Steven Agnew’s office is just a few doors from Stephen Farry.
I quite like the whole “sunflower thing” but not sure on the colour combination. Extra points for including local councillor John Barry. I think the whole Facebook, Twitter, Flickr information is over the top. Points lost for spelling “Stephen” as “Steven”. Thats pretentious. But a good all round effort. I quite like the fact that the office is not hidden behind “blinds”.
In Bangor, County Down today. I have decided that I will use my Translink “free travel” card to photograph the constituency offices of MLAs.
This one is the office of Stephen Farry MLA, currently the Minister for Employment and Learning. His office does not mention Alliance Party benefactor Rowntree Trust/Foundation or their advisor Stratagem. I think the lettering “MLA” is a little too big. And points also lost for being….well the Alliance Party.
For over twenty five years, I have take the view that “middle age starts next year”. On the eve of my 60th birthday, I have at last decided that middle age starts at midnight.
Actually quite a strange feeling. I quite liked my 40th birthday. I was married with two young children and enjoying my job. My 50th birthday I had a major health issue with serious surgery being considered which cast a shadow over the years immediately before May 2002.
In 2002, I became a grandfather for the first of three occasions. And I think this re-juvenated me. As indeed did finally retiring in 2005.
This birthday seems oddly nostalgic. I have been thinking a lot about the seven people with my family name….who would have been happy on 10th May 1952. All now dead. As more sadly is one of my three grandchildren. Yet tomorrow night I wil be in a local hotel for a meal with a differen seven people who share my family name. …my wife, my sons, my daughters-in-law and my two surviving grandsons.
I have been twice blessed. Born into a loving family is a great blessing. Helping to create a loving family was a second blessing. And watching the children I helped to create, live by decent values is an ongoing blessing.
And of course, the wonderful Translink Smart Card which gives me free travel on public transport all over Norn Iron is a blessing.
James McClean has been selected to play for Ireland in the European Football Championships. Born in Derry, he has previously played for Norn Iron’s Under 21 team and has elected to represent the “Republic of Ireland”. He tweeted yesterday. “Absolutely honoured and couldn’t be happier to have been called up to represent my country at the Euros” (my emphasis).
He has however been subject to sectarian abuse online and his life has been threatened. This is of course the stark sectarian reality behind much but not all of Norn Ireland football supporters.
The Norn Iron football authorities have made efforts….belated but sincere….to outreach to “Catholic” players coming thru the ranks. Certainly World Rankings show that Norn Iron needs all the players it can get. Including Lee Camp (born in Derby, England), Maik Taylor (born in Germany), Lee Hodson (born in Watford, England) and Jamie Ward (born in Birmingham, England). All raised in England and gone thru English youth football. Norn Iron currently languish in #100 in Football rankings. The “Republic” are in #19 place.
Norn Iron supporters claim to want a level playing field. James McClean and fellow Derry man Darron Gibson have played youth football in Norn Iron before being “poached” (in Norn Iron mythology) by the evil folks from the South. Actually the players have merely exercised their right to be Irish citizens to play for their national team.
There is no legal mechanism to stop McClean or Gibson so doing. There is no legal mechanism to compel them to play for Norn Iron. Nor is there any quasi-legal “football rule” that can make them do this. The Norn Iron football authorities have already taken their case….their unique situation (as they have it) to “World Football” (FIFA) and humiliatingly lost. In fact even taking the case was counter-productive.
The current tactic devised in Norn Iron football is to demand compensation for the finacial loss incurred in developing players who then opt to play for Ireland. Well of course, the problem with that is that Norn Iron is not rushing to pay compensation to the English FA for developing members of their squad. And there is also the uncomfortable fact that the Norn Iron football authorities gets grants from the Norn Iron government………taxpayer money, collected by the British Treasury from people who include Norn Iron “nationalists”.
