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THE LABOUR PARTY members must wonder which of them is to blame: who amongst their ranks accidentally ran over and flattened a whole family of black cats, or shattered a gigantic mirror or left all their shoes atop a table.
For the Labour lads – and lads they all are now in the 33rd Dáil – just can’t seem to catch a lucky break at all. Having plummeted from 37 seats to a mere seven in the electoral massacre of 2016, the survivors had harboured modest hopes that the party might be permitted by a less vengeful electorate to exit the dog-house and climb back into double digits in last month’s plebiscite.
But it was not to be. The Shinner Surge engulfed Labour as well as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, and the party eventually scrambled home with half a dozen seats. And to add to the members’ chagrin, an organisation which has assiduously campaigned on gender and equality issues returned with six male TDs, having lost stalwarts Joan Burton and Jan O’Sullivan to the Sinn Féin flood.
Leadership contest heats up
Leader Brendan Howlin bowed gracefully to the inevitable and fell on his bodkin days after the result, sparking a leadership contest between Alan Kelly and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.
Surely now, the party must’ve reasoned, this contest would give Labour a much-needed spell in the spotlight after it had spent most of the previous Dáil languishing in the wings. After all, political journalists love a good auld leadership rumble. And god knows there was little enough news afoot during February, given that the government formation talks were proceeding with all the brisk efficiency of a spliff-smoking sloth.
Once again, it rained soup upon the party armed with forks. Whatever admittedly slim chance its two leadership contenders had of hogging headlines during this parliamentary lacuna, it promptly dropped to zero when the coronavirus came knocking.
So the battle for the Labour leadership is underway, but the media’s – and the public’s – collective gaze is riveted elsewhere, locked onto the fog of the escalating coronavirus war.
But the show must go on. And it’s a long-drawn-out process which began last Monday in Cork with the first of a series of five countrywide hustings and which will culminate with a count of postal ballots on 3 April.
Thursday’s hustings
Last night, the two candidates made their pitches to around 100 party members in a conference room in Clayton Hotel, close to Dublin Airport.
It made a stark contrast to the recent triumphant rallies hosted by a celebratory Sinn Féin which have been packed to the chandeliers with starry-eyed new recruits wooed by the party’s pledges to fix the broken housing and health systems.
At the Labour gathering; most of the attendees knew each other – die-hard veterans who have stuck with the party through all its travails. Nor was there any triumphalism from either Kelly or Ó’Ríordáin. The would-be leaders know all-too-well that this could be Labour’s Last Stand, a final push to prevent the once-proud party of Connolly from sliding irrevocably into irrelevance.
Both men made their opening statements, laying out their different visions on how to rebuild the party – but both underlined the uphill task awaiting the new leader. “People have fallen out of love with us,” said Ó’Ríordáin. ”Labour must bring back a sense of solidarity and compassion to the Irish public,” he added, pledging a “fit-for-purpose organisation with a ‘win-back’ strategy for every constituency.”
Kelly was equally frank. “We lost our way considerably,” he said. “We haven’t been relevant to the national conversation, we haven’t connected with people outside our own circle and we assumed that opposition alone would give us a natural bounce after government.” The Tipperary TD also called for a root-and-branch reform of the party. “Printing off a few leaflets isn’t going to cut it anymore”.
Style over substance?
In many ways, the Labour contest is a battle of style over substance – a straight choice between two substantial candidates with very different styles. The Tipperary TD prides himself on his ‘AK-47’ image of a plain-speaking brawler from rural Ireland, while Ó Ríordáin, a former school principal of an inner-city school, is less a combative, more polished urbanite.
There were many questions from the floor. One member wondered if the party should re-examine its recent decision to opt-out of the current government formation talks. “Nobody wants to talk to Labour because of the position we’ve taken,” he reminded the two candidates.
“if there is a dance we should be dancing, but it would want to be a hell of a deal for us to enter government,” said Ó Riordáin. Kelly was of a similar view. “We were probably too quick to move ourselves out of certain negotiations,” he said. But both men reckoned the party would be better served supporting specific policies from the opposition benches rather than joining whatever class of coalition is eventually cobbled together.
