LIAR, LIAR !

A SONG about Tory leader Theresa May has reached the Top 10 in the download chart but the official chart shows on radio stations Capital FM and Heart have refused to play Liar, Liar GE2017, supporters have complained.

Click here: http://www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/she_s_a_liar_liar to download for £1 or less to help give Theresa May an election day present she really doesn’t want.

All money spent on downloads of the track up to 8 June will be split between food banks and the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

Performed and produced by the band Captain Ska and promoted by campaign organisation the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, the song features various speeches and news interviews from Prime Minister Theresa May followed by a chorus of: “She’s a liar, liar . . . You can’t trust her . . . no, no, no, no.”

The song attacks the Conservative Party’s record in office over the NHS crisis, education and levels of poverty. “When there’s nurses going hungry and schools in decline I don’t recognise this broken country of mine,” goes one of the lyrics.

The song has been available for download from last Friday (26 May) and has been rising up in the iTunes charts, reaching Number 10 at the weekend.

The Chart Show this week did announce that the track had reached Number 10 but instead of playing it went straight onto playing Number 9. Now it has gone to Number 7 and could even be a chart topper by polling day.

Jake from Captain Ska said:

“This can only be seen as an attempt by the media owners to undermine public opinion. Thousands of people have downloaded this track and we demand that it is aired as any other song would be.

“We've written Liar, Liar GE2017 for this general election because we want to do all we can to expose the horrific effects Tory policy has had on ordinary people.

“Theresa May lies her way through interview after interview without addressing the real issues. We’re sick of her and her party of millionaires privatising and cutting our public services while the rest of the country faces deteriorating living standards and poverty. The money is there to improve the lives of the majority but it’s in the hands of the wrong people.”

http://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/itemlist/user/738-jake

The above article is by JOHN HEDGES

AN PHOBLACHT EDITOR

http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/26905

The Banner County

“The custom of carrying banners goes back a long way in County Clare. There is little doubt but that the Dál gCais carried banners at the battle of Clontarf in 1014 or that the Clare Dragoons carried banners at Fontenot in 1745 and in the many battles fought by the Clare Regiments on the continent during the eighteenth century.”

We went on a day trip recently to re-visit one of our favourite counties, as there are so many  antiquities dotted around the countryside we still have not viewed them all. The one thing I learnt a long time ago, when looking for interesting vistas or ancient sites, is that when touring you need to slow down, drive carefully and be adventurous. The best type of narrow roads to take are those with a thin strip of grass growing up the middle as very often you will see something interesting.

This is how we found ourselves outside (1) Smithstown Castle and on another narrow road we saw a fingerboard pointing towards the (2) Blakemount Holy Well.
This tempted Mrs H to go and find it - now doubt she will reveal all soon on her own blog.
It was on yet another narrow road, that I managed to photograph  (3) a double donut shaped erratic which had been dumped there by the last Ice Age.
Photo number (4) A Sham was found on a tourist road on the outskirts of Kilfenora, it is not an ancient monument and was only constructed recently by a local resident.
Photo (5) was taken with my new camera along the road from Callan to Ballyvaughan - said as Bally vocken not vawn.

1 smithstowncastle.com

2. Stile to Blakemount Holy Well.

3 a 'double donut' shaped erratic.

4 A Sham.

5 Along the road from Callan to Ballyvaughan.

Our circuitous route took us from Gort in Co.Galway along the R460 towards a small town of Corrofin or is it Coroffin or perhaps Caroffin or even Corofin ? 

I mentioned to  Mrs H on our way in that I wondered which spelling was correct because every imaginable spelling could be seen on signposts and billboards. I also wondered if the local business people had found a new method of attracting trade or perhaps their signwriters  were drunk?

Well now guess what I read last night on a news channel..

“Local groups have formed in the towns of Lahinch, Ennistymon, and Corofin, with each group set write to Clare County Council later this week, to officially begin the legal process of changing the towns’ names. The local authority has confirmed it is the appropriate agency to deal with this issue and that a local vote, similar to that held in Dingle in 2006, may also be required.

This situation arose more than five years ago when Transport Infrastructure Ireland, formally the NRA, contracted Clare County Council to update signage on the N67 tourism route.

