Category Archives: Misc

caravanpark

The Woodlands Caravan Park, Tralee, Co Kerry

Have ye opened up da’van?

How did it get on over the winter?

So are ye down now?

This is Caravan Park Talk.

Frilly Keane writes:

You’re either are a caravan person or yer not. I am, with over 40 years ov’it in fact, from my mother’s ‘van in Ardmore, to my own-ie-oh one now; which it must be said, is a bit closer to sunny South Central.

Things have changed since those days in Ardmore, ‘vans now have indoor toilets, so no more bucket or key to the toilet block. Indoor plumbing also means that there’s no more running out to the tap to fill the kettle, the pot, the bucket, to wash your teeth or rinse the dishes.

The whinging about being asked to go out to the tap is another one of those things that are no more, yet somehow is still there to be missed; like the smell of the match lighting the gas under the kettle or toast done under a gas grill.

And the all up and beds put away before an egg gets boiled or fried is gone too.

Go into a ‘van today and you’ll see microwaves, tellys, fancy coffee machines, fridge freezers, and I’ll even admit to having a dish washer in mine. FFS.

So let me help out the non-caravan’er reading this and clue them in a bit.

Originally all caravans were the ones you see on the M11 trying to pull in front of ya. But then around the early ta’ mid 80’s there was a conversion that sounded like this;
“Is it a mobile home or a caravan you have?”

So now on the caravan parks plotted around our coast line you’ll pretty much see them filled with mobile homes, but to caravan people, they are still ‘vans.

The others, the ones spreading all over the lane in front of ya are, for the want of a more ideal explanation, touring ‘vans.

A few weekends ago I called down to my old site, as in me Mam’s, to make sure all “the jobs” were done. These are the opening up jobs; airing the mattresses, cleaning off mould, washing the outside of the ‘van, getting steps repaired, making up the beds, that kinda stuff.

On her site the pals I knocked around with every summer from when I was 4 ish ‘till my late teens, now all have their own vans on that same site. They’ve all turned into their Mams and Dads.

The striking thing about the dolling up of ‘vans over the years, and the staying power of caravan people through falling outs, bad spells & immigration, increased rents and fees, the rain and the rain and the muck and the wind and the rain, is not that one great heatwave in every ten years, nor is it the home from home comforts now assumed; it’s caravan people.

And every site is the same.

Whether it’s the Hot Tub Set in the pricey posh ones with decks the size and function of the Parade Ring in Leopardstown, or the scattery sprawling of wagons of every shape and size with gas bottles like bollards looking to take your toenail off, and droopy washing lines from window to window.

Caravan people are the same.

Who got new cars,Who got away to Spain/ Portugal etc over the Easter Who lost their job t’ who’s changed job, who’s done well etc. Who’s aged, who’s lost weight (don’t look at me btw.), Who’s got new stuff, like kayaks, ribs, boards etc to shove under the ‘van or leave on a trailer blocking someone’s way.

The almighty one; the one weeping across every site over the last few wee… who got a new ‘van.

Tis gas. Once the vans are opened up, the residents do their annual sizing up of each other, including the kids by the way; but by the end of the first week of the season ‘tis like they were never apart for the last 10 months.

That is until the Leaving results come out, then there is a similar staying in-close-quarters with Mammies answering every enquiry with a “got what they wanted.”

Another thing in caravan parks is the big entrance. This is the crowd that arrive and open up mid-season. The crowd that were away; Italy, Florida, France, a Cruise, etc in June/ early July.

That’s their new ‘van moment. These are the same that might also be seen to lock up mid-August because they’re off ta’ Italy, Florida, France, a Cruise etc.

Again every site has them. From Bettystown to Ballybunion.

The falling outs: these usually have to do with your particular site and your on-site behaviour: parking your car too close to next door, loud music, parties, dogs, teenagers, crying babies, gazebos and umbrellas, hedges – that kinda stuff. The other one is your location: is your spot better than theirs.

