"Terrible Queer Creatures - Homosexuality in Irish History"

Image via WikipediaI can't go to this next week but its always good to do some promo work. :-)


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Via Equal-L:
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Invitation – The Directors of Wordwell would like to invite you

to the launch by Ruairi Quinn TD with contributions by Jeff Dudgeon
(founder member of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association)

of "Terrible Queer Creatures – Homosexuality in Irish History" by
Brian Lacey.

Venue: Oak Room, Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin 2
At: 6.00 p.m.,
On: Thursday, 25th September 2008.

Regrets only
Helen Dunne Tel: 01–2947860
Email: helen@wordwellbooks.com
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National Library of Ireland Upcoming Events

National Library of Ireland

Upcoming Events

Library Late – Stella Tillyard in conversation with Myles Dungan

Thursday, 18 September at 8pm

Stella Tillyard is a British author and trained as an art historian. She is the author of The Impact of Modernism 1900-1920: Early Modernism and the Arts and Crafts movement in Edwardian England (1988); Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 (1994); Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald 1763-1798 (1997) and A Royal Affair: George III and his Troublesome Siblings (2006). Aristocrats won the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award, the Fawcett Prize, and has been translated into six languages. The story was also produced as a film. Dr Stella Tillyard is currently with the University of London School of English and Drama. She is now beginning her research on the British experience of the American War of Independence.

Admission is free but booking is essential. Please telephone 01 603 0317 to reserve your seat.

Culture Night, 19 September 2008

Late opening until 9pm at the exhibitions:

• Yeats: the life and works of William Butler Yeats at the National Library of Ireland
• Planes, Trains & Automobiles, National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Sq, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Film Screening

Screening of the Lumière Brothers films in Ireland at 7pm in the Library’s Seminar room.

The films are believed to be the earliest motion pictures of Ireland known to still exist. In 1897, Alexandre Promio, a cameraman for the Lumière brothers travelled to Ireland and filmed his arrival in Belfast docks, the Belfast Fire Brigade, Castle Place and Queen’s Bridge. He travelled to Dublin by train and filmed various places en route. The footage of Dublin features shots of O’Connell Bridge and a display by the Dublin Fire Brigade in St Stephen’s Green. The films were first shown on 15 November 1897 for the opening of the Empire Palace Theatre on Dame Street.

The Lumière Brothers films in Ireland will be introduced by Mr Bob Monks, National Library of Ireland, an expert in the field of Irish film history.

Tours

Guided tours of the award winning exhibition Yeats: the life and works of William Butler Yeats will take place at 6pm & 8pm.

My Gentle Harp: Thomas Moore Commemorative Concerts

24 Sept, 1 and 8 Oct 2008

6.30 pm, Seminar Room

In celebration of 200 years of Moore's world-famous Irish Melodies, the Thomas Moore Commemorative Festival is delighted to present a series of three concert performances at the National Library of Ireland as part of its extensive nationwide tour.

24 Sept 2008:

Vocalists Dean Power, Raphaela Mangan

Musical Director Una Hunt

Special guest speaker Ita Beausang: “Revisiting Moore: ‘He had given voice to Ireland, he had put into her mouth a song of her own’. Stephen Gwynn”

1 Oct 2008:

Vocalists Ciaran Kelly, Anna Brady

Musical Director Una Hunt

Special guest speaker Ronan Kelly: “Mad, bad Lord Byron, the Great Dan and Thomas Moore”

8 Oct 2008:

Vocalists Rachel Kelly, Niamh McCormack

Musical Director Una Hunt

Special guest speaker Emer Nolan: “Moore and Captain Rock: the Melodies and Irish History”

Contact Details

Tel: 01 603 0277

Web: www.nli.ie

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RTE's New 24 Hour News Service

Image via Wikipedia

Ok a 24 hour news service would suggest to me, that it is news 24 hours a day. However in true Irish style, RTE's new 24 hour News service is rather a re-run of the previous news bulletin! That is not a Digitial 24 hour news channel! Putting a ticker underneath the news bulletin also does not make it a Digital 24 hour news channel! Somebody get them onto the BBC and show them what a proper Public Broadcaster does with a Digital 24 hour news channel!