There were a couple of digs thrown by the candidates – but not at each other. When the subject of taxation was raised, the Dublin TD stuck a boot into Limerick-born businessman JP McManus. “Who should pay tax? I have a difficulty with a tax exile flying into the country on a jet, throwing money at every GAA club in the country, fluting off again and everyone thinking this guy is a hero. I have a difficulty with that,” O Riordáin said to applause.
Kelly told the crowd he was “passionate” about housing. “We need very simply to build more houses on public land – CPO [compulsory purchase orders] ‘em across the country if needs be,” he said. “As long as you have a right-wing party owning the housing portfolio, you are never going to get the scale you require.”
But his rival was a warier man, more mindful perhaps of just how Labour had landed itself in the mire in the first place. “We cannot pretend that we can fix housing, fix health, fix disability, fix all the words that we’ve spoken about if at the same time we are proposing a tax cut agenda that other parties are proposing,” said Ó Riordáin. “I don’t feel it’s an honest message for the Labour Party.”
After a couple of hours, the meeting ended. It had been a thoughtful debate about the future path for the party, for everyone in the room knew there can be no more missteps if the party is to crawl back from the cliff-edge.
They and the Social Democrats – a party born from Left splits – are both the fourth-placed parties in the Dáil with six seats each. The Greens are on the rise with 12 TDs, and the chamber is now awash with vociferous technical groups clamouring for their place on the political centre-stage.
Many people took a dab of hand sanitiser on the way out the door. Cleaning one’s hands is easy. Persuading disillusioned Labour voters that the slate is now clean will be a harder task altogether for the new leader.
See more of Lise Hand’s columns for TheJournal.ie here.
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Belongs to a museum
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: Belongs to the people of Ireland. This should be donated rather than sold to the highest bidder.
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: The Capuchin Order of monks claimed that they owned it and it had been stolen from them.
Fine Gael would rather buy something British than that letter..
Because if you had it you would just hand it over for nothing?
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: in a museum where it can be forgotten about like all the historical articles that the state has been hoodwinked into buying.
I think anybody who says “this belongs in a museum” should really follow up with how often they go to see all the stuff we already have in museums (and that’s just the items on display).
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: They could put in in Big Birds museum up in Mayo
I am sure she wont charge them .. much
Okay, Indiana Jones
Too many out there who’d consider it a wanton waste of tax money. I’d crowdfund the cost among Irish republicans & citizens(and give a few bob to it myself), but using public funds when there’s too many crises? It’s OK to refuse.
I’d like to know how it got into the hands of a foreign private investor in the first place. Can’t fault him for wanting to make a profit. No doubt there was some classic Irish civil service incompetence somewhere along the line.
The letter was given to Fr Columbus by Pádraig Pearse in 1916 after the Capuchin priest went to Arbour Hill to ask Pearse to re-write the surrender note.
The letter passed from Br Columbus OFM to Br Conrad OFM who, as head of the Capuchin Order in Ireland, gifted it to the father of the initial owner in the 1960s. It was then inherited in the 1980s and thereafter it was sold by auction in 2005
It was offered to the state for 50k by the previous owner back in 2005 and they said they’d only pay 10k for it, it was subsequently sold for 800k to the current owner, probably a collector/dealer who thought the government would buy it for an outlandish sum probably because of the year that’s in it. Personally I think it shouldn’t be in private ownership.
@Léargas: if this is true that it was gifted by the Capuchins then it should never have ended up in an auction in the first place, it should have been handed over to the State for safe keeping so that every citizen could see it.
So we were offered an asset worth 800k for 50k and turned it down. Then a few years later we sold an asset for 600m (Battersea station) that is expected to generate profits of up to 10bn. Great little country.
Guru negotiation skills of state staff/representatives responsible for the purchase and/or sale of assets are completely abysmal, these guys remind me of Vogons from hitchhikers guide. They wouldn’t last spitting time in the private sector.
@The Guru: Why should the state pay for something which was never meant to be sold in the first place.
