28 August 1997 Edition
Editor's desk
I noted a crazy little instance of revisionism gone out of control on RTE last week. In a report on the plight of the people of Montserrat in the Caribbean who may have to evacuate the island if a volcano continues to erupt a news report referred to the island's Irish connection. Many of them, the news reader said, are descended from Irish people who ``emigrated'' there in the 17th century.
The truth is a little bit harsher. The Irish people who found themselves on Montserrat were sent there in chains by Cromwell who banished them into slavery. Not exactly a first class ticket to fame and fortune.
Isn't is strange that David Shayler, the former MI5 agent who is spilling the beans on that disreputable organisation was once a Sunday Times journalist? I thought the career route was the other way round. First MI5, then a Sunday Times journalist.
You may recall three weeks ago on our Workers in Struggle page, Neil Forde brought you news of Dave Thompson, the actor for the children's TV programme Teletubbies who got the sack. It was all so unfair, Neil said, and showed that ruthless capitalist practices reached even into the wibbly wobbly world of the Teletubbies.
But I'm afraid Neil was looking a bit sheepish this week when he learned that Dave Thompson, far from being a working class hero, was actually an agent of British imperialism. You see, as soon as Dave was sacked he took off for a new job in the Falklands - entertaining the British troops. If you see him in Lisburn or wherever, tell him Neil wasn't asking.
John Taylor's remark that more people in the Six Counties speak Chinese than Irish caused understandable offence. It is also nonsense, particularly given the phenomenal growth in Irish language schools over the past fifteen years. And now a letter writer to the Daily Telegraph has taken John's little quip and run across the border with it. Horace Woolington yesterday wrote: ``Many more people speak Chinese to each other in the Republic than speak Irish.''
More nonsense, of course, but it made me wonder about a Unionist fixation with the Chinese community which first came to my notice a few months ago when Henry Reilly, a Unionist councillor in Newry and Mourne Council, silenced the chamber during a debate in which the name of a local Chinese restaurant was mentioned in passing. ``I'll have you know,'' he said with a smile, ``all the Chinese are good Unionists.'' It was the time of the return of Hong Kong and I can only take it that poor Henry got the wrong end of the political stick.
The truth is a little bit harsher. The Irish people who found themselves on Montserrat were sent there in chains by Cromwell who banished them into slavery. Not exactly a first class ticket to fame and fortune.
Isn't is strange that David Shayler, the former MI5 agent who is spilling the beans on that disreputable organisation was once a Sunday Times journalist? I thought the career route was the other way round. First MI5, then a Sunday Times journalist.
You may recall three weeks ago on our Workers in Struggle page, Neil Forde brought you news of Dave Thompson, the actor for the children's TV programme Teletubbies who got the sack. It was all so unfair, Neil said, and showed that ruthless capitalist practices reached even into the wibbly wobbly world of the Teletubbies.
But I'm afraid Neil was looking a bit sheepish this week when he learned that Dave Thompson, far from being a working class hero, was actually an agent of British imperialism. You see, as soon as Dave was sacked he took off for a new job in the Falklands - entertaining the British troops. If you see him in Lisburn or wherever, tell him Neil wasn't asking.
John Taylor's remark that more people in the Six Counties speak Chinese than Irish caused understandable offence. It is also nonsense, particularly given the phenomenal growth in Irish language schools over the past fifteen years. And now a letter writer to the Daily Telegraph has taken John's little quip and run across the border with it. Horace Woolington yesterday wrote: ``Many more people speak Chinese to each other in the Republic than speak Irish.''
More nonsense, of course, but it made me wonder about a Unionist fixation with the Chinese community which first came to my notice a few months ago when Henry Reilly, a Unionist councillor in Newry and Mourne Council, silenced the chamber during a debate in which the name of a local Chinese restaurant was mentioned in passing. ``I'll have you know,'' he said with a smile, ``all the Chinese are good Unionists.'' It was the time of the return of Hong Kong and I can only take it that poor Henry got the wrong end of the political stick.