3 traditional irish beauties circa the year 2012

evgenia tarasova
holds flowers
the same
soft lovely flowers
smiles once
night has no power

chiara tosto
cocks a snook
at darkness and tragedy
slams shut the sociology book
laughs at secret dreams

lucia lozano
wind and rain
she of they
they of her
and i of all of them

the crimes of benedict groeschel

Father Bendict Groeschel's only crime was to attempt to tell the truth.

the attacks on benedict groeschel

Chatting with Miriam Dubois over coffee.
She's a prayer woman.
I began waxing poetical about one of my heroes a broadcaster called Father Benedict Groeschel.
She said: "James, haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"He's been taken off the air."
"Whaaat?"
"He said in an interview that sometimes in sex abuse cases involving a teenager and a priest, the teenager had in fact seduced the priest. How could he say it? Is his mind gone?"
I considered briefly the salient issues before replying.
"You do know that these days some teenagers are actually committing murder, don't you?" I said after a moment. "I mean quite a lot of them. I mean we've had teenagers bursting into their own schools at Columbine and elsewhere, and shooting down a dozen human beings just for the hell of it. Teenagers executing other children. We've had children and teenagers organisating bullying rings and targeting individual children and adults via the internet and other methods of harassment with the express purpose of driving them to suicide. Yes I think any of these bullies and bullying rings who drive someone to suicide should be facing murder charges. Because that's what these kids are doing. Committing murder. Even in Ireland we've had eight and ten year olds in County Cork, for crying out loud, sexually abusing three year olds. Now I ask you. Do you really think that there's no such thing as a teenage seducer?"

respect

A Kilcullen original had died.
A man hewn from the history of the town and himself an icon of that history.
I knew there was a fair chance one of my Christian uncles would ask me to act as taxi and bring said uncle up to the house of the dead man's family to pay respects.
And I was mortified.
Because thirty five years ago I'd been lousy to one of his daughters in the ball alley off main street.
Lousy in the way I was always lousy.
I don't know why people didn't just shoot me.
I'd arrived at the ball alley and found the ten year old girl and her friends playing ahead of me.
And I'd said: "You lot. Off."
And made them go away.
Although to be fair the little girl had given me plenty of flack for my troubles.
"Ghosty, you little ghosty, you're just a little ghosty" she had catcalled from the sidelines for about an hour as I played, in apparent reference to the pallor of my skin.
Nowadays she'd have to call me Beetrooty.
Sigh.
I'd always regretted my treatment of her and her friends.
Not the least when in her mid teens she suddenly turned into the best looking girl in Kilcullen.
Sigh again.
The girls of my town were like refugees from a Breughal painting.
Good looking ones were at a premium.
Sigh, sigh and treble sigh.
Not to be.
Anyhoo.
How could I now go into her house thirty five years later with her father dead and extend the hand of friendship never having troubled myself to put things right in the past?
How could I carry it off?
What would I say?
Mumble something apologetic maybe.
"Sorry, I'm sorry. I mean I'm sorry for being a louser during our childhood."
Terrible.
Worse than saying nothing.
Oh Lord.
Think Heelers.
It's not about you.
It's about her father dying.
Hmmm.
Maybe I won't have to go.
Within minutes of this meditation there came a knocking at my door.
It was my avuncular Christian Uncle Jim.
"Let's go," he said all business.
I knew  where he expected me to bring him.
We arrived on the doorstep of the deceased man's house.
The door opened.
A beautiful girl, more beautiful than ever, welcomed us.
It was her.
I hadn't seen her in three decades.
First she welcomed Uncle Jim.
"Jim," and she clasped his hands.
Then she turned to me.
Her face lit up.
Her eyes were bright and glowing and positively wondrously kind.
On her face nothing but blessing.
"Peter," she breathed.
My brother's name.
"It's James, Anne," I corrected, "your old friend from the ball alley."

an open letter to the token catholic mary kenny and the token catholic david quinn of the irish indpendent newspaper

Do you really want to provide plausible deniability for the most anti Catholic newspaper groups in Western Europe as they ruthlessly attempt to hijack the death of a Hindu woman in an Irish hospital in order to turn a generation of Irish girls into murderers of their own unborn children before those Irish girls have reached adulthood while at the same time stampeding the most vulnerable and suggestible segments of the general population away from the ancient beautiful and true Catholic faith through an ongoing kulturkampf of unlimited malign bigotry, and into a barbarism straight from hell, a generation must it be said that has more need of the Catholic religion than any other in history.
Because that is what you are doing.
James Healy





(Copy to Breda O'Brien at the Irish Times.)

sex and sexibility

My brother Raymond waylaid me in the hall.
"Bad news about the au pair," sez he.
"What bad news?"
"I think she's going to marry Lugnaquilla."
Lugnaquilla gentle readers is the name of a mountain in Ireland. It's also the nickname I have afixed to the au pair's latest beau.
I fixed my brother with a hard stare.
"Do you not think you could do something to help my chances with her?" I challenged. "I mean she works for you."
"Jim I'm a doctor not a miracle worker," shot back the brother Doctor McCoyily.
"Would you not feel a little kindred spirit and try putting in a kind word? I mean anything. Just do anything that you think might help," sez me with just a hint of desperation.
"I have already done something to help," quoth he.
"What have you done?" sez me.
"I have told you that you have absolutely no chance at all with her," said he exiting stage left.
The ghost of Tuco from The Good The Bad And The Ugly appeared beside me.
Together we shouted after my brother:
"Hey blondie... You know what you are... You're..."
Our final pejoratives were drowned out by the Ennio Moricone soundtrack going:
"Aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"