“Turn Off The Red Light “, says the hand-wringing brigade, the same groups that brought us the Magdalene Laundries. While the campaign claims to mean well, Katie Garrett argues it excludes the most important voices from the discussion, the sex workers themselves. The need to “clean” Ireland of sex workers and the sex industry isn’t new. In the early 1920s the Legion of Mary, led by Frank Duff, decided to … Read More
The X-Files
Caroline McCamley is a women’s rights activist who served as chairperson of the Dublin Well Woman Centre and the National Women’s Council of Ireland. She talks to Rónán Burtenshaw about her involvement in the abortion campaigns of the 80’s & 90’s. What was your first exposure to the politics of abortion in Ireland? I was a feminist in the early ‘80s but the ‘choice’ issue didn’t really come up for … Read More
It’s All In The Game
When Maeve Spanning’s housemate shared the details of a date that left her confused and depressed, they smelled a rat. This particular rat is a professional Pick Up Artist with a legion of paying followers… If you have read Neil Strauss’s The Game, then you will already know quite a bit about the Pick Up Artist (PUA) lifestyle. If you haven’t, then you’ll just have to Google it because I … Read More
Repeal the Eighth
It’s been a year since crowds held images of Savita Halappanavar outside Leinster House. Oireachtas Retort wonders if we are starting to leave ‘vanity Ireland’ behind? On the 18th February 1992 An Taoiseach Albert Reynolds stood in Dáil Éireann to outline details on Ireland’s injunction of a fourteen year old girl. He was followed by a brief statement from each opposition leader. As the Chair called time two deputies … Read More
Bootboys, Casuals and The Beautiful Game
The sterility of modern British football stadia – package trips, plastic seats, plastic fans – is a dystopian Thacherite vision of a broken society. The fan is an individual, paying top dollar to be entertained by lowly taxed high net worth athletes who are the playthings of foreign billionaire oligarchs. Donal Fallon says it’s little wonder there has been a wave of nostalgia for the visceral terrace culture of the … Read More
#rabbleRaker: The Google Archipelago
Cowprint rugs, beanbags, snooker tables, tax mitigation. Life at Google sure is sweet. Ronan Lynch says otherwise as he dives behind the Doodles to find out why not all Googlers are feeling lucky. For all its oft-touted motto ‘Don’t be evil’, Google Inc is a world-striding multinational corporation, and few people expect the company to behave like a charity. Still, Google is probably unhappy about all the recent publicity … Read More
[Look Up] Bedlam in North Dublin
In these days of endless Church scandals, the role of the State in the abuse of the citizenry is often overlooked. Paul Reynolds opens the Pandora’s Box that is the history of Irish psychiatric healthcare. Grangegorman, in Dublin’s North inner city is perhaps the most striking example of Ireland’s journey through psychiatric healthcare. Built 200 years ago to the plans of London’s Bethlehem (‘Bedlam’) Hospital, it was at the … Read More
[Pitch Invasion] World In Motion
From Italia 90 to one man and his dog. Mark Hoskins explores what took us from a nation obsessed with the beautiful game to one that has turned its back on the terraces and finds there are dedicated fans determined to wrest control back from the money men. In England, love got the World in Motion and the greatest football song of all time had bucket hats, bingo wings and … Read More
Gombeen #6: The Highway Rat
In the Highway Rat, the rat’s kleptomania means “he even stole his own horse’s hay”. Similarly, ISME’s Rat has given full-blooded support to austerity, stridently opposing minimum wage increases and calling for the abolition of all Employment Regulation Orders and Registered Employment Agreements. These measures hammer the living standards of the 777,000 SME sector employees, destroy their purchasing power, and send more small businesses to the wall (businesses are closing … Read More
Youse All Fucked Off
This issue of rabble was brought to you by the 260 people who donated to our fund:it campaign. Their faith in this project will help to keep it running for another year. During which time RTE will continue to inanely forecast green shoots while letting the shower who got us into this mess, their good time buddies and drinking partners go unchallenged. Just as the folks who supported our … Read More