There are 2 other letters written by Pearse already in state ownership. Do we need 3?
Maybe Sinn Fein could take some of the funds raised at their gala, $500 a plate, dinners in New York to buy it and then gift it to the state.
@Eyepopper: We do indeed need 3. They’re all part of our history and past.
You utilised a fantastic opportunity to troll there Eyedropper, well done. The world needs people like you
I think it’s disappointing to say the least .yet again I’m jst left disappointed with our government. And to be honest I don’t really think it matters witch party governs our country .results will probably be the same . .I know now what it felt like to be my mother after all these years . Constant disappointment
There’s a witch party in control? I’ll grab my broom.
Heather Humphreys hates everything Irish except her paycheck.
This woman despises the men of 1916 and everything they stand for.
What do they stand for?
Tell me something productive they did.
By merely asking that question you couldn’t possibly understand an answer.
@Dan Keane: You seem to be historically illiterate.
@Eamon – no, I am someone who is a realist.
Not a popular one Dan..good question though.
Indeed, one that Shane and Eamon couldn’t answer so they resorted to attaching me.
With all due respect, no. We should be investing in the causes of the present before the past.
Yes you are right Timothy let’s waste a billion euros on Irish Water sure hasn’t the country got loads of money to waste.
@paul Mc I’m thinking more in the line of housing, that’s not wasteful.
I agree but it’s pretty obvious our present government doesn’t know it’s arse from its elbow. They pick the projects that suits their own party and it’s cronies to bestow money on.Or maybe they are just a load of incompetent buffoons.
I always found it amusing that patriotic fervour is always strongest in those who like to lie in bed until midday, scratching themselves. They have a deep and abiding grá for Ireland, but ask them to pay a couple of euro each week from their dole money towards the water that is cleaned, fluorinated and piped into their homes at the expense of the State, and they’re up in arms over the unfairness of it all :-)
@Can’t Think of One: THat’s surprising. I always thought my piped water was paid for out of a) my general taxation, amongst the highest in Europe, and b) my VAT, hiked in the Nineties we were told expressly to pay for the water supply. Now you tell me it’s ‘at the expense of the State”? And who pays for this State? Muggins here, that’s who. And Her bailed-out bankster masters. Why not a tax on banks who’ve broken us, so that THEY can pay to bailout our water?
@John Well, you were wrong. It’s not paid for out of general taxation. The nineties ended some years ago. Things change. As for the second part of your post, all I could see on the screen before me was ‘raaaaarrr bankers bankers bankers blueshirts Enda disgrace Enda something something something’. Please, if you’re able, change the fupping record and say something *original*.
@Can’t Think of One: Not much of a rebuttal there. Outside of the schoolyard I mean (”nyah nyah nyah’ is not an argument). It may not be the nineties but we’re still paying the increased VAT from then that was allegedly hypothecated towards water provision and ”justified” thereby; and we’re paying more general tax than ever.
Don’t know what stone you’ve been living under Can’t Think Of One but since 2008 our incomes have been slashed by such outright muggings as ”Universal Social Charge’ and increased tax, decreased tax-free allowances, slashed social services (now takes six weeks to get lab reports back from Beaumont, whether you’ve suspected high cholesterol or suspected cancer, regardless, as an example I’ve lately experienced).
So given the times they may have changed but the taxes they brought are still in situ and certainly no less, what’s that you were saying again? Nyah nyah nyah it still sounds like to me.
Should be deemed a national treasure and so by default, belongs to the Irish people and placed in a museum so our children and their children’s children can remember and be somewhat part of their history.
@Paul Mc Manus: How should we decide what is a national treasure and what isn’t?
We already do it with a great many artifacts Ben.
Nah we’d rather pump €1 million into a New York art centre/ fund
Have the government any pride left in our country at all? Im sure they would sell their mother for the right price
Scandalous disregard for our history from the blueshirts, once again. They probably spent as much producing their 1916 centenary video where they didn’t make a single reference to the Rising or it’s leaders. Last week they DID spend as much on a donation to a New York arts centre. Last week they spent probably as much on handong out daft medals in the defence forces for no other reason than this being 2016. Apparently that is a more worthy project than taking ownership of a tangible piece if our history. Utterly shameful. As usual.
