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KERRY HAVE BEEN crowned All-Ireland senior football champions, and Croke Park is a sea of people clad in gold and green celebrating or commiserating right now.
But we were tickled by this picture taken by the Irish Air Corps that shows a sedate Croker before today’s big game.
A moment of calm before the storm…
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I kinda like the song, lets be honest if you decide to write a song about a topic like domestic abuse it’s never going to be easy, but to write it from the perspective of a male victim is really a challenge. I’m sure it’ll be appreciated…
If he knew that there’s a 40% rate of reciprocal DV rates in Irish relationships that entertain DV, he may have wrote a different songlet.
When are we going to see videos and adverts of both of them hitting each other?
@Papasmurf I’m familiar with the statistics behind DV and the various studies to back this up, the song’s lyrics are written from a mans perspective of DV while the video shows that of a woman’s perspective, I imagine the paradox covers both viewpoints.
Personally I feel assault is assault, if this happens to occur in the home where a person has an expectation to feel safest and is carried out by a loved one, a partner or spouse then it should be described as such and punished harshly. Let me be clear, under no circumstances can it ever be tolerated or condoned.
All the evidence shows both sexes can be, and frequently are, violent towards one another in approximately equal measures yet when we see the websites, adverts and documentation for Domestic Violence they portray men as the aggressors the vast majority of the time against women and children.
This erroneous portrayal helps to perpetuate a myth that men are solely responsible for DV with the result that there are no DV shelters in the country for men, only 1 single male DV helpline and over 90% of the funding goes to women’s DV charities, too numerous to list. This is hardly the equality women champion?
On a serious note, it is well known that the reason battered women (I actually am honestly unsure if it is the same for men!) stay with abusive partners is economic.
There needs to be funds to so that a woman or her children are able to survive without the male.
Until that happens “awareness” is actually useless and if you’re cynical, self serving.
(Again, I am not sure what main reason is for battered husbands staying with their partners.)
T beckett.. i guess the main reason battered husbands stay is fear of losing his children and home. Once he walks out the door there aint no going back
@T Beckett I f you consider a man and a woman, both victims of DV with two children and both wish to leave their respective spouses, the woman has the option to call a Women’s Aid helpline, will be put in touch with local counsellor and emergency accommodation arranged for her and her children. They will likely help with legal representation and will accompany her to any court proceedings for ‘moral support’ as these things can be frightening and confusing.
The man on the other hand has the option to call Amen, depending on what part of the country he’s living in all they can realistically do is offer advice. He will have to leave his home. If his spouse is violent and he has concerns for his children this will be difficult as custody is very rarely given to fathers, almost never. He will have to find accommodation for himself, pay for legal representation, he will end up paying maintenance, mortgage etc. for his abuser. Many commit suicide. The stress of this can be overwhelming for anyone.
And what about the male population who suffer dv. What do they get?
He wrote the song as a male suffering from domestic abuse. Yet the video shows the female being the victim. While we all appreciate highlighting domestic abuse and helping charities i think an opportunity was lost here. Why didnt the video portray the male being the victim. Everyone condemns abusive husbands. There was a chance here to help battered husbands.
Spot on Sinead. He fluffed it as he was afraid of the backlash.
I’m absolutely for there being shelters and options open to men suffering from domestic violence, but I’m also not going to forget that women suffer a more brutal type of violence from men than men do from women. Statistically women are far more seriously injured in domestic violence. Women tequire more hospital visits and longer hospital stays, and are far more likely to be killed by a male partner than a male partner being killed by their female partner.
I’m all for equality across the board, and I don’t think anyone should be turned away when they need help, but I’m also not blind to the fact that one group of people are at a greater risk of danger to their physical health and lives than the other, and I don’t see a problem with that group accordingly getting a bigger share of the finances (paltry as they are) decimated to helping victims of domestic violence.
They don’t just get a bigger share, they get the vast vast majority of it. Try reading some of the other comments. The complete lack of domestic abuse services for men is pathetic. That isn’t taking away from women’s experiences of abuse.
You know what annoys me about the comments about male domestic abuse on every comment section of articles about female domestic abuse? Its that the guys going on about don’t give a crap about male domestic abuse (something which is a serious issues)…they just use it as a weapon against what they perceive as some “feminist agenda” If you are really concerned about about the issue then start doing something about rather that cribbing everytime an article about female domestic abuse comes up and then never thinking about it again.
