Travel advisory: dangerous road surface in Cavan

Motorists travelling to Cavan should be advised that part of the R212 outside the village of Ballyhaise is not only unsafe but positive dangerous.

Cavan County Council laid a new surface on the road in the early part of July consisting of chippings and small stones. The only warning they gave to motorists was a sign telling of “Flying Stones”. Such a sign may have its place on a Sony Playstation arcade game, but it is rare to see it on an Irish road, as it is rarely necessary. Many thought that the air-borne stones were a temporary phenomenon, lasting until such time as the surface was rolled. However, a Cavan County Council employee has told me that the council has no intention of rolling the surface. Some of these stones are quite large, and are capable of smashing a windscreen, not to mention doing serious and unsightly damage to a car’s bodywork. Already there has been an alarming rise in the number of punctured tyres by people using the road.

Let me stress: this is NOT a joke. No one, least of all the untouchables of Cavan County Council will be laughing if there is a serious accident caused by a stone fracturing a driver’s windscreen, an event which could cause injury or worse.

The County Council, along with local government bodies elsewhere, has a duty of care at law to preserve roads in a manner that does not cause danger to users, and any failure to do this may be viewed as negligence on the council’s part. I therefore urge anyone who has used this part of the road and who have suffered damage to their vehicles, to consider suing Cavan County Council. (Naturally I understand that this might be difficult in Co. Cavan itself, where many of the solicitors are not only incompetent but are, to coin a phrase, “up the council’s arse”.)

The AA (Automobile Association) hasn’t mentioned this because they haven’t been told about it. During last year’s inclement weather they were dependant on the local Gardai to keep them informed about
local road conditions, as well as information from members of the public.

Dr Brendan Scott’s forthcoming stand-up comedy routine at the Cavan fleadh, or Ciaran’s joke of the day

A family of prostitutes were discussing life over breakfast. The daughter had just come in and was asked how she’d done the previous night.
“Not so good. I only got 25 euro for a blow job. It’s the credit crunch I suppose.”
“Twenty five euro for a blow job,” screamed her mother. “In my day I’d consider a fiver for a blow job to be a good night’s work.”
“It was different in my day,” said granny prostitute. “We”d have been glad just to get something warm inside us.”

I’m sure there are many local government employees who know only too well the type of people I’m talking about. After all, when they”re on one of those five-star junkets paid for by the tax payer, away from their wives, girlfriends and partners, it can get pretty lonely, can’t it … but don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.

Dr Brendan Scott’s talk or lecture (or whatever it’s called) to be given at the forthcoming Flea in Cavan

This gay guy called Jack decided to go for a tattoo. On the way in he sees a poster of Evander Hollyfield, and he exclaims to the tattoo artis. “He’s my idol. Can you tattoo his face onto my left buttock?”
“No problem”, replies the artist.
On leaving he sees another poster, this time featuring Mike Tyson and he runs back into the shop and pleads with the tattoo artist. “I just love Mike Tyson. Could you possibly tattoo his face onto my other buttock? It will really drive my partner wild.”
“it’s your money”, answers the tattoo artist.
When Jack gets home he can’t wai to show off his new tattoos to his partner Brendan, so he drops his pants and bends over so that Brendan can get a look, but instead of being pleased he is nearly in tears.
“I hope Jack you realise that this means the end of our relationship”  he sobs.
“Why?” pleads a dumbfounded Jack.
“Well you’ve got Evander Hollyfield on your left cheek, Mike Tyson on your right cheek. You can’t expect me to go into the ring between those two.”

The persona names used in these and other jokes are entirely fortuitous.

Arson around again

According to RTE news Gardai are investigating a suspected arson attack at an industrial estate in Dublin.

 The arsonist(s) are probably on the run now, fearing apprehension, but I want to give them some words of consolation for the future. You should really get out of the grime of the big city and move to a border county. There your involvement with arson will be initially forgotten, especially if you join Fianna Fail and the Knights of St Columbanus. You will then be able to look back upon your past with pride and speak candidly and unashamedly about it. And what’s more you will even get a job with the local authority.

