Reality check; Irish students have misbehaved in Berkeley for close on a decade

( Pre-preface; finally, action from the US embassy in Dublin to prevent a recurrence;
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34798079)

 I preface these comments ;  I write as a parent whose two daughters came to Berkeley for the summer, aged 20 and 19, in 2011 and 2013 (respectively). Getting each of them home safely was a non-trivial task. As such, my heart goes out to the parents who seem falsely to have been told their kids were safe here without any supervision. This is the most immature and undisciplined Irish generation in living memory.

What bothers me about the line taken by the Irish state is

1. It had been warned, in writing, since 2103 that there was likely to be a problem

2. Its conveying - however indirectly - the notion that it it ok to wake people up every night as Irish kids have been doing in Berkeley every summer  for a decade is not just disrespectful. It is also possible it will lead to a more serious incident, like taking an SUV out on US 101 and causing a pile-up

The Irish Times has decided that whereof it should not speak, it will again lay down the law as "paper of record";

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/new-york-times-article-a-fantastic-distortion-of-j-1s-1.2253154

On 15 June, 2015 Mel and I picked up our new friend, F. a young piper from Ireland, in our car. We brought him to the Starry Plough in Berkeley , where he played with me for young Americans doing Irish dance. Many of them drive from silicon Valley every Monday; the dance floor is mobbed. This receives NO state subsidy and the Starry Plough recently celebrated its 40^th anniversary; it is now the SF East Bay's oldest night club.

F. went home; his music may have saved his life. Otherwise, he might have been “partying” and lost his life with the others. How did we meet him? We have taken to giving young Irish people our business cards when we see them, lost, on the streets of Berkeley.

Every year the fraternity houses and many apartments are “let” to Irish J-1 holders; notoriously, they wrecked a house in SF in 2014. However, we had already warned the consul general in 2013 - in writing – that this was an accident waiting to happen. After the 2014 house carnage, we wrote again, ccing to the Taoiseach, whose daughter was herself on a J-1 at the time.

It turns out that there was serious trashing of houses in Santa Barbara in 2010. In Berkeley, the Irish  J-1 holders through raucous parties have actually caused local legislation to be changed so that two noise  infractions now nets you a large fine. That happened around the same time as the Santa Barbara incident

What needs to be done? Frankly, ALL the Irish state services here in the Western USA are a joke; in SF, only the pastoral center is trusted. There will be a time to investigate the waste of state money in farcical projects like the San Jose “innovation” center, and the state;s obstruction of the development of Irish studies here. What we need to do right now is express our sympathy, however, to those involved and bereaved, but also tell them that – yes, Irish people did care enough for their sons and daughters to ask the consul to stop the annual influx.

Looking through the tragically shortened life histories of the dead, they do NOT come across as drinkers. In fact, they come across if anything as nerds on their first unsupervised trip away from home, and profoundly decent kids. The most innocent explanation - and a likely one - is that, although they WERE keeping their neighbours awake, they were posing for a photo. The fact both lessees, and the cousins were on the balcony with the birthday girls supports this

 It would be very interesting to find out who was INSIDE the room, egging them on in whatever idiot game they were playing - a game guaranteed to win them the Darwin awards this year, if the "photo" idea is wrong. I note they all inside  have  been offered flights home

Those who want to come here should be given a course on American culture, and respect for others.  No matter what humbug the IT comes up with, the fact remains that there were (at least) 13 people on a balcony in downtown Berkeley at 12-40 in a city where people got to bed before 11am, that there is a history of Irish kids creating a ruckus there, and that kids come over here with neither accommodation nor a job ready. secondly, the lease for that building sates no noise after 9pm.

Finally, many of us work hard on projecting a positive image on Ireland. Waking people up in the middle of the night is not how to do that. wandering around the streets with hurleys, and interacting neither with Americans their own age nor the larger Irish community does not help either

How does one recognize an Irish kid sans hurley? In general, because they wear a sports jersey with a logo like "AIG" or some other sterling exponent of ethical behaviour. The Irish state is perhaps deliberately  producing a generation of thugs and imbeciles; that needs to be rectified in the educational system there. Until it is so rectified, please keep these unformed kids away and give them a chance to be exposed to the real depth and beauty of their own culture

Then they will turn out to be fine young men and women like their Californian counterparts

 PS I went to the address and noted the wreaths. Unless I'm mistaken, several of them are fraudulent. for example, the one from a "flatmate" remembering their wonderful company is at odds with the recollection of the African-American woman  interviewed with me on NBC. who remembers non-stop noise. The handwriting is remarkably similar on many....what we have IMO is classic Irish stage-management of an undoubtedly tragic event, stage-management which is aimed at getting the state off the hook

As for us, we played a memorial at the Starry Plough 22 June. It is noticeable that Clodagh, a survivor who is currently paralyzed, has been heroic. Why was she not told to have her social life in the wee hours in nightclubs there for the purpose?

