behind closed doors at Biffo's Office

Everything you wanted to know about Ireland's economic crisis, as explained through the medium of Taiwanese animation.

(thanks to @alan_butler for the heads-up)

to the unfettered control of Irish destinies

It is now just over 48 hours since over 50,000 people gathered in the icy cold white and grey of Wood Quay and marched across the Liffey, up along its northern bank and onto O'Connell Street to gather around the monument to Jim Larkin, leader of the greatest strike the nation has ever seen, and in front of the GPO, symbolic birthplace of an independent and sovereign Irish Republic. Over 50,000 voices raised in protest and anger, over 50,000 hearts and minds in search of something better, fairer and more just for themselves and for their brothers and sisters. 50,000 citizens coming together on a cold November morn to claim their future, claim their nation, and to claim their dignity.

But what, if anything, was achieved?

The sheer scale of the event was the first victory. With two notable exceptions, the union day of protest in February 2009, and the USI-organised national student march earlier this month, few recent protests could deservedly be called a success in terms of participation. As our country suffers what we now know to be one of the greatest economic collapses in modern history, the populace has been noticeable by its absence. France was brought to its knees by the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62, ours will climb to 66 within four years and nobody has batted an eye. Greece erupted in flames when their government signed up to a rescue plan with a punitive interest rate, our leaders lied about the existence of a rescue plan, the nature of the plan and the scale of the plan (today we learned that by 2015 at least 20% of our annual tax intake will go on servicing the interest alone on this plan, and we are willing to sacrifice almost our entire National Pension Reserve Fund in the process). Until Saturday the silence that greeted these lies was deafening.

The UK media all pegged the numbers attending the march at around 100,000. RTE, under fire from the government over unwarranted accusations of a hostile bias, adopted the official Garda tally of 50,000. My own estimate would be somewhere north of 70,000, perhaps as high as 80,000, based on the length of the march in comparison to that of February 2009, which is generally acknowledged to have been well over 100,000 strong. My sister was unable to make it out of Waterford that morning given the horrendous weather conditions throughout much of the country, and her story was echoed across the airwaves. Had the nation not been blanketed the night before by a freak snowstorm, who knows how large the rally would have been?

The second observation was that valuable and all as the march was, the general sentiment was that this needs to be the start, not the culmination, of wider unrest. Despite the odd cry of 'solidarity' and 'unity before union politics', Union leaders speaking at the rally were almost entirely drowned out by booing from the ordinary rank and file union members, castigating their leaders for excessive salaries and being altogether too close to the political leadership whom they were supposedly marching against. The calls for their resignation rang out loud and strong from members waving placards calling for a national strike. With the upraised arms of Big Jim above them there was no doubt in my mind that the workers around me will take matters into their own hands soon if their unions' leadership aren't seen to take a more active and aggressive stand against the Government's proposed austerity measures. There is a great anger out there, and the danger is that if the unions and mainstream opposition parties cannot channel it effectively, more radical groups like Sinn Féin and éirígí will.

The third victory, and possibly the most important one, relates directly to these two groups, and others of their ilk. As regular readers will know, I can be accused of being many things, but a Republican is not one of them. Growing up in a household where the veneration of Michael Collins approached idolatry, in a time when a small group of murderers wrapped themselves in tricolours and committed atrocities in the name of an imagined nationalism, and with the governments of the last 23 years masking their corruption with appeals to patriotic fervour, the idea of celebrating a sense of historical or national pride either publicly or privately has never sat comfortably with me. For me Republicanism has always been the embodiment of the very worst that our nation has to offer.

The staging of the rally portion of Saturday's protest outside the GPO was a deliberate attempt to reclaim our history away from the twin depredations of the violence of the paramilitaries and the corruption of the Fianna Fail machine. Hosted by Fintan O'Toole, whose latest book "Enough is Enough" captures the growing mood throughout the country that our current Constitution and political system is no longer fit for purpose and that we need to replace our economic, political and social systems with ones based on notions of equality and social justice, Saturday's rally echoed calls for the birth of a new republic, a Second Republic, and did so by publicly reclaiming two foundation documents of the first Republic, beginning with the Democratic Programme of 1919 that affirms:

"It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens of a Free and Gaelic Ireland.

The Irish Republic fully realises the necessity of abolishing the present odious, degrading and foreign Poor Law System, substituting therefor a sympathetic native scheme for the care of the Nation’s aged and infirm, who shall not be regarded as a burden, but rather entitled to the Nation’s gratitude and consideration. Likewise it shall be the duty of the Republic to take such measures as will safeguard the health of the people and ensure the physical as well as the moral well-being of the Nation.