 Instead of having to keep a low profile to escape the Bill, you will be able to have your mugs emblazoned on a weekly basis in the local paper. When you attend social events camera bulbs will flash as if you were Brittney Spears. If you still have criminal tendencies you will be able to steal with impunity, and because of your newfound friends you will be able to slander decent people, and what’s more be believed.

Till Death do us part

Obituaries are a means of paying tribute to someone’s life. They can take numerous styles. One the one hand there can be the panegyric, which extols the person, mentioning their positive achievements and traits. maybe at the expense of anything that might detract from their memory. This may sound insincere, but in Ireland we have always had great respect for the dead and it is not uncommon to here people remark, even about the greatest scoundrel, that he or she “wasn’t the worse of them”.

 Then there is the obituary which is nothing more than a hatchet job, and which can often be nothing more than a cowardly settling of scores. Many Irish nationalist, as well as left-wing politicians from throughout the world, have long experience of such obituaries being penned by ostensibly literate journalists and being published in so-called “quality” British newspapers.

 But let us return to the role of the obituary. It serves as a memorial for a life, no matter whether the subject was the most powerful or the least distinctive member of society. It appears at a sensitive time, when the individual has passed from this world to the next, leaving behind grieving relatives and friends.

 Let me mention now a third category of obituary, which I will name the Cavan obituary. It is the product of one particular individual whom I will not name, though anyone from Cavan will know who I mean. This author has such contempt for the subjects of the obituaries he pens that he cannot be bothered to find out anything about them, or to check whether the “facts” he reproduces are accurate. One might consider such an individual as quaint, had he any literary skill. In fact, he is possibly the worst writer on the planet for whom rules of grammar or syntax are mere external and unwelcome encumbrances. I know of no one who has a good word to say about him, even including his close relatives. He is a shining example of mediocrity.

 This figure had worked for many years in local journalism, where he had displayed his lack of writing ability and his particular élan for writing obituaries. His retirement had been greeted with universal joy. However, so bored by his retirement had he become that his former employer brought him out of retirement, to do what? Write obituaries.  One of the reasons I refer to Cavan society as perverse is that someone who is so manifestly incapable of performing a task is allowed to continue doing it, while others who could do it better are never given a chance. Perhaps they are expected to provide their efforts for free to such mediocrities in the hope that maybe one-day pigs might fly.

 People will take the above comments as further evidence of the anger of the “clever cripple” Ciaran Parker whose arrogance and impatience have been his undoing and who has therefore never tried to “play the game.” But perhaps I am arrogant; certainly I have no taste to play any games with such mediocre sportsmen. Although disability has prevented me from taking an active role in sport I have nevertheless participated in many sports as a passionate observer. For me sport and games are about skill. Essential, though, to any sport is a set of rules observed by all participants. The problem about the “games” played in Cavan and in Ireland is that the rules are changes frequently and arbitrarily, to insure that the “right” people always win.

Shoot the Seanad?

Yes please, bring it on baby, at least some of them.

 Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny’s proposal to scrap the Seanad if in government is nothing short of a piece of hypocritical populist

They've killed Kenny - the bastards

posturing., not so much a red herring as a blue herritng.

 Enda Kenny surely realises the importance of the Seanad in the Irish political system, where it acts as a rest and recuperation home for TDs of all the three political parties who have lost their seats in the lower house. It also operates as a testing ground where aspirant members of the lower house can gain exposure, not to mention an endless supply of postage-paid Oireachtas envelopes, which will hopefully translate into success at the next election. And then there is “The Taoiseach’s eleven”, an evergreen source of patronage. Many, many years’ ago, when I was involved with The Organisation, I had to write a letter to then taoiseach Charles Haughey extolling the virtues of a would-be Seanad appointee, the most important of which was that he was the father of eight children. There was no hint in the letter that the man’s off-springs were facing incarceration in the poorhouse unless their parent were elevated to the upper house. Indeed I know one of the man’s children; he has used his hands and feet to has attain great and well-deserved success.