Stop press (!) F had his drink spiked in the wee hours of 24 Aug, and was abducted and thrown out of a car in downtown Oakland. He phoned us at 1 am. We took photos of the grazes etc

PPS Source for the change in the Berkeley noise ordinance due to the Irish kids; Jim Hynes, an Irish -American who works for the city of Berkeley.  If the Irish state put a fraction of the effort it is putting in to imposing a maudlin narrative on this event into asserting the rights of its creative class, or indeed preventing musicians from being ripped off and getting cancer as several did following events I have documented in my "Ireland in crisis" book, we would have a great country and both Mel and I would be living there, not in the US;


http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Crisis-Analyses-Proposed-Solutions/dp/1443849650

Returning Gaelic culture to Scotland

In my capacity as the de facto head of Irish studies at UC Berkeley, I was invited to a private luncheon/discussion/Q+A with Chris Patten on Fri 8^th May, in the wake of the Tories’ success. He was indiscreet and very smart; he correctly pointed out that the physics/comp sci graduates being employed by the bookmakers were always more likely to provide more accurate predictions than the official pollsters (including Nate Silver ) and so the result had been less of a surprise to him.

He added that he will of course travel England’s green and pleasant land boosting whatever deal Cameron gets from the EU before the referendum. And NI, he continued,  pays dearly for peace in the shape of bad government; the unionist “cultural” expression is a tribal perversion of Britishness with which he is uncomfortable. Finally, yes, the UK may split up.

Scotland will look within after secession and all indications are that it will use its Gaelic past as a key pillar of its identity. Indeed, it can look to Ireland’s successful playing up of the sophistication of the Neolithic culture, the Gaelic language, Scottish reels and bagpipe bands  as usurpations of Scotland’s own culture. It will do the necessary DNA analysis and conclude that there was no massive Irish invasion of Scotland, but a shared culture and people over North-Eastern Ireland and western Scotland.  Finally, as this blog has consistently argued, it may make Ireland irrelevant by using its superior intellectual and legal traditions.

Unlike Ireland, which simply adopted the most arcane traditions of English jurisprudence, Scotland has its own legal system. It is of course a fantasy to imagine that legal and moral standards are immeasurably higher in any other country to one’s own; yet what passes for “law” in Ireland beggars belief. After a brief period of republican courts, the Irish free state re-instated the British system, labeled “insane” by the plaintiff in the current Facebook case who realized that he could get neither a speedy nor a fair trial in Ireland.

What Ireland uniquely possessed was tortured, exiled writers and a political absolutism that led briefly (1921-1998) to independence of part of the island. This absolutism may indeed stem from the perception that a whole alternative civilization was locked up in texts and music that the British had not got around to suppressing for precisely the same reason as that in India; it just seemed too childish and pathetic. By the 1990’s that “infantile” culture had achieved such worldwide currency that Liam Neeson, prior to accepting an OBE in 1999, spoke of how universal consciousness was manifesting in Ireland….

It was just about then, Neeson’s Deepak Chopra moment, that things were falling apart there, But what had held them together up to then? There is no equivalent of Edinburgh’s “Athens of the North”; Ireland’s writers were in general banned and exiled; the music was sustained more by barowners’ steadfast refusal to take money from musicians drinking and playing there than any state initiative. In my opinion, the answer is complex; it was a sense of the numinous in Irish society, one that protected clerical pedophiles but also asserted a hierarchy of value in the elite arts like theater; a nexus of impresarios, theater-managers and actors who sensed (in a system that Neeson himself befitted from) that while there was very little money, free rehearsal space in a modern city center is a gift; an Irish twist on roman Catholicism that allowed organizations like Opus dei actually make a positive contribution; and a political system where even an undoubtedly venal person like Charles Haughey would assert not just the territorial integrity of the country, but the greatness of a past that could – and, briefly, did - yet shape the future.

In fact, the only truly egregious thing that Haughey inflicted on us was Bertie Ahern. Within a year of the latter’s taking office, and the unionists’ brutal murder of Sean Brown that led to what they must have seen as the IRA’s surrender, all the pillars of the old Irish society were gone. Neoliberalism replaced Catholicism as the state dogma; the folk music was privatized in a contract that only the Irish legal system could assert as valid; a series of bubbles was generated that led to the surrender of the country’s economic autonomy. We are now facing at least a decade of political instability, with political parties being birthed and dying in a fragmented political landscape.