At this time the official legal spelling of the towns, which was derived from documentation written before the formation of the state, was used to replace the traditional local spellings which had appeared on all signage for the past 100 years.”

My online research says this :The origin of Name: Corofin takes its name from the Irish ‘Coradh Finne’ which means ‘The Weir of Finnia’.

So there we have it:Transport Infrastructure/National Roads Authority and Clare County Council please take note!

A Spring Return

As many of my followers are aware I had a mild TIA - transient ischemic attack,  a few days ago. This put me into hospital for four days and my route there was because my pipe fell out of my hand three times in succession, for each time that I picked it up from the floor and stood up, down it would go again. I became aware that all was not right with me so I trotted down to the studio to sit with her Ladyship and eventually brokered the subject that perhaps a trip to my GP would be a good thing to do.

Arrangements were made and we were given appointment for 4pm that day, not too long to wait, although in the surgery that time spent in the waiting room seemed horrendous - I am not good at waiting, not good at all; you might even think of me as being an impatient patient :)

My BP was extremely high as stated in comments on my recent blog, that being the case my lady GP told us to go directly to A&E at the nearest hospital which was about six miles away. We did as we were told, the waiting room only had two spare chairs and eventually I was seen by a Doctor and returned back to the waiting room, with a warning given to my wife that if I turned a funny colour or started acting oddly to ring the bell. We sat there until eleven pm when I was put on a trolley and given loads of caring attention. I slept fretfully, her Ladyship was given a comfortable chair and at eight thirty a.m I told her to drive home and get some rest.

The rest of my time there was spent in having a multitude of tests done,  he majority of which showed that I was healthy, apart from some clogging in carotid arteries - they supply blood to the brain. That sounded serious and the ward doctor explained to me that there were two procedures that would correct the situation; thus I returned home without having to consider any options because if you choose Life then either method is acceptable and I do choose life.

Today I had an appointment with the vascular specialist who with a big smile on his face told me that the clogging in my arteries was only slight, with a natural age related thickening and that he would not be performing any procedures on me.  He then said he would see me in six months time to do a  re-check and providing all was well he would not see me again.

I am delighted and with a spring in my step we left the hospital in glorious sunshine, revitalised.

A Trip Down the Road

We took a trip to the famous Lough Gur in County Limerick which has been inhabited for the last six thousand years. I looked at the map and it seemed to be an easy route by taking the M7 down towards Limerick City and to take a left onto the N24 and then a right onto a smaller road. What I had not realised was that there were other smaller roads that were not on my map and so we had to make a few enquiries along the way.  Our main complaint is that it is not very well sign posted and we did ponder on whether they actually want visitors judging by the lack of signs.

For Lady H it was her first time of driving for any distance on a Motorway and it did not please her, she gave me the very same dislikes as I had myself, that they are boring and mesmerising after awhile . Which is why I only used them when it was very necessary.

Nearby locations

Lough Gur locality

The tranquil lake where motorised boats and fishing on the lake are not permitted.

One of the remaining crannogs on lough Gur.

A crannog is a man made island created by the neolithic people as means

of making a safe haven

You might recognise these two from earlier blog posts?

They are taking their ease in front two buildings reconstructed in what is believed to be

a neolithic style -minus the glass windows of course.

Popping out of the trees on left side of photo is Bourchier’s Castle built in 1588 by Sir George Bourchier, the son of the second Earl of Bath.

We had a very pleasant day out and our Toby slept all of the way home.

For more information about Lough Gur please visit

http://loughgur.com

CAUGHT WITH TROUSERS DOWN!

Revealed – 'Concerned citizen' who challenged Mary Lou McDonald on fair taxes is top banker.

Fergus Crawford, CEO of the Irish branch of Sarasin & Partners, which is based at 120 St Stephen's Green and is part of private Swiss Bank J Safra Sarasin.

THE 'CONCERNED CITIZEN' who claimed he was a small business owner when he confronted Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald about tax reform during a press event on Grafton Street in Dublin on Friday is actually the CEO of a Swiss investment firm.

The man who refused to divulge his name to reporters despite repeated requests claimed he was a “small business owner”. 