Well, I can take credit for forcing an existing DV service, once only pen to women, now open to men. Can you?
@Grey Beard I never mentioned anything about a “feminist agenda”, I appreciate that you don’t know me personally and there are reasons that I, like yourself prefer a degree of anonymity and use a ‘nom de guerre’.
I have very personal reasons for my views on DV. I don’t wish to see anyone suffer violence regardless of their gender but have seen the terrible results the inequality perpetuates upon male victims of this. Over the years I couldn’t help but become involved in this, I’ve watched as terrible accusations were leveled against people I know to be innocent, they lost everything, they didn’t care about their possessions, property etc. but were out of their mind with worry about their children. All while they were often accused of the worst crimes against them.
I’ve seen women’s aid counsellors offer assistance and support to women they knew to be aggressors, stand beside women they knew to be lying against me they knew to be innocent. I’ve know good friends, dead now, others, broken in every way.
You only have to look at where the money goes, vast amounts goes to groups who’s only existence is to hold seminars, training, commission reports and surveys, all with a pre-determined outcome which flies in the face of every other international study, they justify their existence. But almost none of that goes to male victims.
If it was a simple mistake, as easy as pointing out something that been overlooked all this time that’d be great, problem solved. But even now you’ll find those with a “feminist agenda”, as you put it, will deny the existence of every other international study, say the figures are wrong, or even that ‘but men hit harder than women’, anything to hold onto the purse strings.
I know tempers get flared sometimes but name calling doesn’t do anyone any good, if this is the problem, and it is, then there has to be a solution too. I’d prefer to work with everyone rather than against them to find it.
Grey.. it used annoy me too.. But after hearing Louise O Neills interview and Roisin Kiberds comments about lad culture and the ucd200 i can see the feminist agenda that men see. Those two feminazis think all men are hiding in bushes waiting to pounce on us. The fact is the ucd200 never existed yet somehow men are still guilty of victim blaming. Check out Louise O neills fb page. Man hating at its finest. No wonder there are guys jumping off bridges every week, they cant win
Ridiculous to conflate the tragic prevalence of male suicides with feminism or feminist philosophies. Ireland is still a fairly conservative society compared to others and there is lingering stigma around mental health problems. That so many more men take their own lives more likely reflects that they feel alone and under pressure to fit some sort of ideal of tough stoic males who should be impervious. This notion is a load of nonsense of course. But this is the environment that exists in Ireland, especially rural Ireland where the social millieu tends to be more rigid, less diverse and more close-minded (not to mention fewer services). The higher rate of male suicide in Ireland has been a problem for decades, long predating any of the social discourse you reference above.
Oh shut up greybeard, you have zero idea what commenters here do to address male domestic abuse, zero.
Ridiculous comment B Collins. You can indeed conflate hateful misandric feminism which has gained a foothold in western societies since the 1970s with rising male suicide rates. Feminist policies and agendas regarding men and boys marginalise and demonise them and try to deny them rights in family courts among other arenas. And when men speak out there is an army of feminazis ready to used those ‘stoic’ notions of manhood against them. I know many men who feel this to be the case and who feel demonized by the prevalence of feminine doctrine in Irish society. Young men , vulnerable men with mental issues. You haven’t got a clue what the male perspective is, just as I can’t speak for women.
Feminist * doctrine.
Your paranoia about feminism, “feminist policies” and “feminazis” is nonsense and I feel sorry for you. Your hostile comment about my ability to grasp the perspective of men is logically self-defeating (you have haven’t got a clue about me or my male friends and therefore can’t know what my perspective is). I’m sorry you and friends feel demonized. Me and many of my friends (both male and female) don’t feel victimized by it. And, speaking as a feminist, I don’t hate men.
It’s not paranoia at all it is fact you blinkered delusional ideologue. I feel sorry for you that your hatred for men and adherence to a hateful destructive and divisive doctrine has blinded you to male issues. There is nothing logically self-defeating (which is a very clumsily worded phrase) about saying you will never truly know what it is like to be a man. You are an advocate for a misandric ideology. Also, don’t be incredibly remedial and childish and call someone hostile when you called someone else’s view ridiculous originally. If you can’t take someone disagreeing with you in the strongest terms don’t engage in it yourself.
