They’re at it again. Pesky politicians.
Politicians across the very narrow spectrum of Irish politics are incredibly predictable. We’ll go through them, and you’ll see what I mean.
Fianna Fáil. They’re lying low. Brian Cowen was off in the States recently proclaiming our economic recovery, and fair dues to him. He’s more likely to get a friendly reception almost anywhere than in Ireland these days. In fairness to him, it’s important for the economy that we’re seen to engage with the international markets… It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that Moody’s downgraded our credit rating the day after his Wall Street visit.
The rest of them, despite great posturing over different issues such as, variously, dog breeding (hello, Christy O’Sullivan and Denis O’Donovan), stag hunting, and civil partnership, have disappeared since the Oireachtas went on holidays. Everyone needs a holiday, of course, and I’ve no doubt they will be busy in their constituencies once they’ve done their two weeks’ penance somewhere. Speaking of holiday homes, another, er, Cork Fianna Fáiler who’s been in the news lately is Ivor Callely. His reasons for being newsworthy? Living in Cork – apparently – and claiming outrageous and dubious expenses. So, more of the same from Fianna Fáil. Is it me or is there a stench of the 1980s off all of this?
And now to Fine Gael. Let’s see. A botched leadership challenge, an ideological/geographical/generational divide, a social event where the opposing groups lined up at either side like an old fashioned dance, allegedly, and now a young TD criticising the ‘cute hoor’ culture of Irish politics, not just within the Government party, which would be ok, but within her own. So far, so 1980s. The Fine Gael curse has struck again, despite the valiant efforts of, among others, our own Jerry Buttimer to convince the outside world that everything is fine.
Labour. Eamon Gilmore says, like Pat Rabbitte and Dick Spring said before him, that there is no chance of him joining Fianna Fáil in Government after the next election. Rumours that a Fianna Fáil rep in South West Cork is about to jump ship to the new ‘populist’ party, and talk about a ‘Gilmore Tide’. Now we’re up to 1992!
While the Greens were but an embryo at that time, it’s pretty clear that history is repeating itself in Irish politics, and their parliamentary party has something of the endangered species about it; think of the Workers’ Party, the Democratic Socialist Party, etc. Parties with genuine policy positions and ambitions of real change rarely get very far in this country.
More of the same and plus ca change; is it any wonder we’re bored?
There’s a lot of rhetoric about ‘change’ going around, and the MacGill summer school in Donegal was full of it. But we’re well known for rhetoric – blarney, waffle, and spin are all readily identified with the Irish – and rhetoric isn’t going to get us out of this trough.
One of the most depressing radio items I’ve ever heard was a panel discussion on Radio 1 on Saturday in which four young politicians discussed their reasons for getting into politics and joining the parties they’d joined. While they were all very pleasant and articulate, they were all careful not to alienate anyone, careful not to offend each other, and careful to kowtow to their party lines.
And so, the cycle continues.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Making our own good news
The news today about McElhinney's of Athboy is really heartwarming. Unusual for business news to be "heartwarming", but this is a through-and-through good news story.
I'm not too acquainted with the finer points of the deal, but from what I gather, after going into voluntary liquidation, the company did a deal with another Irish company - Flairline - allowing it to reopen the store and rehire its 56 employees.
McElhinney's is a well-known brand and occupies a place in the consciousness of a lot of Irish people. Of course, they will never be forgiven for that appalling TV ad "starring" Rosanna Davison. Here it is, just to remind you:
.. But we won't hold that against them.
Today's news is really encouraging, and shows that a bit of imagination and a a really solid brand can provide an escape hatch for businesses that don't appear to have one.
It's particularly encouraging given the number of small businesses that are closing around the country.
Living in a city centre, I have a bird's eye view of businesses closing and opening, and at the moment there are certainly more doing the former than the latter.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the Spectra photo shop on Patrick Street when I noticed they were having a sale, at 70% off. Unable to resist that when I needed photo frames for some prints I bought recently, I went inside, and only then realised that it was a closing down sale.
As I was buying a few knockdown frames, from the very small selection that remained, I had a most depressing chat with the owner.
Online destroyed him, he reckoned - that and the cameras in his shop just couldn't compete with the big multiples. He was obviously a keen photographer himself and I'm willing to bet the level of expertise you would get shopping there would have been second to none.
It wasn't all bad - he himself was moving to a job with a former competitor - something like the McElhinney's story. But the shop that he obviously loved was gone, and it was with something like shame that I left with my not-quite-ill-gotten gains.
