the devils

Afternooon in the town of Newbridge.
I am mingling with a cheerfully insane Pro Life demonstration outside the offices of abortionist parliamentarian Martin Headon.
A placard approaches me.
It reads: The Foetus Is Not Frogspawn.
It looks like a home made one.
Green marker and a rather creative representation of a frog.
Or maybe it's a baby.
Behind the placard I espy Mary Barber.
She who occasionally gets turned away from Pro Life demos for having home made placards that are considered a little too direct for some of the gentler souls of the the Pro Life movement.
I engage the good Barber in conversation.
"Have you read my blog lately?" quoth me.
"I don't like it at the moment," quoth she.
"Why so?" quoth me.
She takes a pause.
"I don't like what you're writing about Muslims. You're generalising. You're tarring them all with the same brush. I can't support that."
My handsome preraphaelite features take on a gothic hue.
"That won't save you," I tell her.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. I just like the sound of it. It's a line from that horror TV series starring the guy from The Professionals. He was playing a Padre. And one of the women said to him she didn't believe in the devil. And he replied: That won't save you. I've always wanted to use the line."
"Well I don't agree with what you're saying about Muslims. I know Muslims. My friend Tania is Muslim. So I can't go alone with what you're saying."
"Okay, okay. If someone else said it to me, I probably wouldn't care but since you're saying it I'll have to go away and weigh your words carefully."
All this week I've been weighing what she said.
While the Muslims burnt Stockholm, tried to kill another FBI agent in Boston, and hacked a British man to death in the streets of London.
How long can we pretend this isn't happening?

fine gael and the labour party in government in ireland

The Top Ten greatest hits of the past year...

1. Fine Gael and Labour have closed Ireland's embassy to the Vatican.

2. Fine Gael and Labour are legalising abortion.

3. Fine Gael and Labour have mandated the distribution of abortion pills to children no questions asked through Irish pharmacies.

4. Fine Gael and Labour have used public money to purchase the worthless gangster bank AIB for ten thousand million dollars. The worthless AIB gangster bank just happens to belong to Labour Party Education Minister Ruari Quinn's brother Lochlainn. Lochlainn is being let keep his 30 million dollar vineyard and 500 million dollar personal fortune as part of you and I bailing out Lochlainn Quinn's worthless gangster bank.

5. Fine Gael and Labour have purchased six other worthless gangster banks using public money for tens of billions of dollars.

6. Fine Gael and Labour have refused to take legal action against Fine Gael supporter Denis O'Brien whose bribery of former Fine Gael Communications Minister Michael Lowry has been identified in a publicly funded Judicial enquiry. The enquiry found that Denis O'Brien had bribed Michael Lowry to give him licences to provide mobile phone services in the Republic of Ireland.

7. Fine Gael and Labour have refused to take action against Michael Lowry the former Fine Gael Communications Minister who corruptly awarded mobile phone licences to Denis O'Brien on recipt of massive bribes from Denis O'Brien.

8. Fine Gael and Labour have refused to take action against the corrupt politically connected super thief Gillian Bowler whose corrupt politically connected bankrupt bank Trustee Shitehawks Bank helped the world's most corrupt politically connected bankrupt bank Anglo Irish Bank to conceal its burglarisation of itself through the illegal transfer of ten billion dollars into Anglo's accounts prior to an audit.

9. Fine Gael and Labour have permitted one Richie Boucher to draw a salary of a million dollars from the corrupt poltically connected bankrupt Bank Of Ireland where one Richie Boucher had as chief executive overseen the loss last year of two thousand million dollars. Thank heavens there was only one Richie Boucher. Two would have been hard to afford.

10. Prime Minister Enda Kenny, a weak vacuous hairstyle of a man, falsely accused the Vatican of obstructing Irish government enquiries into child abuse. When challenged to substantiate his claims, Enda Kenny at first refused to say anything. Later through a spokesperson he released a statement saying he hadn't been talking about any specific case. But he had told a very specific lie.

11. Prime Minister Enda Kenny has used public money to bail out Independent Newspapers a bankrupt anti Catholic newspaper group owned by Fine Gael supporting gangsters Denis O'Brien and Tony O'Reilly. At least 200 million dollars of debt owed by Independent Newspapers, has been written off by the banks which Enda Kenny has nationalised supposedly on behalf of the nation. The billion dollars fortunes of Denis O'Brien and Tony O'Reilly will not be touched as the general public divvies up on their behalf for the bank loans they have squandered.

the apotheosis of alan shatter

Justiz Ministeer Alan Shatter strolls through the corridors of the Reichskanzellerie in Dublin.
He smiles distantly as his jackboots click on the marble floor.
He is thinking of the Kinky Boots song which he and the cabinet have just sung together.
Ah.
It's good to be the king.
Alan Shatter's smile deepens as he recalls his recent escapade in refusing to take a breath test at a police checkpoint in Dublin.
The police had wanted to breathalise Justice Minister Alan Shatter to see if he was drunk in charge of an automobile but he had refused to accept any such intrusion into his life and affairs, supposedly telling the officers that he couldn't be breathalised as he is asthmatic, and then simply driving on.
Think what would happen if you or I tried that.
Bless.
The police, playing their usual double game, had leaked details of the incident to other politicians and to the press.
Ze fools.
Ze puny fools.
His smile deepens further as he recalls his machinations in parliament against the Independent parliamentarian Mick Wallace.
Alan Shatter had used the same police who had been spying on him, to spy on Mick Wallace, and had been informed by no less a personage than the Commissioner of Police that Mick Wallace had been seen a year ago using a mobile phone while driving.
Alan Shatter had used this information to embarass Mick Wallace in parliament, attempting to imply that Mick Wallace was being hypocritical in bringing incidents to public attention where the police had corruptly cancelled mandatory penalty points for selected celebrities and politicians who had been fined for non use of seat belts, speeding and or using a mobile phone while driving.
Let's be clear about this.
Justice Minister Alan Shatter and the police of the Republic of Ireland had colluded to silence Mick Wallace by falsely alleging he had benefitted from similar cancellation of a mandatory fine.
Hoo baby.
Alan Shatter's smile deepens now to a depth that is beyond malign.
He can no longer contain himself.
"Vee haff won," he snarls to the empty corridor. "Soon ze abortions vill be everywhere. Soon your Catholic schools vill be mine. I haff criminalised your ceremony of Confession. I haff put ze abortion pills in Irish pharmacies and I haff ensured that those abortion pills are dispensed to children no questions asked. I haff labelled your church an abusing insititution. I haff used ten billion dollars of your money to bail out Education Minister Ruairi Quinn's brother Lochlainn's worthless gangster banks AIB. Soon ze whole vorld vill be ourssss. Puny mortals. Who can save you now. I... AM... GOD..."

momentaria

footballers cheer a score
pat carroll shoots rabbits in the gloom
children steal crab apples
and farmer byrne calls the cattle home

perhaps this chaotic place
is not kilcullen in the present time
but a dusty frontier town
in the heart of ancient palestine

the sounds dissolve
into a muted half felt bliss
fluted by fond memory
and a strange provincial holiness