An Phoblacht learned that the man is Fergus Crawford, CEO of the Irish branch of Sarasin & Partners, which is based at 120 St Stephen's Green and is part of private Swiss Bank J Safra Sarasin.

The asset management firm manages more than €15billion in assets. Some of the services it provides includes offshore hedge funds based in overseas locations such as the Channel Islands which help reduce the tax liabilities for clients in places like Ireland.

During his exchange with Mary Lou McDonald, Crawford criticised Sinn Féin's plans to ask higher earners to pay an extra 7 cent on each euro earned in excess of €100,000 per year.

Crawford shouted that his children didn't want to “aspire to €69,000 a year” while ludicrously claiming that Sinn Féin wants to tax people “out of existence”.

During the exchange he told reporters he would "probably vote for Fine Gael".

Mary Lou McDonald pointed out to him that more than 50% of the workforce in Ireland earns less than €28,500 a year and that Sinn Féin wants to ease the tax burden on low and middle earners while asking those at the top to pay a little more.

*From 1996 to July 2008 he served in various roles, including Head of Investment, for ACC Bank.

Main article by Mark Moloney of An Phoblacht

Foot note by aheronsview
When searching for his company’s web site www.sarasin-alpen.com it now appears to be non operational! 

Well,so much for opening his big mouth and telling lies about being a small business man.

Gerry Adams - a caring society

•  

 Bereaved mothers who have lost sons to suicide have pleaded with political parties to prioritise mental health.

The women, who have set up the Circle of Hope suicide support group on the northside of Cork City, issued their plea yesterday, as Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams met them and several other groups involved in suicide support programmes.

They told Mr Adams, and his party’s two candidates in Cork North Central, TD Jonathan O’Brien and Thomas Gould, how five young people in one small area of Ballyvolane and Dublin Hill died by suicide within a few months of each other in 2013.

Link for video:

Gerry Adams in Limerick - Irish Examiner

“It was a horrible year — one after the other. Our group came out of that,” said Lynda Haynes.

Her son, Corey O’Callaghan, died by suicide three weeks before his 21st birthday. Fiona Mackey’s son, John, took his own life a few months later. He was 14.

Ms Haynes said the pain never leaves, but having a support group, where people can talk and remember their loved ones, helps them cope.

“Everyone knew Corey. He was just an old soul. It was like he was here before. He gave his heart and time to everyone. He was so happy-go-lucky,” she said.

Corey left a note in which he said he had the best friends. “But he also said he had pain — pain we didn’t see,” said Ms Haynes.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams waving to some of the staff and children looking out the window from the Little Learners Educare room as he left following a visit to Togher Family Centre, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane

“I think he just got tired. He counselled a lot of people. The one person he needed to help was himself.”

Ms Mackey said John left two notes for his family.

“He didn’t do this to cause us pain. It was to get rid of his own pain, but we don’t know what that pain was. Only for this support group. I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

Both women told Mr Adams they want politicians to commit to mental health awareness campaigns.

“Money doesn’t come into it. We fundraise ourselves. We just want them to commit to awareness,” said Ms Haynes.

Mr Adams praised the support groups and called for an all-island approach to tackling suicide, including the introduction of a sustained advertising campaign modelled on road-safety campaigns.

“These groups can take some succour from the fact that even though some of them have lost loved ones, they have saved a lot of other people by the work they are doing,” he said.

“There are people alive today who would otherwise be dead only for the advocacy work and awareness work they are doing.”

Statistics show 459 people — 368 men and 91 women — took their own lives in Ireland last year, but the real suicide figure could be as high as 1,000.

“Despite the fact that 644,000 people — one in seven adults — have experienced mental-health issues in the last year, successive governments have neglected the mental health area,” said Mr Adams. He said if Sinn Féin was in government, it would increase the mental health budget in year one by €35m, complete the rollout of suicide crisis assessment nurses, and reverse cuts to guidance counsellors.
By Irish examiner reporter Eoin English

***

My own experience during the twenty-five years that I have lived in this part of Ireland, is that I have known several people from different walks of life who have taken their own lives and when the financial downturn came that number unfortunately grew.

The Dundalk Debacle Continues

the ex holding site.