It shall be our duty to promote the development of the Nation’s resources, to increase the productivity of its soil, to exploit its mineral deposits, peat bogs, and fisheries, its waterways and harbours, in the interests and for the benefit of the Irish people."

a statement whose poignancy and relevance to our current economic hardships was evident to every citizen standing in the crowd.

The greatest moment of the day though, and certainly the one which took me completely by surprise, was when Ruth McCabe stood up and read out the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. I have never paid much attention to the Proclamation, filing it away with other historical items of an unsavoury nature, tainted by their appropriation by extremists, murderers and the morally corrupt. As she stood on the podium, emotion welling in her voice, I found myself transfixed by each and every line, by the promise and commitment to social justice contained within:

"We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."

On this icy grey afternoon, with flurries of snow still falling around me and the colder wind from the IMF at our backs, with 50,000 of my fellow citizens standing at my shoulder and the voice of a lone woman echoing along streets silent save for a thousand lips in quiet mirroring words first uttered on that self same street 94 years ago, the tears rolled down my cheek and I felt, for perhaps the first time in my life, a sense of pride in the history of my nation, a connection to the struggle that birthed our country, a belief in the value of the republic.

But not this republic. Not the republic that exists in name only, owned by the few and exploiting the many, whose name is used to justify murder and extortion and locks us all away in a prison of conservatism and dogma. Not the republic of Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail, of Dev, Haughey and Bertie or the Catholic Church. Not the republic that is, but the Republic that is yet to come.

I believe in this Republic, The Second Republic. And Saturday marked the first step towards its birth.

The centenary of the Proclamation will fall within the lifetime of the next Government. The drafting of a new Constitution, a successor to the 1937 document that will be fit for purpose in a modern, secular nation in the 21st century and with social justice and equality as its cornerstone, should be a priority for any incoming government, with the ultimate goal of delivering a new proclamation, the Proclamation of the Second Republic, in 2016.

If there is any good to come from the pain we are to suffer over the next five years, this must be it. A new nation, a fair and equitable nation, a nation created by, with and for all of its citizens.

A Second Republic.


Video of the rally by Digital Revolutionaries

In the cold November rain, um, snow

Well it looks like we're not done with the unseasonable cold snap by any stretch of the imagination. While most of the snow and ice left by Friday night's thunder and snowstorm was gone by late afternoon, the clouds came in again overnight and dumped between two and three inches more. Thus at 9am this morning I did what any self-respecting underemployed person does on a Sunday morning, I zipped myself up into my Arctic hiking gear and went out to take some photos, passing by the Iveagh Gardens (above) before heading down to St Stephen's Green.




All the above photos were taken shortly after 10am in Stephen's Green.

It reminds me a bit of life in The Have', where it would almost be t-shirt weather until Thanksgiving and the very next day the clouds would roll in and dump a foot or so of snow that would stay until March. The sky during the day would be clear blue as far as the eye could see, but every night winter would lay a fresh blanket across the ground.

To say that this sort of thing is a tad unusual in Ireland in November is a bit of an understatement, I can never remember weather like this so early.

Obviously this proves that Global Warming is a left-wing hoax. I mean, its freezing out there.

More photos here

Marching through a winter wonderland

Just a few early photos from today's National Protest March. I'm too cold to spend any proper time today writing about it now, a great afternoon, left with all fingers and toes intact and with a renewed sense of optimism, not that the march will change anything, more that 100,000 other people out there feel a similar sense of anger, and are motivated enough to do something about it.

More Photos here.

Melancholy and the infinite sadness

I feel like a bride left at the altar. Like a prom date who's just been stood up, all dressed up and nowhere to go, corsage wilting slowly on the table, parents shaking their heads in sadness and embarrassment that their little princess has been emotionally scarred for life and will probably die alone now, her collection of raggedy cats gnawing at her rotting corpse for weeks until a neighbour complains to the condo association about the smell.

Or the masculine equivalent thereof.

After all the promise, hope and excitement of Monday the rest of the week turned into a bit of a damp squid. Yeah, I said it, a damp squid. English, like any language, evolves over time. I have never attempted to blast apart a coal seam using small powder-based explosives, thus a "squib" damp or otherwise is meaningless to me. However I have encountered numerous cephalopods in various states of moistness and I can honestly tell you that if I ran down the stairs at Christmas time to rip open the presents under the tree and discovered that the large BB-gun shaped box with my name on it did, in fact, contain a desiccating squid, then I would be very, very disappointed indeed. Mostly because I'm a vegetarian.