Watch RTE News Now! here.

See Mulley here:

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Public Funding of Political Parties and Ireland

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Has the time come for Public Funding of Irish Political Parties?
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Ok I will not be the first to comment nor will I be the last. I am delighted that Fianna Fáil have dropped their Fundraising tent at the Galway Races. To summarize Mary O Rourke, on the Pat Kenny Show earlier this morning, it was something for the bigwigs and "the fashion was crazy & it was not just the women". She also stated that there was something wrong with arriving in Helicopters to the event, by invitation, and having champers whilst looking out at the world go by.

O'Cuiv this morning was also welcoming the decision, but also made the point that it is time for Fianna Fáil supporters to begin to contribute more to the Party coffers on a more regular basis. I would tend to agree with O'Cuiv and O'Rourke on this one but perhaps now is the time that parties would become publicly funded, to reduce the utter insanity in spending which comes with Campaigning.

Fundraising for any event is a such a tedious, time-consuming but ultimately necessary part of Everyday life. We have all done the bake-sales, the Gala Dinners, the Table-quizes, the Christmas Draws. Whatever we can do to help out whatever cause we are supporting at the time. And Jaysus do we know how to support our causes here in this little Republic.

In 2004, following the wake of the Tsunami in the South Pacific, we contributed €80 million of €100 million of the Irish Contibution towards the rescue effort. The remaining €20 million came from the Irish Government. The 2007 Trocaire Lentan Appeal raised €11.65 million from the generosity of Irish People. All worthy contributions and causes, regardless of some people's apprehension of where the money is being spent, appeal to people altruistic nature.

Whilst not wishing to dictate to Fianna Fáil supporters or Fine Gael supporters or any Irish political party I am curious to know why they have not been contributing to their Party of Choice (ie the one's who elected the 77 of the 166 TD's) in their droves. I know that some branches of Fianna Fáil do not have a membership fee for being a member of the party. Surely this would be a relatively good source of Income for the party. A Card-carrying member of a Political Party. Now that would be a novelty.

No No I think a question needs to be seriously posed. If as O'Cuiv says that "FF needs more money from its members" because "it would be possible given the enormous membership of Fianna Fáil", Then we have to examine the Election spending from last year's General Election. FF spent some €10 million on the General Election. Fine Gael spent €4.3 million in the same campaign. Those are obscene amounts of money. Perhaps then it is now time to consider Public funding of parties and the removal of the need "for more money from..members".


Oh but wait, Frank Connolly, Justine McCarthy & Emma Browne reported that

Fianna Fáil has built up the kitty of €3.5m from its current and accumulated party leader's allowances, paid by the exchequer. According to the Standards in Public Offices Commission's (SIPO) most recent report, the party received €2.473m in 2005 to add to its existing surplus of €994,658. Fine Gael, in contrast, had no money left over from previous allocations.

Source: Village Magazine (September, 2006)

So lets see initially I was going to go and say that perhaps we should scrap Private donations and go with Public funding of Political Parties. Well that what Village found out was Indirect Public Funding of Political Parties. However I think perhaps Direct Public Funding is still a route that we should go down. We can accuse those in power of abusing their position and contributing to a charity ie themselves. However with the Public Funding of Parties, we can at least regulate somewhat how much obscene money is spent on a General Election.

I appreciate that some people will disagree with my sentiments. They will argue that they are over-paid, under-worked, un-representative and now You want to offer more money to run their campaigns when the Elections run around. Fair enough.