I was hoping not to have had to post on this subject again. Unfortunately because of the lack of common sense and total inability to have one milligram of humanity within  All of the operatives of Louth County Council, I am doing so.

Here is the latest news on this inhuman debacle.

Families who are being evicted from the illegal halting site at Woodland Park in Dunkalk say that neither of the short-term solutions proposed by Louth County Council last night are workable.

A number of families met with an auctioneer appointed by the council this morning, however they say they were told no suitable accommodation was available. 
The Louth C.C. cunningly used this auctioneer to do their dirty work for them knowing fully well what the message was going to be;lets hope it was for more than just thirty pieces silver ?

The families have also raised concerns about proposals to relocate them to halting sites outside of Dundalk.

Their concerns include the distance from where their children are in school, isolation, the fact that families may be split up and that one of the halting sites will not be ready for a number of weeks.

Local solicitor Eleanor Kelly, who represents a number of the families, sent a letter to the council this afternoon highlighting her concerns and requesting further discussions.

Louth County Council said it is continuing to work with residents and representatives to meet their accommodation needs.

Meanwhile, the last of the mobile homes at the site are being voluntarily removed by residents.

The final mobile home will be removed tomorrow morning at 8am, while the second last home is being removed this afternoon. 

Louth County Council is accommodating five families in B&Bs until Friday.
The question is what happens next L.C.C. for these people are your responsibility ?

The buck stops here....

The manager of Louth Co Council 

Philomena Poole

To obtain a better understanding of the situation please read http://leargas.blogspot.ie

A FACIST ACTION IN LOUTH

On the day that Ireland defended its actions on the rights of children before UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. The barbaric Louth County Council took the opposite point of view and created unnecessary pain and suffering to Traveller Children.

Pavee Point calls on Environment Minister, Alan Kelly TD, to intervene as a matter of urgency to compel Louth County Council to provide alternative accommodation for 17 Traveller families evicted from a halting site in Dundalk today (15th January 2016)

The families were evicted from a Traveller local authority halting site that had been decommissioned by Louth County Council.

Pavee Point condemns these evictions as unnecessary and unwarranted. “This is one of coldest nights of the year and these people have no where to go,” said Martin Collins, Co Director of Pavee Point. “It is clear that Louth County Council has absolutely no concern for the health and safety of these families”

“Louth County Council has totally failed in its duty here. It has a policy of not providing Traveller Specific accommodation such as halting sites or group housing schemes,” said Martin Collins, “They are trying to force Travellers into social or private housing and this is in total breach of the 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act.”

“There is a demand for Traveller specific accommodation in Dundalk and these families are the living proof.

“These families have children at school in the town. Think how these children will be affected by this !

Pavee Point urges the Environment Minister to intervene to find a solution and make good undertakings that there would be no mass evictions of Traveller families as a result of fire safety audits on halting sites in the wake of the Carrickmines fire tragedy.

These evictions are confirming fears that Pavee Point had that local authorities would use the fire audits in a cynical way to evict Travellers.  It is important at this stage that Travellers engaging with the Environment Dept in its safety audit can have trust in this process.

Minister Kelly put a Community Initiative in place at his Department to deal with any issues around fire safety on Traveller halting sites and it is through this Initiative that any fire safety issues on sites should be dealt with.

January 15, 2016 at 7:45 pm

To my blog readers:
Just imagine how you would feel if your local authority were to rescind the planning permission on the house that you had lived in for years. Then arrived at your home, along with the police, on a very cold day in January to evict you.

Can you imagine how these people must feel?

Additional Information:-

Today, Eleanor Kelly, solicitor for six of the evicted families said the youngest family member is eight days old.
Four of the families stayed in B&B accommodation this weekend, while two others stayed with their families and friends.
“The youngest is eight days old, there are 17 families in total,”
“The difficulty is that they were given 48 hours to find alternative accommodation.”
She said she had been in contact with Louth County Council about the site at Woodland Park last August, but did not hear back from the council until last week when the families were being delivered 48 hours’ notice to be evicted.