Biffo failed to resign. The Four Year Plan was published. Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry fell back in line. Fine Gael, with the Jim Henson designed 'Enda Kenny' still nowhere to be seen, failed to do anything more substantial than grumble mildly about the 5% of the Four Year Plan they disagreed with. The Greens' bluff was called and now the election seems to be pushed back to February, or March, or whenever.

All-in-all a very damp squid indeed.

Sinn Féin's Senator Pearse Doherty looks set to take yesterday's Donegal South West by-election with a comfortable lead at the last tally, but the outcome of this vote was never really in any doubt once the High Court ruled in his favour and rapped the Government on its knuckles for illegally delaying the by-election for over 16 months. Thus this too fails to live up to the excitement promised by Monday's turbulent chain of events.

Looking at today's news it seems as if Monday never happened. Life goes on. The country is still screwed. Biffo is still in charge. Enda Kenny is still missing in action. And no-one seems to care. Forty people show up for a silent protest yesterday. Sinn Fein and SWP/PBP managed a hundred between them at two overlapping (and rival) protests the day before. ICTU are refusing to give estimates for the size of tomorrow's protest march because they honestly have no idea if anyone will show up, given the fact that less than 1,500 made it to their last march on the EU-wide day of protests.

In previous posts I have talked of anger on the streets, but more and more each day I start to fear that this is but delusional and wishful thinking on my part, compounded by the fact that lately I have surrounded myself with what little activity is going on, living as I am in an activism bubble. Maybe there are only a few hundred angry people in the country, and everyone else is happy to go along with each new day's degradations heaped upon them by an uncaring Government, content that the only source of national pride left is embodied in the person of a singing supermarket worker on a UK talent show. God help us all when the fickle youf of England vote her off and we all suddenly notice that the figleaf hiding our national shame has been sold off to the highest bidder by the IMF. Naked and alone we face a very, very cold winter indeed.

The events of the week are symptomatic of the nation as a whole, never failing to disappoint through its lack of action and stubborn refusal to do anything other than settle back comfortably into the status quo, with a half-drunk pint of Guinness on the table as it skips past the front of the paper to catch up on the horses on the back pages. Melancholic apathy is our national pastime.

And thus here we stand on our metaphorical Christmas morn, inky ichor congealing on our hands with the fishy odour emanating from the now quite damp and dank box we hold threatening to overpower the background stench of cheap aftershave we unintentionally irrigated the carpet with when we shook its wrapped container a bit too vigorously in an attempt to guess the contents.

Reminds me a bit of the Fianna Fail Tent at the Galway Races.

Seriously though, if ever there was a time to raise your voice in anger it is now. Join the ICTU march tomorrow, you don't have to be in a union, you don't have to be a leftie, you don't have to be a radical.

You just have to care about our country.

Slow down, you move too fast

I began to write this post just after 9am this morning, and again at 11am, and again at 1pm, and now again at 3pm, for it seems every time I get more than a few lines in events in the nation overtake me and render my musings irrelevant.

Draft 1 - The country is no more. We have gone with our cap in hand to the EU and the IMF and have accepted their quarterly review and approval of our spending as a condition of a bailout. We are no longer in control of our own budget, our sovereignty is no more, it is deceased, we are an ex-nation.

Draft 2 - The Greens have pulled out of government. Well, not exactly. 30 minutes later than planned because they couldn't get the Taoiseach on the phone to break the bad news to him, they announce to the world that they are pulling out and demanding an election no later than the end of January. After they support the budget. And the four year plan. And the EU/IMF bailout. Meaning that after the horse has bolted they are offering to hand the barn over to the next guys, with an EU/IMF enforced plan on what to do with that barn for the next 4 years. Even in death the Greens manage to invent new ways to weasel.

Draft 3 - Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry, the very epitome of political opportunism, announce they will not support the government in the upcoming budget. The government remains in power only through the support of all FF and Green TDs, the rump Mary Harney (sorry, the rump PD Mary Harney) and two independent TDs, Messers Healy-Rae and Lowry. 82 government votes vs 79 opposition. If Healy-Rae and Lowry vote against the government, and the opposition win the Donegal by-election (which barring something unfortunate involving a live boy or a dead girl, Sinn Féin look set to do), that would leave the government with 80 votes to the opposition's 82 votes. Assuming all opposition members vote against the budget (not a sure thing, at least according to Fine Gael's Michael Noonan the other night) then the budget fails, the government falls and an election happens now, or early January at the latest.