The country that Ireland has become is not a fit locus for the remnants of Celtic/Gaelic culture that it preserved with such persistence and courage. The book of Kells could with justification just as easily be termed the book of Iona; the bagpipe bands so beloved of Irish-Americans are Scottish; the Fiannaiochta exist as strongly in Scotland as Ireland. It is possible that the Irish state has served its historical purpose. The fact that the British ensured, by repeatedly frustrating the democratic will of the people,  that it was birthed in violence, resulted in a pathological state. They will not make the same error with the Scottish, who will thrive in a resource-starved 21^st century, hopefully as our close partners.

Indeed, there is a case for a Scots-Irish confederation, with the rights of Protestants protected by the demographic reality of their being almost 50% of the population.

PS Aspects of Ahern's destruction of Irish civil society is outlined in this free excerpt

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/59226


There are further deatils and proposed solutions in this conference proceedings;

http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Crisis-Analyses-Proposed-Solutions/dp/1443849650

3rd ICIS conference; 1st annual UC Berkeley St Patrick's day celebration

1^st annual UC Berkeley St Patrick's day celebration Noon-10pm

Schedule

Noon Kurka Boshkin play at Memorial stadium, UC Berkeley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QycRVt8Xf8

1-30-10pm Third conference of the International Congress of Irish Studies

Sponsored by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict , and the International Congress of Irish Studies

Introduction by Prof Dan Melia (Emeritus, UC Berkeley)

Part 1: The (American ) Irish Diaspora

1-30 pm 370 Dwinelle UC Berkeley 8^th annual UC Berkeley St Patrick's day lecture

Prof Christopher O'Sullivan (USF)

“The Irish in California”

The Irish in California:

Global Diaspora, National Implications

The Irish seem to have been in California forever yet there is no evidence that St. Brendan ever explored the Pacific Coast. Nonetheless, even prior to the Gold Rush, people of Irish ancestry played enormous roles in shaping California’s destiny, particularly its landscapes, its culture and, most important, its politics. The Irish contributed to California in three major ways: First, as empire builders, with figures such as the mysterious Irish priest Father Eugene Macnamara, who sought to build an Irish nation in the San Joaquin Valley in the 1840s; San Francisco’s first millionaire, Sam Brannan; and the four Irish millionaires known to posterity as the Silver Bonanza Kings. Second, the Irish made lasting contributions as planners, surveyors, and engineers with figures such as Jasper O’Farrell, architect of San Francisco’s city plan; and Michael O’Shaughnessy and William Mulholland, both of whom shaped the destinies of San Francisco, Los Angeles and the state of California with unprecedented water projects. Finally, and perhaps most important, were the Irish contributions to politics, with figures such as the Workingmen’s Party leader Denis Kearney; San Francisco’s “Blind Boss” Chris Buckley; the “Renaissance Prince” of San Francisco, Mayor Jimmy Phelan, and his chief adversary, the Galway-born champion of labor, Father Peter C. Yorke. However, the most important Irishman in California history may have been the long-forgotten and misunderstood U.S. Sen. David C. Broderick who, both in life and, more consequentially, after his shocking murder, kept California in the Union column.

Part 2: Conflict and resolution on the island of Ireland

2-30 pm Seán Ó Nualláin UOI

“Why Prime Minister Gerry Adams is unlikely to invade Northern Ireland”

Abstract

By April 2016, the 100^th anniversary of the Easter rising that gained Ireland a measure of independence, it is likely that Gerry Adams will be Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland. Moreover, as his lieutenant Martin McGuinness has stated, it is likely that the set of elections in early 2016 for the Westminster and Northern Ireland assemblies will make a United Ireland inevitable. With Sinn Fein fulfilling their master plan of being in government in both jurisdictions of the island, neither of which jurisdictions they recognized until recently, they may be tempted to simply send the army over the border. This paper argues that Adams has his eye on another anniversary and will simply let the border melt away. 1919 was the first meeting of the “provisional” government after which his paramilitary organization was named, and from which it claimed its role as the legitimate government of the whole island from 1919 to 1999. It is in keeping with Adam's extreme-long term thinking that it is also the 850^th anniversary of the first Anglo-Norman invasion.

3pm David SchoenholzerDepartment of Economics UC Berkeley

“"Political Marches, Neighborhood Composition and Violence in Northern Ireland"

Abstract: We study the effect of political marches on violence in Northern Ireland. To this end, we construct a new dataset for the main conflict period of 1969-1979, geocoding all 1,844 casualties of political violence, collecting locations on political marches and daily rainfall data. We use a difference-in-difference design to estimate the change in violence during marching season in wards where marches took place to those where no marches took place. We find significant effects accounting for about 50 casualties. We also find that this effect is stronger for Catholic victims targeted by state forces. In months with a lot of rain, marching wards exhibit no more violence than non-marching wards, suggesting that lower attendance may lead to lower violence.

