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Catholic Banana Republic – Part 956: The Dail Prayer

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Catholic Banana Republic – Part 956: The Dail Prayer

It seems that there is no end of stories that show how entrenched Catholicism is in Irish politics (and parts of the society). Two weeks ago the scandal about the religious order that might own the new National Maternity Hospital and will probably enforce the catholic ethos for procedures that are carried out in the hospital, was in the media headlines. This week the Dail debate and vote about a daily prayer raised eye brows and baffled people.

As before, I want to point out that I am raised catholic, would still define a version of catholic inspired spirituality as my religion and go to mass without any feeling of guilt despite my total and complete objection to ANY influence of any church on the state.

Any kind of faith or belief should be a completely private matter and has absolutely no place in a political or state context. A state has to be neutral and should be at a home for followers of all or religions or none.

However, things are different in Ireland and the clocks are running a few hundred years behind, it seems. This week the Dail decided that they would stick to the daily (catholic) prayer and that they would force members of the Dail to stand up. In addition they added a 30 second silence to the prayer.

Apart from the fact that no religion-specific (catholic or otherwise) prayer has a place in a parliament in 2017, the chosen prayer is utterly clumsy and outright nonsensical. This is how it goes:

“Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

Come on, who would talk in that language nowadays, can they not at least use modern language?

But even if it was a modern prayer, it has no place in a parliament. Give the members of the parliament another minute so that they can whisper their prayer to themselves in quiet or in a prayer room or similar. Once they have prayed for help (and boy do they need it!), then they can come in to the parliament.

www.thejournal.ie/dail-prayer-4-3372533-May2017/

Only in the Catholic Banana Republic called Ireland, 97 out of 133 members of the parliament would vote in favour of keeping a discriminating Catholic prayer.

…and by the way, stuff like this is NOT helping Christianity, instead it does exactly the opposite!

Catholic, Irish, Odd, Politics, , , ,

Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

The An Garda Siochana, the Irish Police Force, is – like every other police force in the democratic world – the one and only enforcer of right and wrong in the country. They are not the judge if it is REALLY right or wrong, that’s what we have the judiciary (the courts and judges) for, but the police has to enforce the laws.

If you enforce the laws, however, you should also be obliged to stick to the laws. It increases your credibility tremendously and you set an all important example. If the rules don’t apply to the enforcer of the laws, then people behave like the children of parents that don’t stick to the rules they spout out. They become unruly and break the rules.

A small example: It is wrong for the Gardai to be allowed to use/handle mobile phones when driving, as long as all of us are not allowed to use mobile phones. And I think that EVEN if the mobile phone use is exclusively in the pursuit of their job….because we all know that it is NOT only in the pursuit of their job when they use the phone.

This is however a really small example and the Irish Gardai do it better:

1) Over the last few years they claimed that they carried out 1.9mio roadside alcohol test, but the Medical Bureau of Road Safety only knows of 1mio. How can there be a discrepancy of nearly a million? (RTE Report)

2) 14,500 people were prosecuted for road traffic offences and will have their convictions quashed because the gardai screwed up. They were brought to court without getting a fixed charge notice first. Not ok! (How come it took so long to come out?) The people that now get their money back and points removed because they drove 3km/h too fast (I got 3 points for that. Grrr!) are ok in my eyes, but what about people that committed serious traffic offences and who will also go without any penalty now? (RTE Report)

3) The Sergeant Maurice McCabe saga that is also called the Garda Whistleblower Scandal where Maurice McCabe lifted the lid on Garda corruption around the penalty point system and was threatened within the police force and a cover up was attempted is still not completely sorted. 5 years after it started!

4) This week it emerged that there are financial irregularities at the Garda College in Templemore. They had 50 (!) bank accounts for the college and used money for entertainment and presents that should not have been used for that. (RTE Report)

5) And now the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan indicates that this might not be the only falsifications there are.

Can we really trust our Police Force? I am sure (and know) there are many Gardai that can be trusted but if there are soo many problems, there seems to be a huge systemic problem and if you need LUCK to get to deal with a “good” Gardai then that doesn’t instill confidence in the enforcer of right and wrong in our country.

Dublin, Justice, Odd, Politics, , , ,

Britain and Ireland are SEPARATE countries! Northern Ireland Border to return?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Britain and Ireland are SEPARATE countries! Northern Ireland Border to return?

It is just a few more days until Britain will declare its departure from the European Union. A totally nonsensical move in my eyes, but (happily!?) mislead by some populist politicians like Nigel Farage and too arrogant to consider that it could all end in a disaster, the British old people and (uneducated?) lower class is forcing Britain to take its hat in March 2019 and say Goodbye to the EU.

(In a pre-poll survey of the Independent, 21% of people below the age of 26 voted for Brexit compared with 69% of people over the age of 65. And 64% of graduates were planning to vote to remain compared with only 25% of people with no formal qualifications at all. Source: www.independent.co.uk)

Some people in Ireland think that without Britain in the EU, Ireland will be in trouble, others hate the EUR for a variety of reasons and others again don’t care much about the EU and the opportunities that it should provide to Irish businesses because they put (nearly) ALL their focus on selling their goods to Britain and ignoring the 25 other markets in the EU.

Nobody knows what the outcome will be. It will probably take another 10 years until we do know and by then, many of the people who caused Britain’s exit will not be around anymore. :-O

Apart from the economic impact, there is one question causing distress in Ireland and it is a surprising issue: It is the question about the border to Northern Ireland.