In pretty much every coastal site there is a Front. It’s so important to ‘van people it’s getting a capital F. Back then, in Ardmore, the Front was also known as Flamingo Road, and everyone else was Coronation Street.

Now if you are on family owned site and go season to season only with the permission of the ‘insert name of the owners’ then who gets on that Front is the stuff that elects Party Leaders,

(BTW every year these sites have a family, or for ‘van people ‘a crowd’ who are put off the site.)

If you are on a Resident Owned site, you simply pay for your spot on the Front, when one comes up that is, and the buyer is usually someone already on the site, and there usually tends to be a bitta non-transparency about the transaction.

Interestingly or to be expected I suppose, the selling price of these sites and ‘vans are a prominent feature of these caravan parks, or resorts as they like to be known as.

Either way, both set-ups manage new arrivals the same. What yer man does, what schools the kids go to, and are there babies and young kids. That can make or break someone’s entry into the ‘van crowd on that particular site. Are your kids nice, are they crying squalling kids, and are ye well off.

I hope there are more ‘van people about here, because I’d love to hear yere stories. Like when ye got the fridge that worked off the car battery, or the portable telly and half the site in ta’ watch the Royal Wedding, or using the local pub’s hot water tap and hand dryer for your wash and blow before the disco.

Or the free ‘van day when the Mammies went up to Cork to get the shopping and washing sorted, or the school books and uniforms.

Or the gas bulb catching fire after you’d had a feed of cider and were too afraid to get help from the adults; all that kinda stuff.

Anyway, I wanted to do this piece for the last while, because it’s part of my thing and it’s already been established that I’m not about July and August. Also, this weekend is when 90% of the ‘vans of Ireland commence their next tour of duty.

It is also that time for year for the Sindo to get a hard on about the Dublin Hamptons set and for a certain Solicitor of the same name, no relation, to come into his wankiest element.

Meh, lay’ve them at it, my ‘van is just my other home really, this year the Broad Band Man has set me up so I can still work without complications, and commute handily enough. The ‘van survived annuder Winter without leaving me with too many jobs to get done, it’s already open so I’m off.

I’ll sign off with the promise of an Irish caravan’er.

The rain’s warmer this time of year.

Frilly Keane’s column appears here every Friday. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane

Sully

What you may need to know:

1. The story of Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks), the pilot who landed an Airbus A320 with 155 passengers on the Hudson River in 2009..

2. The Man with No Name directs the Man from Fed Ex.

3. This all-American biopic from Hanks and Clint Eastwood might come to the attention of Oscar voters.

4. Next year, members of the Academy will include Idris Elba John Boyega and, um, Ice Cube (there’s one vote in the bag for Kevin Hart in Ride Along 2).

5.  There are nearly as many T-Hanx stories as there are Murricane stories. The Hanx ones are true.

6. Broadsheet prognosis: Oscar calling.

Release Date: December 2.

(Mark writes about film and TV at ScreenTime.ie)

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Independents 4 Change TD Clare Daly (top) and Fine Gael Health Minister Simon Harris

This evening.

A debate took place in the Dáil on Independents 4 Change TD Mick Wallace’s bill – to allow for abortions in Ireland in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities.

A vote on the bill will take place next week.

You may recall how Independents 4 Change TD Clare Daly proposed an identical bill last year but it was deemed unconstitutional by the Attorney General, Maire Whelan – prompting Legal Coffee Drinker to respond.

Mr Wallace’s bill has also been deemed unconstitutional, prompting him to call for Ms Whelan’s advice to be published.

From Ms Daly’s speech this evening…

We have the Attorney General saying it’s unconstitutional. Now I have to say that is a pathetic cop-out. It’s an excuse for inaction. As you know, we wrote to you minister asking for you to publish that opinion, so that it can be assessed and considered, at the very least, that’s a minimum.

Because there were 43 other legal people who published a letter [to the Irish Times] last time around which had a different opinion to this Attorney General.

