Society

Memories by Jack Lynch, Nora Connolly O'Brien, Martin Smyth, Dervla Murphy, Michael Hartnett, Bernadette McAliskey

THE BRITiSH used to describe the Irish in much the same terms as the Irish themselves now describe the itinerant. The descriptions, then as now, had elements of 'fact in them. We were dirty, we were ignorant, we were fractious, and superstitious. All of these characteristics, however, were a direct result of our oppression. Denied access to education, ignorance was inevitable. Taxed for improveements to our houses, we lived in hovels. Denied the rights accorded to others, we fought for these rights and our only consolation in times of desperation was our religion.

FOR THE first time a poll has shown that a majority of the Irish people are in favour of the legalisation of divorce in certain circumstances. And the size." of the majority is amazingly high(two' thirds) especially as compared with previous polls which at no stage showed a clear majority in favour yet alone such a decisive one.

Today the Irish Sea is probably the most heavily contaminated with radioactive debris of any sea in the world. British plans to build a new nuclear reprocessing plant at Windscale could make this situation dramatically worse. Jeremy Bugler reports on the 100 day public inquiry which the Irish government did not attend. By Jeremy Bugler

THE COUNTRY has been on a massive drinking rampage since the return of the Fianna Fail Government to power in early summer. The sales of alcohol have rocketted by 15% in the three months from June to September over the same period last year, and the expectations in the drink trade are that this Christmas will see the most massive drinking spree in our history.

TWO MORNING newspapers have indulged in the ludicrous journalistic excercise of writing on the treatment of prisoners while being denied access to the prisoners themselves. Inevitably the reports were hopelessly biased and selective. Dave O'Connell, Vice President of Sinn Fein (Provisional), recently emerged from Portlaoise jail and has given us this first hand account of conditions there.

YOU WOULD think that the authorities would have learned a lesson. They have made a wilderness. socially and economically of central Dublin. Few live there; few walk around it at night. Security men, dogs and the occasional wino have taken cover. The middle classes have uprooted and gone long ago. The poorer classes are left isolated in their high tenements institutionalised poverty, it is - from Donore Flats, through Fatima, across Cook Street by the barren wastes of Sean MacDermott Street to Summerhill, ending in the world's end of Railway Street and Sheriff Street.

THE POGROM of Limerick in 1904 was small by international standards. From 1880 to 1920 throughout Tsarist Russia hundreds of thousands of Jews were butchered, dispossessed and left impoverished, and Western Europe and the United States experienc~d an enormous influx of Jewish refugees.

WHEN WE SAY a person in India is poverty-stricken, we do not use the word in exactly the same sense that we apply it here. In India, the poverty stricken are by definition starving to death. In Ireland, the term" poverty " begins before the starvation line, and is based on a qualitative assessment of conditions relative to our environment. By John Feeney, Dan Ruddy and Vincent Browne. Published in Nusight, November 1969.

THE CLEANING WOMEN in UCD earn £6 5s. Od. for a five day week. There are 25 of them. They work from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 2.30 p.m. until 5.30 p.m. This is a thirty hour week, but they have no recognised breaks which makes their week's work equivalent to a normal employee's. On their £6 they pay 9s. 6d. in insurance and up to £1 in income tax. This lowers their weekly salary to £4£4 10s. a week. By John Feeney, Dan Ruddy and Vincent Browne. Published in Nusight, November 1969.