How can you say that spending money on 1916 is wasteful and then say more should have been spent on it?
ALL to do with 1916 is a waste of money.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: You’ve not seen the superb Netflix production of ”The Siege of Jadotville’ then? If you had you’d know that ”handing out daft medals in the defence forces” was hardly the case at least in reference to those survivors of the above military action, wherin the Irish army acquitted itself as magnificently as the Swiss Guards in the Tuileries, except in the former case when all hope was gone of any military advantage being maintained, they did the judicious thing and laid down their arms rather than making themselves corners of a forgotten field that was forever Halliburton or some species of same. For this they were pilloried, shamed, and excoriated, much as the 1916 rebels were, post-surrender, by their own people and leaders. Perhaps it is this that is the true reason for the State’s indifference to Pearse’s letter of surrender?
Like I always think when I see Kerry supporters abandoning the stands before the game is actually over once it’s clear their team won’t win, success in Ireland has many fathers, failure is ever an orphan.
@Tir Eoghain Yes but that’s easy for you to say, given that nobody’s asking the Norn Iron taxpayer to pay for this piece of paper. Or anything else, come to think of it.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: It is no different to the British army handing out medals for the Queens jubilee. Medals might seem trivial but they mean a lot when you get them given to you.
Something like this belongs to the people of Ireland and should be in a museum. It shouldn’t even be up for auction. On the other hand why should some private seller extortionate the government just because its the year that’s in it. It shouldn’t even be allowed to be auctioned. Private seller was disappointed that the government wouldn’t bid, of course they were cause they wanted there million!!!!!
They should have but I’m sure our pathetic politicians would prefer to spend the money on themselves.
Maybe someone with a million to spare should but it for the state for a Christmas present…. like Bono perhaps and donate it to the national history museum. How on Bono dig deep… it’s Christmas!
Bono is only interested in poor foreigners not poor irish people. However he could always use some of that money he saves from tax avoidance if he ever felt like chipping in and contibuting to Ireland.
David he’s predominantly interested in his own sense of self importance. My comment was in jest but I genuinely think it should remain in the state. It’s a huge part of our history and belongs here on public display in my opinion.
@Cheryl
Or what about DoB giving something back to the people on whose back he built his wealth?
Good point Matt maybe he could go halves with Bono lol
It’s a priceless artifact as far as I’m concerned. In belongs in a public museum in Ireland and the government should hang its head in shame for not trying its level best to bring it home.
Priceless artefact? Seriously? I mean, seriously?
Just like your Ulster solemn covenant
Personally I think the money could be put to better use.
Of course it could. But will it!?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion- I just think your option is horse shyte
This is tantamount to selling our history if it is sold outside our state.
@redser1977: Take a look at Shannon War and Torture Port! We’ve been since March 2003 selling our history, purported values, to foreign despots and allowing them shelter as they drag their slaves whether wearing orange jumpsuits and shackled to the floors of ”CivilIAn” GulfSCreams with sedatives up their botties, or BDUs and carrying barely concealed Barret 50 cals as they walk cold-faced past the glass between air-and land-side at SNN City en route to filling up their empty ammo boxes with bainin sweaters and bottles of ”Toolamoore Doo”. The shame of it. Having sold the poor Iraqis rotten hamburger (thanks to Larry Goodman, a great example of the Irishman who screws other Irishmen while laughing at us all) we then helped BUSHCO turn them INTO rotten hamburger. Helping others to unto others never offered us harm nor threat what was done to us by others (with the help of ourselves) for so long. What a parcel of rogues for a nation.
@John O’Driscoll: Jaysus – I wouldn’t like to be stuck beside you on a long journey
@Declan Carty: I feel really terrible now that I know a random collection of molecules in a universe full of the damn things wouldn’t like to bring their molecules in close proximity to mine for any appreciable space of time. Woe is me. Death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling. Etc. Ah dear.
@John O’Driscoll: john what are you on about ????
