Library card socks – currently out of print but sure to be republished
Last night.
Ballyphehane, Cork.
Patrick Lehane writes:
Nicely done to cover two disabled spaces…
McHenry, Illinois, USA.
Charlie Kranz writes
Saw this and was compelled to pass it along. A very cool idea, I’d never seen before. I’m from nearby this part of Illinois, so I take pride in the fact that the little corner of the earth I’m from is doing something smart.
Couldn’t work here.
Or could it?
FIGHT!
A guided tour of Robert Downey Jr and Susan Downey’s Windmill House in the Hamptons – part of a more in depth feature by Architectural Digest.
Don’t let the cats out.
Noises Off
at
Clockwise from top: The Gate Theatre, Jill Kerby and Lise Hand
Earlier this morning.
On RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke.
Canadian-born financial journalist Jill Kerby; columnist with The Times, Ireland Edition Lise Hand; Solidarity/People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett and Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness joined Seán O’Rourke for The Gathering slot.
During the slot, they turned to the statement released by The Gate yesterday, in the wake of claims made by six women against the theatre’s former artistic director, for 33 years, Michael Colgan.
The six women are Grace Dyas, Annette Clancy, Ali White, Ella Clarke, Ciara Smyth and Ruth Gordon.
The claims revolve around events ranging from the early 1990s to 2016, Mr Colgan’s final year at The Gate.
In the statement, The Gate Theatre called out for employees, or former employees, who have concerns to raise about sexual harassment or abuse of power to contact them on confidential@gate-theatre.ie.
It also said it intends to appoint an independent professional HR advisor to handle any issues raised.
The statement did not name Michael Colgan.
Readers will recall the Gate Theatre received €860,000 in State funding in 2016. Mr Colgan was paid €231,000, including salary, expenses and pension payments in the same year.
This morning, in light of the statement, Mr O’Rourke raised the matter with his panelists.
Nobody named Mr Colgan.
From the show:
Sean O’Rourke: “Moving on, the, I suppose, another one of the big stories of the week, can be summed up in the two words sex pests. Across the water, suggestions as well that there’s need to look into matters closer to home. I see The Gate Theatre now have appointed a HR expert to receive complaints from people there. What do you make of it all, Lise Hand?”
Lise Hand: “Well, I think there’s sort of two things going on here. First, you know, there’s actually almost a common theme running through a lot of what we’re talking about. A lot of it has to do with no kind of controls, regulation or no, and also people acting with impunity, with no fear of any consequences. And now you have, what started with a say #metoo in America spread…”
O’Rourke: “This is after Harvey Weinstein…”
Hand: “This is after Harvey Weinstein. And an actress started this hashtag and I think, within 24 hours, there was, you know, a million responses on Twitter to it. So, you now have this sort of rolling situation and, for the first time, we probably see people suffering consequences of these allegations. People are being made to step down, shows are, in Hollywood, shows are being axed. You have people, you know, you have men who have, are under these allegations, and they’re actually facing consequences.
“And you’ve a situation here, too, of course, where the #metoo thing has obviously reached Ireland, and, you know, we’ve seen a lot of action on social media over this over the weekend. There was you know, a report of one, it was in a Sunday paper, a couple of Sunday papers, you know, about one individual using the term sex pest and then there was sort of a separate story running online as well about other allegations made by somebody else of a much more serious nature.
“And I think there’s two things here. One, there is a danger when these things go up on social media, that different stories get conflated. And people who have nothing to do with this and are completely blameless, names start circulating. And this is the danger. And I think even with the best intention in the world, if somebody wants to step forward and say ‘we need to make this public so people will come out, you know, will come out with their stories’, I think there is a process, I think that, needs to be followed.
“I mean, as a journalist, if I’m you know, doing a story with any allegations, I will absolutely make sure that I have everybody sourced, every single fact nailed down before I go to it. And just one last thing: I think if the Government want to, could actually turn all this into an opportunity, it’s been, since 2002, many people have been trying to get a report, a new SAVI [Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland] report done…”
O’Rourke: “That’s. SAVI stands for sexual…”
Hand: “Sexual violence in Ireland…sexual assault and violence in Ireland, I think it is. Now they could. Since 2002, there hasn’t been a report on this. They could do that and also broaden it out to just look at the broader thing of harassment in the thing. If it only cost €1million and, you know, of a budget of €60billion, surely €1million could be found.”
O’Rourke: “Social media has transformed everything.”
McGuinness: “It has but the frightening thing is that women in America, who spoke out, are now empowered because they’re powerful. When they were powerless, they didn’t speak out. We and debate in the European Parliament on this issue, and there’s concerns in the parliament, as there would be in all big organisations, and I dare say in this outfit as well, that where people are together and some are more powerful than others, you can have what turns out to be sexual harassment and people are fearful to speak out. You need systems to address that.