Draft 4 - Fianna Fail backbenchers start muttering about Biffo going now, rather than January. Talk begins that he might not last the night.

Draft 5 - Sinn Féin storm Leinster House (or the gardens thereof). I heard this via Twitter (yup, it took a crises of national sovereignty to get me back using it), grabbed my camera and dashed off to Merrion Square. Unfortunately by the time I arrived there the gardai had ejected them (somewhat forcefully by all accounts) from the grounds of government buildings and the few remaining placard-bearing shinners were walking off down the street bruised, battered but seemingly happy with their morning's work. I can be accused of being many things, but a Republican (in either the American or the Irish sense of the word) is certainly not one of them and I have no love for the shinners, or their Judean People's Front counterparts in éirígí, but it has to be said that almost all of what passes for direct action being taken on the streets against the government has been instigated by these groups (and again, not always in a manner that I approve of). It was heartening to see the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union's call for widespread civil unrest, along with supporting ICTU's pre-budget march on the 27th, and I hope that many more unions will follow (who will no doubt be spurred on by the imminent EU/IMF-forced abandonment of the Croke Park Deal). Of course events today and over the next 24 hours may render such protests unnecessary, but there is an anger on the streets that may not be contained even if the government does fall.

So there we are now, a pretty interesting day all round and its not even 4pm. Who knows what this evening will bring?

also, if you are on Twitter, follow the #wasitforthis thread. They can take everything else from us, but we'll still have our sense of humour. Slightly more tattered and with water coming through the holes, but reasonably intact nonetheless.

The end of laughter and soft lies

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

- from 'The End', Morrison, Krieger, Manzarek, Densmore

I do not have the words to express my anger
I do not have the words to express my sorrow
I do not have the words to express my despair

Something has to change
Something has to change now.

Eindhoven go-go

This week I will mostly be … at STRP.

Leaving the Very Understanding Girlfriend behind to (rather selflessly) hold the fort, I'm off now in a matter of minutes to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to catch up with friends and amble along to STRP. Billed as one of Europe's largest art and technology conferences it blurs the lines between music, art and technology and features a day-time series of exhibits that would make the Science Gallery weep and a night-time set of performances from a diverse group of electronic acts from Chris Cunningham and Underworld to MIA and her latest progeny Sleigh Bells. I'm only sticking around for the first weekend so I'll miss MIA, but I'll more than make up for it with Modeselektor, Hudson Mohawke, Monolake and a rake of others, in addition to the aforementioned Messers Cunningham, Hyde and Smith.

While I'm away the nation may, or may not, receive a life-saving bail-out from the EU that then may, or may not, be squandered entirely on propping up the banking system so ably collapsed by Fianna Fail's financiers in the property sector, and the Taoiseach may, or may not, be exposed as blatantly lying to the nation over the last week as he continued to issue vigorous denials that a bail-out was on the cards despite it being headline news in every other EU country and a topic of much deliberation at the recent G8 summit. In that case there may, or may not, be a vote of No Confidence in the Taoiseach and his government which may, or may not, pass, triggering what will almost certainly be the most game-changing election of Ireland's brief history as sovereign nation.

Or not.

Either way I will be in Eindhoven, and for once I don't really care.

In the immortal words of C.Montgomery Burns, "Let's blow this fascist popsicle stand!"

Image: 'The state itself becomes a super whatnot', Liam Gillick, NY MOMA, September 2010

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- 'He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven', WB Yeats

Ireland as viewed from the International Space Station, taken by ISS Commander Douglas H. Wheelock and posted via twitpic last night.

Just beautiful.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge

When reading José Saramago's "The Notebook" earlier this year I was left with an overwhelming sense of belonging that he felt for specific places, his beloved Lisbon, Azinhaga (the home of his grandparents), Brazil in its entirety, and his adopted home of the Canary Islands. It comes through in every word written, every description of the air and the smells and the sounds of the life that surounds him in each of these locations, even when those words are rebuking or chiding friends and enemies alike for transgressions real and imagined.

Shortly afterwards I read China Miéville's latest book, "Kraken", an urban tale of cephalopodic eschatology set in and around a London that is every part a character in its own right, if not the central character. The city flows through Miéville's blood, as much a part of him as he is of it, and if he does not love it he at the very least respects and appreciates it, and understands its moods and tempers like a sibling or a cell-mate.

