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21 June 2007 Edition

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Fifth Column

Slick Jackie

What about Jackie Healy Rae’s glistening comb-over on the first day of the new Dáil?
Jackie’s slick hairstyle was almost as sharp as the barbs aimed at his South Kerry Fianna Fáil bitter rival, the new Ceann Comhairle, John O’Donoghue.
Is Jackie’s wispy top a tribute to those snappy dressers of 1920s Chicago or Jackie and Bobby Charlton, famous trend-setters for the old comb-over?
Or is his semi-detached hair symbolic of his barely disguised semi-detached relationship to Fianna Fáil?

Retiring RUC men

The Retired Police Officers’ Association in the Six Counties (the RUC Old Boys) wants the inquiries into allegations of collusion between the RUC and unionist death squads in the murders of solicitors Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane.
Whatever happened to the police wanting people to help with their inquiries?

Running on Empey

Baron Ballyedmond OBE, the friend of Fianna Fáil who sometimes goes by the less aristocratic title of Eddie Haughey, may be about to follow David Trimble and abandon the Ulster Unionist Party crew in the House of Lords to defect to the Conservative Party.
The wealthy boss of the Newry-based Norbrook Laboratories and Norbrook Holdings has a personal wealth of £500 million, making him the third-richest person in Ireland.
The former Dundalk schoolboy doesn’t own a castle – he owns two! One is Ballyedmond Castle in Rostrevor, County Down, and Corby Castle in Cumbria, England.
Baron Moneybags was nominated as a Fianna Fáil member of the Seanad by Albert Reynolds in 1994 and by Bertie Ahern three years later.
So why abandon Sir Reg Empey’s sinking ship? “In the past I made a substantial donation to them and I think the country needs the Conservatives at the moment.” And “the country” (whichever one that is) obviously doesn’t need Reg’s Ulster Unionists.

Smoked Pickles

The wonderfully named Eric Pickles MP, the Conservative Shadow Local Government Minister and one of David Cameron’s front bench, must be the sort of far-thinking Conservative that ‘Eddie Two Castles’ thinks people need.
Fuming about the ban on smoking in workplaces in England from 1 July and fines for law breakers, Mr Pickles slobbers:
 “Step by step, ministers are introducing a Stasi state – giving ever-stronger powers for state officials to spy and enter private property, and now, even asking bosses to act as secret police.
“I fear that a town hall Taliban could be tempted to use the easy target of a smoking ban as a cash cow.”
Mooooo.

Bernard Manning

Bernard Manning, the Manchester comedian who wouldn’t have been out of place at a British National Party Christmas party, passed away in hospital on Monday.
Manning’s career thrived on the ‘thick Mick’ insults that he passed off as comedy.
Frank Carson, the Belfast comic who made his breakthrough in the 1971 ITV series, The Comedians, alongside Manning lamented the passing of the bigoted old dinosaur: “The only people that misunderstood him were those people who didn’t have a sense of humour.”
When World in Action secretly filmed Manning entertaining top cops in England with a joke about “niggers”, even the Conservative Party Prime Minister John Major complained.
In 2002, Manning was causing such offence with his ‘jokes’ about ethnic minorities, gays and women that one seaside town council barred him from performing for fear he would break race hate laws.
Liz Curtis investigated the stereotyping of Irish people in Britain through the centuries for the London-based group, Information on Ireland, in Nothing But the Same Old Story: The Roots of Anti-Irish Racism (1984). The cover carries the following quote from Jean- Paul Sartre:
“How can an elite of usurpers, aware of their mediocrity, establish their privileges? By one means only: debasing the colonised to exalt themselves, denying the title of humanity to the natives, and defining them simply as absences of qualities – animals, not humans.”
This is what Bernard Manning did. It wasn’t funny.

Old Bailey

The Old Bailey has had a long and malevolent association with Irish political trials in this past century – the Belfast Ten, the Balcombe Street IRA unit (‘The Brixton Brigade’), and the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. Now the records of more than 100,000 trials have been put online.
Unfortunately, they only cover the period 1674 to 1834. But the search engine does throw up some interesting references to Vinegar Hill, “notorious Irish papists” and death sentences for offences such as Catholics hearing confessions.
If you want to visit the Old Bailey (online, if not in person) then you can log on at www.oldbaileyonline.org.

Dirty Dick’s last stroke

Fianna Fáil outgoing Environment Minister Dick Roche certainly didn’t waste any time letting the Green Party know that they’re playing with the big boys now.
Just before he cleared his desk to hand the whole state of affairs over to John Gormley, Dick Dastardly’s last stroke of his pen was signing off the licence to drive the M3 motorway right over the national monument discovered near the ancient Hill of Tara.
In The Godfather movie, the guy who stood up to Don Corleone woke up to find a horse’s head in his bed, not a whole flamin’ motorway!

It wasn’t me

Dick Dastardly is brazenly standing over his last-minute stroke, which begs the question: why he didn’t do it before polling day if it is so right?
And now the Greens are trying to wash their hands of their government partner’s dirty deed and all responsibility, even though John Gormley’s office will be bulldozing the project through the historic site.
The new Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Minister, Eamon Ryan, is lamely dismissing complaints by claiming that the decision was one of the last government’s responsibilities and nothing to do with the Greens.
Just like the Green/FF Government continuing co-location of private hospitals?
Just like the Green/FF Government continuing to use Shannon Airport as a bridgehead for the US war machine?
Just like Mary Harney being appointed Minister for Health by the Green/FF Government?

Politics pop pickers

There’s a thread on the politics.ie website asking for suggestions for party theme songs.
Someone suggested:-
The PDs – Just The Two Of Us
The Greens – Stuck In The Middle With You
Sinn Féin – The Only Way Is Up


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