And I note your response, which you sent us this afternoon, where you said that her advice is ‘in line with legal advice received on the issue of fatal foetal abnormalities, at the time of Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill’ [debated in summer of 2013].

Now that’s interesting. Because that confirms to us that that advice wasn’t sought in relation to this bill last time round, nor this time round. And it certainly would be saying that it wasn’t sought in the context of the violations of international human rights.

But again we have to return to the simple legal fact that Attorney Generals can get it wrong. This Attorney General certainly has got it wrong quite a few times.

Other Attorney Generals have had a different view on this issue. Other Attorney Generals got it wrong before. They got it wrong in the X case.

And the truth of the matter is, whether it’s constitutional or not, can only be decided by the courts. It’s as simple as that.

This is not repugnant to the constitution, it’s not in the sense clearly contradictory. At the very minimum there is at least an arguable case that it could be possible for somebody in the circumstances of being diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality to get a termination in Ireland.

How do I know that? Because that’s exactly the position that the Irish State argued 10 years ago this week, in front of the European Court of Human Rights.

And sadly, the European Court of Human Rights agreed with them because they said that the State had put forward a tenable argument which could have been seriously considered by the domestic courts, that a foetus wasn’t an unborn for the purpose of the article and, even if it was, it’s right to life wasn’t going to be engaged and therefore it did not benefit from the protection of article 40.3.3.

They talked about that the courts wouldn’t operate with remorseless logic, they said that the woman in the case in question, that her case wasn’t admissible because Ireland had shown that the remedy was possible in the domestic courts; that she had a reasonable prospect of success against her courts.

But, of course, our courts never ended up testing this matter. And do you know what? They never will. Because how in god’s name could we expect somebody, whose world, the bottom has fallen out of their world with a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality in the case of a much-wanted pregnancy. At their lowest ebb. And we expect them to go into the courts and argue for the rights to have a termination at home? When they’ve enough pressing things on their plate. That is never going to happen.

But it is also the case that our courts have never adjudicated on this and the only way in which they will adjudicate on it is if we pass this bill and if we allow the President to refer it on to the Supreme Court for adjudication in that regard.

Later

The sensibilities of the Attorney General are of less concern to me. Now obviously if we come in with the bill that your party colleague, which I will be welcoming, mentioned on the radio this morning, that she’s looking to reduce the time limit for divorce for example.

If that bill came in here, as a bill to the house. That would be clearly unconstitutional because the bill says, or the constitution says that divorce has to be a period of separation for four years. So if the deputy brought that as a bill, it would be clearly unconstitutional.

Our bill isn’t clearly unconstitutional at all and that is an absolute fact. And in fairness this Attorney General was wildly criticised by the Fennelly Commission, amongst others, so I don’t accept the point made by the deputies that this is muddying water, that it’s standing in the way of a repeal of the 8th amendment, I could maybe buy that if the choice the Government was giving us was withdraw this amendment, or withdraw this bill and we’ll give you a referendum on the constitution.

If you were doing that tonight we would certainly consider that. I think that would be..but that’s not the offer in town tonight. The offer in town is that the status quo continues.

…The last point, Ceann Comhairle, is to remind this Government, and appeal to the backbenchers, three, four weeks ago, you said a bill on property rights was unconstitutional. You allowed that bill to go through. By god, you can at least do it on terms of women’s rights.

Meanwhile…

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Independent Alliance TD John Halligan

“The time has come, in 2016, to face up to reality. We cannot continually export problems out of this country. I don’t know if this bill is anti-constitutional. And I don’t care. I care about the women tomorrow, next week, the week after that, who will have to get on a plane or a ship and go to Liverpool or Manchester or Newcastle and bring the foetus back in a box in the back of a car which has happened.”

“This is Ireland 2016, not Ireland 1920. We cannot continue to allow this to happen. Year after year, we find excuses to legally, or otherwise, as to why we prohibit a woman from leaving this country.”