Of course real Norn Iron football fans will rightly condemn people who put sectarian abuse on Twitter and Facebook. And will of course will condemn those who resort to threats. While many Norn Iron football fans recognise the “right” of McClean or Gibson to choose to play for Ireland, many of them are “lets get alongerists” who believe that if players did not play for the Republic, it would create a harmonious and homogenous “country”. Alas that call is not for the “lets get alongerists to make”. The call is for McClean and Gibson.
While those “lets get alongerists” present themselves as respectable, even “liberal” people, the threats to James McClean shows that too many Norn Iron fans feel he has no right to make this decision. And of course the threats are de-humanising.
Is it more or less likely that James McClean will reverse a decision and not go to the Euros because of threats from some internet warriors? Is it likely to change the mind of other young Catholics currently working their way thru youth football in Norn Iron?
The struggle in Norn Iron has always been between those who wish to enhance peoples rights and those who wish to limit peoples rights.
Ireland’s latest Olympic qualifier is James Espie (Sailing)
The nature of the European Football Championship is that the major footballing nations such as Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland and England are almost guaranteed a place in the four-yearly finals. Seeding ensures this. There is a second tier of nations (say Portugal or Sweden) who are also always likely to qualify. There is a middle group of nations who…….at their best……..can maybe qualify for Finals (Greece, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium). There is a group such as Estonia or Israel who can maybe gain a shock result and make it thru to Finals. And a final group such as Malta, Leichtenstein, San Marino, Andorra and Norn Ireland who are perenniel no-hopers.
Ireland will be one of sixteen nations in the Euro Finals, to be held in Poland and Ukraine next month. This will be the first time Ireland has competed at this level since 1988 but they have competed in three World Cups since then (1990, 1994 and 2002).
The squad was announced today. No surprises. Seamus Coleman (Everton) can consider himself unlucky and James McCarthy (Wigan Athletic) has asked not to be included because his father is gravely ill.
Squad: Shay Given (Aston Villa) Keiron Westwood (Sunderland) David Forde (Millwall) Richard Dunne (Aston Villa) John O’Shea (Sunderland) Sean St Ledger (leicester City) Darren O’Dea (Leeds United) Stephen Ward (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Kevin Foley (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Stephen Kelly (Fulham) Darron Gibson (Everton) Keith Andrews (West Bromwich Albion) Glenn Whelan (Stoke City) Keith Fahey (Birmingham City) Aiden McGeady (Moscow Spartak) Robbie Keane (Los Angeles Galaxy) Stephen Hunt (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Damien Duff (Fulham) Shane Long (West Bromwich Albion) Simon Cox (West Bromwich Albion) Kevin Doyle (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Jon Walters (Stoke City) and James McClean (Sunderland).
Clearly the team were good enough to qualify but this is a reality check. Some genuine international standard players (Given, Duff, Keane, O’Shea and Dunne) but all in the final years of their careers……supplemented by journeymen professionals from (mostly) the middle and lower reaches of the English Premiership. A chance certainly fora young star to emerge……James McClean is certainly a major prospect and probably the brightest young star in Irish football at the moment.
This is the first tournament where players from the Six Counties (McClean and Gibson) have been selected fora tournament. Actually Shay Given was also born in Derry.
The result of the elections to the Greek Parliament have been over-shadowed by the French Presidential Election. In the long run, what happened in Greece will be of more significance.
“Europe” does not like the result. Which is ironic because Greece became the tenth member of the EEC (or whatever it called itself in 1981) it was a mere seven years after the fall of the fascist military junta…..the colonels who had ruled Greece. Bringing Greece on board was supposed to strengthen democracy in the country. The same of course was true when Spain and Portugal joined to become the eleventh and twelfth nations in “Europe”….they were less than a decade from the Franco and Salazar years.
Frankly “Europe” over-reached itself. And it is ironic that Greek democracy has effectively set a time-bomb under the future of the “eurozone” (certainly) and the European project itself (almost certainly).
I wont miss Europe. I did not like it in 1973. I dont like it any better in 2012. Its own contradictions will bring it all down. Soft Landing? Crash Landing? I dont know.
