What really happened in Cork

I've a new article up on GlobalComment:

About twenty eight hours after Ireland was kicked out of the World Cup, the city of Cork, the Republic of Ireland’s second largest city, was flooded by the semi-state company, Electricity Supply Board (ESB). Two weeks of heavy rain that amounted to four to six times the norm, combined with 40 to 60 millimetres of rain fall in the preceding 36 hours, and the release of water from the Inniscarra dam caused the river Lee to burst its banks and flood the city centre. €100 million is the conservative price that will need to be paid to clean up the mess.

RTE (the state broadcaster) informed the public on the evening of Thursday 19th November that water would be released from the Inniscarra dam and that the area around Inniscarra might flood. The towns in West Cork of Macroom, Bandon, Skibbereen and Ballyvourney were already impassable. I diverted through Mallow and managed to make it home, skirting several flooded roads with only a three hour delay. The entire journey I was glued to the national radio stations to get more information. There was little of any substance.

In the early hours of Friday morning 20 November, people living in the inner city awoke to the sound of rushing water entering their homes. The flood was the largest in living memory, possibly a hundred-year event. Students at University College Cork were seen swimming through the freezing flood water to reach residence halls that are still without electricity or running water. Civil Defence began evacuating older people by boat from 2AM.

The rest of Cork awoke to a flooded city. Businesses were destroyed; medical clinics were under water; a five star hotel was half underwater; and students wake-boarded on the streets. Business owners and employees rolled up their trousers and cleaned up as best as they could. A woman mucking out a hair dressing salon said, “this I can fix… eventually,” referencing the economic difficulties and feelings of helplessness.

Likewise, staff at the Mercy, a public hospital with three hundred beds, were not warned of the possibility of flooding. The emergency room had to be evacuated. Doctors, nurses, support staff, lab techs and many others took extraordinary measure to be at work on time, using any transport available. Civil Defence played chauffeur to most but others canoed, kayaked, used dinghies, cycled and walked through waist-high raging flood water.

The people of Cork pride themselves on a certain self-sufficiency. This attitude developed partly as the identity of Cork as a rebel county and partly because the people cannot rely on the government in Dublin to come to their aid in times of need. While Cork was inundated, national radio and television news provided little information. While volunteers were helping to clean out the hospital emergency room, the government was appealing to FIFA and the French government to replay the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier. It was only after the floods that the media started paying attention to what was happening in the second largest city in the republic.

From Friday morning, public servants, who were due to take part in a one day strike on 24 November, declared that they would not be taking part in work stoppage because of the civic emergency in Cork. Public servants in other inundated counties made similar declarations, following where Cork leads.

Gradually, information began to trickle into the national media and by 13:00 on Friday afternoon, the national media was reporting on the crisis. By 13:30 politicians were praising the efforts of the ESB in an attempt to cover up the fact that no specific warnings were made with regard to the city. The ESB released 535 cubic metres of water per second into a swollen river, claimed they sent a press release and informed the city council, and then declared that informing the public was not their department.

The City Council were effective enough at mobilising Civil Defense once the scale of the flood became clear. However, the result of either miscommunication between the ESB and the City Council or negligence or incompetence, is that 20 000 households are without water. Bottled water was sold out at Lidl and Aldi (the less expensive supermarket chains) by 11:30 on Friday 20 November. 123 000 people are still queuing for drinking water from tankers and boil notices have been issued to the rest of the population. There is temporary accommodation for those who have been displaced but the Taoiseach (prime minister) has declared that it is too early to discuss the issue of compensation.

The people of Cork have shown great resilience and community spirit in the past days. Hopefully, an official investigation will reveal the reasons why Cork was flooded and whose hand was at the wheel.

The bitter fallout of France vs. Ireland

I've a new post on GlobalComment

Ireland’s final hopes to participate in the 2010 FIFA World Cup were dashed when Thierry Henry scored a goal in extra time. It is widely acknowledged that the Irish team played well and perhaps deserved to go to the World Cup, but the referee called the goal for the French side. This has proved to be incredibly controversial, because Henry’s hand touched the ball just before his goal. Henry admitted as much after the match.

Damien Duff wept in the changing rooms while the Irish people wept in houses and bars across the land. Interviews were conducted on radio and television with every pundit and family member the media could lay their hands on. The country rang with the sound of outraged voices about robbery, rematch and revenge. Many Irish people have taken the handball as a personal slight and for the first time, some Irish people are sympathising with the British over their exit from the 1986 FIFA World Cup because of Maradona’s Hand of God.