“The Irish Times, people should go back to the Irish Times with an image of Ireland surrounded by a barbed wire fence and a woman on a ladder trying to get out.”

“This is 2016, this can no longer be allowed happen. The time has come for people to stand their ground. We must stand our ground on this. We must do it.”

“For the thousands of women over the next couple of years. And by the way for the women who cannot wait another six months, or can’t wait another year, or can’t wait two years. And I haven’t even begun to speak about women who are violated and raped. We tell them: go through your nine months and have your child whether you like it or not.”

“That we allow this to happen in Ireland in 2016, it’s completely unacceptable.”

Waterford Independent Alliance TD John Halligan speaking in the Dáil during the debate.

Watch the debate live here

Previously: Publish And Be Damned

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Nialler9

As TXFM Dublin prepares to close down later this year…

Nialler9 writes:

Tonight’s TXFM Dublin show at 10pm is my last for the station. It’s been a great two and a half years where I’ve fallen for radio, been tasked with picking and playing songs for people at listening at home, in cars from Dublin to islands off the coast to America to Australia.

It’s been a great experience and pleasure and the TX team are a great bunch of sounders. There’s a lovely camaraderie in the station.

For my last show tonight, I’ll be playing a Best of 2016 so far, as is my show’s new music M.O.

Kelly-Anne Byrne’s last show is also tonight so tune in from 7pm – midnight for some guaranteed great tunes and a fond farewell.

Mmf.

Nialler9

Previously: Listeners To The End

rte

PodcastCover Tunein

On this week’s Here’s How current affairs podcast with William Campbell (above).

Donal Byrne, RTÉ’s News Planner and a senior news editor, answers questions from William on whether RTÉ should describe people as ‘known to the gardaí’; whether they blacked out news of Gemma O’Doherty’s firing by the Irish Independent; and whether Paul Reynolds is sufficiently independent of the gardaí.

FIGHT!

Listen here

William writes:

The phrase ‘known to gardaí” appears scores of times on the RTÉ website and, as Donal Byrne rightly pointed out, frequently occurs in other Irish media.

The phrase has been sharply criticised for the meaning it carries, including by novelist Frankie Gaffney.

Derek O’Toole died when he was struck by an off-duty Garda’s car in Lucan Co Dublin in March 2007. Within hours of his death, and without naming their source or sources, RTÉ accused him of being ‘known to gardaí’.

It later emerged that he had no criminal record or criminal associations whatsoever, and GSOC concluded that unknown gardaí had supplied false information to journalists.

Jeffrey Hannan was murdered in Limerick in 2007, and on the day of his death he was described by RTÉ and other outlets as being ‘known to gardaí’, and it turned out that he also had no criminal record or associations whatsoever.

At Jeffrey’s funeral, Fr Pat Hogan sharply criticised the media for this specifically.

He said:

“What a phrase [‘known to gardai’]. I imagine that those who use such a phrase are trying to pitch Jeffrey and others into another world — a world where such violent things happen, a world to which we do not belong and that will never touch us.”

RTÉ ‘s guidelines for journalists state that:

“We should be reluctant to rely on a single source especially if the information from that source has been given on condition of anonymity.”

If what Donal Byrne said is true, it is remarkable that in both cases RTÉ and other media outlets all secured multiple sources giving incorrect but identical information within the very few hours between the death of each and the accusation being made on-air.

Donal suggested that ‘being criticised by both sides‘ was an indication that RTÉ is, in fact, objective.

Leaving aside this logical fallacy, it is clear that outside RTÉ, Paul Reynolds is widely viewed as a reporter sympathetic to Garda management, for example here, here, here, here and here.

I said that there was a virtual news blackout on RTÉ about the case of the firing of Gemma O’Doherty, as witnessed by the Guardian, a British newspaper publishing many times more stories on the case than RTÉ.

RTÉ’s few stories on the case are mostly insipid bare-bones statements of the fact that a case had been lodged, and later settled, without any background or analysis.