I actually got “Europe” wrong. It was not about surrendering sovreignty (by steps) to faceless beaurocrats in Brussels. It was actually about surrendering sovreignty to …..faceless bankers. They are the people in control. At best politicians….especially socialist politicians might mitigate the damage.
Those in receipt of bailout funds from Europe…..Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland….have surrendered financial sovreignty. In Ireland’s case it will be comparatively short-lived. I cannot see Greece surviving as a truly independent nation. No good in Europhiles spinning the whole “we are now inter-dependent” nonsense. Greece exists merely as a “protectorate” of “Europe” (as it now calls itself) and is effectively a colony of Germany.
In yesterday’s election they punished the parties of right and left who agreed the austerity measures, which are punitive. Of course the voters might well ask themselves why THEY allowed themselves to be persuaded that bills would not have to be paid.
The Greeks now find themselves with a fractured Parliament, unable to form a viable government and the most likely short-term result is further chaos and new elections at a later date. At some point Greece will have to leave the Eurozone, and set up a new currency. Whether it can remain within “Europe” is questionable.
I can of course understand that Catholics, non-Catholics and anti-Catholics are angry and calling for the full course of the law to run in respect of Cardinal Brady. I am at a loss to understand a self-proclaimed athiest calling for Catholics to boycott Mass.
The Association of Catholic Priests are meeting in Dublin. The BBCs Religious Correspondent Robert Piggott is at the Conference. He was hardly just passing by. Presumably he was notified by the Association some time ago. Presumably he had to consult a BBC Editor…”look I need to go to Ireland..there is a story here”. Certainly he has been given access. He interviewed Fr Ignatius (“call me Iggy”)O’Donovan in the Augustinian Church in Drogheda.
And as Piggott moved among the audience at the ACP meeting, he was effectively talking facts (the Association is calling for an end to celibacy) and figures (25% of Irish priests are members) which had come from the “press pack folder”.
While the Cardinal Brady story may or may not be a co-incidence of timing, it is clear that the ACP is getting a lot of publicity and using their media contacts to great advantage. The Fr Brian D’arcy “gagging story” is another example of the ACP getting the story out. And this is to be welcomed. While it is true that 25% of Irish priests are members of the ACP, they are probably more influential within religious orders as they are not subject to the same strictures as priests in dioceses. Yet as vocations plummet, Bishops are forced to rely more on “order” priests to take on some duties. And this means that the messages coming from their sermons are not necessarily flavour of the month with the more conservative of Bishops.
Paradoxically the ACP has emerged as the “unofficial” voice of the church in Ireland. While many proclaim that priests should be married, at least one of them Fr PJ Madden, from Carlow is actually a widower. He WAS a married man.
Interestingly the Vatican is emerging as the focus of “rebellion”. It is a good tactic. Rome and its officials are perceived as the common enemy which unites ACP “rebel” and “mainstream” priests. And isolates the traditionalists. Indeed Archbishop Martin of Dublin on RTE News last night publicly criticised the Vatican for gagging some ACP priests such as Fr D’arcy. On the eve of the ACP meeting, this was clearly tacit support from one of Ireland’s leading churchmen.
Attacking Rome is not only safe….and accurate……there is also a historic dimension. Rome has never treated Ireland well. The only English Pope…..Pope Adrian IV…..gave the English (King and Church) lordship over Ireland. He even went so far as to helpfully produce a Papal Bull (Laudabiliter) to legitimise it all. As one priest of my acquaintance puts it “the Papal Bull is Papal Bullshit”
Effectively the Church believes in a kind of hierarchy of nations with Rome at its head……Spain, France, England, Portugal, Bavaria….Ireland was always regarded as a bit “peasant” or “second class”.
Of course the Reformation changed things. Ireland stayed loyal to Rome and educated Irish theology students in Rome, France and Flanders. While this clearly produced a common relationship, Rome has never allowed the Catholic Church in Ireland any real clout in the corridors of power.