Read more...

Muppets for the win

The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody



via Shakesville

It wasn't our fault

Mini Dev was on Prime Time tonight blathering on about the weather and the floods. It was all the rain’s fault was the gist of his mumblings. Yeah but he’s leaving out (a) the lack of preparedness, (b) lack of maintenance of the waterways, (c) building in flood plains and (d) lack of a comprehensive communications strategy.

Why have none of the professional media investigated the ESB's release of 535 cubic metres of water per second at high tide without adequate warning in Cork? Really I want to know. Why is our media competent only at stirring up divisions between the public and private sectors?

Water in Cork

The water in Cork City has been shut off.

The bottled water in Lidl in Togher is gone.

The bottled water in Aldi in Ballyphehane is gone.

All the cheap water is gone and the tap supplies are not expected to resume for a few days.

Some dodgy photos of the floods in Cork

Flooding

The journey from Kerry to Cork was a long one this evening. Flooded roads and closed roads and fun activities like driving through floods. Now that there is no money left in the kitty, no chance of dikes being erected to deal with Ireland's manifestation of climate change. Oops we did it again. Oh well St Paddy promised to wipe Ireland off the map ten years before the end of days. Maybe this is his prophecy coming true!

(pic taken from IrishTimes.com)

Ryanair demonstrates lack of original thinking

From the Sindo

RYANAIR was accused last night of a "serious lack of imagination" after the airline insisted its 2010 cabin crew calendar was "art".

The new calendar, featuring two Irish employees, is more risque than previous editions.

Art? Seriously? The erotic can be art of course and art can be very sexual but that sexuality comes through agency not objectification.

The National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) said the no-frills carrier was "irredeemably old-fashioned" for using images of scantily clad women to raise funds for charity. But Ryanair accused the NWCI of not having "a clue how young women empower themselves".

Those humourless feminists are wreaking my right to see half naked women. Young women may empower themselves through naked photos but that does not mean that Ryanair's decision is not profoundly sexist. The managers at Ryanair (how many are women?) are using the bodies of their staff for promotion. It is one of the most cynical uses of power. They take advantage of societal sexism and their employees, rather despicable behaviour.

"What we have is one step up from last year which makes it a little bit sexier," spokesman Stephen McNamara said at the launch in London yesterday.

However, NWCI director Susan McKay said: "It shows a serious lack of imagination presenting women as sex objects."

And apparently sexy is always better, so when is their calendar of naked men coming out?

I agree with McKay, that Ryanair's decision shows a lack of original thinking. If your product requires a naked woman's objectified body to sell, then consider that your product is just a bit pathetic.

How much longer do we have to wait for the government to banish the religious congregations?

The Catholic has failed us in Ireland. Members of the church have perpetrated horrific crimes on vulnerable children and have done everything to avoid paying compensation and even owning up to their crimes.

It now emerges that we exported our child abusers. Where Irish religious orders went, child abuse followed. It is clearly that something is rotten in the church. It is time to disband the corrupt institution to protect our children.

Tardun was one of the more notorious of Australia's 500 or so children's institutions. It had all sorts of Irish connections. It was one of four such institutions run by the Christian Brothers, who were tightly controlled by their Irish leadership, based at the Dublin headquarters in Marino. They even named another of their western Australian institutions Clontarf - it is to be found in Waterford, a suburb of Perth.

Many of the brothers working in the Australian institutions were first generation Irish. These included Br Paul Keaney, the infamous resident manager of Bindoon (another Christian Brothers-run boys' orphanage) up to the 1950s, who was born in Rossinver, Co Leitrim.

Thousands of boys passed through these institutions. Most were Australian, who, like so many Irish children, ended up in care during the middle decades of the 20th century for reasons of poverty and disadvantage.

Why are these people still permitted in education in Ireland? I suppose it is the tarring brush but there were those who knew and did nothing. They are complicit. The percentage of child abusers, torturers and rapists in the church far exceeded population statistics.

Get them out of education, out of hospitals and out of this country.

Another endorsement for Lemonade

From Irish Election

Brian Lenihan’s credibility takes a further dent as he comes bottom of the pile in this year’s ranking of top EU finance ministers by the Financial Times

Ah a finance minister to be proud of!

Avast me hearties

I've another post up at GlobalComment

There’s nothing new about record companies throwing their weight around. Since, Napster they have sought to control access to illegal music, encouraged by artists such as Metallica, who themselves originally owed their fame to bootleg tapes.