Public funding would have to be accompanied by other reforms within the political arena, such as a limitation of terms TDs are allowed to be served to reduce Family Dynasty's (Honestly a Political "career" is a stupid Idea; It is a duty, which one serves not a Career!), a reduction to a relatively OK Salary, Prohibition of getting a Pension until one retires from Work & not from the Dáil etc. Unless those reforms come along, no public will nor should agree with Public Funding of parties; However how many Nurses could €10 million pay for? How many School teachers would €10 million pay for? (€10million divided by €36,000/annum=277). Perhaps Public Funding is worth it in the long run, if it means that more Services become available.

For some more Information on Public Funding see here:

• Germany's Bundestag: - A Hybrid Model:
  
• USA's Federal Election Commission, An Evaluation of Public Funding since the 1960s.

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"An Equal-Pay Problem"

Image from Flickr

As I put hand to keyboard here, it seems somewhat ironic considering what I am about to post about that there is a group of drunken students in the Apartment above me singing "Amhrán na bhFiann"(i.e. the Republic of Ireland's National Anthem). It has emerged tonight by Peter Robinson that some 9,000 civil servants of lower grades, two-thirds of which are women have been paid improperly over roughly 38 years.(!) Of those 9,000 60% were Catholic in those grades. RTE has reported that some £20,000 per person will have to paid in back-pay to employees.

I guess it is a case of Fair play for actually owning up to these particular situation, even if it would appear that it was on foot of a Parliamentary question. However it needs to be established if this was a part of a hangover from the Troubles and a part of something more sinister within the Executive. Alternatively it may be the case that this is a huge oversight and someone "forgot" to cross their t's and dot their i's. However 38 years? Like seriously that is not so much an oversight as it is a huge blot of ink on a blank A4 sheet.

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Beyond the Pale: National Photographic Archive

Image via Wikipedia

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned I was going to go to the Beyond the Pale exhibition in the National Photographic in Templebar. So Jeff and I had some time last week, so we popped in before Lunchtime to see what the was all about. For those of you who don't know where the Archive exhibition space is, it is located opposite the Information Centre in Templebar, behind the IFI.

So the exhibition. Well as the title itself suggests Beyond the Pale is to do with displaying images from the Lawerence Collection in the National Library of Ireland. The Lawerence Collection has been with the National Library since the mid 1940s and is one of the foremost photographic collections of Irish Social life at the turn of the 20th Century. This exbo however deliberates uses images from around the country from the late 19th and early 20th Century and hence the name "Beyond the Pale".

The cities featured in the exbo are Limerick, Derry, Belfast Cork, Galway and Waterford. It also features the town of Kilkenny (Yes I know I know but Kilkenny is not really a city and I'm writing this and I don't really care what the 2006 census says, it is not a City!). Overall Exbo is pretty well laid out and really easy to follow. Highly reccommended Viewing. Even if it is only placing streets in a modern context and trying to work out where everything goes now. Also alot of the images are crystal clear and save for the obvious dress differences with the subjects in the pictures, they could be quiet easily be confused for a picture which was only taken two weeks ago.

• Linky: NPA's 'Beyond the Pale'

Details of President Hillery's State Funeral

Image by 1541 via FlickrRTE will be showing the Funeral of President Patrick Hillery from 12pm today. Flags have been flying at half mast since Saturday in all of the State Institutions. The Funeral will take place at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin today.

President Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and representatives of the Oireachtas, Judiciary and Diplomatic Corps will be attending.

You can view the proceedings online through the RTE website. www.rte.ie/live, listen to it on RTE Radio 1 and watch it on TV.

Bodily Integrity? Whose choice?

Firstly apologies for the lack of posting around here the last couple of days. I am in the middle of doing up my thesis proposal at the moment so that is kind of consuming my life at the moment.

