game of kick in the bawls i mean thrones

 

The noble Heelers emerges from a church in the town of Naas.

A little old lady hurries up.

"Here," she says. "I have something for you. It's a new newspaper. I think you might like it. You can give it back to me when you've finished with it."

I thank her and remove myself to a park to read.

The newspaper is called The Irish Light.

It appears to have been produced independently but in some sort of association with a British supposedly counter cultural publication called The English Light.

From the cover I perceive an editorial line warning about the Corona Virus vaccines.

Promising.

There's something else on the cover about climate change being a scam.

Curiouser and curiouser.

And Ireland being run by a criminal cabal.

Hey.

I'm starting to like this.

The Irish Light is edited by one Gemma O'Doherty. (Two Gemma O'Dohertys would have been ridiculous.) I've heard of her Horatio. She's a big enough name in Irish journalism with all the attendant ups and downs of someone who's mixed it at the top.

The Wikipedia internet website claims she was fired from Independent Newspapers in 2014 for "unethical behaviour."

This is as untrue as everything else on Wikipedia.

In fact she was fired from Independent Newspapers in 2014 for hugely ethical behaviour, ie for doorstepping (seeking to confront and interview at his house) the hideously corrupt then Chief of Police Martin Callanan who is himself most famous in Ireland for trying to frame hero cop Maurice McCabe on trumped up charges of child abuse. Callanan was Chief of Police while an organised cop mafia was laundering money through the Police training college at Templemore. He was also Chief of Police while renegade cops were stealing millions by claiming to have performed alcohol breathalyser tests on motorists which had never happened. He was also Chief of Police when a number of still unexplained deaths of people in police custody took place which the police omitted to include in their official statistics for deaths in police custody. Gemma O'Doherty's attempt to confront Martin Callanan on his doorstep is one of the most profoundly ethical acts in the history of Irish journalism. And Independent Newspapers fired Gemma O'Doherty for doorstepping that scoundrel.

So I'm aware of Gemma O'Doherty but not necessarily a fan or a detractor.

I'd have a critical appreciation for her individualism and courage.

But I think she's behaved disgracefully vis a vis a video she published on the internet falsely accusing a man in Donegal of child murder.

At the time I wrote to her: "Tell me you have something more.Tell me you didn't ruin that man on an emotional whim."

I received no reply.

Perhaps she never got my letter.

So Gemma O'Doherty is the editor of The Irish Light.

Sitting on a bench in the park, surrounded by noisy and demonstrative swans and ducks and crows who seem chagrined that I have no bread for them, I read the new newspaper.

Yes I approve of the critique of the Covid 19 vaccines and of the discussion regarding governmental manipulation of discourse on the matter.

There's stuff I don't like.

Ads for mediums who'll contact the dead for a reasonable fee.

Articles about the healing power of magnets.

The feature headlined promisingly "A Criminal Cabal Runs Ireland," turns out disappointingly to be a bog standard 1960s pap  piece giving a free pass to IRA mafias like the Kinahanes, the Hutch Gang and the Maloneys, while labelling virtually everyone else in public life, public service and among the citizenry, a hoodlum.

Ho hum.

The line between bold free thinking campaigning journalism and rubbish is a fine one.

Still there's a refreshing critique of the vaccines and the Flu panic and that's got to count for something.

All in all, I'm inclined to photocopy this newspaper and start pushing it through letter boxes.

John Waters, a famous Irish Times writer who latterly staged some sort of Christian conversion is also involved.

Theoretically Gemma O'Doherty and John Waters together in one newspaper represent a very strong opening hand for any new publication.

I go home to brood.

There's a passle of aunties in the outer room and I give them The Irish Light to read.

There are whoops of recognition almost immediately and a shout: "This is the sort of stuff you would write."

"Give it a chance," I tell em.

I go to the inner sanctum and use my computer to pay a visit to Gemma O'Doherty's personal website.

Her website contains videos endeavouring to exonerate Hitler for his historical crimes and accusing the Jews of bankrupting Germany before World War One.

I kid you not.

Well this has been a quick romance.

I stand up wordlessly.

I return to the kitchen.

I retrieve The Irish Light from my aunts and before their astonished eyes tear it into fritters.

"I'm very sorry I exposed you to that rubbish," I tell them.

I gather up the fritters mindful of my assurance to the Little Old Lady in the street that I would return her newspaper when I had finished with it.

In the cosmic sense, truly, I am finished with it.