As we approach that time of year when our craving for cheap, throwaway fashion reaches fever pitch, Katie Garrett explores the implications for the poor fuckers who have to make the shit. On 24 April of this year, an eight-storey garment factory in Rana Plaza, Bangladesh collapsed. The searches through the rubble for survivors went on for three weeks. The death toll totalled at 1,127 and a further … Read More
When It’s Okay To Hate.
I’ve the alarm clock radio rather masochistically set to RTE One. I find the smug self-satisfied world of our nation’s greatest propaganda machine enough to jolt me out of bed on even these grim mornings. So imagine my mood as I woke up to a story about a home ear-marked for Traveller accommodation being burnt out in darkest Donegal. Discrimination to the Traveller community isn’t new. It has a long, ugly history in Ireland. … Read More
[Street Art] Paint The Town.
Irish originality is an issue. Generally the work that clogs our local walls tends to over-reference past styles and overseas artists. Irish-directed stand-out work, outside of contained spaces such as the Drogheda Bridge Jam, is rarely acknowledged. This is unusual for a small country, or it would be if we had an Irish-managed version of the form to offer.
Garda corruption may have led to at least 9 deaths
An extraordinary story revealed into today’s Irish Independent has thrown the Dept. of Justice into panic mode. A whistleblowing Garda has exposed mass fraud of the penalty points system, documenting 50,000 cases which may have been deleted from the PULSE computer system. ‘Pillars of Society’ have had their points quashed include and in at least nine cases highlighted in the dossier, a motorist who had their points quashed went … Read More
Be The Holy Smoke.
Provincial papers often provide fodder for magazine sections like The Phoenix’s Bog Cuttings. Apart from the reports of Nazi saluting drunks, men watering their horses and glass bottle fights; one thing that always stuns this rabbler is the court reports around drugs in his home town. Last Sunday Jim Cusak, a Sindo journalist published an article saying the state has lost the war on drugs. This was apparently based on the … Read More
Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged
A dramatic case has found District Court Judge Heather Perrin guilty of deceiving an elderly client in to leaving half his estate to her family. She was shocked and amazed following the finding, as no doubt we will be when Shatter announces there is no way he can have her removed from the bench or touch her pension. A question that isn’t being asked by the press is what … Read More
[Cuts] Making Ends Meet
>Ireland has the second highest percentage of children raised by single parents in the industrialized world. It follows hot on the heels of the United States’ figure of 25.8% with 24.3%; the average in other developed countries being almost half that. Shannon Duvall looks at the plight of lone parents in Ireland today.
Disco Liberation: Flikkers and The Hirschfield Centre
Rashers Tierney takes a trip down memory lane and hears how a little known community centre and disco not only laid the groundwork for an opening up of Irish sexual attitudes but also dragged our clubbing sensibilities out of the dancehalls.
{Expose} Who Benefits From The Homeless Crisis?
Following on from the focus on landlords in the last issue Stone E. Broke considers how owners of private emergency accommodation benefit from Dublin City Council’s “Pathway to Home” model.
Shebeen Cheek of Them.
Orla Murphy, the ex-manager of Shebeen Chic and some of its workers tell Rashers Tierney a traditional tale of evictions, pub lock-ins and usurper landlords.