A fire officer visited the site in October and deemed it to be a hazard.
“If there’s work to be done, there’s work to be done.” But she added: “I was in contact with the council last August”
“The ideal situation is to allow them to go to a halting site but there’s no other halting site in Dundalk.”
“These are Dundalk families, they want to be in Dundalk, but I’m aware the halting site in Drogheda is full anyway.”
The council met with Traveller representatives on Saturday to agree on temporary accommodation for the 17 families involved.


FOR LATEST INFORMATION PLEASE READ COMMENT NUMBER 22

Links:http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/CRCIndex.aspx
http://www.paveepoint.ie
http://www.childrensrights.ie
http://www.louthcoco.ie/en/Louth_County_Council

Prevalent Attitudes

I do not call myself a Christian, a humanist is as close as I can get. 

Recently I have found my self feeling absolutely disgusted with the very shameful attitude of the settled community of the Rockville Drive residents in Carrickmines who opposed the emergency halting site; this towards their fellow citizens namely The Travellers.  

So I was glad to read the following on the RTE web site because it needed to be voiced. 

reference : http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1021/736557-carrickmines-fire/
                  http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1015/734924-carrickmines/

"A priest has criticised many settled people for failing to empathise with what he called their Traveller brothers and sisters following a fatal fire at a halting site.

Father Dermot Lane was speaking after the remains of five of the people who lost their lives in the fire in Carrickmines were brought to the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Balally, Co Dublin this evening.

Fr Lane, who is the parish priest of Balally, not far from Carrickmines, urged everybody to become involved in a new consultation process embracing local authorities and the settled and Traveller communities.

He prayed that what he called the national tragedy which struck eleven days ago may become a turning point in the difficult tasks of healing, reconciliation and mutual trust that lie ahead.

Fr Lane greeted the Connors family and hundreds of other mourners at the church after five hearses bearing the coffins of Thomas and Sylvia Connors and their children Jim, Christy, and baby Mary arrived for their removal service.

Fr Lane said the grief of the Connors family is also the grief of Balally Parish because they were, and are, an important part of the local community.

Describing them as well-known and respected in the parish, he said they worshipped in its church where Thomas and Sylvia, conscientiously as parents, presented their five children for baptism over the past seven years. 

He recalled having the privilege of baptising Michael and Thomas Connors, the family's only survivors.

He said important lessons are to be learned from the national tragedy that claimed ten lives 11 days ago and which "has disturbed the consciences of us all".

Unaware of the resolution of the impasse over the local authority allocating the grieving families accommodation, which coincided with the church service, he urged that they be offered an appropriate place to live as soon as possible. 

He told the congregation: "We must learn, above all, to walk in the shoes of the other if we are to develop genuinely inclusive and pluralistic societies."

And he observed that many settled people had "failed to walk with empathy in the shoes of our brothers and sisters in the Traveller community".

Dismissing blame-games about the tragedy as unhelpful, Fr Lane urged everybody to move beyond mis-understanding, standard stereotypes and caricatures.

"If we are to move forward," he said, "all must be involved in a new consultation and a new conversation, and that means bringing together local authorities, local communities and the Traveller Communities."

Fr Lane prayed that the tragedy - which he repeated was national in character - may become a turning point in what he called "the difficult tasks of healing, reconciliation and mutual trust that lie ahead".

He said  the tragedy has raised serious questions about our priorities as a society, and searching questions about the responses or lack of responses by successive governments to a variety of reports going back 50 years, to the mid-1960s.

He said these questions touch on a number of very serious issues for all of us about the provision of adequate sites and housing for the Traveller community; about the persistent reality of social inequalities between the Traveller community and the settled community; and about deeply ingrained cultural prejudices.

In the meantime, he said, the Connors family must be allowed to grieve and to mourn the death of their loved ones.

The funeral Mass for the Connors will be celebrated in Balally at 11.30am tomorrow and they will be buried together on Friday in Wexford."

An article worth reading can be found here
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/apartheid-hasnt-gone-away-when-it-comes-to-travellers-34137234.html

Blatant Breach of Humanitarian Law

Kunduz outrage: Medicins Sans Frontieres has asked that concerned people demand an independent investigation into the bombing of Kunduz Hospital.

The US Air Force had the GPS co-ordinates of the hospital so there is really no excuse for what happened, regardless of who called for assistance. The US said the Afghanistan troops asked for help however, the pilots were American service personnel, who we must assume are highly trained.