Part 3 Irish Gothic

3-30pm Tom Walsh (UC Berkeley) Title TBC

4 pm Clemens Ruthens "Trinity, Dublin and Dracula: A Bit(e) of Bram Stoker"

Part 4: St Patrick, Man and Myth

The historical St Patrick is a fugitive figure, as one would expect
looking across  a chasm of  over 1.5 millennia. This has allowed
various concepts to be projected on him; a Briton who yet becomes the
most potent rallying-symbol for the entire Irish diaspora; a liberator
who seems to have been involved in expunging the native Celtic
traditions

Yet we have two documents from him that indicate a well-defined
subjectivity; his confessions and the letter to Coroticus.  It is
interesting how different  the songs celebrating him are from these.
“Dóchas linn Naomh Pádraig” speaks of his Druidic opponents as being
“useless, and hard of heart” and “He cleansed them for us forever,
great glory to our dear saint!”

By contrast, the Lorica of Saint Patrick declares  “ I arise today.
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity” and
continues to refer to the Druidic concept of “niurt”, a divine
strength pervading the cosmos. According to respected  researchers
like O Duinn of the University of Limerick, there is a sly reference
to the Chandogya Upanishad, with Christ rather than the infinite
invoked to be beside, behind and above the speaker.

The Lorica of Saint Patrick was almost certainly written several
centuries after Patrick’s death. It may represent a historic
compromise between the Druidic remnants still existent and a
Christendom weakened by the fall of the Roman empire. It is a text
plunged in the kind of nature mysticism that O Duinn insists is
central to the Druidic tradition. As such, it resembles Tibetans'

equally successful reconstruction of Indian Buddhism.

The ebbing of Christendom has again  been experienced by 21st century
Ireland, leaving moral chaos..

4-30 pm Prof Dan Melia (Emeritus, UC Berkeley) on a redating of St Patrick's mission to the mid 4^th century from the received date of 432

5pm Reception and Vernal equinoctal Bacchanal – Durant hotel

7-30pm Melanie O''Reilly and Frank Martin perform ethno-jazz, Cafe Trieste, San Pablo, Berkeley

We propose giving the Lorica an ethno-jazz setting,
with Celtic and other themes. We propose also an indirect tribute to
our late friend, Dave Brubeck, by setting “Ailiu Iath eirann” with its
celebration of the physical land of Ireland to 5:4; the fact the lines
in general have 5 syllables making this possible.

Bios

Melanie O''Reilly was Ireland's representative at the Euro-Jazz festival at UCLA in 2013

Melanie O''Reilly and Frank Martin's Joyce & Jazz Suite already had an invite and grant to be performed at Cork Jazz Festival as part of the Jazz Gathering, in 2013.
Both Joyce & Jazz Suite AND the Sean O Riordain pieces have been
recorded on Ceol Ceantair CD and these pieces were performed at NCH,
-this concert was picked as one of the top ten concerts of the 2103,
by Ireland's Sunday Independent. The Sean O Riordain pieces were performed part of Dublin's IMRAM festival in 2014; among other current Imran projects is the Doors in Gaelic, featuring Ray Manzarek's saxplayer George Brooks.

Frank Martin is an SF bay area music legend and one of the world's greatest pianists in any genre.


PS We had another outstanding success with an audience of over a thousand over all the events Photos of the conference and late gig include Mel  ;Tom Walsh and Dan Melia (UC Berkeley)

and Clemens Ruthens (Trinity, Dublin). Next time a pro photographer, I hope;

 

ICIS - the International Congress of Irish Studies

The International Congress of Irish Studies was established to provide an alternative to state/neoliberal narratives of 21^st century Ireland. As a result, it does not accept direct state or corporate donations and funds itself through personal (ie non-corporate!) donations and conference registrations.

So far it has run two successful conferences, one at UC Berkeley and one in Dublin (ICIS 1 and 2)

ICIS 1

See http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/ihouse.html?event_ID=55681

The proceedings were published as

http://www.amazon.com/Ireland-Crisis-Analyses-Proposed-Solutions/dp/1443849650

Tues 10 July

8-30 to 9am Registration and Coffee/Tea

9 am Welcome and introductory comments by Sean O Nuallain (conference chair), and Peter Glazer for UC Berkeley

9-15 am to 10-45 Am First panel on theater; Peter Glazer (Session chair), Jackie Fulmer, Virginia Morris with response by Melanie O'Reilly

10-45 am Tea/Coffee break

11 am to 1pm Joyce presentations – invited papers by

Diarmuid Curraoin (Sandford Park) "Metaphysics and Myth in Joyce"
Jackie Fulmer (UC Berkeley - session chair) “Dilly Dedalus: Tomorrow's Girl and Next World Feminism “

Lunch

Submitted papers
2pm to 2-45 pm Seamus Brennan (UCC) (session chair) ; Milesians, Surnames and YDNA; Irish Identity in the Internet Age