That same week I was food shopping, and dropped into my local vegetable shop, which is located in a shopping centre, near a large supermarket selling all the same produce it sells.
Chatting to the owner, I got the same sense of despair from him that I'd got from the Spectra man. Except that he was still in business, just about. He couldn't understand why potential customers were walking past his - cheaper - fruit and veg to get to the supermarket at the end of the shopping centre. Neither could I, to be honest. It was clear that he loves his shop, that profit margins are extremely tight, and that he doesn't know how long more he can keep going. When I called in, it was after closing time, but he was staying open during sweeping-up time just to catch the last few stragglers. I left with lots of fruit and veg, my week's supply, for about €7, and without the pain of traipsing through a supermarket.
Those two experiences made me really, really think about what small, local retail means, to both owners and customers.
It's about pride, and personal achievement, and 'buy-in' and genuine 'ownership', literally and metaphorically, for the owner. For customers, it can be as important as a social network, a valuable source of advice and information, and just one part of the glue that holds a community together. Economically, it's about jobs, and keeping money circulating locally, and a rising tide lifting local boats. But, lest we all get carried away, economics are only a part of it; the human side is just as important.
I've always paid lip service to shopping locally, but since then, I've been determined to try. I'm doing my best to buy in small local retailers and to buy what I need from them, even if it's a bit more expensive, rather than going to a big supermarket and buying a load of stuff that I don't need and that will go off anyway.
The McElhinney's news is brilliant for their staff, for the company, and for the locality. Let's try and make sure there are some more good news stories like that.
I'm not too acquainted with the finer points of the deal, but from what I gather, after going into voluntary liquidation, the company did a deal with another Irish company - Flairline - allowing it to reopen the store and rehire its 56 employees.
McElhinney's is a well-known brand and occupies a place in the consciousness of a lot of Irish people. Of course, they will never be forgiven for that appalling TV ad "starring" Rosanna Davison. Here it is, just to remind you:
.. But we won't hold that against them.
Today's news is really encouraging, and shows that a bit of imagination and a a really solid brand can provide an escape hatch for businesses that don't appear to have one.
It's particularly encouraging given the number of small businesses that are closing around the country.
Living in a city centre, I have a bird's eye view of businesses closing and opening, and at the moment there are certainly more doing the former than the latter.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the Spectra photo shop on Patrick Street when I noticed they were having a sale, at 70% off. Unable to resist that when I needed photo frames for some prints I bought recently, I went inside, and only then realised that it was a closing down sale.
As I was buying a few knockdown frames, from the very small selection that remained, I had a most depressing chat with the owner.
Online destroyed him, he reckoned - that and the cameras in his shop just couldn't compete with the big multiples. He was obviously a keen photographer himself and I'm willing to bet the level of expertise you would get shopping there would have been second to none.
It wasn't all bad - he himself was moving to a job with a former competitor - something like the McElhinney's story. But the shop that he obviously loved was gone, and it was with something like shame that I left with my not-quite-ill-gotten gains.
That same week I was food shopping, and dropped into my local vegetable shop, which is located in a shopping centre, near a large supermarket selling all the same produce it sells.
Chatting to the owner, I got the same sense of despair from him that I'd got from the Spectra man. Except that he was still in business, just about. He couldn't understand why potential customers were walking past his - cheaper - fruit and veg to get to the supermarket at the end of the shopping centre. Neither could I, to be honest. It was clear that he loves his shop, that profit margins are extremely tight, and that he doesn't know how long more he can keep going. When I called in, it was after closing time, but he was staying open during sweeping-up time just to catch the last few stragglers. I left with lots of fruit and veg, my week's supply, for about €7, and without the pain of traipsing through a supermarket.
Those two experiences made me really, really think about what small, local retail means, to both owners and customers.
It's about pride, and personal achievement, and 'buy-in' and genuine 'ownership', literally and metaphorically, for the owner. For customers, it can be as important as a social network, a valuable source of advice and information, and just one part of the glue that holds a community together. Economically, it's about jobs, and keeping money circulating locally, and a rising tide lifting local boats. But, lest we all get carried away, economics are only a part of it; the human side is just as important.
I've always paid lip service to shopping locally, but since then, I've been determined to try. I'm doing my best to buy in small local retailers and to buy what I need from them, even if it's a bit more expensive, rather than going to a big supermarket and buying a load of stuff that I don't need and that will go off anyway.