In Ireland, the record companies represented by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) have recently taken the fight to the ISPs in an illegal attempt to block Irish internet users from accessing certain sites. The courts cannot legally censor internet content so IRMA targeted the providers. It is just a little ironic that the Irish broadband rollout is one of the more ineffective schemes in Europe...

Wanna read more?

Were bloggers being too mean to you, Waters?

John Waters is in the Irish Times today, whining about bloggers aka citizens journalists. Away he went pontificating about mob mentality and whinging about bloggers being mean to his bestest buddy Bono. Naturally, he doesn't name the blogs he quotes because the backlash would be too much for his delicate feefees. Isn't that journalism fail right there? Isn't one supposed to credit when appropriating another person's words?

I've trashed Waters before because he is an arrogant misogynist asshole who thinks the whole world thinks like him - the essence of his straight, white man privilege. He disses bloggers for critizing his beloved Bono but makes no mention of his appropriation of poverty in the developing world in comparing it to Dublin. Yeah and I've actually been to and worked in parts of the developing world.

In another spectacular fail, he obsessed about infantile toilet humour rather than the civil rights violation and government influence on our supposedly free media.

You see, the bloggers don't agree with the special snowflake that is John Waters.

It was an interesting enough overview of a subject that will be much analysed in the coming weeks. More interesting, though for the wrong reasons, were the responses in the thread of posts from readers that grew on to the article. Of the 89 posts I could find, only four were vaguely and somewhat unenthusiastically positive about the article, aid, Geldof, Bono or indeed anything at all. A further eight might be called neutral, in that they sought to make some elliptical points about the issues raised, without rubbishing anyone.

Aid is a thorny issue. It raises serious concerns about colonialism, racism, poverty, the IMF, autonomy, government, corruption and strings to name but a few. Simplistic analyses do not add to the debate but obscure the real issues to be tackled.

The rest – roughly 85 per cent – were abusive, expressing rage, scorn, hatred, jealously, cynicism and an authorial self-righteousness lacking any visible means of support. Not a single post indicated that its author had been to Africa, or had any special knowledge of, or even interest in, that continent.

So says the man who compared Dublin to developing world poverty. Name your sources Waters. Did you cherry pick to find what you were looking for? Was 4chan one of your sources? Politics dot IE? That's the thing about the internet, you can prove your idiotic argument through subjective sources.

In broad strokes Waters dismisses citizen journalists. I find it fascinating considering the analysis being done by Irish bloggers to expose the corruption and petty meanness in our political system.

Waters, read The Story, Irish Election, Irish Economy and The Cedar Lounge Revolution to begin with and then think about what you wrote, asshole.

Joe Coleman: Ireland’s convenient new visionary

I've a new post up at GlobalComment

The self declared visionary Joe Coleman has been making waves in Irish religious circles for the past few weeks. He claims that that the Virgin Mary speaks to him on a regular basis, specifically since he died on an operating table in 1986. Until recently, Mr Coleman was a spiritual healer who claimed to cure cancer by laying his hands on people with the disease. Now he devotes himself entirely to “our Blessed Mother.” A humble man from Ballyfermot in Dublin is now our channel for love and a channel for God.

Read on...

There are brass necks and then there is JOD

From the Sindo

JOHN O'DONOGHUE asked the Irish Sports Council for two tickets to the Rugby World Cup final, it was revealed last night.

Mr O'Donoghue was Ceann Comhairle at the time, and had ceased being minister for arts, sports and tourism for five months. He offered to pay for the tickets but the council gave them to him for free in recognition of his efforts on behalf of Irish sport.

The cost of the pair of tickets, for Mr O'Donoghue -- and it is thought his wife, Kate Ann -- came to nearly €1,000. The tickets were ultimately paid for by the taxpayer.

Jack O Connor hurts Pat Kenny's feefees

Kenny apologises for use of C word. But not the bad C word, not crap you know, the one worst than flip.

The SIPTU chief was speaking on the show calling for "a reasonable level of tax on second or multiple homes or trophy houses."

Pat Kenny asked him: "What's a trophy house, by the way?"

O'Connor quickly replied: "A house like yours, probably, I'd say, Pat."

Laughter rippled through the studio audience and Kenny immediately shot back : "Well, I built my house in 1988. I don't want this kind of crap coming at me!"

Boo hoo did the nasty O Connor hurt your delicate fee fees Pat? You are a special little snowflake.

Why not bathe in your obscene salary paid by the people of Ireland? Is €950 976 not enough for you? Then fuck off and let someone new take your place.