2-45 pm to 3-30 pm Seamus Cain " A New Wave of INNOVATIVE writers and poets, in
Ireland and within the Irish diaspora"

Tea/Coffee break

3-45 pm to 5-30pm The destruction of academic freedom in Ireland; Stephen Myers Watt (session chair), Ignacio Chapela, Sean  O Nuallain

5-30pm Break

6 pm; Maurice Fitzpatrick introduces and shows  his film "The boys of St Columb's" with Q+A afterward

Wed 11 July

8am to 9-30 am
The technology and economy session (Chair Dr Sean O Nuallain)

8 am to 9am

 Presentations via Skype by those in Europe

This includes Harry McGee (8-9am) introduced by Sean O Nuallain
 9 am  "Unethical behavior and the rise and fall of Ireland’s Economy".
Author: Rick Revoir, EdD, MBA, CPA

Revisionism and Race  (Chair Catherine Eagan)

(9-30 am)Micheal o hAodha on Ireland's travelers (an ethnic minority)

10 am “Ireland, Irish Studies, and Ethnonational Narratives of Race”
Dr. Catherine M. Eagan, Las Positas College

10-30 am to 11-15 Ishmael Reed - "Does Irish America Need an Intervention from Ireland?"- introduction by Jackie Fulmer

11-15 Coffee

11-30 am to 1pm The Connemaras; a Gaelic-speaking Midwest experiment
Seamus Cain (session chair), Bridget Connelly
Performers of the Irish script  include Liodain ni hUallachain,  Sean O Nuallain

1pm Lunch

2pm  Cathal MacSwiney-Brugha (UC Dublin), Melanie O’Reilly (chair),  and others on the legacy of Macswiney and the neoliberal assault on Irish musical culture

315pm Coffee

3-30pm to end Submitted papers

Session chair; Conn Mac Aogáin

3-30 to 4-30 pm

Conn Mac Aogáin Lehman College, City University of New York
'The Irish Language and a “Gaeltacht” Language Community in the 21st Century: Re-Imaging and Re-Imagining in a Post-Modern, Post-Tiger Ireland'

4-30 pm Victor Vargas (Claremount) "Who goes with swami?

 5-30pm Stephen Myers Watt (Indiana University) "Neoliberalism, Tenure, and Academic Freedom in American and Ireland"


6pm Closing discussion

 Break

7pm Gaelic Jazz concert

ICIS 2

Dublin/BAC, Ireland, Nov 2013

Confirmed panels include
"Episodes from an incomplete coup"

In the course of the last two decades, lamented failings in Irish political culture an acknowledged democratic deficit at the broader level of the European Union have been a backdrop to numerous more specific incidents where the responsibility of the state and public institutions to serve Ireland's citizenry with impartial prudence has been flouted. These disquieting patterns and certain particulars will here be discussed.

“To declare a new republic, or not?”

The frustration experienced by Ireland's public and, indeed, members of the political class, in the face of a calamitous reality-check amidst the broader international economic crisis, is often told; equally, the tentative-to-meek Irish response, almost without protest, in the face of recent calamity. This panel continues a conversation that has so far failed to ignite real political impetus in seeking renovation of the Irish republic.

“Just Once or with improbable frequency: Can the unlikely success of left-field Irish musical theatre be continued?”

In recent years Ireland has produced high caliber musical theatre across genres, from historical science counter-fact of Improbable Frequency through the biting political satire of Anglo! Of a sudden, it has seemed, Ireland has a burgeoning tradition in quality musical theatre. Participants in this panel consider the possibility of its success being sustained and young talents nurtured in the present economy of arts.

"Intellectual life, academe and common knowledge in Ireland"

Higher education in Ireland is under strain, stretched thin by budget cuts and confused agenda. Intellectual life (whether as vocation or formation) should serve not only to educate an economically productive populace, but also the production and circulation of knowledge as a common good. This panel invites discussants to reflect upon their experience of the ideal University in Ireland, however imperfectly embodied, not only in educational institutions, but also in the public sphere, where journalism and the media are integral to the kind of 'information economy' that is indispensable for real democracy.

The deadline for abstracts, which can be up to 300 words, is Oct 5 2013; however, potential participants for the panels and indeed proposals for other panels will be accepted until Oct 15.

There is a suggested fee of 40 Euro per session, 100 Euro for all sessions.
Cheques should be made payable to Nous Research, Dublin 4.

Students are encouraged to attend any single session of especial interest without payment.
No-one will be turned away for want of funds.