The McElhinney's news is brilliant for their staff, for the company, and for the locality. Let's try and make sure there are some more good news stories like that.
Monday, July 19, 2010
2000 years
'I will put enmity between you and the woman...' 3:15
No, that's not a quote from Joseph Ratzinger at 3.15 this morning.
It's a quote from the Bible, a compilation of hearsay, rumour, innuendo, misogyny, fairytale, legend, biography, social history and advice written by various men over a period of a few hundred years.
The Bible has largely been the same since it was agreed upon as a fundamental part of the Christian Church, over 2000 years ago.
The world, however, has not.
None of this is news; none of it is even that outrageous. The quote above, put into the context of a 2000-year-old society, could even be considered enlightened, in that it doesn't place the blame on women for the enmity.
What is outrageous is the reliance of the Catholic Church under Ratzinger on the ancient tradition of misogyny within its teachings.
Ratzinger - I know he's the Pope, but part of my problem with the Church is the edification of its officers through mystical titles, robes and glittery accessories - has, during his tenure, taken the Church back many years. And it was already quite a bit behind.
The latest release from the Church, including the 'sin' of ordaining women priests in a list which mostly focussed on the 'grave' sin of child abuse, is almost mind bogglingly stupid, ignorant, and short-sighted.
I've been putting off writing this post since I first read of this last week, as I was afraid I'd merely spew expletives.
Contrary to some reports, the news from the Vatican did not precisely equate women priests and those who ordain them, with paedophiles.
They made the unfortunate mistake of including the new rules on ordaining women priests in the same document as the new rules on paedophilia. At least, that's their line on it.
It shows just how clueless the Church is when it comes to the gravity of paedophilia. It's like including late payment of your TV licence in the same legal provision as murder. Even if you believe they didn't mean it that way, it shows an astonishing lack of political nous, something that would be surprising, given its proud history as an Italian city state and how it got there.
But that's optics. It's well documented that the Church has no clue how to tackle paedophilia, and for a long time, didn't really care. I will give Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and some of his colleagues the benefit of assuming that now, they do care.
The part of this that really and truly astonishes and angers me is how the Church, after 2000 years of progress in almost every other sphere of society, can still believe that women have no place in its structure.
My relationship with the Church was a big part of my childhood and it was exemplified almost 100% by nuns, teachers (all female), priests' housekeepers, my granny and all the other old ladies who went to mass and kept the place going.
Women who cooked and cleaned for the Church and its many tentacles, who grew and arranged flowers for the Church, who sang at Church, who did readings at Mass, who visited the poor and the sick for the Church's charities and who arranged fundraisers and trips to Lourdes and the 'tea and sandwiches' part of the funeral. In the midst of this a priest wandered in, had his dress put on him by some overawed kids who spent an hour handing him things, ate and drank what he was given by the women, and went for a pint.
I am not saying all priests are lazy or that all priests or bad; I am not even saying all priests are like this. But every support service that I can remember ever seeing in the Church was carried out by women.
When I visited the Vatican a number of years ago on a trip to Rome, I became incandescent with rage and had to leave St Peter's Basilica. I've written about this before, and I won't go into it in detail again.
But as we wandered around between statues of 'holy' men, crypts (of men) with nuns beating their heads off the ground and wailing in front of them, pictures of men and astonishing wealth, held by men, we walked past nuns cleaning, and of course ended up in the gift shop. Where, if we'd bought anything, we'd have been served by nuns.
It was the biggest and wealthiest clubhouse I had ever seen and they did not want me in the club.
I have been raised to expect that I am equal to anybody. I know that I am equal to anybody. And yet, there is no chance that I or any other woman, can ever be in a position to change the Church. Because change has to happen on the inside, and we are not on the inside.
We are tolerated as tea makers and cleaners and mothers (to a point - only in marriage and only if we eschew contraception and impure thoughts and enjoying any sexual contact not designed for procreation). We are tolerated as 'handmaidens'.
Now, when the Church is in the throes of the biggest crisis since the Reformation, when it is desperately seeking vocations and forgiveness from the thousands, possibly millions, it has wronged, in one foul publication, it shuts out the 50 per cent of the population that has not been proven, over 2000 years of administration, to be completely misguided and wrong about how we do things.
I am not religious. But I feel some of the disappointment and shame that the Church's female adherents must be feeling now. There is a movement for women priests, and it is quietly supported by quite a few male priests.
