From top:  Members of RISE (Rural Ireland Says Enough) in Birr, County Roscommon in 20102; Dan Boiyle

I allowed myself a wry smile when I learned that Paul Murphy’s new political vehicle would be called RISE.

I wasn’t smiling at the another amoeba on the outskirts of the Irish Left. I find that not only sad but also sadly predictable.

My mirth was in remembering another recent Irish political movement, also stylising itself RISE, an acronym that then stood for Rural Ireland Says Enough.

The well resourced and organised group set up to oppose the Green Party for what it claimed were attacks on the rural way of life.

What annoyed me then was that the 2010 RISE agenda actually quite narrow.

As expressed by the two thousand protestors who gathered that year outside the Tower Hotel in Waterford, where the Greens were holding its party convention, the main attack on the rural way of life seemed to be the audacity of introducing a bill to prohibit stag hunting.

Of course this was conflated as being the thin edge of the wedge, the start of a process that would see all ‘rural’ pursuits being eradicated.

My own tolerance on this is less than what it should be. The use of rural as a prefix meant to always assume goodness or wholesomeness is something I have never understood or accepted.

My intolerance extends to the identification of any pursuit as being specifically rural or urban or suburban. It is the pursuit itself that should be examined and/or criticised, not its locale.

Rural Ireland has and has had much to complain about. It has seen decades of dimunition of services. It has suffered a myriad of closures of railway stations, garda stations, post offices and schools.

What angered me in Waterford in 2010, when as chair of the Green Party I met with some of those participating in the RISE protest, was why was there such manufactured anger over something quite trivial, when rural communities have had so much to be actually angry about?

The Greens were the focus of rural anger then. We continue now as we have been since our being founded, to be seen as a bogeyman intent at undermining Rural Ireland and what it represents.

The irony here is that rural voters vote in larger numbers for the traditional centre right parties, the parties that in government have overseen the death by a thousand cuts that have occurred in Rural Ireland.

Where voter rebellion has occurred it has been in a slippage of votes towards gombeen independents, those otherwise intelligent people who resort to stereotypes to get and stay elected.

Those of us who live urban areas are not as removed from Rural Ireland, as the keepers of that flame often portray us as being. Many of us have parents or grandparents brought up in rural communities.

Nor are rural communities themselves as homogeneous as they are portrayed. Scale of population and distance work against the development of rural communities, but there is no shortage of people willing to think and act differently to bring about such change.

But sure it’s all The Greens fault anyway.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Top pic: Rise

From top: Steven Agnew, who has resigned as an MLA in the Northern Ireland Assembly, with Claire Bailey, who succeeds him leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland; Dan Boyle

A friend and colleague of mine, Steven Agnew, recently announced his retirement as an MLA at Stormont. He is joining a renewable energy NGO from where he can continue to promote a Green vision from a more secure position.

He and his Stormont colleague, the now leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland, Clare Bailey, have experienced huge frustration as members of an assembly now pushing three years in mothballs.

Both have worked assiduously in their constituencies despite that. The quality of their work helped produce significant advances for the Greens in Northern Ireland.

In recent local elections there the Greens doubled our seats to eight. There was an especially strong performance in Belfast, where the party now holds four seats.

The Greens in Ireland is an All Island party. We operate in both jurisdictions under autonomous structures. Our position on the constitutional question is locked into the Good Friday agreement.

It isn’t that we Greens are agnostic on the ‘settlement’, it is that all our energies are being spent in trying to construct a new politics in Northern Ireland.

There are some signs that a new politics might be starting to take hold. The growth in support of The Greens is also being matched by a renewed support for the Alliance Party.

It is clear that there is a growing army of voters in Northern Ireland that does not identify with the Two Tribes approach to politics, an approach that has bedevilled the place and its history.

Part of the unravelling of Brexit has created the possibility of a poll on Irish Unity. This has excited some, others view the prospect with more trepidation.

Changing demographics, seen through the filter of a sectarian head count, holds a realistic chance of agreeing to an United Ireland.

More likely it would produce a Brexit type 52-48 result in favour of staying in the UK. Those promoting the poll will purse their lips then claim that inevitable victory will follow at the next poll, that will follow in another seven years.