For further details about ICIS, proposals for any additional panel and submission of abstracts please contact feargus@gmail.com or seanoig@gmail.com

Provisional schedule;
 Nov 8 10am – 1pm

9 am – noon Episodes from an incomplete coup

Session chair/moderator  Prof Des O’Neill

Des O’Neill  “The failed privatization of the Irish medical system”

Break 10-30 am tea/coffee

11 am Sean O Nuallain "From social partnership to corporatism and beyond; the state and Irish civil society"

Moderated discussion

Noon
(Provisional) Press conference on the state's collusion with criminals in defrauding Irish musicians

Nov 8 2pm- 4pm Intellectual Freedom Session chair/moderator Feargus Denman

2pm Cathal Macswiney Brugha "Terence MacSwiney and Intellectual Freedom"
3pm round-table discussion chaired by Feargus Denman
 4pm Break  am tea/coffee

4-30pm submitted papers


Nov 9 10am – 1 pm
Panel discussion on the perceived necessity for a second republic, to be chaired/moderated by Demond Fennell.

Joe McCarthy (fiasco.ie) “Hanging chads and other garbage: waste, power and voting in the first Irish republic”

Break 11 am tea/coffee

11-15 Sean O Nuallain “The Tim Pat Coogan/Dan Rooney visa affair: does the USA really support the idea of a united 32-county Irish republic?"
11-45Desmond Fennell
12-15 Cathal Macswiney Brugha "The second Dail and the first Irish republic"
12-45 Gabriel Rosenstck; "From Christ to Krishnamurphy; postchristian secular Europe's search for its roots" Discussion

1-30 Lunch

Nov 9 2pm  - 5pm

: "Independent artists and undependable regulators: rights and oversight in
the Irish music industry"
Introduction 2-30pm  “The Irish music scam; how corruption in IMRO and the state regulatory bodies destoyed one of Ireland's flagship industries” (conference chair)
2-40 Melanie O'Reilly: "The Irish music biz: celtic mysteries, hiddenagendas, and why I became a singing detective."
Reply/amlpification by Danny Macarthy

3-45 pm Tea!coffee
4pm “Just once or with improbable frequency; can the success of Irish musical theater be continued?”Panel discussion, chaired by Ronan Smith who will make introductory comments

. Discussants include Arthur Riordan, Ronan Smith,Melanie O’Reilly

Taking one for the team; the Irish state's attempt to stop Greece getting a debt relief deal

We are witnessing the dying years of the first Irish republic. It has been traversed by various rough beasts, all slouching across the nation in the past generation. Echoes of these ideologies linger in the body politic;

• A very extreme ideological neoliberalism, with the country essentially been put in the hands of international banksters;
• An extended flirtation with neoconservatism, a flirtation that almost undoubtedly would have been consummated had e-voting (ie no elections) been installed;
• 32-county nationalism, based on the principles of the 1916 proclamation on which the state is founded

Given the lack of our education of our administration, it is unlikely that any of them could even understand how their views had changed as each of these ideas took possession of them in their all-too-long careers. For example, Taoiseach Kenny – who inherited his father's seat – has been a parliamentarian for 40 years, and has no accomplishments or qualifications of any sort. Insofar as one can say this, he is too intellectually slow to be a modern PM.

What prompts this post is that it turns out that much of the suffering in Ireland since 2011 has been inflicted at the hands of neoliberal ideologue Michael Noonan;

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/noonan-dismisses-ashoka-mody-comments-on-debt-writedown-1.2105893

For readers not familiar with Ireland, the “odious” debt referred to is “junior” debt ie unsecured bonds issued by private banks and - for the first time in world history – imposed on the sovereign ie the taxpayer. As Mody points out, this imposition ran contrary to this government's election manifesto. In short, Mody – as the IMF lead in Ireland – was waiting for Noonan to ask for a debt writedown. Noonan did not do so; had he done so, it has clearly been IMF policy since 2008 to allow a writedown.

Noonan ran for election as PM in 2002 and achieved his party's worst-ever result. I now work in Reboot Ireland with some of the young talent who put fine Gael back together again; FG's loss is our gain

There are various explanations for Noonan's “we took one for the team” as he put it. One is a sincere belief in this neoliberal world order, a belief no longer shared even by its erstwhile economist cheerleaders like Brad de Long of UC Berkeley. Another is simply that he was bribed to sell out Ireland. A final one may be found in the fact that he has abandoned even his few friends in Limerick, the few people willing to tolerate him of a Saturday night, and wants to mingle with the Davos set.

For any Greeks reading this, we Irish are embarrassed by this buffoon;

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/any-greek-rescue-deal-will-need-d%C3%A1il-sanction-noonan-1.2105801

The astonishing result is that 32-county Irish nationalism, stripped of its Catholicism, is now the prevailing ideology in Ireland and Sinn Fein is the most popular party. Take it that SF will favour a debt deal for everyone, even if we get kicked out of the poisonous embrace of the EU as a result

PS It turns out that Varoufakis  was part of the "troops out" movement   and sings republican ballads. The first Sinn Fein finance minister?