It's time for them to raise their voices. Schism is an old-fashioned word, but it looks to me like the concept has never been more inviting.
No, that's not a quote from Joseph Ratzinger at 3.15 this morning.
It's a quote from the Bible, a compilation of hearsay, rumour, innuendo, misogyny, fairytale, legend, biography, social history and advice written by various men over a period of a few hundred years.
The Bible has largely been the same since it was agreed upon as a fundamental part of the Christian Church, over 2000 years ago.
The world, however, has not.
None of this is news; none of it is even that outrageous. The quote above, put into the context of a 2000-year-old society, could even be considered enlightened, in that it doesn't place the blame on women for the enmity.
What is outrageous is the reliance of the Catholic Church under Ratzinger on the ancient tradition of misogyny within its teachings.
Ratzinger - I know he's the Pope, but part of my problem with the Church is the edification of its officers through mystical titles, robes and glittery accessories - has, during his tenure, taken the Church back many years. And it was already quite a bit behind.
The latest release from the Church, including the 'sin' of ordaining women priests in a list which mostly focussed on the 'grave' sin of child abuse, is almost mind bogglingly stupid, ignorant, and short-sighted.
I've been putting off writing this post since I first read of this last week, as I was afraid I'd merely spew expletives.
Contrary to some reports, the news from the Vatican did not precisely equate women priests and those who ordain them, with paedophiles.
They made the unfortunate mistake of including the new rules on ordaining women priests in the same document as the new rules on paedophilia. At least, that's their line on it.
It shows just how clueless the Church is when it comes to the gravity of paedophilia. It's like including late payment of your TV licence in the same legal provision as murder. Even if you believe they didn't mean it that way, it shows an astonishing lack of political nous, something that would be surprising, given its proud history as an Italian city state and how it got there.
But that's optics. It's well documented that the Church has no clue how to tackle paedophilia, and for a long time, didn't really care. I will give Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and some of his colleagues the benefit of assuming that now, they do care.
The part of this that really and truly astonishes and angers me is how the Church, after 2000 years of progress in almost every other sphere of society, can still believe that women have no place in its structure.
My relationship with the Church was a big part of my childhood and it was exemplified almost 100% by nuns, teachers (all female), priests' housekeepers, my granny and all the other old ladies who went to mass and kept the place going.
Women who cooked and cleaned for the Church and its many tentacles, who grew and arranged flowers for the Church, who sang at Church, who did readings at Mass, who visited the poor and the sick for the Church's charities and who arranged fundraisers and trips to Lourdes and the 'tea and sandwiches' part of the funeral. In the midst of this a priest wandered in, had his dress put on him by some overawed kids who spent an hour handing him things, ate and drank what he was given by the women, and went for a pint.
I am not saying all priests are lazy or that all priests or bad; I am not even saying all priests are like this. But every support service that I can remember ever seeing in the Church was carried out by women.
When I visited the Vatican a number of years ago on a trip to Rome, I became incandescent with rage and had to leave St Peter's Basilica. I've written about this before, and I won't go into it in detail again.
But as we wandered around between statues of 'holy' men, crypts (of men) with nuns beating their heads off the ground and wailing in front of them, pictures of men and astonishing wealth, held by men, we walked past nuns cleaning, and of course ended up in the gift shop. Where, if we'd bought anything, we'd have been served by nuns.
It was the biggest and wealthiest clubhouse I had ever seen and they did not want me in the club.
I have been raised to expect that I am equal to anybody. I know that I am equal to anybody. And yet, there is no chance that I or any other woman, can ever be in a position to change the Church. Because change has to happen on the inside, and we are not on the inside.
We are tolerated as tea makers and cleaners and mothers (to a point - only in marriage and only if we eschew contraception and impure thoughts and enjoying any sexual contact not designed for procreation). We are tolerated as 'handmaidens'.
Now, when the Church is in the throes of the biggest crisis since the Reformation, when it is desperately seeking vocations and forgiveness from the thousands, possibly millions, it has wronged, in one foul publication, it shuts out the 50 per cent of the population that has not been proven, over 2000 years of administration, to be completely misguided and wrong about how we do things.
I am not religious. But I feel some of the disappointment and shame that the Church's female adherents must be feeling now. There is a movement for women priests, and it is quietly supported by quite a few male priests.
It's time for them to raise their voices. Schism is an old-fashioned word, but it looks to me like the concept has never been more inviting.
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