Yearly Archives: 2017

izzy

A warm thank you to Izzy Kamikaze and William Campbell and the ‘sheet‘s Olga Cronin and Mike McGrath Bryan – the panel for our Tuam Special streamed live last night.

You can watch the show in its entirety above.

Details on the mother and baby Clann Project mentioned by Izzy at the end of the show can be found here.

William’s current affairs podcast Here’s How is available to download here.

Izzy’s research on Tuam, including maps, can be found here

Broadsheet on the Telly returns this Thursday at 11.45 and on March 16 we will be hosting a special Ex Pat Special featuring irish panellists from ‘abroad’.

If you would like to take part in either show please email broadsheet@broadsheet,ie marked ‘Broadsheet on the Telly’.

Last night: Talking About Tuam

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A proof of concept short for an upcoming series by NOODLES (currently crowdfunding) which premiered at Sundance 2017. To wit:

Black Holes is a satirical animated series about space conquest, the meaning of life and proctology. It chronicles the journey of Dave The Astronaut and his partner, an intelligent melon, as they embark on the first ever human mission to Mars.

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This morning/afternoon.

Inchicore, Dublin 8.

Vera Twomey with supporters on the final day of her 260km walk from her home in Cork to the Dáil.

Vera’s walk is a protest against decisions to restrict her seven-year-old daughter Ava, who has a rare form of epilepsy, from accessing cannabis-based medication.

Worsening health has forced Vera to finish her journey in a wheelchair.

Vera is expected to arrive at Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2 at approx 3pm today.

All welcome.

Previously: Vera Twomey on broadsheet.

Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Update:

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Vera Twomey with supporters on Kildare Street, Dublin 2 this afternoon

G’wan Vera.

Update:

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Vera Twomey and People Before Profit Gino Kenny TD on the plinth at Leinster House this afternoon.

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

mongoose

Mongoose is “a musical melty-pot, comprising the combined vocal chords, instrument-playing and song-crafting abilities of four irish women”.

Above is their fine Bulletproof/Survivor cover mash-up.

Mongoose are playing the Workman’s, 10 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 TONIGHT Tuesday, for the Mine Anthology Repeal the Eighth event.

Mongoose

gracemother

‘Grace’ was born to a single mother in the southeast of Ireland in the late 1970s. She was supposed to be put up for adoption but, instead, was put into foster care soon after her birth.

She was born with microcephaly and was mute. From 1989 until 2009, Grace lived with a set of foster parents. The foster father – who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1999 and who died in 2000 – was accused of sexually abusing another child in their care in 1996, at which point it was decided that no more children would be placed in their care.

But Grace remained

Last night, Aoife Hegarty of RTÉ Investigates spoke with Grace’s mother. The interview was broadcast on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One.

Grace’s Mother: “I was pregnant with Grace and I was so young and I had no support and I was in no fit state to look after her so I put her in the care of the SEHB [South Eastern Health Board] and I thought that was the best thing to do at the time, that she’d be well looked after and cared for and I always kept in contact…I had no reason to believe she wasn’t happy  Aa day hasn’t went by that I haven’t thought of Grace, she’s the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night so she’s constantly there with me, always, and always has been and always will be.”

Aoife Hegarty: “What had been your understanding of where Grace was living and what her situation was like?”

Grace’s Mother: “My understanding back then before all the allegations was that she was happy, she was attending her day services and she was just in a loving, caring home and that made me happy knowing that she was happy because that’s what I was made to believe, that’s what I was always told.”

Hegarty: “You did have some contact from the HSE over the years…”

Grace’s Mother: “I did, I had contact, they were asking me mantoux testing and dental treatment… but they never contacted me when there were sexual, allegations of sexual abuse where I needed to give consent for STI testing…

There was plenty opportunities for Grace, where they failed to tell me so I’ve got no faith whatsoever in anything they’ve got to say because all through Grace life in the care of the HSE and the SEHB I was lied to constantly, constantly lied to.”

Aoife Hegarty: “What contact details did they have for you throughout the years?”

Grace’s Mother: “They’ve always had my contact details, I’ve had the same telephone number that I’ve had with the last 30 years and I’ve still got that phone number to this day, they’ve always had contact details. They’ve had my address, yeah they’ve always had my details. They still have my number on file if they went to look through it.”

Hegarty: “The first time that you had any indication there was anything wrong – what were you told on that call?”

Grace’s Mother: “I was told that she was taken to hospital for, to get checked out, that there was bruising to breasts and to her thighs and I was totally devastated…. totally, totally devastated. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I said I wanted her removed immediately.
I thought how could they do this, how could anyone …. cover up all this from me and to keep her you know, and have her in danger – it was just totally awful, I couldn’t believe it.
I felt very suicidal, I just wanted it all to go away, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Even now I can’t read, I can’t read the freedom of information, I just read clippings of it and that’s enough to send me over the edge. I don’t know when I’ll be able to pick it up, that’s if I’ll ever be able to read it because the bits I did read was just too much, too much to take in.
I won’t rest and I’ll keep going, I’ll keep going until – and I want answers, I want answers and I’m going to keep going til I get these answers because I’ve never gave up on my daughter and I never, ever will. She’s always been on my mind day and night and that will never change and  I will never stop fighting for justice.”