In fact my shelves are, if anything, over-stocked with paeans and poems of love and devotion from authors to their cities, but these words fill me with nothing but sadness and jealousy; the truth is Dublin is a difficult city to love.

I am an urbanist. I believe in The City, I believe in the idea of The City. The word "Civilization" derives from the Latin word for city, and "city" itself derives from the concept of "a group of citizens". Civilization is, by definition, based upon the notion of a group of people coming together in an urban setting. Everything we are as a species is derived from The City, our history, our evolution, our origins as anything more than flint-striking hairless hominids is formed by The City, and in truth The City is also our future. City dwellers produce less greenhouse emissions, less waste and less children than their rural equivalents (see Stewart Brand's "Whole Earth Discipline" or last week's New Scientist for more analysis), so humanity's best hope for a truly sustainable future lies within an urban environment.

So I love the idea of The City, just not this City.

That is not to say that there are not aspects of this city that I love, for there are many both new and old: The Luas, the Dublin Bikes scheme, The Nine Arches, standing on the platform in Pearse Station on Westland Row, the view from the Blue Light or Stella Maris Convent in Howth, the Santiago Calatrava designed Beckett and Joyce bridges, the Iveagh Gardens and many, many more. But these are but parts, and not the whole, indeed it seems that in spite of many things both great and good somehow Dublin conspires to be somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

And I am not alone in this difficult relationship. The greatest literary account of our fair city was written five hundred miles away in Paris, a decade and more after the author fled its environs. The adopted Dublin of Kavanagh is only deified because his native Monaghan is even more horrific in comparison. Even our ballads old and young can only muster a begrudging respect for this "dirty Old Town", with its Liffey that "stank like hell", and its city spirit anthropomorphised in the body of a pox-ridden prostitute dead from a fever.

I want to love this city. As I walked out across its streets this morning I wanted to take solace in the autumnal smell of malting hops and barley settling over the rooftops like a familiar downy blanket, but all I could taste was the acrid cigarette stench of a blazing street-side bin-top ashtray smoking away while passers-by shuffled aside to avoid the junkies fighting over the meter of concrete under the ATM, their adenoidal clarion calls mingling with distant sirens and the all-too-close phlegmy-throat-hawking of sharp-elbowed business-suited criminals adding their own contributions to pavements soiled with piss and vomit and other more sinister human excreta.

At least its not raining.

Love for the city is not impossible though. A month or so ago I went down to Smithfield to see 'They Are Us', a collaborative exhibition by Dublin street artist Maser and musician Damian Dempsey. In the accompanying introduction to the exhibit Maser described the project as "a tribute to Dublin, a tribute to the city: northside and southside, the visible and the secret, the good and the bad" and further elaborated that "Dublin is a central theme in my work. I spent some time travelling and painting when I was younger. The more I travelled, the more I realised how great this city is. I loved it more from being away." and as I walked through the assembled faux-shop fronts, stylised signage and photographed street-art that formed the bulk of the show it was obvious that he, like singer/songwriter Dempsey whose words inspired many of the pieces, feels a genuine emotional bond with the city that surrounds him, and by-and-large that bond is a positive one. Like Maser I too have regained, if not love, then respect for the city whenever I have returned after an extended absence or acted as tour-guide for visting friends.

But this never seems to last.

I am a product of this city. I could not see myself living anywhere else in Ireland but here, and, mostly, I could not see myself living anywhere else at all. I just wish that the city could inspire something else inside of me other than constant disappointment.

It always struck me that the Old Testament says nothing about loving your parents, commanding the faithful instead to honour their mother and father. Perhaps this then is the best that I can hope for with my city, if I cannot love it perhaps then I can aspire to honour it.

Links
They Are Us exhibition
Lusciousblopster's photos of the exhibit and other works by Maser

Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere

This week I have mostly been.. organising my Grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.

By working on this for the last while this is definitely one of those things that I have become quite blasé about, if not completely desensitized to, the notion of exactly how preposterous it is that two people could be married long enough to celebrate a 60th anniversary together. Nonetheless after more than a few weeks of planning a party was held for them on Saturday wherein all their children returned to Dublin along with most of their grandchildren, and a video skype-call was placed to allow their other grandchildren, and three newly-minted great-grandchildren, all to be a part of the day's proceedings. It came as a complete surprise for my grandparents, and the look on my grandfather's face as he walked into the room and saw so many people there was something that I will remember for a long, long time.