Steering the conversation away from rational debate to a rant via insults (“blinkered delusional ideologue”, “remedial and childish”) as well as groundless and false accusations (“your hatred of men”) says more about you and your hatred than anything else. I *just* said I don’t hate men. I have a father, a brother, cousins, best friends who are men, who I love deeply. Coworkers, roommates, coaches, who are men, who I value and appreciate. Where on earth did you magic up the idea that I hate men? Or could it be that a woman who happily calls herself a feminist and who doesn’t hate men rather inconveniently undermines your raging fanatical belief that feminism is the source of all evil? Also, I didn’t say that I know what it’s like to BE a man, but I DO firmly believe women can grasp a man’s perspective (and vice versa) through that wonderful thing called communication. I believe that’s the key to the majority of peaceful human relationships. And there’s nothing clumsy about the phrase “logically self-defeating”. But as we’re critiquing language, your first sentence is missing a comma or two. There. I’m out of this conversation. What did you say, remedial and childish, was it? Yeah. Have a nice day.
It was an extremely clumsily worded phrase and bore little actual relevance to what I had said. You dismissed a whole previous commenter’s view as ridiculous , accused another of throwing a strop, called my views paranoid without qualification etc Very childish behaviour and most definitely not a way to invite ‘rational debate’ as much as you may wish to delude yourself that it is. This also showed me that you were willing to dismiss men’s perspectives readily, which indicated hatred. When I said ‘the male perspective’ of course I meant men in general, not just men you know from your women’s studies 101 course. Most men don’t readily communicate all their perspectives on gender issues , especially not to hostile gender ideologues. So like I said, you will never know what it’s like to be a man. Perhaps you can stop being childish and remedial and try to educate and inform yourself about men’s issues from a non-ideological perspective. You know, step out of your safe doctrine filled bubble which you’ve painstakingly cultivated over the years and look at things from another point of view. Best of luck, have a nice day.
Fist of all that’s a brutal song. Are women the only victims of domestic abuse?
@El Jefe You must have missed the part in the article where it says, ‘the song Cherry Wine was written from the perspective of a male suffering from abuse.’
What? Did you read the article?
Boynr Sharkey, Safe Irelands website homepage headline is “Safe Ireland, Creating Safety for Women and Children’. No mention of men
It’s still a shit song either way
A brutal song? It’s a gorgeous song. And if you actually listened to the lyrics you would see that it’s about an abusive relationship from the perspective of a male victim. But please, continue throwing your strop about the video, even though domestic violence is domestic violence, regardless of gender, as this artistic collaboration clearly shows (song about a male victim, song video about a female victim, result being anyone can be a victim).
Jimmy Mc, women and children have a greater risk to their health and lives than men do, when it comes to domestic violence. I’m not saying men who are being abused by their partners aren’t suffering terribly, but when those partners are women, they are far less likely to require lengthy hospital stays or to be killed. It’s somewhat misleading to say that both genders need refuge from domestic violence equally, because statistically one group is much more likely to be killed by their aggressors than the other. Men absolutely need options open to them, and no person should ever feel like they deserve the violence in their relationship, and saying that women and children need greater protection doesn’t take away from that.
Veronica, women are the perpetrators of as much domestic abuse against children as men are. How does that tally with your narrative?
Maybe for their next video they can do a recreation of New Year’s eve in Cologne.
That musak is awful.
ellis, spa.
Did I miss something?
Since when was a (so called) grown man crying to so called music, deemed as entertainment?
Maybe I fell asleep for a few decades?
Good to see them trying to do something, but stereotypical drivel helps no-one.
I totally missed the point of that video
The song sounds like a badly composed dirge. To be honest I cannot fathom the popularity of the likes of Hosier and Ed Sheeran. Paint by numbers, formulaic, unadventurous rubbish. In the year that we lost Bowie where have all the innovaters gone?
Haven’t seen Hozier since he disappeared up his own arse a while back.
Very Boring Song!
Safe Ireland could not care less about male victims of dv
So they will make a vid highlighting the overlooked fact that men are also abused by women, but donate the proceeds to a specifically anti male charity.
Not to mention the money you donatecto Safe Ireland through your taxes
*donate to
Lovely song and good video, not a huge fan of Saoirse but shes good in this vid
Typical Irish comment. You can’t say a good thing about someone without getting the little dig in somewhere.
It may not have the bang of Take Me To Church but with lyrics like “all the while she stains the sheets of some other , thrown at me so powerfully , just like she throws with the power of her brother” it is clever and if it wasn’t about such a sensitive subject you would find those lyrics amusing.
To an Irish person, anyone who is successful must be an arsehole at the back of it all.
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