 Now let’s be honest; Enda has no more intention of getting rid of the Seanad than he has of joining the Hare Krishnas. This is all about deflection. It seems to have caught hold as a topic of media discussion, which helps take the limelight away from the fact that the Fine Gael party support the viciously incompetent, scorched earth economic policies of the present government – and why wouldn’t they? They are good, honest-to-God Blueshirt policies.

 What’s more this Seanad red herring may take attention away from the alacrity with which Fine Gael councillors are grabbing jobs for their families at local government level – larceny as great as any Fianna Fail or Green party minister at national level.

 But let us give credit where credit is due. The intellectual and professional pre-eminence of  relatives of Fine Gael councillors is awe inspiring. They possess some unique piece of internal genetic engineering which may be revealed one day when the mapping of the genome is finally completed. The scope of their abilities is truly kaleidoscopic, spreading from ward assistants in hospitals, to social workers through to Research Officers in crummy local museums. Just what is it that puts them head and shoulders above the relatives of councillors from other parties, or those people not related to councillors at all?

My book launch

Yesterday, October 2nd was the anniversary of the very successful launch of my volume Cavan: Land of Water, Earth and Sky, illustrated so wonderfully by my good friend Jim McPartlan. I was so thankful to have been asked to provide the texst, and I felt that I had been given an opportunity to repay a debt of gratitude to the people of Cavan. As I have said so often words and my intellect are all I have, as I lack physical strength and  ties to the so called great but not-so-good. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who turned up, and by the outflow of  genuine goodwill towards us. It made up for much of the hurt I had received in Co. Cavan and it reminded me of just  loved I was by the ordinary, decent people of Cavan.

The success of the launch and my book however have excited the jealousy and resentment of those  people who owe their position not to any talent (they have none) but to other factors, such as party political allegiance or family ties. I received an almost pathetically silly post from one Barry Leddy in which he asked how much my book launch had cost Cavan County Council, whose generosity to other “historians, is well known. The fact is the event cost the council nothing: I would have been highly unhappy had it been sullied by a cent from their rotten pockets. Wine, drinks etc., were provided by the publishers. The library buildings were open anyway, so I very much doubt there was a significant increase in the  council’s fuel bill, and no member of staff had to be  paid travel expenses to attend on the night.  My decision to agree to the launch in the library was influenced by the tremendous friendship that has existed over the years and the library’s wonderful staff. I’d like to remind Barry that the library is a public building, and not owned by the council. I personally find the idea that I might  be dependant on the council for anything to be highly insulting. It smacks of the comment once made to me by a certain TV cameraman: “You’ll need Cavan County Council before they’ll ever need you.” UGH!!!! Or, to quote Joseph Conrad “The Horror, the horror!” (That’s Conrade the writer, not the actor Barry).

As to the attendance there were NO county council officials there, because they weren’t invited. As for members of the county council there was only Councillor Charlie Boylan, who launched the book, and who was there in his capacity of chairman of the council, and as a long-standing family friend. All the others were invited, but none turned  up. Admittedly senator Joe O’Reilly telephoned me from Strassbourg to wish me well, while Councillor Anthony Vesey was in Azerbaycan  (look it up in your atlas Barry). A final word on the attendance. I was truly flabbergasted that over one hundred and twenty people were there. Alas my dear mother and sister Anita weren’t there, though I’m sure they were looking down on me.

Barry Leddy’s’  tirade was prompted by me asking how much Dr Scott’s conference in the County museum, the one to which “is” were I invited and paid to attend from as far away as the US, even though one of the experts lived only ten miles away from the museum. This at a time when Cavan County Council has no money, when it is letting go of non-essential staff  ie   those n0t related to councillors, and when remaining staff mebers receive a weekly message from the county council manager with their pay-checks urging them to take early retirement.  I am angry that an attempt has been made to besnirch the wonderful event that was the launch of my boook with Dr Scott’s petty ego-trip. I must remind Barry Leddy that no one had to pay to atternd the book launch.  Barry Leddy cannot apparently defend the rudeness of Mr Keys in not replying to my letter about being snubbed by the museum.  I think most observers would see that an attempt to confuse my book launch with Scott’s shameful charade is, to put it midlely, disingenous. Had it been paid for by the council it could have served the finest vintage Pol Roger, Beluga caviar, as well as canapes of foie gras with Perigord truffles, and still its cost would not have  approached the Ballyjamesduff conference.

