Yearly Archives: 2016

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exmagician – Job Done

Here’s what you may need to know…

1. Some of the component parts of Belfast rockers Cashier No. 9 have returned, regrouping after a hiatus as exmagician, and maintaining their relationship with UK indie institution Bella Union.

2. The band have picked up where they left off, with Job Done, streaming above, showcasing their ever-expanding predilection for big aul’ songs, fleshed out with layered, reverb-heavy production.

3. The song comes from the band’s debut album, Scan the Blue, available now from the usual streaming and download haunts and in physical formats from Bella Union.

4. The duo turn up next at the Interlude Fest at the RHA Gallery in Dublin, on June 24-26.

Verdict: Grand psych-pop tack for the encroaching summer and the long evenings therein. Approved.

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From top: Soc Dems Stephen Donnelly and Glenna Lynch (with Isobel and Rory Baillie) launching the party’s ‘Cherishing Children Equally’ initiative at Fitzwilliam nursery and montessori school in February; Anne Marie McNally

All the international evidence points to the benefits for both society and the individual of having an early-years system where the development of the child is prioritised but also where the mother is empowered to be the best version of herself she chooses to be.

Anne Marie McNally writes:

Last Week’s CSO report declaring Ireland as a ‘pricey young and fertile nation’ highlighted the fact that we now have the 3rd most expensive cost of living in the EU with the second highest fertility rates!

Now this presents quite the conundrum because one of the key factors in the increased cost of living is the astronomical costs of childcare in this country. Not much point being fertile, eh, if you can’t afford to have children while maintaining the option to have some form of life outside the home. (Note I said ‘option.)

I recently asked women in my social and professional circle what was the biggest issue they felt facing them today in a broad societal context. All gave varying expressions of the one topic – equality.

Some expressed it as a desire for more maternity care acceptance in the workplace, some expressed it as a desire for recognition of their professional goals, and others spoke about wanting to be better able to balance work/life demands – all different aspects of the same topic.

Affordable and accessible childcare is one the most fundamental factors in ensuring gender equality in the workplace and wider society yet we have one of the most underdeveloped childcare systems in the world with many families paying the equivalent of a second mortgage for factory-style childcare.

All the international evidence points to the benefits for both society and the individual of having an early-years system where the development of the child is prioritised but also where the mother is empowered to be the best version of herself she chooses to be – either as a stay at home parent or in the workplace.

Choice is the key factor here.

If the glass ceiling is broken, and some would argue that it isn’t- (I personally would say that it is at least cracked) – but if it is, it was broken for that very reason – that women could choose their own paths in life, whatever that path may be.

Thankfully, more and more we are seeing co-responsibility relationships. We are beginning to lose the culture of man as breadwinner, woman as carer. It is an evolving process and here in Ireland we are not very far along the path.

Remember, it’s really not all that long ago that Irish women were forced, by law, to give up their job in the civil service as soon as they married! That type of legacy is a hard one to deviate from, but we are, and as each generation reaches maturity we get a step further away from that draconian past of ours.

Women have to have the self-belief that they can do it. They can go toe to toe with the guys and perform equally. We have to believe that because it is true. We have to – and when I say we, I mean men too – we have to teach our daughters that they can do anything they wish – we have to lose the ‘that’s a boy’ thing and ‘that’s a girl thing’.

Empowerment is not some idealistic notion, empowerment is telling yourself and your children every day that if you want it and you work for it then you can achieve it – regardless of your gender.

We have to move away from the notion that feminism is some female-only issue that requires women to stand on the proverbial soapbox to have our voices heard.

Instead we have to view feminism as men and women equally embracing the notion of equality – an equality where gender is irrelevant.

But for these ideals to be realised society has to provide the basics that not only encourage such gender equality but which facilitate it to be so and childcare is one of the most effective and important ways in which to do that.

Anne Marie McNally is a founding member of the Social Democrats. Follow Anne Marie on Twitter: @amomcnally

Rollingnews

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From top: Bill Kenneally, Former Superintendant in Waterford Sean Cashman

In February Bill Kenneally was jailed for 14 years, after he pleaded guilty to 10 sample counts of indecent assault on 10 boys between October 31, 1984 and December 31, 1987, in Waterford.

Kenneally, whose grandfather and uncle were Fianna Fáil TDs, used his position as a sports coach – basketball, soccer and tennis – to lure and abuse boys.

He was eventually charged – 25 years after Kenneally himself admitted to gardaí that he abused a boy in 1987.

Yesterday, it was reported that Kenneally lodged an appeal with the Court of Criminal Appeal against his sentence.

Further to this, several men who were abused by Kenneally spoke to Damien Tiernan on RTÉ’s Prime Time – with several of them saying some adults in Waterford at the time were aware of the abuse but did nothing about it.

In addition Mr Tiernan spoke to former superintendent Sean Cashman about when Kenneally admitted the abuse in 1987 – after a father reported that his son had been abused.

Mr Cashman recalled:

“He [the father] told me that his son, who was a student at De La Salle, aged about 15, that he was one of a number of students who were being lured to the house of a man named Billy Kenneally and that this man was coming in to the schoolyard and that he was giving them basketball lessons. In a short time, he had started to interfere with them and that there was a sexual contact, content to it and he just wanted to report it to me.”

The father told Cashman his son could not be interviewed so Mr Cashman contacted Kenneally’s uncle, the former Fianna Fáil TD, Billy Keneally, who died in 2009.

The TD arranged for Kenneally to go to the garda station when he met the then Supt Cashman and Inspector PJ Hayes.

Mr Cashman recalled:

“He was a broken man, he was absolutely emotional, he was shaking like a leaf, he was in terrible shape, I thought. He said, ‘I know why I’m here lads and I’m glad to be here because I want to be looked after’ – or words to that effect now. He might have said, ‘I want to be looked after’ or ‘I want to be treated’.”

Mr Hayes recalled:

“And he went on then to tell me that he had placed handcuffs on this young boy and I asked him, ‘where did it take place?’ and he said it was in his own home.”

Mr Cashman added:

“We did not have evidence to charge him now if I… ah, he admitted it, I’ve known a case where a man came through the station at one time and admitted murder that he hadn’t done. So you know the fact, he did admit it and I’ll have to say, I knew he was the culprit, it wasn’t a question of his imagination, I knew he was the culprit but I didn’t have a statement from an injured party.”

“And I know, I know people were talking about it, you know, it was a political family and it was a cover-up, well there was no cover-up at all. And the irony of the whole situation really is that the best help I got to try and put him where he should have been, before the court, was from his uncle.”

“I got absolutely no help from any injured party. None.“

After this, Kenneally was no longer allowed to coach at De La Salle and he was told to get counselling. He wasn’t questioned by the gardai again. He continued to live in Waterford.

Twenty five years later, one of boys who had been abused by Kenneally discovered that Kenneally was still involved in coaching basketball but not in a school capacity.

Jason Clancy went to the gardaí in 2012 to tell them about the abuse he suffered as a boy. After waiving his right to anonymity, other victims came forward.

There were originally 74 charges against Kenneally.

Watch back in full here

Me-Before-You

What you may need to know:

1. Wheelchair-bound Will (Sam Clafin) falls in love with his caregiver, Lou (Emilia Clarke). And vice versa.

2. Film adaption of Jojo Moyes’ hugely successful airport novel. If you didn’t read it on your holliers then you probably know someone who did.

3. It’ll end in tears.

4. Not mine, though. I’m not feeling it. *Sniff*

5. Broadsheet prognosis: Cognitive Dignitas.

Release Date: June 3.