I watched a documentary in Katherine's Sexualities & stigma class last night, Like a Ship in the Night by Melissa Thomson. It is the human story of 3 women from various parts of Ireland-North and South and from very different class backgrounds. However these women have one thing in common, they made a decision at some stage within their lives to have a termination of a pregnancy, otherwise known as an Abortion. It is not your traditional abortion documentary that some of us may have seen in Secondary school religious class, where they talk about the physical medical act of abortion and describe the operation in excruciating detail. I will say now, that whilst I personally may not necessarily like the idea of abortion-and I accept that this is my Catholic upbringing being brought to bear on my morality-I am very much more pro-choice about the issue. I appreciate that this may not necessarily go down well with some people but I will ask you to think about the Hobbesian version of liberty, which entitles you to enjoy your own personal human liberty and do whatever you want to do, so long as you do not affect the personal liberty of another independent human actor. I invariably live my life by that rule.

I decided I needed to do this post because this work affected me. The reason I think it affected me so much was the stories reflected a constant sense of burning shame which was felt by these women who shared their stories. Even when this was made, for some of them some 20 years later, all of their faces were not shown during the interviews.


If I am honest, it was probably the first time in 23 years that I have had to engage with the issue of abortion properly, despite my previous experiences in School. I do remember one of the most memorable arguments I had with one of my grandmothers was in 2002, around the time of the last of the Referenda on the issue. Despite the fact that I was unable to vote on the referenda, I was very much intrigued in the law and how it affected people's lives even when I was 17. I was arguing my point about pro-choice. My grandmother the opposite. Eventually my mother had to interject the conversation and tell her son to relax and go make a cup of tea for my grandmother.

That theme of invisible societal shame, that came with making a decision and going through with it AND enduring the consequences of that decision was almost tangible in that documentary. One of the quotes which struck me completly from the DVD was from:

"And yet spiritually or morally I knew it wasn’t an easy decision. It wasn’t that I was going off reveling in my decision. What happened was it was very complicated. I was in a kind of a climate in Ireland where abortion was a crime, where women were filthy criminals who went to England to have an abortion, and they should be stopped at all cost. And yet I had a huge amount of grief round making that choice. I didn’t want to have had to make that choice. I got pregnant. I had been using contraception. The contraception failed. I hadn’t been irresponsible. I was a young woman where I had my whole life before me and I dearly fervently wanted that life. I wanted to have as much control over that life as I could. And to be forced into a pregnancy against my wishes because a large group of people in the country that I was living in didn’t approve of my choices and my lifestyle, you know what I mean, it was just too much for me. I just decided: “No, his is the life I want to try and give myself a chance to have. I don’t want to be tied at home with child, much as I love children, much as I love my friends’ and family’s children, not right now, hank you very much.” You know, so, it was very liberating, and it was very important."
- L. via Transcripts, They left like ships in the Night(2006)

"where women were filthy criminals who went to England to have an abortion and they should be stopped at all cost" . This statement astounded me. Filthy Criminals, who "should be stopped at all cost". I am sorry but seriously! I know these women had her termination in the 1983 after the first Referenda on Abortion when no information was allowed to be given to women who were in this situation. Whilst information is now given out by the Irish Family Planning Agency & Positive Options campaign, we still export our "problem" to another jurisdiction i.e. the United Kingdom, because abortion is illegal in the North and South.

There is according to these documentary 40-50 women leaving the North every week to go to the UK. It also estimated that there are some 180 women leaving from the South every week to go to the UK. That is some 220 women a week north and south going to have a termination. Roughly 880 people a month. Roughly 10560 women a year. If we take just in the last 25 years(since the first referendum on the issue) that that figure has remained constant, that is 264,000 women who have been unable to defend their right to the integrity of their own bodies because "we" don't want to have abortion on the island of Ireland.

Women have a right to the integrity of their bodies and if we believe in that right, it then flows that they have the decision to terminate or not. I highly recommend that those of you who have your own opinions and hold the moral high ground on abortion to challenge yourself to answer this question, as a defender of that ground, Would you personally stop a women who has made the decision to terminate, based on her own experiences & circumstances? I know, I could not and I would not.

Captain Planet et d'Nord d'Irlande

Now here is something you don't see everyday. God this brings me back to my childhood and friday afternoons after school with my dinner & a glass of milk, and shouting at people to keep quiet coz the good Captain was on.

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