Hegarty: “A big decision for to have your side of the story heard for the first time – why have you decided to sit here and do this?”

Grace’s Mother: I’ve sat here today because my daughter hasn’t got a voice and I’m here to give her that, I’m here for that voice for my daughter ……. and I just never want another child to suffer like that ever, I think it’s wrong, it’s wrong. And these people should be accounted for what they’ve done, …..for the cover ups, for letting my daughter suffer for 20 years without monitoring her and I put my trust and faith in the HSE and that’s what they done.
So I will not rest until I get answers and I’ll keep going until I get answers – the answers I never got I want.

Hegarty: What are you looking for now from the inquiry?

Grace’s Mother: I’m looking for all the answers that I asked and just for them to be accountable for the let down of my daughter Grace.Why they failed her, why they never monitored her, just basically why they left her for 20 years without checking up on her, they’re the answers I want.

Hegarty: “Who would you like held to account?”

Grace’s Mother: The people that failed my daughter, all the people that have failed my daughter and the 47 other children that were meant to be in the care of the foster mother, yeah I want them to be held accountable.

Hegarty: “Have you ever received an apology from them?”

Grace’s Mother: “I got one letter there just a while back but I felt in my heart, it wasn’t coming from the heart, ………. but I don’t accept that apology. No one from the HSE have picked up a phone and apologised to me or asked me how am I doing, nobody have ever done that for me and I don’t accept their apology. I don’t trust them, I don’t trust what they have to say, they’ve told me was that my daughter was doing great, she was in a loving home, which she wasn’t in a loving home ….. and they knew all about it and never monitored her and left her there for 20 years to suffer.”

Hegarty: “You saw Grace recently…”

Grace’s Mother: “It was very emotional but it was lovely yeah, it was a lovely day. We took pictures and it’s the first thing, it’s the last thing I look at, at night before I close my eyes, is her pictures on my phone. It was a lovely day but it’ll be the first of many days.”

Hegarty: So what are the plans going in to the future, for you and for Grace?

Grace’s Mother: “I hope I’ll be in a better place when all this is over to enjoy my time with her, yeah, that’s what I’m hoping but at the moment I just cannot move on until I get all the answers that I want. I feel that it has ruined my life, all this, I have, it’s ruined my life, the lies, the constant lies and the suffering of my daughter has ruined my life, they have and I hope someday like that they’ll be held accounted for and knowing that no one else is going to suffer again that I can move on and be happy.”

Watch back here in full

Transcript via RTÉ (Thanks Laura Fitzgerald

Previously: Michael Noonan And Grace

DDR_24HoursOfWomensVoices_Schedule

International Women’s Day is tomorrow, as are the Strike4Repeal actions around the country. With that in mind, Dublin Digital Radio, from midnight tonight, is carrying twenty-four hours of exclusively female voices.

This is rare move for an industry that recently fared poorly in gender equality by percentage, with women and female-identifying individuals comprising only 28% of voices on-air.

DDR collective member Cathy Flynn talks us through some of the highlights.

Dandelion (12am), Aoife Nic Canna (1am) and Kate Butler (11pm):
Aoife Nic Canna & Kate Butler both featured heavily in the recent documentary “Notes on A Rave in Dublin”, which sold out two showings as part of the ADIFF Festival. Dandelion will open 24 Hours of Women’s Voices with a live set of her signature soul sounds at midnight, bringing us into Wednesday, followed by Aoife Nic Canna. Meanwhile Kate Butler’s Witching Hour will close the day with a live set from 11pm on the Wednesday night.

Strike 4 Repeal Rev Radio (9am):
Strike4Repeal hit the airwaves at 9am with a guide to the day’s actions, and a soundtrack to get you pumped to get out on the streets and fight for your rights.

The Renunciation:
At 12pm and 6pm, instead of the Angelus, we will listen to 12 people’s abortion stories.

These Hysterical Women – A Discussion of Women in Psychology (12pm):
Sadhbh Byrne and Jill Woodnutt discuss the role of women in psychology and how this affects women’s mental health issues.

Quiet Angry Women w/Aisling O’Riordan (2pm):
Quiet Angry Women hosts music from women who whisper and shout their wants and needs. Female anger can be ignored and shrugged off. Over an hour Aisling O’Riordan will highlight music that is angry, ferocious and sometimes gentle.

Listen here, live or on-demand.

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Sinn Fein’s party leader for Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill celebrates last Friday  with party members Francie Molloy, left, and Ian Milne, right, after topping the poll in Mid Ulster; Derek Mooney

Northern politics needs to change.

Unionism is now the political force in crisis.

Derek Mooney writes:

Some thoughts on the quite amazing results in last Thursday’s NI Assembly election.