So the relationship between the Irish Catholic Church and Rome “should” be difficult. Papal support during the Reformation and Penal Years to Catholic Emancipation (1829) was an exception to the “rule”. There are three starands of Irish Catholic opinion…..traditionalist, mainstream, liberal.
Concentrating on Rome unites two of these strands and gains the support of the people in the pews. I wish the well.
I was in Blackrock, County Dublin yesterday.
It is always a depressing experience being on the DART from Connolly Station to Blackrock…..via Lansdowne Road, Sandymount and Sydney Parade. Ireland at its worst……West Briton, polite, fashionable, vegetarian, muesli breakfast eating, cricket playing, retired civil servants, bank workers, Fine Gael voters.
It only takes twenty minutes to travel from Connolly Station to Blackrock…..but I was angry by the time I got there.
The footage showing an Argentine Olympic hockey player training on “Argentinian soil” (ie the Falklands/Malvinas) is of course tastless….but it is also a major propaganda success.
There are two issues here.
The first issue is that there are two sides to Imperialism and post-Imperialism. I suppose there is an attitude in the “imperial powers” ……France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Russia……and a very different attitude in (say) Algeria, India, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Indonesia, Estonia.
I would go so far as to say that there are actually three attidues in the former Empires. One is an unapolgetic belief that the imperial power brought some form of civilisation to the conquered. A second attitude is that imperialism was a blot on an otherwise “decent” history and that the people liberated from imperialism after WW2 should just “get over it”. A third attitude is to over-compensate (in Guardian-reading vegetarian muesli for breakfast style) and condemn imperialism.
Even among previous colones, there is maybe an attitude that is unforgiving…a negative historical legacy. And a second over-compensating attitude which is perhaps too forgiving.
I deplore Imperialism. I hope that I oppose it in itself, rather than merely from my perspective as an Irish citizen.
My default position is that I am neutral but that the Falklands-Malvinas are properly Argentinian. There are of course close ties between Britain and Ireland. Less well-known perhaps is that there are nearly one million people of Irish descent living in Argentina, the fifth largest Irish heritage community in the world. Among the leaders for the fight for Argentine independence (from Spain) was Admiral William Brown from County Mayo. Among the “Irish” community in Argentina was a certain Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch……yes THAT Che Guevara…..one of our own.
Of course Britain defeated Argentina in the 1982 Falklands-Malvinas War. Of course I was neutral. Or should have been. But it was Imperialism against anti-Imperialism. So really I was on Argentinas “side”. Of course it should have been difficult to side with an Argentinian fascist, General Galtieri…..but as Britain was being led by Margaret Thatcher….well was there really a choice for an Irishman?
Argentina is now of course a democracy. And still claims the Malvinas-Falklands. Britain wont talk. Latin America supports Argentina.
The “open door” policy whereby Britain has effectively surrendered control of its own borders for the duration of the Olympics…..nobody competing at the Games can be refuesed entry….therefore gave Argentina an excellent opportunity for a diplomatic or publicity coup. And a little “mischief”.
An Argentinia athlete…..the hockey guy…….was filmed training on the disputed islands …….running past landmarks and stepping on a British war memorial. At the end of the advertisement, the theme is proclaimed. “To win on British soil……..we train on Argentinian soil”.
This of course has angered the folks on the Falklands-Malvinas …all 3,500 of them. And their (mostly) conservative supporters. Frankly I cant warm to them….they strike me as living in time warp. It is still vaguely a few years after World War Two in Port Stanley. The folks there seem to think nothing has changed. They all look like (at best) they would vote UKIP or (at worst) BNP. …….or UUP or DUP.
Yet the Daily Mail and Daily Express working themselves up over all this is………also amusing but ultimately futile. The offending athlete cannot be denied entry into Britain. Neither can the Argentinian Olympic team.
It is just one of the many issues that were not presented to the people of London as the downside of hosting the Olympic Games. Unavailabiliy of tickets to ordinary people, corporate hospitality, a grossly under-estimated budget and anti-aircraft missiles on top of blocks of flats in London’s East End is only the start of it.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 