PPS The essential problem with the current neoliberal world order is that democracy has survived the assault from e-voting. The  neoliberal campaign aginst the nation-state is otherwise perfect;

1, Replace authochtonous culture with American garbage ( a la the MTV awards in Dublin, 1999)

2. Create a massive state debt, if necessary by illegally assigning private debt to the sovereign

3. Impose austerity, with rolling privatization, to repay this debt

4. Create fortress parliaments  - currently happening in Ireland - so that the corporate whores masquerading as "politicians" will feel victimized, yet safe. One of syriza's fuist moves in govt was doing away with the barricades.

But the fools, the fools! This new order suits at best 20% of the population, the rest are sick of austerity  and we will get a united Ireland out of it......

PPPS It is a script straight from the British version of “The office”. The Gervais character (accidentally/out of pique as it happens but we don't yet know that) takes a principled stand that turns out to be popular. He is due his moment in the sun, and journos gather – twice.

The first time he makes a non-announcement to “reboot” things. At the next, it is surely going to be carelessness rather than accident if he blows it. A hush descends as the journos await the hitherto unsuspected depths in this bumptious character.

Instead he announces that they've been awaiting his “brand” and party title. He then presses “Play” on a DVD player and they are confronted with an ethics officer – a finance adviser. The new party is called “renua”. (For the record, I never joined it and never will)

A hush descends as you laugh uncontrollably at the TV. As the closing credits roll, one of the pols who has hitched his wagon to the Gervais character in interviewed on live radio – but blanks out, as the Gervais character has given his party no policies along with a double-bind; don't let the party down.

Reboot/renua could have a wide range of policies by now. I know that for a fact as I wrote an extensive policy document on IP and presented it to acclaim at UC Berkeley of Feb 13 2015. Reboot/renua knew this and Ross McCarthy, director of policy admonished me beforehand not to let the “movement” down. So what happened?

Pols do not want to be constrained by policies and prefer to make them up on the fly; that is what went wrong with the Greens in Ireland. The most generous interpretation is that they came from FG, where policies are written by consultants, and saw the new political party as a marketing firm that naturally did not have any particular product/policy, the better to be able to sell ANYTHING However, the existence on an “ethics” officer, however ludicrous, suggests a darker story and I will end this PS on that note.

Many of the Reboot/renua have not really left FG socially. It makes sense that what Creighton is attempting is to rope a few thousand people in on a truly Kafkaesque (“The castle”) mission wherein they are permanently unsure of being on the right track. They then can be prosecuted by an “ethics” officer. Little Ross McCarthy, director of policy, ensures that no policies are ever finished to ensure FG-friendliness

So Lucy can rejoin FG with her new, browbeaten members at a price of her choosing. As it happens, she could have succeeded by doing it straight and honestly. She and the others will now lose their seats

Academic Tenure revisited

In 2002, I was illegally dismissed from my tenured job at DCU. The “university” (which has never been accredited) used a little-known provision in the 1990 industrial relations act that allows single dismissals, putting every public service job in Ireland at risk. It has never returned even the clothes i left there, let alone my software. Several generous settlement offers were made; I chose instead to expose the issue through the industrial relations process, and have refused the monies awarded to me.

Paul Cahill, the object of another pogrom by DCU, asked me in 2008 to take over academictenure.blogspot.com in order to expose what was going on. In 2009, before my case, I received legal advice it would damage my chances for reinstatement. I left it up.

In 2012, Cahill destroyed the blog. I still have maintained most of it on another blog and in my book “Ireland in crisis”. Cahill should reinstate the blog in its original form

However, having fought so hard for academic tenure, it is clear to me that many - if not most – of the academics hired since the Celtic tiger years are not fit for purpose. A pro-active hiring on non-Irish people commenced in the 1990's leading to the likes of this;

http://events.berkeley.edu/?event_ID=85634&date=2015-02-11&tab=all_events

We cannot ask Irish people to pay 100k+ for nonsense such as this event. I propose the following revision of tenure, with staff being offered early retirement if the new scenario, wherein they have a “hunting license” and office rather than a guaranteed huge salary, is not appealing. MOOCS allow academics attract huge audiences;

●No-one should lose tenure; conversely, academics should give more value for money

●Tenure’s elements should be distinguished; freedom from redundancy, the right to offer courses  and a place of work until 65 upheld for “legacy” academics but pay, the right to supervise students at graduate level and so on should be made subject to performance.

