierce Martin says that the purpose of the 1916 Rising was to impose pro-fascist ethnic nationalist domination on the whole of Ireland, and he says that the rebels destroyed a developed democratic system that had secured a Home Rule settlement.

In fact the modest measure of Home Rule enacted by the House of Commons was rendered meaningless by the combination of armed revolt by the Ulster Unionists, mutiny against Parliament by the British Army, and rejection of the decision of the elected chamber by the unelected House of Lords and by the British Conservative and Unionist party.

Prior to the Rising the electoral mandate of the British Government expired, and the Unionists consolidated their armed revolt and defeat of the Home Rule Party by becoming part of the new, unelected government which assumed power in Britain and Ireland in the spring of 1915.

This was the sentence of death for the Irish Party which had sent thousands to war against Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey and other countries which had never invaded, conquered, expropriated, colonised or starved Ireland. About 50,000 of these were to die for an Empire which was a prototype for militarism, conquest, and world domination; and it was clear by 1916 that they had been duped by a bogus promise of Home Rule.

In a typical ten-minute period on the Western Front, the numbers of people slaughtered in the interests of British Imperial aggrandisement, in a war engineered by Britain, was greater than the total number of all those who died in the week-long Easter Rising against British Imperialism.

The unelected, self-appointed British government had no electoral or moral mandate to oppose the declaration of an Irish Republic – pending the holding of Irish elections – by a Provisional Irish Government in 1916.

As to the 1918 elections, it is illusory to set the combined Home Rule Party/Ulster Unionist support against the Republican vote as Pierce Martin does. The Ulster Unionists had gone into armed revolt, not against Republicans, but against the Home Rule Party. On the separatist side, the substantive difference between the Home Rulers and the Republicans was that the latter were prepared to face up to the overwhelming military force and violence that were the permanent basis of the British position in Ireland, and which had been nakedly demonstrated yet again in the destruction of the Home Rulers. The Home Rule remnant were part of the separatist tendency. They cannot be counted among the loyalists who brought about their downfall.

Pierce Martin says that only a minority of Irish electors voted for independence. In fact the credibility of the Home Rule Party had already been shattered by the anti-democratic actions of the British and the Unionists before the 1916 Rising ever happened; to the extent that by 1918 the Home Rulers were unable even to mount a contest in many constituencies. Thus no vote was held in the areas where Sinn Féin was strongest, so the overwhelming independence vote was only partially counted in 1918.

This independence vote was no temporary aberration. It was replicated in all the elections held in Ireland from 1918 to 1921 throughout the period of armed struggle by the IRA in defence of Irish democracy against the military aggression of a superpower.

Pat Muldowney

University of Ulster, Derry

And so we all wander away from the driver theory test centre as ignorant as when we walked in. We wonder and are curious about the questions we missed but, having passed the test, how many of us actually go to the trouble of re-reading the book now that we have the go-ahead to get our provisional licence?

There are forty questions, of which you must answer thirty-five correctly. The Official Driver Theory Test Book emphasises it's aim is to provide responsible and safe driving practice and knowledge. So it is assumed that the main objective of the actual test would be to further this as much as possible.

It is assumed that the would-be driver will leave the test centre knowing the correct response to all forty driving situations introduced by the test. This is however not the case.

Those questions answered incorrectly, the most important in fact, are left unaddressed.

On the letter given to you to say you have passed is listed the topic areas in which you answered questions incorrectly. If you missed three questions you may have to re-read 114 pages of the theory test book. According to one of the workers in the test centre the computer will not allow anything more specific, "that's just the way the system is".

How many of us have bothered? As yet taking the time to do this has not appealed to me. Apparently, however, a straightforward reference and on-the-spot correction to the rules of driving is "impossible", the computer does not permit it.

Of course the test goes a long way to making new drivers aware of situations on the road but why is such an obvious failure of this test completely ignored? I wonder how long it would take to deal with a financial shortcoming of the same magnitude.

Lorna Stafford Gomez

Tallaght, Dublin 24

Would it be OK to say I'm utterly indifferent to the Pope's death? I mean,it's not as if he is mourned by the whole world. There are over 5 billion people to whom his passing means not a jot, probably, yet here in Ireland it's as if life as we know it will never be the same. Yeah right, greed and malice and poverty will soon become things of the past. No. Most of those who eulogise and waffle on about what a saint he was may be, if they are honest, every bit as unconcerned as I am, I'm sure. Lip service gone into overdrive as they seize a chance to claw back the credibility their institution has long ago lost, forever.

John Paul II was 84 years of age and he lived a very privileged life – since he got the job, especially. He never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from and he jetted all around the world whenever he got bored at home to tell others of their responsibilities to mother church. Hmmm. He visited 115 countries and it never cost him a cent. He was wined and dined for nearly three decades and had a ball, basically. I think I'll put in my own application for the post of new Pope. I promise I'll kiss the women and walk on the tarmac – not the other way around. I'm with Bertie Ahern as far as a national day of mourning being a non-starter is concerned. It's bad enough already what with the TV programming being all over the place as they saturate channels with wall-to-wall Pope coverage.

I tuned in the other evening to watch "The Simpsons" and needless to say I was heartbroken that they were passed over and replaced by Pontiff stuff. Is nothing sacred?

Robert O'Sullivan,

Bantry, Co Cork.

I was wondering was Robert O Sullivan from Bantry indulging in some sort of a hallucinogenic substance, when he wrote his glowing tribute to the Boy Roy. Moral courage is something you need when your international football team and the Irish nation depends on you to help the Irish football team to great things during our World Cup adventure, instead of behaving like a little spoilt child.

Jimmy Murray