Better than being stuck beside an infectious diseases professor :-)
Who is this greedy person looking for blood money – Pearse wilfully gave his life so this fool can sit in true freedom – we were nothing but cannon fodder in the British Empire, who had exported bounties of food whilst paddy died by the millions. Shame on this greed.
@GrAce: The smallest research (recommend Cecil Woodham-Smith’s ”Great Hunger” as a starting point) will reveal that the native Irish colluded whole-heartedly and always with the ”foreign” oppressor, as land agents; as members of the military (by 1860 over 60% of the British Army were native born Irish, as was something like 80% of the Raj); or simply by paying the rent arrears on their neighbour’s cott and turfing he and his family out onto the road while integrating his smallholding into one’s own (during the Famines a notorious practice amongst the Irish was to tumble the cottage in on top of the dying family inside and in due course move in on their smallholding). Blame the Brits all you like but the greatest oppressors of Irishmen and women were always other Irishmen and women. There’s nobody’ll screw you like your own.
@Grace – the 1916 rising is so called because it failed. They achieved nothing only the destruction of a beautiful city of the Empire.
That is nothing but divide and conquer.
John O’Driscoll..in reply, to paraphrase Einstein “Nationalism is measles of the adult mind”…but genocide – the great British Establishment could have nullified the Famine with a stroke of the pen. I yield to your Rt Hon historical blindsiding.
@John O’Driscoll: Exactly, just look at what the banks and rent landlords are doing to screw people out of their homes, worse now than it ever was.
@GrAce: Be interested to hear you elaborate on how that could have been done. A country with 8 million people mostly mired in ignorance poverty and trapped in the penal law/ gavelkind/rundale system that meant ultimately (Catholic) smallholdings were doomed through subdivision to become economically non-viable. I don’t doubt that the fundamentalist ideologies of Trevelyan, who saw the Famine as a punishment from God upon the feckless (Catholic) Irish, and the export of the country’s grain to pay the gambling debts of my lord and lady Kissmiarse at the roulette and baccarat tables of London and Paris were contributory features, along with the all-pervasive tendency of the native Irish to screw each other over when the opportunity arose. To appropriate Primo Levi’s quote about his own people: ”We left the best of us behind in the Camps” that is to say those who were too kind, too gentle, too honourable, too decent, to do what needed to be done to survive in an ultimately pathological situation, the same applied to us, only it was the mass graves and the coffin ships we left them in, and the remainder of us had a large part to do with putting them there, as much if not more as ”De Brits.”
Lastly, with a population of only 4 million, we’ve managed to allow much the same to happen again, the fortitude and resource of the country exported to pay for the gambling debts of Paddy The Plasterer and Fingers Fingleton and Seanie Fitz, while once more the children of the Nation are left homeless in their thousands while the government wrings its hands and moans like that traitor Joan Burton ”Won’t somebody think of the childher!!”
@JohnO’Driscoll The legacy of the British Parliamentary Construct of Ireland was a raped and feral wild west, not our nation’s natural evolution. The 1916 rebels grew up knowing the British ruthlessness, it brought cohesion to at least attempt to achieve freedom. That letter is Irish Sovereign Property. Today I’ve no antipathy towards De Brits, the state of our nation now..I agree with you.
@John Thousands of homeless children? How many thousand, exactly. Is there some basis in fact for that statement, or is it just one of those grandiose soundbytes that serial whingers like to come out with every five minutes. Lighten up. Much as you might like to believe it, we don’t live in 1970′s Communist Romania. And please, I implore you. Don’t come back with: ‘we might as well!! Feckin blueshirts!’ The repetitiveness just makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
@Can’t Think of One: In June 2016 there were 2.177 children in emergency homeless accomodation with their families – Source: Focus Ireland. of course that doesn’t count all the children who are homeless without their families and without ”emergency homeless accomodation” and are sleeping rough tonight. FYI I support no political party; always voting independent. After the Greens or rather the Yellows as I call them betrayed their voters in 2007 in return for a rub of the relic from Bertie and big pinshuns and ministerial mercs I swore never ever again to support any political party in this benighted kip.