●Indeed, there is a case for granting tenure to well-performing private college academics

●We are trying to free the academic process from the state and simultaneously to ease taxpayers’ burden

Time to review Ireland's over-liberal homosexuality laws

The past few weeks have made it clear; the Irish people does not want to allow sex with minors, be it Church-originated or an emanation of Dublin's muesli belt. This is particularly the case for – ahem - “man/boy love”

Until the mid-1990's, the status quo ante was that there were draconian laws on the books, dating from the Victorian era, which were never enforced. While that is unacceptable, it is doubtful that the present dispensation is any better.

Currently, an “attractive, older man” can wine and dine a boy from the wilds of western Ireland for his 17th birthday before initiating him into a lifestyle that nature most certainly did not intend. The older man can also propose civil union and - if Katherine Zappone gets her way - marriage, regardless of what the boy's bewildered parents want.

The fact remains that what takes place in that scenario is state-sponsored rape., and the older man should be locked up for a sentence approaching that of murder. As for the 17-year-old, there is much propaganda out there telling him he is just tuning into his natural impulses. In the past, he might have become a priest or brother and continued the cycle of hate and dominance/submission on younger men. Now he is told he is something called “gay” and commits to a Stockholm syndrome existence

The facts remain, that even in “liberal” societies, older gay men suffer disproportionately from depression;

New data on lesbian, gay and bisexual mental health

The “gay lifestyle” is a promiscuous one, with sites like grindr.com ensuring the rest of us will be paying an aids bill for generations. When youth has fled, the lack of the civilizing influence of women becomes a terrible burden.

What this is fundamentally about is the attempt to create a political force from the “gay” population – which is in the natural state restricted to people with a chromosomal/hormonal problem for which they are decidedly not to blame. Alternatively put, look how far the Irish Green party on foot of its civil unions bill – and I am willing to grant that the 1.8% who voted for them included every “gay” person in the country.

For the record, the true prevalence of homosexuality is perhaps 1% with - according to Nate Silver - perhaps 4% engaging in recreational same-sex coupling; genes determine the neural basis of sex, so "intersex" minus a genetic component should be treated as mental illness.

 Finally, it would be great if gay men stopped approaching straight men in normal bars.Given S, Fry's "marriage" to  man 30 years his junior it is not a stretch to imagine a gay seduction  of a 17-year-old, a rushed marriage after elopement, and the Free state granting inheritance rights. As for Sinn Fein, it will be compulsory singing of "god save our glorious Queens" ar scoil gach maidin

PS (21 u Bealtaine 2015)  Referendum tomorrow - the "yes" side has EVERY political party, many semi-states like the IDA, and unions on their side. Yet it is likely to be close, with a "No" vote so hard core in areas like Clare that it is physically  unsafe even for seasoned pols like Pat Breen to canvasss there - so he now sticks to the Malls

What went wrong? First of all, it will still probably pass. Yet it is interesting to note what are effectively soft gay porn posters of attractive same sex young people making love on Ireland's streets, thus promoting homosexuality as an attractive lifestyle choice. Likewise, using an ugly transvestite modeled on the early Eddy Izzard as far back as early 2014 to launch the campaign showed a degree of confidence in the final result that has been complemented by both Senator Norris and President McAleese breaking the law this week.

In short, flushed with confidence, the "yes" side may have overplayed its hand.In either case, the critical issue of surrogacy has been kicked down the road. This leads to the consideration that conception may be initiated by a gay man masturbating with gay porn in a sperm bank. That sperm is then applied to eggs paid for by a donor, who will often suffer cancer as a result. John Edwards' wife died because of such fertility treatment. Then another woman must be paid to carry the child

While humanity has used many styles of child-begetting, spraying sperm over eggs is pre-mammalian, and is to this day used by fish. It is fascinating that  a system of reproduction discarded by mammals, the cutting-edge of evolution, is being hailed as "progressive"

PPS 25u Bealtaine Remarkably, the poll precisely reflected a canvass on p.ie a few weeks ago; what we learned is that p.ie is more representative than we thought

The more interesting thing is the split with FF. Avril Power's resignation allowed Mattie M finally to break rank and follow McGuinness et al. So there is now an anti-liberal faction within FF. What might save Martin is the fact that Renua gifted him the bye-election

PPPS It gets better - it turns out that they got the wording wrong. The wording people voted on emphasised that "beirt" can enter into marriage. An assumption was made that "beirt" refers only to two people. Many of us knew from conversations with native speakers that was wrong;


http://www.rte.ie/news/nuacht/2015/0507/699390-reifreann/

So linguistics will be the acid test. That discipline accepted the practise of spoken language as critical some time ago for its definition. so, even apart from foclóir Uí Dhónaill (the dictionary) correctly insisting that "beirt" can refer to things, we have a corpus from Donegal saying that two female or male sheep can now get married;

- beirt chaorach (Teileann, Co Dhún na nGall)

The state response has been that they redefined an official version of the Irish language in 1958 in which this is not possible. In that case, there was a coup in 1958 and we need to reverse its effects