Something About Mary

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Further to the news that 80 Syrian refugees will be accommodated in the former Abbeyfield Hotel in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon in March…

Eithne O’Brien, of RTÉ’s Prime Time, visited the town and spoke to several residents – including Mary Gallagher, who has run a clothes shop in Ballaghaderreen for more than 40 years.

While talking to Ms O’Brien, Ms Gallagher said:

“We must open our hearts and give them a chance and let them have shelter, we’d be a very poor lot of people if we didn’t do that.

..”We were brought up to think that if somebody was needy, I’m not talking about people who’ve just come to work, they’re all right, they’re okay, they’ve money coming in every week.

“But if somebody is needy and they’re driven out of their homes and you see a child picked up in Aleppo, out of the clay, how could you say no? How could you say no? You’d be betraying every single thing that we, ourselves, came from.”

Video: Colm Tobin

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37 thoughts on “Something About Mary

    1. Taanbuaagam

      Said Apey Molly as she cheered some of our own homeless people being thrown out in the street

    1. Taanbuaagam

      Don’t be such a downer all the time. Do you have the see the negative, bitter angle in everything?

  1. Taanbuaagam

    Mary is a credit to the ordinary decent people of this country unlike the flag waving Apey Molly’s, Key Ran to TSBs and AnomaGold I mean, birdbrains posting here for neoliberalism daily

  2. Ivor

    I have not actually heard anybody suggest that moving the refugees to Ballaghaderren was a bad idea for racist reasons. It’s a town with limited facilities, limited employment opportunities and it’s badly services in terms of state infrastructure.

    I think some people are disappointed to see a hotel that they thought would be used for tourists (who would bring much needed funds into the town) will be used for those who will not bring funds into the town and who will be dependent on already stretched schools etc. The fact that there was no consultation is regrettable. Had some assurances been provided in advance, the controversy could have been avoided.

    Everyone wants to see these refugees accommodated but it seems bizzare to home them en masse in a somewhat run down town that is in decline. Was there really no better candidate?

    1. Casey

      . It’s a town with limited facilities, limited employment opportunities and it’s badly services in terms of state infrastructure.

      So why would the tourists come?

    2. Turgenev

      You never know, they might actually bring life and brio and even work and funds into the town. After all, if a multinational (or an Irish company) wants to open a mixed English-speaking and Arabic-speaking call centre and base it in Ireland here’s a community ready to hand – the Syrians and the locals.

  3. perricrisptayto

    DubLoony
    January 13, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    Refreshing to see basic decency and human kindness.

    That is all.

    1. Jonickal

      perricrisptayto
      January 13, 2017 at 3:29 pm
      DubLoony
      January 13, 2017 at 3:17 pm

      Refreshing to see basic decency and human kindness.

      That is all.

  4. Joe Bloggs

    Well let me be the one to start the ball rolling, putting 200 refugees in an irish backwater town with a population of 2000 is absolutely nuts, they wont integrate they wont do anything for the town other than keep people that may have stopped there drive straight through, me being one of them when i am heading to Mayo.

    1. Gaz

      I’d say ‘an irish backwater town with a population of 2000’ is preferable to Aleppo or a Refugee camp.

    2. Brother Barnabas

      Sort of missing the point, Joe. These are refugees. They’re fleeing torture, persecution, murder, rape and one or two other things. We’re not supposed to be assessing the merits of them being located in a particular town on the basis of what they can contribute or what we can get out of it. It’s more about, you know, helping people. Has our mentality become so fucking nasty that we’re only interested in what we can gain for ourselves? Fucking horrible.

    3. St. John Smythe

      you saying you will not stop in that town now ‘but you might have done’ is like white racist Trump supporters ‘boycotting’ the play Hamilton that they would definitely have been planning to go to

  5. Kolmo

    Most people are decent and humane – it’s just some of the media needs to contrive controversy using the fuel of gobsh1tes opinions in the search for ‘balance’, and by balance I mean sales..

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