Couple years back I was exploring a ruined castle in Meath between Kells and Navan and the landowner came out to see who I was and what was I doing. When he saw I was taking only photographs he was most accomodating and informative as to the history of the site. He bemoaned however the fact that many architectural features, notably a carved stone dog’s head and other similar artefacts had been removed by ”our friends from Eastern Europe” without so much as a by your leave. He presumed they had been illegally exported never to return. I thought that was terrible; something that would never happen in the UK say, where they know how to preserve their history. The idea of some Russian gangster or oligarch (but I repeat myself) snorting his substance of choice from the carved spirals of some ancient megalith purloined wtih the help of a few ex-Spetznatz and a lorry and shipped to Moscow or Lodz is one I’ve not been able to shake since. Other countries preserve their antiquities and heritage for the edification of future generations, why can’t here? Is it still the innate peasant prejudice of FF against the ”belted earls” that makes this country so careless of its archaeology. A resounding NO to the question btw.
Thats terrible.
@John O’Driscoll: We read about these things happening all the time either on private or public lands.. The county council are responsible to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for the preservation of historic sites if not already under OPW control. The problem however for councils is they have no budgets for providing this protection or conservation so enevitably most of them will eventually crumble into ruins.
@Chris Kirk: I take your point re: the dearth of council funding but have we ever known a county council packed to the rafters with time-servers and political bag-men as so many are and always have been do other than complain about a lack of money? Kildare and Meath are amongst the richest in the country, both in terms of revenue and architectural heritage in need of protecting, yet so many of the latter are disappearing/abused/ignored.
A look at the books of Tarquin Blake reveals the true extent of the degradation and dereliction of an aspect of our heritage (the conqueror’s edifices, castles and mansions) that has its roots in the peasant FFers’ hatred of all things cultural if they’re anything more so than some ballroom of romance thrown up by Albert Reynold’s or some wannabe-squireen like Haughey’s Gandon pile (and even then it’s limited to upgrading the property for the FF owner’s benefit misusing taxpayer funds to do so).
With so many social problems in this country was anyone seriously considering paying for this relic of a failed rising?
It would be a terrible thing to waste money in this way.
Your correct it failed, there was no subsequent War of Independence. This tiny country didn’t humiliate the world’s largest and most powerful empire. I myself personally prefer to browse in the non fiction section.
Subsequent is the word isn’t it!
Would you prefer continuity. Your a terrorist Dan, it’s plain to see
Disgrace typical blue shirt ignorance
Couldn’t be doing that. Sure don’t we have the all important papal visit to fund. All those fancy dinners and security and lodgings won’t pay for themselves.
@David Thomas: Maybe the Pope could buy it….
Maybe he could Chris. As a present to the Irish people for putting up with all those priests for all those years.
It really doe’s get on my wick when a country who were always so proud of their heritage begin to wain.. More or less 45% of the people who polled say the Goverment shouldn’t purchase. I say shame on you. I say shame on the Governent for not purchasing it when there was a €50,000 price tag.
To ciarar…do you mean ff and fg should be in museums. …..if so I concur
The guy selling it was milking it for all it was worth. The state already owns other versions/copies of it, so they were right not to buy it.
You concentrate on Egyptian artifacts king tut, keep your head buried in the sand
@Shane Molloy: So you think it should be bought no matter what the cost? Even though we have 2 other versions of it? Maybe you should take your head out of your ass.
It belongs with the paintings of Rolf Harris.
@Paddy Lions: Very ood comment! Can you clarify the connection?
Ignore him. He’s a William the turd bowler hat head.
@Yenreit: I think Paddy refers to certain preferences shared by both men, though the evidence against Pearse is considerably stronger.
@Paddy Lions:Dan Keane with each passing year your British loyalist sub culture is becoming more of an irrelevance.
Do you have any evidence Ben? Or just idle speculation based on his poetry?
What we need is another Rising not a letter from a failed attempt 100 years ago.
The country is in a worse state now, governed by equally cruel EU banks.