But what kind of victory would that be? Most probably we will seven years of heightened tensions of the type that has blighted Britain since its Brexit referendum.

The debate we should be having is asking what is the benefit of a referendum on Irish Unity won on the basis of 50% plus one basis?

Creating, in what would be a new country, an instant discontented minority would hardly constitute Unity.

If we are serious about a successful Unity referendum we should be agreeing on mechanisms that more properly reflect consent.

Such a mechanism might be a super majority of 60%, or 40% of those entitled to vote.

If a referendum on Irish Unity was won without the support of a considerable number from within the traditional Unionist community, it would be a victory that be quite Pyrrhic .

That isn’t to discount the reality that Northern Ireland itself was formed without any such democratic niceties. The question I would pose is should we bring about a new Ireland, through the flawed and failed decision making of a dying empire.

Or can we have a new Ireland brought about on a to be sure to be sure basis.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Top pic: Rollingnews

From top: Irish schoolboys, 1940s; Dan Boyle

The Irish education system threw back my proper socialisation by a number of decades. My school in Chicago was secular, integrated and most importantly was mixed gender.

The religion, race or sex of my classmates was a matter of complete indifference to me.

Proximity, though, made my still enlarging heart grow fonder. At eight years of age, a classmate, a young lady of Czech extraction, named Anna Cervinka, had me all a flutter.

Within months my mother had planked our family in Cork, where I was sent to a Presentation Brothers (GAA) Boys school. From then I was encouraged to consider the female gender, not only as an opposite sex but as more of a different species.

In secondary school céilís were offered as an alternative to the licentiousness of discos. Held in ballroom style with boys on one side and girls on the other; lights were left on full glare, with teachers never more than ten feet away.

Conversations were often stilted with little being offered lest idiocy, hesitation or spittle became too prevalent. Issues of closeness, to touch where, how and with what intensity, plagued us with insecurities.

In a parallel universe we lads, when among ourselves, would be consoled through locker room talk. Most of us knew this to be over compensatory twaddle. Many sadly didn’t. What was meant to be the language of insecurity became, for some, the practice of misogyny.

Most of us got over our hang up. Learning, if often far too late in the day, that our lives would be enriched when able to relate to strong, independent, ballsy women.

Others saw their verbal and psychological bullying of women as banter; their physical assault of those they perceived as underlings, as a bit of slap and tickle.

All power systems – political, commercial or artistic attract these ill formed versions of masculinity. Many have colluded with these power plays. The worst perpretrators have been lauded as ‘Ladies Men’. We learn too late how poorly their seduction methods are.

For those knuckleheads who believe they have arrived, they see the prestige and privilege bestowed on them as conferring a droit du seigneur. How hollow must their lives be that their relationships with the other half of humankind on this planet, can only be determined by their ability to implicitly, or tacitly, intimidate others into submission.

However pathetic the tongue twisted and floor gazing adolescence (and early adulthood) that many of us have had was, it could never scrape the barrel of those who while believing themselves to have had it all, in human terms have had nothing at all.

With the recent death of Hugh Hefner, perhaps this is a good time to dissolve the chimera his fantasy lifestyle was meant to provide. It seems that too often that what has happened in various corridors of power has been more Marquis de Sade than Mills and Boon.

We need to stop lionising these tawdry heroes of a tired and spent masculinity. We need to emerge from our emotional ghettos. We, men, need to cop ourselves on.

We still have a lot of growing up to do Lads.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Pic: Walker Harrison Howell

From top: Donald Trump; Dan Boyle

We may yet sink deeper into this anti-intellectual morass. We may linger longer than we expect, and most certainly need to. But flames need to be kept lit.

Dan Boyle writes:

“I’m, like, very smart,” The Donald has stated to criticisms that he has chosen not to take briefings from the US intelligence services.

To be dubious of what such briefings might contain, should be a character point in his favour. After all dissembling is a raison d’etre for such ‘intelligence’ agencies. However to forgo any such briefing, because you already know what you believe you need to know, truly is ignorance writ large.

