Disappointingly, there is still no mention on Slugger O’Toole that “Prince Andrew” has been mentioned in New York Courts in a civil action involving under-age sex.
You might say…whats the connexion to Norn Iron?
And I would say that the not so Grand Old Duke of York is Colonel in Chief of the “Royal Irish Rifles” which now includes the discredited Ulster Defence Regiment, which many nationalists would regard as a loyalist paramiltary organisation responsible for the murder of many innocent people.
Would this interest Slugger O’Toole.
Well….quite properly in my view ….Slugger has raised questions about Sinn Féins handling of sexual abuse allegations made by a young West Belfast woman.
Let me state,without hesitation that I believe these allegations to be true. Further, Sinn Féins subsequent behaviour has been appalling. They have circled the wagons and attempted to damage the reputation of the young woman.
As I have said Slugger (and mainstream media) quite properly asks the questions. Less properly they ask the questions ad nauseam and give the impression of conducting a vendetta against SF in general and Gerry Adams in particular actually damages the case they try to make.
That Gerry Adams is resistant to any form of embarrassment on this issue and many others and clearly evasive and incredible and no doubt backed by an unofficial guarantee of immunity to protect the Peace Process…is all I suspect true.
But “Prince Andrew” (“aka the Duke of York” as the Court Papers describe him) is at least unwise to have er unwittingly been the friend of a paedophile….a billionaire paedophile…and even more unwise to er unwittingly still been a friend after the billionaire paedophile was convicted of procuring a 14 year old girl for the purposes of prostitution. Andy was very wise to sever the friendship when er this was made known to him.
Buckingham Palace was quick to dismiss any allegation of impropriety. A young woman bringing a civil action suggests an underage laison with Andy. Lawyers call her a liar.
She might well be.
But a tip of the hat to former teenage party girl (from the 1960s Profumo Scandal) Mandy Rice Davis, who died last month “he would say that, wouldnt he?”
And surely the mantra emerging in recent year or so in cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale….or institutions as diverse as the BBC or the Catholic Church….is that institutions look to their own survival and disregard the children who are victims of abuse.
In 1977, a former Tory Whip explained the role of the secret Whips Office. Tim Fortesque said that the object was to befriend and help Tory back bench MPs who found themselves isolated and in trouble….for example over “small boys”.
Circling the wagons.
Of course…it is too easy for Republicans and Nationalists to smirk at the discomfort of Royalty…especially when everyone is innocent and merely tainted by “association”.
Likewise too easy for anti-Republican message boards to smirk at the discomfort of Sinn Féin …especially when everyone is innocent and merely tainted by “association”.
And it is shameful when the root problem is the sexual abuse of young women and children.
But Droight de Seigneur is as relevant now as ever.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
We should in my opinion listen to all the victims.
Thank you. I have been trying to compose a second post. As you will understand, it is diifficult.to get the wording and the “tone” right.
A couple of points on why I would consider addressing the Mairia Cahill situation but less readily that of Prince Andrew. Allegations involving Mr Adams and Sinn Féin are much more politically significant in Ireland than whatever Prince Andrew gets up to while living the high life. Additionally there is not an awful lot that I or most on Slugger could likely add that is fresh insight. With the Spotlight program and media appearances there was an awful lot more information to work from. The main newspapers will dominate this story, whereas with Mairia Cahill, blogs can be written up minutes after a radio show.
Of course I speak neither for Slugger nor the rest of the contributors and as always nothing to stop anyone from writing such an article.
In all cases it is important to make sure the victim is heard.
A valiant attempt to justify.
I emphasise that I am inclined to believe Ms Cahill. And I think that she is doubly a victim …abused by people in West Belfast AND abused by the judicial system.
There are no allegations that Mr Adams has abused Ms Cahill.
The Spotlight and other programmes enthusiastically cover the story. And in true Slugger style, all their anti-Republicans get to feed on it. Agenda? What agenda? How many threads?
As I understand it, the allegations In New York….and they are only allegations….are against “Prince Andrew”. They have certainly received a lot of coverage in British newspapers…but surely Slugger also gets into a feeding frenzy on “British” news….how many threads have we had on the Scottish Referendum.
I dunno….are you saying that if Panorama and Stephen Nolan run with the Andy story then, Slugger will consider it newsworthy.
Agenda???? What Agenda???
In actual fact there is a bigger story here.
I hinted at it in the post.
The concept of Droight de Seigneur. And I am have been trying to formulate a blog on that over the weekend.
I wont try and write it up as a comment here.
But I would point out that Platform for Change (thankfully now a dead parrot) had a meeting in September 2011 at the Black Box in the Cathedral Quarter. The meeting took the form of a seriies of monologues by four or five women. One…I believe from Derry …alleged (convincingly) that a local IRA commander had abused her.
The story on Slugger is not about “Abuse”,….its about Politics.
For starters and something that bemuses me greatly is the belief that Slugger can not appear to have an agenda. The BBC must be balanced, Slugger like this blog, does not. It’s a relatively open platform for opinion, not a public broadcasting service. In my opinion it does not have a set agenda per sé but does not benefit from as wide a range of opinions as would be ideal.
Back to the “story”. The Prince Andrew allegations are a news story, with immense importance for the individuals concerned but for politics in UK and Ireland? The alleged cover up of abuse in the Republican movement is significant for Irish politics because of the implications it has for the leader and others in Sinn Féin. If it were the DUP caught up in something similar, you can be sure it would be covered. The point on Spotlight etc was the way the story broke and continued to break/trickle.
I wouldn’t have written or dealt with the story the way some did on Slugger but I don’t think that it stepped over the line either. The independent did get rather carried away though.
I make no secret about my agenda.
I am a Nationalist, Republican and Socialist and a member of SDLP.
I also oppose LetsGetAlongerism.
While Slugger is to some extent , influenced by its commenters (sic)…the recent thread on predictions for 2015, clearly had an overwhelming Pro SF response….it is also true that the key Slugger “staff” are anti-SF and pro liberal unionist/letsgetalongerist.