This is not the first time that these specialist fliers have bombed their allies. An incident occurred in the First Iraqi War

when a group of British servicemen were wiped out by friendly fire from American aircraft. The US term is I believe 'collateral damage'.

On Saturday 3 October 2015 the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was repeatedly bombed by coalition forces.

"The US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff. Their description of the attack keeps changing – from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government." – Christopher Stokes, General Director, Médecins Sans Frontières

Please join in and demand that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted.

To support this plea please view the link below

http://www.msf.org/kunduz-

Further to the above

• Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) have called for an independent fact-finding mission into a US airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan that killed at least 22 people, AP said. MSF said its call would mark the first time such a fact-finding mission would be launched under the rules of the Geneva Conventions. The weekend strike“was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions,” the group’s international president, Joanne Liu, said on Wednesday, adding that “this cannot be tolerated.”

Oink, Oink !

Oh  dear !

I love little piggies

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2015/sep/21/pigs-prime-minister-black-mirror-ashcroft-allegation-charlie-brooker#comments

 British Bacon.....

A ghost from the past comes back to haunt
the Pig Master-bater
the Eton/ Oxford
educated
Dead Animal  Lover

Bath Chaps: sometimes referred to simply as "chaps" this food is a pig meat speciality, originating in the British city of Bath, that is served as a snack or as an ingredient to be combined with other foods such as potatoes or eggs. Bath chaps, which are quite fatty, are made from the meat of either a pig's cheek. The meat is salt cured or pickled in brine, smoked, then boiled, and coated with golden-tan colored breadcrumbs. It is then ready to eat and is served as cold meat, tasting much like cooked ham.

No Silence !

© hdimagelib.com

When I first moved here all those years ago it was the stillness which washed over me and the peacefulness of my surroundings that drew me here.  Then, as now, I simply stand outside  my small front door and consciously absorb the peace, looking up into the sky at the birds.

The swallows are still here, swooping down collecting their last meal of midges before sunset. 

Will they still be here tomorrow? Ah’ who knows.

At the time I arrived here there was no phone, no computer and no TV, still no TV. 

My only entertainment was a Bush music centre which connected me to the events going on in the world. At other times I was able to play my CD’s one in particular is still a favourite, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 Pastoral.

When I first played the piece the cattle in the field next to me, galloped up to the fence and stood listening to the music. Seemingly entranced, they stayed until the end then walked away. 

During the times of not working on the cottage I would read what ever books my friends would loan me. One kind friend was a retired missionary priest who had spent most of his working life in Kenya. Like me he was an avid reader, unlike me he was an Irish Scholar having been educated at Blackrock College, Dublin. He encouraged me to use and adopt the Irish-English idiom and from him came the loan of books about the history of Ireland. I learnt about Ireland’s past from the late 1800’s to the founding of the State and on to 1948.

My other friends supplied me with lighter reading matter such as the books of Walter Macken whose work I devoured.

On nights when I was not reading I would in sit in silence alongside the stove, sometimes writing letters or poetry or even planning the next days work. It was during these times of inactivity that I would hear the sound of the electric meter humming away to it’s self. It still makes a hum and a whirr which ultimately is the sound of my money burning away.

Several years later I had the phone installed and then came my first proper computer, a PC.  Proper because I had a very early one, a Commodore or a Sinclair, in the late 1970’s and nothing at all like the one that I sit at today. 

I became aware of a constant buzzing sound. I would go to bed believing that this sound had got into my memory somehow, that it wasn’t real just a memory of the PC noise.

Later I realised that I heard the buzzing on the days when the computer hadn’t been used. Perhaps it was something else?

Finally I understood that it was tinnitus and I have probably had it for years. 

I spoke to a doctor friend of mine and asked if there was a cure for it that he could recommend. He told me that he had it too and if I stumbled upon a cure to please tell him!

That leads me back to the title of this blog ‘No Silence’ and yet strangely beyond the buzzing there is silence.

Addendum

Walter Macken,  (born 1915, Galway, Ireland.—died April 22, 1967, Galway), Irish novelist and dramatist whose tales combine an honest and often harsh reflection of the realities of Irish life with a love of Ireland and a compassionate respect for its people.