I am well aware of the historic circumstances, the 800+ years of occupation of Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Treaty from 1921 and the “Troubles”, which were a lot more than just “troubles”, but no matter what your political preferences are you have to accept that by international law, Northern Ireland is part of Britain and NOT part of Ireland. You might want to change that and that wish/goal/preference is absolutely legitimate, But any change needs to follow formal procedures until it becomes reality.

With that in mind, I can understand why people in Ireland don’t WANT to have a border again between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but I can’t see a single reason why there shouldn’t be a border once Britain leaves the European Union and as long as Northern Ireland remains part of Britain.

The fact that both countries are on the same land mass, is definitely not enough of a reason. The history? Not enough of a reason either!

The area I come from in Germany was for a while French, then German, then French again and it is German for a long time but only about 20 minutes by car from the French border. The same happened – in reverse – to the area close to the border in the French side. German, then French, then German and now French. The change in “ownership” always happened through occupation. Both parts were separated by a border until the European Union tore down borders through the Schengen Agreement. But if Germany or France left the European Union, it would be totally normal and understandable that a border with check points etc would be re-built.

Why should the situation be difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland?

Yes, I get it, some think that Northern Ireland SHOULD be or OUGHT to be part of Ireland, but that is as wrong as if you think your neighbours house SHOULD be yours. It will be yours once you agree to it OR the courts decide that your neighbour took the house from you illegally and has to give it back. But until that formal process is completed, it is owned by someone else.

Elsewhere, Politics, , , , ,

Taoiseach puts himself on ejection seat, but stop talking about it!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Taoiseach puts himself on ejection seat, but stop talking about it!

There is a time in our lives when we all have to leave. I am not talking about that final leave, that will put us 6ft under, but I am talking about leaving a job, leaving a hobby, leaving a group of friends, leaving a football/chess/car racing/knitting/etc club. It is usually best if YOU can choose when you depart and also it is best to keep it a bit as a surprise just because it should ideally be on your terms not on other people’s terms.

The current Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, wasn’t clever enough to ensure that he was in charge of his future, but stupidly he indicated to the nation that he might not lead his party into the next election. Maybe he wanted to get some positive gain from this statement, but it certainly has back fired as his party and in fact the political landscape in Ireland seems to be mesmerised by the question WHEN will he step down. It totally distract from the real issues and it must interfere with the ability of the current government to do the best job they are capable of.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the current Taoiseach, but at the same time I do think that day to day politics is a lot more relevant than the discussion about who will be the next leader of Fine Gael and the “peacocking” of his possible successors is really putting me off all of them. Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney or Frances Fitzgerald? Neither of them has been elected, so I don’t really care about them.

At the moment, there is one guy in charge. He is telling us about how Ireland will deal with a Brexit….and seems to talk more nonsense than sense. He is going to bring a silly bowl of shamrock to Donald Trump, a move that certainly doesn’t find support everywhere because of the person the American president is. And he didn’t impress with his handling of the recent whistleblower affair in the police force.

So no “Well done! Great job!”, but because I don’t think the discussion about him stepping down (when, how, where?) will bring Ireland forward in a positive way, I would prefer if the speculation about the date of stepping down and about the successor would not take up newspaper headline after newspaper headline.

As long as the man is in his current job, don’t distract him all the time! If he doesn’t give his job full attention, it might turn out even worse than now.

 

Elections, Politics, Taoiseach, , , , ,

Are Irish Travellers are an ethnic minority? What about Cork people?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Are Irish Travellers are an ethnic minority? What about Cork people?

On Wednesday the Taoiseach declared the Irish Travellers as a ethnic minority in Ireland. This was done after many years of refusal to do so by government after government and it begs the question why 01 March 2017 was seen as the perfect day for it because the discussion about it is going on for a long time.

And with that long delay and the repeated refusal, the next question has to be about the WHY travellers were recognised as an ethnic minority. There are just about 29,000 people in Ireland that declared themselves as travellers in the 2011 census. Some still have a nomadic lifestyle but many are now “settled travellers” (an interesting Oxymoron). They speak their own language or rather a dialect that is called De Gammon (by Irish Travellers) or Cant (by non-travellers) or Shelta (by linguists), a language that sees words that derive from Irish mixed with English.

The definition of an ethnic group requires some or all of the following features:
a shared history; a common cultural tradition; a common geographical origin; descent from common ancestors; a common language; a common religion; a distinct group within a larger community.

Looking at these 7 points, I’d say six out of seven are probably applicable (the seventh is the religion which is not different to the majority of people in Ireland). But is that enough to make a group an ethnic group and – if the group is small – to make it an ethnic minority?

Compare that to Cork people! The majority of people that live in Cork have a shared history because they have common ancestors. They definitely have a common geographical origin and have some common cultural tradition that are different from people in the rest of Ireland. They certainly have a common language, boy! …and they are a distinct group within a larger community. So the same six seem to apply to people from Cork as to Travellers. Should we now declare “People from Cork” as an ethnic minority?

Or compare it to full-blooded programmers! They have a shared (recent) history and have common cultural traditions. (Don’t laugh, programmers would call it “cultural”. ;-) ) They fall short on the common ancestors, but share as much a geographical origin as Travellers. Programmers definitely have a common language and to a degree they have a common religion (not in the traditional sense of “religion” though). They are a distinct group within a larger community and you could even say that they have largely a common dress code and appearance. So should Programmers get recognised as an ethnic minority?

Sure, I am over exaggerating and not that serious (at least with the Programmers). But shouldn’t we question any categorisation in our society? I know, this article is not political correct. The right approach would have been to celebrate the Traveller’s new categorisation and say nothing else. But are we maybe much TOO politically correct?

Please note, that I don’t have any answers, but I do have a lot of questions!

Irish, Odd, Politics, Society, , ,
 
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