Top Issue 1-2024

22 February 2007 Edition

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Fifth Column

Eoghan Harris’s sorry history

Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris - former political guru to the KGB groupies in the Workers’ Party, then John Bruton’s Fine Gael and then the Ulster Unionist Party - is against any apology for the 1920 Bloody Sunday killings of 14 GAA players and supporters by the Black and Tans when England plays Ireland at rugby at Croke Park this weekend.

Neo-con Harris doesn’t agree with apologies - for nationalists, descendants from the slave trade, or Native Americans, in fact anyone on the wrong end of imperialism - because they contribute to the culture of ‘victim-hood’, he says.

‘Sticky’ Harris’s stance might also have something to do with another anniversary this week.

On 22 February 1972, in Harris’s ‘Official Sinn Féin’ days, the Sindo scribe’s comrades in the so-called ‘Official IRA’ planted a car-bomb at the Parachute Regiment HQ in Aldershot, killing five women canteen workers and a military padre.

Don’t expect any statement or apology from the Sunday Independent star columnist or that other Old Stick, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte.

 

You are what you eat

Coincidentally, Eoghan Harris was spotted on Monday afternoon this week, after one of his occasional visits to Independent Newspapers in Dublin’s Talbot Street, buying his dinner from a well-known local butcher.

So what is Eoghan Harris’s staple diet? Tripe.

 

Slaves of history

DUP MP Sammy ‘Woodpecker’ Wilson has been most upset about direct ruler Peter Hain’s apology in the United States for the slave trade. Hain, as Britain’s double-jobbing Secretary of State for the Six Counties and Wales, said at an event on slavery:

“I’m here on behalf of both Northern Ireland and Wales to say we have had a part to play in the slave trade... That historical legacy must be recognised and we are sorry for it.”

The DUP MP was outraged, somewhat justifiably as (whatever about Wales), Ireland apparently had nothing to do with the slave trade. Sammy seethed:

“I think a lot of people would love Peter Hain to apologise for the things he has done while he has been in charge in Northern Ireland rather than to delve into the past and apologise for things we had no responsibility or sympathy for.”

Not like institutional sectarian discrimination, eh, Sammy, which unionists most certainly did have responsibility for while they were in power, which they enjoyed immensely and which some prominent figures still have huge sympathy for, hankering for the old days of Sir James Craig’s “Protestant parliament and a Protestant state.”

 

Six of one...

‘Sideshow Bob’ McCartney’s anti-power-sharing United Kingdom Unionist Party is so under-whelmed with talent that the great man himself has had to stand in not just one constituency but in six. Sideshow’s split personality, however, is causing him some problems even if his ego isn’t.

The unionist QC reckons that (in his dreams) he can single-handedly land six seats and then casually give up five of them to fellow UKUP non-entities to slide into. Not so fast, say the electoral authorities. Sideshow can hold all six seats, because there’s no law stopping him, but any attempt to play musical chairs will result in by-elections.

Even the DUP has described what Sideshow think is a devilishly cunning plan as “Monster Raving Loony Party politics.”

Kiss-off

BBC TV’s Hearts and Minds Political Editor Mark Devenport was on the Assembly election trail on St Valentine’s Day, casting his critical eye on the SDLP’s photo-opportunity.

“St Valentine’s Day gave the SDLP a chance to come over all romantic when they handed out special Valentine’s cards saying ‘Kiss Goodbye to Direct Rule.’ Naturally they’ll be hoping the electorate aren’t kissing them goodbye this time round.”

You might say that, Mark; I couldn’t possibly comment.

 

Silly sausages

The DUP marked St Valentine’s Day with a special breakfast event at a Belfast hotel, according to Mr Devenport.

The Paisleyites stopped licking their lips and pulled out at the last minute, though, when it turned out they would be sharing the bed and breakfast facilities with a conference for transsexuals and transvestites.

The DUP made their excuses and hastily left the hotel for another venue.

 

Getting up their noses

Down in the Deep South, in Cork City, a Fianna Fáil general election candidate has sniffed out some publicity with a survey claiming that one in five people aged 18 to 35 snort cocaine.

According to Councillor Michael McGrath, heroin, ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are also popular but cocaine is the drug of choice among the 200 people he surveyed. Now he thinks he has found a way to cut down the use of coke - he wants pub and club owners to coat toilet seats with the WD40 oil to stop party animals sniffing cocaine off of cubicle toilet seats. When cocaine comes into contact with WD40 it congeals and can’t be snorted.

It’s been pointed out, though, that WD40 warns users that it can be “harmful or fatal if ingested.” It has caused massive nose bleeds when this idea was tried in pubs in England.

Cork’s cocaine addicts may not be the only people to get a bloody nose from this one.


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