Macken was an actor and stage manager in Galway, where he became actor-manager-director of the Gaelic Theatre. He was also connected with the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Macken’s novel Rain on the Wind (1950), a story of Galway life, was popular in Europe and in the United States. He later wrote a trilogy of historical novels, including Seek the Fair Land (1959), set in Cromwellian Ireland; The Silent People(1962), depicting the great Irish potato famine; and The Scorching Wind(1964), which brought the story up to the present day. As a dramatist Macken is chiefly known for Mungo’s Mansion, performed in 1946 at the Abbey Theatre and in 1947 in London as Galway Handicap. Macken also wrote Home Is the Hero, which was produced by the Abbey Theatre in 1952, published in 1953, and filmed in 1959.

TURNCOATS - Strange goings on

"A person without principles is devoid of character: if he had character, he would feel he needs principles.
Nicolas de Chamfort April 06, 1741 - April 13, 1794”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny had rowed in behind the DUP and UUP calls for the Assembly to be adjourned. The Taoiseach met with the SDLP on Thursday morning to urged them to also support the proposal. The SDLP denied him his request.

At a meeting with Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan sought to persuade Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald that Sinn Féin should agree to adjourn the Assembly or to abstain from a vote on that issue. Sinn Féin denied him his request.

                    

Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Minister for Foreign Affairs 

Charlie Flanagan

      

Then on their return to The Republic they have an about turn !

Irish news reports:

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has intervened in a last-ditch effort to prevent the Northern Executive and Assembly collapsing.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said the collapse of the power sharing institutions would serve no useful purpose.

****

Both of these gentlemen played into the hands of those who wanted the Northern Institutions to fail. One can but wonder who are they serving  and that perhaps they need to understand the following quotation

"If you can forsake your fundamental principles for any reason then you are not the kind of person who can take the country forward.”

 Farooque Sheikh 1948 -2013

The Taoiseach is obliged to uphold the Good Friday Agreement and other agreements, and to defend the political institutions.

HUNGARIANS fail to remember !

That on 4th November 1956, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. The Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. 

Many of the Hungarians crossed the borders with the help of smugglers, and many arrived without ID papers – but it did not tarnish their image or impede their acceptance as refugees.

The 1956 uprising and its aftermath helped shape the way humanitarian organisations – not least UNHCR – were to deal with refugee crises. The episode also left an indelible mark on international refugee law and policy.

The Hungarian Refugees settled in many countries including America, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, UK and New Zealand,

HUNGARIAN REFUGEES
1,400 Hungarians were given a welcome marked with orchestra, Danish pastry and flowers when they arrived in Denmark after the uprising against the communist regime in 1956. They were the first official refugees and perhaps the best received refugees in the history of Denmark.

HUNGARIAN REFUGEES

"Olga Murphy arrived in Ireland in 1956 as a young girl of 17, one of 350 refugees who came to Ireland fleeing the Soviet tanks after the Hungarian Revolution. Arriving in the midst of an Irish Winter the refugees were housed in Knockalisheen, a former army summer camp in Limerick. Olga was one of the few Hungarians who remained in Ireland after leaving the refugee camp and she continues to live in Limerick. The following is from the story of Dorrit O’Shaugnessy, a Hungarian friend of Olga’s, also living in Limerick, who among many experiences and achievements in her life, acted as an interpreter in the Knockalisheen camp following the arrival of the refugees."

reference 

http://www.unhcr.ie/world-refugee-day/1950s-olga-murphy-from-hungary

"1956. A date, surely, that must be indelibly etched in the consciousness of almost every Hungarian of the modern era.”

No one chooses to be a Refugee

Every minute eight people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror.

If conflict threatened your family, what would you do? Stay and risk your lives? Or try to flee, and risk kidnap, rape or torture?

For many refugees the choice is between the horrific or something worse.

While no one chooses to become a refugee, you do have a choice to help – Even in difficult economic times, it doesn’t cost a single cent to show interest in others, learn, and share your new knowledge and interest.

Is there 1 thing you could do to show your support for a refugee or asylum seeker?