@Stephen Maher: 150 such letters and you could pay back all the water charges to those who were foolish enough to pay..wonder is Pearse spinning in his box today at the fact that in this sequestered blighted province of a sEUperstate not even the rivers run free? (Whatever about apples growing in December thanks to global heating).
No we should erase our history, it never happened. Crazy state, this should be in a museum and treasured. But this document is a nuisance to the likes of FF FG
If this was really signed on behalf of an Irish government we probably own it already and the seller is at fault.
If the seller really wanted that it stayed in the country, he should have set a price rather than complaining that the government didn’t go for an auction to be milked. Is it just me that feels that auctions are a bit if a trap?
@Stephen McManus: The auctioneer fees are the trap door for buyers and sellers. They never lose…….
Our wreck of a government should never have sold such historic items.
They didn’t! It was never in State ownership.
our country doesn’t even posses the Oringinal Tricolour !
He also wrote letters about young lads I think ,, let it off
“The Government came under fire from the letters owners… for not bidding to keep it in state ownership”… like for real? They gave out about the government not paying them over a million euro. If they really wanted to leave it in the states hands or a museum they could (or should I say “should”) have donated it. Simply looking for money
@Darren Boland: The government were being blackmailed more from the seller of the letter…..
Attempting to make the government feel guilty for not paying the reserve they set on a huge piece of Irish history, to then sell it to a private bidder in a different country due to their greed.
I know the government is not perfect but for someone to come and try make the government use tax payers money to buy something of such historic significance is just BS to then turn back and say it’s he governments fault that it won’t be kept in the states hands… shame!
If they can afford to keep having John Tierney as a project manager, they can afford to secure an important document relating to the formation of the Republic.
Instead of enda giving €1mn to NY arts and €250,000 to the NY theatre during the week to massage his ego.and they think he is the most popular party leader,you must be joking.
I note that Gerry “three gaffs” Adams and his SF acolytes have criticised the Dublin Government for not purchasing this vitally important part of our heritage. Yet, in a statelet located less than 60 miles north of Dublin, Sinn Fein ARE in government – and a Sinn Feiner is the Minister for Finance. So why hasn’t Gerry the patriot asked his Sinn Fein colleague in government to make funding available to purchase this priceless relic of 1916, which could then be placed in the Ulster Museum? This to me shows the utter hypocrisy of Adams and his fellow SF con-men – they love complaining but they’re not prepared to lift a finger to do something about it in a situation where they could do something positive. So c’mon Gerry, stop whinging, get off the sidelines and get Martin McGuinness to buy the bloody thing! (Unless of course you don’t believe that the people of Northern Ireland deserve to have access to such a priceless relic of the 1916 Rising!)
Yet they give €650 million a year “aid” to Africa.
I saw a bound copy of ”The Macaomh” (the school magazine of St Enda’s produced by Pearse) signed by no less than Thomas McDonagh on sale off Grafton St in an antiquarian bookshop lately. Sadly didn’t have the two grand that was being sought for such a rare item, containing as it did references to Rabindinath Tagore’s ”The Post Office” a play staged by Pearse and his pupils, using a translation by Yeats, which I’m personally convinced had something to do with what subsequently stalked through the Post Office (Yes William Butler I’m personally convinced that those words of yours sent out / Certain men the English shot”) so it’s probably been sold to some private collector in the US or elsewhere. Guess you can’t save everything, nor solve world hunger, but it would be good if the State had at least first dibs on all such primary and secondary historical resources.
Why can’t it be CPO’d ???? It’s a national treasure so surely they went get an export licence fir it
Enda spent the money while in the US recently..
http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/irish-arts-center-in-ny-raises-47-million-as-irish-gov-commits-extra-million
To cut this argument short, maybe everyone who paid their water charges could donate that money to buying the flaming letter, win win for government ! ! ! !
If the owner of the letter was so concerned about the government having it why didn’t she/he donate it.
Enda spent the money supporting the arts in the US!!
Such a tragedy that this was not bought. However, why should we expect a minister to buy a document signed in the HQ in Moore Street when the same Minister is actively looking to challenge the high court ruling and demolish almost the total area.
have your say