Here’s How.
A new episode of the current affairs podcast presented by William Campbell (right).
William meets Linda Ervine (above left) president of the recently-formed East Belfast GAA.
William writes:
With opinion polls on Irish unity shifting, I ask: is Unionist thinking moving forward in the North? Linda Ervine doesn’t sound like previous generations of Protestants, particularly when she’s speaking as Gaeilge.
Also, some anonymous online comments supported burning a Traveller family out of their new home in Carnmore, Galway. A local councillor demanded that locals be ‘consulted’ before Travellers move in, but is that just coded support for the bigots?
Listen HERE
Sponsored Link
Very poor form from William this week. “What business of it is yours who gets to move into a social house” – it is paramount importantce that the beneficiaries of public housing are named before allocation. The fact it’s secret information means the whole housing list system is open to abuse.
Take a step back here and think why locals would be opposed to Traveller family moving in to their area. William racks it up to racism – amazing how Irish people have welcomed every other immigrant group over the last 25 years yet are only “racist” towards travellers. Strange that.
And back to not knowing who this family is – any chance it could have been a “problem family” that had already been moved out of an area already – William says we don’t have a right to know!
Private property owners dont destroy their own houses, yet here is what Councillor Larkins residents have had to live with https://youtu.be/WHSVkSBFDxA
If a different standard is applied to Travellers than to everyone else such as if ‘consultation’ is required before they are allowed to move in, that is precisely the definition of racism.
I’m not denying the problems within the Travelling community, and I’ve dealt with a Pavee Point speaker robustly in the past, but the blindingly obvious question here is who has a right to be consulted before YOU move into an area?
I have never once heard of a suggestion that groups that contain criminals who have damaged Irish society immensely, such as accountants, developers or bankers, need to get the approval of the local community before they move house, and it would be plainly unconstitutional to impose that requirement on one ethnic group.
“If a different standard is applied to Travellers than to everyone else” Doesn’t this already happen in every walk of life in this country? Are they not let away with absolute murder compared the rest of the population? Are they not given preferential treatment in the eyes of the law already (via Enda Kenny)? Can you honestly say that Travellers have not been a law unto themselves. A patriachal society that denies education to its children, supresses womens rights and openly condemns homosexuality in the midst of modern day Ireland; has a raft of apologists in the media who absolutely wouldn’t live anywhere near a halting site.
“I’m not denying the problems within the Travelling community” – no but you’re downplaying their effects on everyone else who has to live near them. Those “problems” (literally their way of life passed down to their children) don’t stay within their community though do they? Plonking Traveller families into perfectly fine neighbourhoods has in many cases completely destroyed the entire estate, with residents literally fearing for their personal safety. If a council was to move in a family that already has criminal records and a history of “anti social” behaviour then why the hell should the residents not be informed – Travellers or not – except it usually is Travellers and therein lies the issue.
“I have never once heard of a suggestion that groups that contain criminals who have damaged Irish society immensely, such as accountants, developers or bankers, need to get the approval of the local community before they move house” – Probably because they arent handed a free council house in a busy estate, strip it, burn wire, house animals in it, intimidate the locals, while stealing or damaging their property and then complain to the media that it was the settled people that did it. William. And if all that was a once off then we wouldn’t be having this conversation and no social houses would get burnt out. Locals aren’t racist – THEY’RE JUSTIFIABLY TERRIFIED.