1. Brexit a huge motivating factor. It drove up turnout, esp among nationalists who didn’t vote at the May 2016 Assembly election, but who did vote remain at the Brexit Referendum.

2. Many of this new voting cohort voted SF, not because of any support for Michelle O’Neill or Gerry Adams, but because they saw voting SF as the best way of asserting their anti Brexit and anti Arlene Foster position. While the SDLP may closer mirror their actual anti Brexit position, it simply was neither strong nor viable enough an option to make their protest register.

3. This election was different in that the tradition (up to now) was for NI elections to be conducted in three individual silos:

Silo One – the biggest of the three silos is the unionist one with the DUP and UUP playing a zero sum game – when the UUP loses the DUP gains. This time both lost – with disgruntled DUP supporters staying at home, unhappy at Arlene’s financial irresponsibility on RHI, Nama, RedSky etc.

Some UUP voters felt unsure what Mike Nesbitt’s UUP stood for – some defected to the more secure DUP or went to the more clearly moderate Alliance. This decline in both unionist parties put seats in play that have not been up for grabs in years and the SDLP took at least two of them – on UUP transfers at that!

The instinctive Unionist response to this will be to regroup and perhaps even attempt to coalesce. Perhaps this will happen via a formal DUP/UUP merger or alliance – or perhaps the larger DUP will simply and slowly cannibalise its weaker rival.

This task could be made easier if the more moderate wing of the DUP (which now bizarrely seems to include Ian Paisley Jr) ends up in the ascendancy.

Silo Two – the nationalist/republican one. Again, another zero sum game with SF picking up most (though not all) SDLP losses in the past. Last May the Nationalist silo reduced by a whopping 5% to drop to its lowest level. SF dropped just over 3% and the SDLP lost just under 2%. Some of the SF loss last May went to the PBP – SF took a chunk of that back this time around.

It also motivated voters in a way it had not in many years.

The SDLP had what on the surface looks like a reasonable day. It lost two seats – both to SF, via Richie McPhilips in Fermanagh and Sth Tyrone and Alex Attwood in Belfast West. These are two seats that an even moderately successful party should be losing.

The SDLP has the youngest, brightest and most politically astute leader it has ever had, but he cannot reverse decades of decline and directionlessness by himself.

The centrality of Brexit to the result and to the political future means any nationalist party needs to have a major all island focus and dimension. SF can claim this – though more in appearance than fact – the SDLP as it is currently configured does not. It needs to develop or transition into gaining it or it will continue to falter and gradually decline.

The SDLP won three seats on transfers. One was John Dallat who held on against the odds in East Derry, while the other two were new-ish seats: Dolores Kelly in Upper Bann – who won back the seat she narrowly lost last May and the really big winner on the day – Pat Catney in Lagan Valley who took a seat that no pundit saw as winnable and did it with a solid ground campaign of hard work and canvassing.

His campaign was the closest thing I have seen in NI to an old school Fianna Fáil election campaign. That said these three SDLP seats are vulnerable to either Unionist resurgence or to SF aggression.

Silo Three is the non aligned – the Alliance, Greens etc. They had a reasonable day, particularly Alliance. It did not have a great campaign, but it does have a charismatic and smart new leader in Naomi Long. She was forceful and commanding in her media appearances and could drive up Alliance gains in the future at the expense of a wounded and haemorrhaging UUP.

And finally:

4. Politics in Northern Ireland have not yet broken the mound – but the ground work for such a change has been laid and it has been laid by the voters not the politicians. They did this first at the Brexit referendum when they rejected the campaign to leave the EU and they repeated it again last Thursday.

Northern politics needs to change. Unionism is now the political force in crisis. Arlene Foster’s stubborn adherence to Brexit in the face of its popular rejection has undermined her own position and thrown Unionism into turmoil.

While she can comfort herself that most DUP voters were pro-brexit she cannot blithely ignore the concerns of 56% of the voters, if she wants to be taken seriously as a First Minister of all of Northern Ireland.

Her response to Brexit, her hands off approach to governance and her dismissive attitude to nationalism and republicanism over recent months has resulted in reawakening nationalism and republicanism – particularly in the middle classes – and making it more politically aware and motivated than it has been in decades.

This is something that was signposted last September, when Colum Eastwood said in a speech to the British/Irish Association:

“Northern nationalists are once more a restless people. The constitutional accommodation which we voted for by referendum in 1998 has been violated, not by a vote of the people of Northern Ireland, but rather by a vote of others in the UK 18 years later.

The blanket of that constitutional comfort has been abruptly removed. In particular, undermining our connection with the South achieved via common EU membership is not something which can be tolerated.

They (Brexiteers) told a story of decisions being dictated by far away people and politicians with no connection or rightful authority to the places over which they prescribed their power. They summed it up in a clever and cutting soundbite – Take back control.

To all those Brexiteers now at the heart of the British Government, Irish nationalism says this– we know how you feel. No one should therefore be surprised if in the wake of Brexit ‘Taking Back Control’ is precisely what we in the North now intend to do.”

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here usually every Monday. Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Pic: Peter Morrison/Associated Press