“The worry with social media is it vents anger but actually could destroy a follow-up, where people should be held to account. And, in addition, people now saying ‘oh it’s going too far’ and the danger is that where there’s a real problem, and there are real problems in the workplace, that people will say, ‘ah sure look, it was harmless and now people are going too far and you can’t touch anyone in a lift or…’ That kind of thing. There is a danger.”
Jill Kerby: “Sure. But there’s always that kind of a backlash, I think, when any sort of event like this happens – especially in this country. I mean, when 20 years ago, there revelations about child sexual abuse in the church were happening, the same kind of people were coming out saying ‘oh, this is most unfair to the church and it’s most unfair to most priests because most of them are really nice guys and this is a terrible thing to do.”
McGuinness: “No one is saying that now.”
Talk over each other
Kerby: “Hang on, no, no, they’re not saying that but they are saying ‘oh this has gone too far’. You know. We have to live with social media. We have to accept…”
Hand: “I don’t think people are saying it’s gone too far, I think all people are saying is that care needs to be taken.”
Kerby: “On my tweet line, lots of people are coming out and, I have to say, most of them are men. And they’re saying ‘this has gone too far’, you know, ‘you women don’t always know what’s the difference between a little bit of jocular office whatever…'”
Talk over each other
Hand: “That’s different than saying, I think, that you know a lot of the people are going too far. I do agree that there is a certain, like ‘you can’t take a joke’…
Talk over each other
Hand: “The only people surprised by the amount, the outpouring on this, are men because any women have sat down together and they’ve talked about an incident, from something very minor, you know, something irritating…”
Kerby: “You know what? I believe them.”
Hand: “Well, we all believe them. Yeah. But..”
Kerby: “I believe those women who say that and that is why I believe the danger now is that there is going to be this great surge of opprobrium against the fact that it’s social media that’s directing this. We have to live with this.”
O’Rourke: “I, to be honest, don’t think social media is the main explanation for why these issues are coming up and I very much welcome the fact that they’re coming up and I think it’s a sign that feeling more confident, and in a stronger position to challenge what has been a rotten culture of sexism and misogyny and where sexual violence, harassment, sexism generally, was acceptable and pervasive in society. It’s becoming less acceptable and that’s because women are becoming more assertive and that is a good thing.”
Listen back in full here
Previously: “I knew It Was Likely I Would Never Work In The Gate Again”
Cian Twomey
On The Ray D’Arcy Show…
Joining Ray on the show this week is legendary musician Sharon Shannon. Sharon, who credits Ray for helping her during her career, will be in studio to celebrate the launch of her new album ‘Sacred Earth’.
Ahead of the start of a brand new series, Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Moment, co-presenter Evanne Ní Chuilinn and panellists Eamon Dunphy and Ted Walsh will share with viewers some of their favourite Irish sporting moments from the television age.
TV presenter, business woman and model Amanda Bryam will join Ray on the couch to chat about her struggles behind the camera.
Internet star Cian Twomey will chat to Ray about how video skits of him playing an altered version of his girlfriend went viral and how he has now amassed over five million followers on Facebook, a million more on Instagram and fans all over the world.
And lovebirds Paddy and Joan Darcy, who are married 55 years, will reveal to Ray how they have navigated the waters of marriage – from youth to old age.
*donates telly to Martin*
The Ray D’Arcy Show at 9:50pm on RTÉ One.
8-Bit Art
at
The pixelated street art of Johan Karlgren, aka Pappas Pärlor, who creates his pop culture and game referencing creations with Qixels, colourful tiles that stick together with water
MORE:Between Street Art And Pixel Art, The Amazing Creations Of Pappas Pärlor (DYT)
From top: Irish Water meter
“I am one of the eejits who paid the water charges, not because I was ever less than apoplectic at the antics of Irish Water’s superbly entitled bosses, but because I’m sick of living in a supposedly developed country where people have to boil tap water to make it drinkable and where raw sewage pours into the sea.
“And I don’t want my money back. I don’t want a cheque to frame as souvenir of my own eejitry.
…What I would like is that instead of being the last act in a long-running farce that made a mockery of our democracy, the money we paid be used for a decent democratic experiment. There’s €178 million in a pot and the Government has decided that it belongs to those who paid their water charges. So let us (and us alone) decide collectively how to spend it.
One of these options would, of course, be simply to pay the money back to the individual householders.
…But I suspect most people would be much happier to see their money used to achieve something.
Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times on July 25, 2017
Three of Ireland’s best-known charities have agreed to join forces and form a national campaign to ask the Irish public to consider donating their refunds from Irish Water to tackle the national homelessness crisis in Ireland.
Simon Community, Focus Ireland and Peter McVerry Trust are planning a major national fundraising campaign to coincide with the upcoming Irish Water national repayment scheme which will see €173 million handed back to almost one million account holders over the coming months.