Donal suggested that this may have been because ‘one side of the case‘ leaked information to the Guardian in breach of the confidential settlement of the case.

This is evidently incorrect, since much of the Guardian reporting was published before the settlement.

RTÉ’s effective news blackout on the story itself became international news with headlines such as ‘Ireland’s media ignore Irish Independent editor’s annulled penalty points’ and ‘Irish investigative reporter lashes media bosses for newsroom timidity’ by high-profile journalist Roy Greenslade.

The Guardian were by no means the only international press to cover the story, it has been carried by The Irish Post, the Sunday Times, Yahoo News and others.

The Guardian and The Irish Post also reported the story that former Commissioner Martin Callanan had been called as a witness in Gemma O’Doherty’s case, a story that RTÉ entirely blacked out.

RTÉ did, however find space to report the fact that Nanci Creedon, daughter of John, had established a dog-grooming business.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland defines sponsorship as :

“Any contribution made by a public or private undertaking to the financing of television and/or radio programmes with a view to promoting its name, its trade mark, its image, its activities, its products or its services.“

I understand that the AA [Automobile Association] pays the salaries of the presenters and pays the rent on the studios from which they broadcast.

I also understand that guests on RTÉ radio programmes introduced as ‘from a city centre studio‘ are, in fact speaking from the AA studios, in direct contravention on the BAI’s total ban on the sponsorship of news and current affairs programmes.

Despite what Donal says in the podcast, Conor Faughnan has often been referred to as “Conor Faughnan of AA Roadwatch” on-air on RTÉ when he is campaigning against speed limits, for reducing taxes on the motor industry and for more road building, using the credibility afforded by the 158 broadcasts per week that he supplies to to RTÉ.

The High Court ruled in 1998 that prohibited political advertisements include “any advert directed towards: procuring changes in the laws of this country, or countering suggested changes in those laws“, and the BAI make it clear that the same rules apply to sponsored programmes.

Here’s How

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Lissywollen Direct Provision centre for asylum seekers, Athlone, Co. Westmeath

Political expenses and FOI sleuth Ken Foxe obtained copies of letters of complaints made by asylum seekers living in direct provision centres across Ireland.

The mechanism to allow asylees make formal written complaints about the centres was introduced by the Department of Justice in 2011.

The number of complaints has fallen over the years, however rights groups say this is because the residents of the centres generally have little faith in the system.

In the current edition of Village magazine, Mr Foxe reports there have been complaints about the bullying of a child by a staff member; infestations of vermin; and rooms with no heating, among other complaints.

The centres are not identified in the article.

Mr Foxe reports:

In a centre in the Mid-West, a group of residents wrote about repeated gross invasions of their privacy.

“The manager get in any room and search our private bags and take our stuff”, they wrote.

They explained how CCTV was installed to watch the windows of their room, which were locked so that they would not open more than a centimetre.

The residents also described how they were made to sign in daily and, if they did not, a letter was sent to social welfare officers seeking cuts to the tiny weekly payment of €19 that they receive.

…At the same centre, a disabled asylum-seeker had pleaded to be allowed to share a room with his Afghan friends because he needed help in every “aspect of life”.

“They treat us the way like we are in prison”, he wrote: “They don’t care about your health, your condition, [and] depression and will make your head burst out and become crazy. Our condition is even worse than prisoners because they have some respect inside the jail but we don’t have that at all”.

The complaint was investigated and it was discovered that there were fourteen vacancies at the centre and the request to stay together could easily have been facilitated.

…[Jennifer DeWan of NASC Ireland said]: “The number of complaints has been falling yet we are still hearing about all the same issues. People just don’t see the benefit of complaining – because even when they do, nothing changes. The mechanisms need to be safe for asylum seekers to use and there must be a positive result when they use them.”

Refugee Reality: FOI complaints show lunatics taking over the asylum-seekers (Village)

Previously: Postcards From Direct Provision