“A wise man is someone who knows what he doesn’t know,” that is a saying attributed to the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. It seems, in its apposite meaning, to perfectly not encapsulate The Donald. His total lack of self awareness has been seen by enough of those who support him, as reason to have him become their pin up boy. His certainty being seen by his defenders as confidence. His confidence being seen as strength.

In this he has become emblematic of the post modern world. This world of the simple truth. A world without nuance. A world where complexity is an inconvenience to be ignored.

Instinct, not influenced by the organised thoughts of others, but developed through bias and prejudice, is the sad standard bearer of truth in these ever deluded times.

The simple truth is confirmed by surrounding yourself with those who share your worldview. To question is to invite derision amplified through abuse. It is the behaviour of an ever indulged child whose faux confidence should be more properly recognised as bullying.

This is the world where we have had enough of experts. Where scientists are the conveyors of hoaxes. Where shouting louder makes you more ‘right’ than anyone else.

Those emboldened by this celebration of ignorance now hold sway throughout the ether, on the airwaves, and in our collective consciousness. Those of us who choose to think differently (or indeed to think at all) could decide to remove ourselves from this madness. Instead we should listen. We should try to engage.

We may yet sink deeper into this anti-intellectual morass. We may linger longer than we expect, and most certainly need to, in this thoughtless swamp. But flames need to be kept lit.

Liberal complacency has certainly contributed to this ongoing political coup against logic. Liberal surrender would make its victory complete. Think on that while we are still able to think.

The further or deeper The Age of Donald persists, the more antagonistic the treatment will be towards thinkers/questioners. In the US the preferred form of abuse by the rabid right is a slight on the mental capacity (but more insulting on those with special needs) of those who won’t rejoice at this new golden age. This abuse should become a badge of pride.

The slogan towards enlightenment should be ‘Libtards of the World Unite’.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

From top: Enda Kenny with newly appointed High Court judge Una Ni Raifeartaigh SC at the Aras on Tuesday; Dan Boyle

‘Personal magnetism’, a high ‘sex drive’ and an ‘ability to cast spells’.

Everything we need in a hip, happening taoiseach.

Dan Boyle writes:

The Taoiseach awoke from his hibernation this week to tell us he has his mojo back.

I suspect he was referencing the definitive Muddy Waters‘ version of the song ‘I’ve Got My Mojo Working‘ from 1956. Muddy didn’t write the song, nor did he record the first version, but he made the song his own.

By way of diversion can I say that aside from his distinctive blues guitar and voice, I’ve always loved the name Muddy Waters. It works just as well as a political verb.

Back to the mojo in question, that of the Taoiseach. The dictionary definition gives some indication as to what the Taoiseach has been trying to get across.

It explains mojo as –

A magic charm, hex or spell; associated with the African/American religious practice of voodoo. Supernatural skill or luck.(slang) Personal magnetism; charm.(slang) Sex appeal; sex drive.(slang) Illegal drugs.(slang, usually with “wire”) A telecopier; a fax machine.

Quickly moving on from the idea of the Taoiseach being a hex worker, the illegal drugs are probably best avoided, but I would have thought the metaphor of being a fax machine is crying out to be used.

The danger of using cultural slang is that you may end up missing the zeitgeist.

Mojo is more Kerouac than Eminem (and Eminem isn’t exactly the zeitgeist). If it’s hip and happening you want to be then mojo is your man. If it’s happening and hip you’re looking for you’ve kind of missed the bus.

The answers in Enda Kenny’s interview with Pat Kenny have little to do with the interviewer. Neither is the general public the intended audience. This exercise in braggadocia is strictly for the Fine Gael parliamentary party.

Apparently if you make yourself appear big in front of a bear, the bear would be less inclined to challenge you. This is the Taoiseach’s strategy.

There is some indication that it might work. It could also be argued that John Halligan, with his Waterford stand-off, is employing a similar strategy. Being able to appear bear like would further help this strategy.

The Taoiseach has about a dozen years on me. When I think mojo I think back to my lost, much mythologised, youth. That time when I did all night what it now takes me all night to do.

I suspect we may not be thinking about the same thing but I’m fairly sure we are about arriving at the same destination. If we’re not careful Naomi Klein’s next book may be called ‘No Mojo’

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Rollingnews