The 3 charities intend to launch “The Refund Project” – a national advertising and public information campaign asking people who can afford to donate, to consider the plight of Ireland’s over 8000 people who are homeless, more than 3000 of which are children. The new group say that even a fraction of the total repayments could help make an enormous difference in the delivery of much needed housing.
Irish Times, today
Fintan O’Toole: Spend my water charges on reversing austerity (The Irish Times)
Related: ‘Donate water refunds to homeless’ (Noel Baker, The Irish Examiner)
Tom Humphries
“It’s not a great thing in the current editorial climate for a columnist to lack certainty. Seeing both sides of the issue is a crippling form of paralysis in a environment where the pace is set by bloggers and chat-room tyrants, those lucky creatures who have never felt a second or third thought tugging at their sleeve.”
Tom Humphries. The Locker Room, Irish Times, 2008
That was in November 2008. I’m not going to provide the link to the full Locker Room article, but the quote currently sits on a thread on a an old GAA chat forum that hosts over 1500 posts.
The above is being applied as an example of how the established media and their household names treated those of us that populated this now very efficient super-highway from when it was still a scruffy slow-going boreen.
We [those on the chat forums] had our stuff lifted and cogged, while being called names like tyrants and keyboard warriors.
During all those forums, threads and posts, I don’t know of any authentic Chat-Room Comrade that went legal to shut someone up or have commentary removed that did not suit; there was plenty posturing, leg cocking and threats to Moderators, a bitta’ blagguarding at matches here n’there, (like a bucket of slurry traveling from Galway to the CBS Car Park in Thurles) but that was the real fun of those days.
Because nobody was really to know then that there were two victims and 16,000 texts, or that something far more sinister was going on behind the need to use the Irish Times Locker Room to cover his real interest in underage camogie; I’m not going to poke in to it again.
The subject of that particular Locker Room was the second Cork Strike. (The one led by Donal Óg Cusack, and the then GPA by association).
Tom Humphries used the Irish Times, to represent, promote and shout out Donal Óg’s agenda, and wholly on behalf of, and for the benefit of Donal Óg He took sides, and to add to his denying the primary principle of a Journalist, he was also engaged by Donal Óg in a private sub-contracting capacity as a ghost-writer.
Not his employer, his editor nor a single colleague dared mention his hypocrisy, or question his exposure to conflict and influence, or that as a consequence he has brought their profession into disrepute.
Likewise, from his own peers in the sports writers fraternity specifically the GAA writers; not one dared criticise the Irish Times and their Sports Section referring to non-striking Inter-County hurlers as “Spotty Imposters.” Or even the GPA for refusing membership to these players.
That is a Double Standard that continues today. It’s the blind eye.
Back then there was them, the established Print and Broadcast Media and Us – the t’internet “the pyjama people.”
Actually, I remember an All-Ireland winning Manager calling ‘me’ “a coward and a very depressed individual who must be one of Corks worst losers.” As shur we all thought it was funny at the time. We were the Puck Rockers and getting picked out like that was like cracking a bottle of Champagne off the bow of pirate ship call the Anarchy.
Today we are all steadily balanced between Mainstream Media and Social Media; and the likes of me are no longer the tyrants. But professional scepticism, Independence and transparency has never been more important.
Never before has it become more important to disclose the credentials and possible partialities and self-interests of any commentator or expert presented to the public in either medium or format.
In the era of Fake News and a more dominant ownership controlled media, the citizen has to be advised fully to the ethos and business interests of anyone being presented as an Expert, or presenting themselves as such. That includes paid staff Journalists, pundits and columnists.
There was a notorious blind eye event here on our own doorstep witnessed by those same people and organisations, including us Tyrants, that was allowed off to be forgotten about.
I am talking about a former Ireland Captain and Lions player, who is now to be seen regularly sitting behind a TV studio sports desk or pictured as a correspondent in the print media.
With all due respect to him, his family, his fans, his employers even that ape Hook; the media – be it social or Mainstream, that includes me and all of you, and our hosts here; we simply cannot dare to question a randy, narcissistic Theatre Director for their carry on and leave this and all the others behind and out of the spot light.
That makes us all complicit in the Double Standards and cover ups that take years before there is any contrition or truth realised.
I think there are enough of us that know better than to believe the insincere waffle from RTÉ and Marian [Finucane] and the likes, while pretending to have discussions between sides who clearly have pockets filled with conflicts.
Let’s boycott the papers for not reporting the news in full. Let’s question every single utterance from commentators and experts being put in front of us, and have them empty those pockets of conflicts out in front of us.
Let’s do more than just tell them that our eyes are wide open; lets prove it.
Only then can they all be convinced that they can no longer rely on the Blind Eye that greased their operational and professional Double Standards, and cushioned their failures for all those years.
There can be no friends or an assumed loyalty more important than Truth and Justice.
This is a new World Order lads; Get used to it and get yere houses in order.
Frilly Keane’s column usually appears here on the first Friday of every month. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane