Above: A selection of shots from the December 2014 Irish Water protest in Dublin by Bit Thornt. Today’s guilty verdict represents, if you excuse the pun, a watershed moment says Paul O’Connell, a Reader In Law at SOAS University of London. The regime has sent a clear message resistance will be met by a brutal police force and increased criminalisation. The right to protest has never enjoyed particularly strong protection in Ireland. The provisions of the … Read More
Pushed Off The Block.
BLOCK T is an independent artistic enterprise and one stop shop for all things creative. It was based in Smithfield from 2010 until March of this year. Unable to get a long term lease in Smithfield, they have now moved to Dublin 8. Martin Leen caught up with co-founder and managing director Laura Dovn to talk about the challenges of running a space such as BLOCK T.
So What’s The Story With Abortion By Post?
While Ireland continually grapples over the morality of other peoples choices the rest of world has been developing technologies and medicines for safer, quicker more efficient pregnancy terminations and has being doing so for decades now. Sheila Lafferty takes a look at the abortion pill. Every year 42 million women worldwide choose to have an abortion. This aspect of reality just doesn’t get discussed in Ireland. Many people residing here … Read More
Booze 2 Go.
The Garda Ombudsman has reported on the investigation into the strange case of the €35,000 worth of booze claimed to be ordered by Shell for Gardaí stationed near Rossport. It concludes ‘No evidence of the purchase or delivery of alcohol to garda stations, nor of any misconduct of garda members, has been found as a result of the investigation.’ The back story here via the Guardian is followed (further below) by … Read More
The Missionary Position Or How The Irish Learnt To Have Sex.
Whilst the rest of the western world was in the midst of the STI-swapping frenzy that was the sixties, Ireland was on its knees waiting outside a confession box. Sheila Lafferty, gets under the covers and gets to grips with Irish sexual cluelessness. A sordid mix of Victorian neurosis and Rome rule meant that sex in 20th-century Ireland was a silent taboo that only happened behind closed doors, under blankets, with … Read More
What We Learned Today.
Newly minted TD Ruth Coppinger got under the skin of Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan big time today. Coppinger had the audacity to pull O’Sullivan up on how changes to rent allowance provision leave people vulnerable to their community welfare officer while topping up private landlords. Here’s a quick transcript: Coppinger: Your colleague Joan Burton announced today that they’d increase rent payments on a case by case basis so people would still … Read More
#rabbleRaker: An Employer’s Market
A 2010 study found that Ireland is seventh on the list of countries with the most workplace bullying in Europe. Four years on, is anything getting better? Shannon Duvall has been hearing some stories that suggest not. Defined by the Health and Safety Authority of Ireland as “repeated inappropriate behaviour, direct or indirect, whether verbal, physical or otherwise, conducted by one or more persons against another or others, at the … Read More
The Ombudsman’s False Teeth.
An Garda Siochana and GSOC. They don’t like each other, right? You would expect this type of relationship between the police and a body tasked to tackling police abuses and corruption. Immediately after allegations of GSOC’s surveillance surfaced, teeth were bared, fur flew and blood was drawn. Mark Malone takes stock of the scrap. The commissioner and Alan Shatter both came out with statements riddled with half truths. But after … Read More
Tackling The Drug War On The Home Front.
Throwing all jokes about students and sensible drug consumption aside, Students For Sensible Drug Policy Ireland are set to challenge the state’s prescriptive strictures on drug use.Rashers Tierney catches up with Seán Lynch. He’s a founding member of the group and it’s their first conference this weekend. You lot represent the Irish wing of a more international movement. Can ye tell me how you got set up here and what the aims of … Read More
Cables, Cowards and Contraception
Oireachtas Retort has been digging in wikileaks and takes a look at the McGee case as seen from the US Embassy in 1973. Most people are familar with the tale of the condom train or how the Virgin Megastore started selling rubber johnnies on behalf of the Irish Family Planning Association in 1990. But what about the young woman who bravely stood up and went about kicking stultified social policing … Read More