But I know that the fact that I am able to write a book at all, and not accept my divinely-ordained fate as a cripple and slink back into a corner, and maybe wheeled out for a photo-opportunity where the county manager is posturing as friendly to the disabled, is a course of constant anger and vexation. Furthermore my choice as the book’s author, and not someone from the circle of the “usual suspects” aggravates like hell.

 Finally, let me tell Barry Leddy that his silly post has been deleted by me

I am proud that I was involved in a book which people in Cavan and further afield genuinely en joy, not like some of the trash that appears about low-call history,  such as Sexual Preversion in Seventeenth-Cewntury Cavan or Who Killed Owen Roe?

My book is still available from good bookshops or from the publishers at  Cottage Publications.. It makes the perfect Christmas present and I’m more than happy to apply my John Hancock to it for anyone who wants.

Cavan local history gets new web presence

New CSB website

I’d like to tell all my readers about the new CSB – Cock-Suckers of Breifne – website. Naturally, it’s given over to narcissistic self-publicity on behalf of the soi-disants experts on local history, including that bad-assed cowardly scumbag The Honourable Dr B. Squirt, who appears in at least one photograph surrounded by druids. This was taken in association with a special novena held at the Ballyjamesduff pigsty in which they were praying for a miraculous increase in visitor numbers, so as to fend off the growing phalanx of calls for the pigsty’s closure as a costly white elephant.

 It is so reassuring for people like The Honourable Dr Squirt that, even at a time of swingeing public spending cuts, he inhabits a nice little sinecure enabling to get paid from the public trough even in the midst of economic recession. And it’s all thanks to daddy.

 Some in the pigsty have hit upon a new way of getting the punters in  – a pilgrimage. The pigsty has recently been recognised by the Sacred Congregation of Wights and others doing the work of God as a site intimately associated with the life of Blessed Oliver J. Hannigan, patron of blue plumbers, haemorrhoid sufferers and general pains in the arse

 Already miracles have been reported. One pilgrim from a Ballyconnell heritage group said: “For years I’ve been plagued with the piles, but since visiting Ballyjamesduff Pigsty I haven’t needed the Anusol once.“

 Another prized exhibit is the original confessional in which the late Fr Brendan Smyth confessed his craven sexual obsession for young children to a former bishop.  The hallowed prelate was a great idol of Dr Squirt’s, who considered him the greatest living expert on the O’Reillys, even though he was dead.

(Never having visited the site I don’t know whether I’m mentioned on it. I earnestly hope not.I’m more than happy to be thereby snubbed by that crowd of narrow-minded, bigoted, obscurantist budgie brains. Indeed I take it as a great compliment, as I thereby join other fine students of Cavan’s locl history who are now sadly deceased.

 Dr Squirt doesn’t like me; as I am not and never have had aspirations of becoming, either a poodle or a prostitute his likes are of no concern to me. But given that he has never met me I wonder what’s the reason for his problem? Many people have said it’s down to his jealousy towards me. Anyone who is jealous of a partially sighted individual who spends much of his tine in a wheel chair deserves our prayers – not a job – but then he could be in no better place. Aithnionn ciarog ciarog eile.

 People reading the above must be aware that it springs from my own opinions and does not aim to be in anyway factual. What’s more, there is no malice, which is more than I can say about the attitude of the pigsty’s “research officer” (!) towards me. I believe it constitutes fair comment, though there will be those who say it’s unfair comment. I reply that I consider that the only form of comment to which these people are entitled is no comment at all.

 I hear he’s writing, not just one book but two. I wonder what the titles are? Maybe the semi-autobiographical All Hands on Dick, while the second might be a history of clerical child abuse in the diocese of Kilmore. Most ordinary writers have to struggle with the financial demands of daily life while they complete their work, as well as with hectoring editors, but the Honourable Dr Squirt has his nice County Council sinecure to cushion him. But after all he is such a great writer, greater than any other who has ever worked in the benighted hole of Cavan.

