No, really.

This afternoon.

Marlay House, Marlay Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16

Minister for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan (centre) flanked by Minister for Employment Affairs & Social Protection Regina Doherty (left) and Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation Heather Humphreys launch the 2018 Centenary Programme to Commemorate Voting Rights for Women.

Minister Madigan announced  the 2018 Centenary programme and launched a companion book to the Mná 1916/Women of 1916 exhibition at Dublin Castle.

The three then talked about boys and make-up for ages.

Earlier: I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass

Rollingnews

Minister Jim Daly has suggested social media users hand over passport or public service card details to sign up to Facebook

Internet Safety For Adults

When Her Majesty squiggles my law into effect,
it will be compulsory that every computer come
with a paedophile pre-installed.
Section four of the proposed legislation
will make it mandatory that said individual
only be activated when your child types
in his or her date of birth and a verifiable
I.D. card number which I, as Minister
for Children, will provide for each of them
free of charge. From this day forth your sons and daughters
will no longer have to haunt
local playgrounds in the hope of being accosted
by men enthusiastic to open
the all-encompassing grey coats
their type travel the land in.

Worry not, the frothing men (and occasional women)
the tech giants will, from now on, be compelled
to put inside every computer in the country
will be tested to ensure they have no interest in adults.
Obese chain-smoking blokes from near Stoke
and the sort of women whose implausibly
distended chests one notices
at post-night club bus-stops in Bishop’s Stortford
will be in no danger whatsoever.

The people to whom we plan to introduce your children
have no appetite for mutton, or dry aged sirloin;
only eat choice cut spring lamb
done exquisitely rare.

Kevin Higgins

Rollingnews

The Echo Chamber podcast.

Hosts Tony Groves (left) and Martin McMahon (right) welcome Richard Chambers (centre), of Newstalk into the ‘tortoise shack’ to discuss last weekend’s Irexit Conference.

Martin writes:

Nigel Farage came to Ireland and the Red Caps flocked to the nemesis of multiculturalism. Richard, Having witnessed proceedings discusses: #Irexit; The speech John Waters finally got to make; The Political Venn Diagram of those who attended the meetings.; The Farage Effect; The real concerns about the Future of the EU; The Dinnybot, the Martinbot and the Social Media “debate” and the need for media diversity….

The Echo Chamber

Arrest her!

This morning.

Dublin Castle, Dublin 2

The grand daughter of Irish suffragette Hanna Sheehy Skeffington re-enact’s breaking windows in Dublin Castle to mark centenary of women getting the vote.

It was on this day 100 years ago women were first granted the vote under the Representation of the People Act in 1918 which became law on February 6th, 1918.

Micheline Sheehy Skeffington was ‘arrested’ by actor Rob McCarthy playing an RIC Officer…

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

Update:

A plaque marking the spot at the Ship Street entrance to Dublin Castle.

Rollingnews

Bonkers writes:

Maria Oswalt from Alabama is running the @Ireland Twitter account this week. She has just arrived in Dublin for (she says) a 3 month holiday so she can see her boyfriend who studies in Trinity…

…But the thing is Maria’s father Tommy Oswalt (with Maria, above) says the reason why Maria is here for the next 3 months is to “work with the Life Institute on their campaign to save the 8th Amendment and keep Ireland abortion free”…

…And here is Maria on the campaign trail in Alabama…

So it would seem that the Life Institute are allowing volunteers from America work for their campaign. I’m pretty sure this is in breach of Irish immigration law which forbids work (either paid or unpaid) when you are here on a tourist visa.

Anyone?

From top: Frank McCann walking outside Arbour Hill Prison, Dublin 7 last July (via Independent.ie) and George Gibney

Today.

Further to a report in the Irish Independent last Friday that former Irish swimming coach Frank McCann – who murdered his wife Esther and McCann’s sister Jeanette’s baby Jessica by setting fire to their family home in Rathfarnham in 1992 – is due for release…

US journalist Irvin Muchnick writes…

In 1992 Irish swimming coach Frank McCann burned down his house. It was his fourth, and this time successful, attempt to kill his wife Esther and their 18-month-old daughter Jessica. McCann chose multiple murder over disclosing that he had fathered a child by one of his swimmers, who was 17.

McCann is back in the news because, after two decades of incarceration for his crime, he has begun pre-release vocational training and supervised time out from Arbour Hill Prison. The Irish Independent reports that Esther McCann’s sister is fearful for the safety of the rest of the family. See here

In his 2016 decision in my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for George Gibney’s American immigration records, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer recounts the sordid history of sexual abuse in Irish swimming. This includes the stories of McCann and Derry O’Rourke; the latter pleaded guilty to 29 criminal counts of abuse in 1998.

“George Gibney,” Breyer wrote, “got away.” In my recent settlement of the FOIA case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the American government conceded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement supplied a memorandum in 2010 stating that Gibney could not be removed from the country even though he had lied in his citizenship application that year about his own 27-count indictment in Ireland in 1993 for illicit sexual relations with minors.

The Gibney-McCann connection gets worse.

As president of the Leinster Branch of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association, McCann was told of Gibney’s abuse of Chalkie White, by White. Later another coach, Carol Walsh, brought the same information to McCann.

According to the news site Broadsheet.ie, Walsh said McCann told Walsh to back off.

McCann also said “he hoped to fuck [the Gibney story] wouldn’t break while he was president.”

Family in Ireland Fears Prison Release of Swim Coach Frank McCann — Who Murdered His Wife and Daughter and Is Also a Figure in the George Gibney Cover-Up (Irvin Muchnick)

‘If my sister’s killer is released, I’ll have to look over my shoulder’ – Man who murdered wife and child due for release (Irish Independent)

Pictured: Double murderer serving life for killing wife and daughter gets a taste of freedom with new prison job (Irish Independent)

Previously: Unreasonable Delay

Irvin Muchnick on Broadsheet

Broadsheet.ie