I know how much this will annoy Brendan and his friends, peoplke like the equally jealous yet ill-informed Barry Leddy.

The end of the Cavan Echo

It was with immense sadness that I learned of the closure of the Cavan Echo. This will be looked back upon by future generations as a brave and courageous venture in Cavan journalism. The Cavan Echo showed a new way in local journalism, one which demonstrated that “local” need not mean parochial or sub=standard when compared with journalism at a national level.

 I am eternally grateful to Declan Young for asking me to get involved, and through my contributions I had the joy of working with great editors like P.J., Michael and Ian, as well as making the friendship of Mairtin and Deborah in Belfast.

 Innumerable are the friends I have made through my column. It was as if I discovered a whole new reservoir of colleagues, of whose previous existence I could only dream. Many enjoyed my Echoes of the Past, and their joy was matched by mine in writing them. I felt that I was able to rescue history from the clutches of shortsighted and self-interested “historians” and give it back to its rightful owners, the ordinary people of Cavan whose ancestors had lived through it and made it in the first place.

 I am planning to bring out a book containing a selection of my Echo pieces. However, I have no intention of writing any more Echoes. The concept and format must die with the paper I feel.

 The Cavan Echo’s demise was due to the downturn in the economy. It is ironic in this country which pays such lip service to the principals of the free market that private-sector institutions have been allowed to go onto the rocks un-mourned, while certain others associated especially with local government continue to receive a seemingly inexhaustible supply of public funds which are in such short supply that even the widow’s mite is now under threat. I am thinking here especially of that bloated, superannuated white elephant in Ballyjamesduff, which remains open even though it has never made any money, and continues to resolutely haemorrhages it, while council staff members are let go because of a lack of funds to pay them.

 After I departed from the Echo I mentioned my plight to a friend who has good contacts with a much longer established local newspaper here. He made enquiries on my behalf as to whether they might like to benefit from my availability by employing me. While senior members of staff promised to contact us they never did. They passed over the possibility of explaining to me that they too were in financial straits and were thus prevented from taking me on. But it seemed as if they could not lower themselves to do this. Were they afraid that a hand would emerge from the telephone?  But even if they were cash rich, how could they employ me? What would their masters in Cavan County Council say? The knights would be appalled. It seemed as if my copy, freely given to them (if for a fee) was not as tasty as stealing my words and applying a staff member’s (though now thankfully retired) by-line to them.  A short ‘phone call would have helped to establish contact and trust. Instead I had to make do with a visit from the sniggering, bad-minded racist who informed me that I might think I was bad, but longer-established i.e. better columnists had been let go by the local newspaper. Needless to say he bellyached about how little the paper was paying him for photographs –something he no doubt put down to foreigners.

 The upshot of the above is: You had your chance Anglo-Celt, but the Echoes of the Past are dead like the Monty Python parrot.

Cavan dirty and dear

For a number of years Cavan town has prided itself on being relatively litter free. This was because it came high in an annual survey carried out by a shadowy organisation called IBAL. In their most recent survey Cavan has fallen back – to 22nd place I hear.

If Cavan is starting to revert to its dirtier nature some of the blame must be laid at the hands of the local County Council. For a start morale amongst council workers is at an all time low. This isn’t helped by the spectre of a three-day week hanging over them, and it certainly hasn’t been helped by being summoned to meetings with the lazy County Manager who, in the first meeting, exhorted them to work harder, and then at a subsequent meeting a week or so later exhorted them to work really harder.

A scheme whereby young people were paid to pick up litter has been scrapped by the council: they need the money to pay councillors who lost their seats. This was quite degrading but it did put money into young people’s pockets, but because working on it was viewed as well not exactly the done thing there were no sons or daughters of sitting councillors being paid to pick up trash – oh no, they had to get far nicer jobs than that – and so the scheme was axed. (Personally I can’t see why a certain councillor’s son who works in Ballyjamesduff couldn’t be given a bag, a shovel maybe, and a bag and told to clean the streets. It’s hard but honest work, but he’s such a delicate little flower.)