The second preposterous aspect of the day was the fact that a good portion of the non-family members present (I believe the technical term may be "friends") had only known my grandparents for less than three years. Every morning for the last few years my grandparents go out for a coffee, and when the hotel in which they took their morning libations became victim to that which passes for our economy three years ago and closed, they were forced to transfer their custom elsewhere. In doing so they met a whole horde of similarly aged dilettantes whose morning rituals paralleled their own, and started to form new and genuine friendships. Indeed when my grandmother had a stroke earlier this year their coffee-buddies tracked down my grandparents' phone-number and called to find out if everything was ok when they failed to show at the usual time. Thus on Saturday when one of the morning regulars gave a speech it sounded for all the world like he had known my grandfather all his life, and all this based on information gained over the course of an hour a day conversing on shared political and sporting biases.

So I was left on Saturday night with two thoughts, firstly that a long and happy life is not the exclusive preserve of fiction, and secondly, that you never lose the ability to make genuine friendships.

This makes me happy.

Modern life is rubbish

A few weeks ago I dropped into the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham, to see the start of 'The Moderns', their new exhibition that looks at all maner of visual arts in Ireland between 1900 and 1975. That is a very long period to cover, and I think as a result of this the quality and strength of the exhibition seemed a bit inconsistant to me. The exhibit can be roughly divided into pre-1960's and 60's-70's, and while there were many interesting pieces in both sections each left me with a taste of sadness in my mouth.

While there was an impressive array of Yeats, an interesting piece by Kenneth Hall and two large Kernoffs (including an amazing scene of Balscadden Road in Howth) that I haven't seen before, I was struck by the lack of originality that encompassed most of the pre-60's works. There were examples of impressionist, cubist and other movements of the early 20th Century, but the overall sense was that these were by artists attempting to create something in a particular style they had seen elsewhere, and often many years after the movement itself had dissipated on the continent. There was seldom a sense that the artists were participating in and contributing to the movement they were emulating, rather they were external observers trying to recreate something they had once witnessed.

The 60's-70s collection definitely contained more works that displayed their own unique character, but almost none left a lasting impression on me, and for this I can blame not the pieces themselves, but the Arts Block in Trinity College. Built between 1968 and 1979, the (then) contemporary art selected for its interior seemed to be chosen based on its price per square foot rather than on its artistic merit, and used mainly as wallpaper to cover the vast concrete expanses of the ground and first floors. Walking through the 60's-70s collection in 'The Moderns' was a flashback to many a cup of tea between lectures, sitting around on the carpet-covered "chocolate boxes" in the Arts Block, and in a wood-for-the-trees moment I found myself unable to view many of the IMMA pieces by the same artists as in the Arts Block as anything other than background decoration. Ironically my constant exposure to such art at a formative age had completely desensitized me to it.

Either that or the works really are just meh.

Overall I was left feeling that as a nation we really are a small windswept island on the periphery of Europe and, with a few notable exceptions, what passes for creativity here are merely shadows of greater ideas that happen elsewhere, new to Ireland but not new to the world. But this does not mean that I didn't like the Moderns exhibit, far from it, for accompanying the paintings and sculpture are an amazing collection of photographs (including portraits and landscapes of the rural West by Synge that seem ripped from the stage notes of his plays, and a fascinating series of studio experiments by GB Shaw, shown above), music, film, architectural designs, and furniture that come together to show exactly how far we as a nation have come in a hundred years, and the route we took to get here.

We may still be at the periphery of Europe, but we are closer to its shores now than at any time in our past.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Of course the highlight of the last seven days for me was not the marches, the tours, the claiming of assorted futures, nor even the acquisition of various marmalades, the stand-out experience of the week was in fact a lightning-fast trip to Waterford on Sunday evening to catch up with my sister and check out the Fighting Spiders' album launch.

I've seen the Spiders play a few times now and really enjoy their live sets, a hectic and energetic mix of indie disco rock and electronica that never fails to please. Sunday's launch took place in a church with a series of backing visuals and short films carefully synced to each track (and providing additional background synths in places). With original filmed material and the occasional Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz happy coincidences with external material (particularly with the song "Until my Heart Gives In (I Love You)" and the Argentinean silent film La Antena, shown above), the music and visuals added together to be something greater than the sum of the individual parts. Also worth mentioning was a rather cheeky Michael Jackson cover whose meme-like lyrics have infected my thoughts throughout the week like a rather nasty case of amoebic dysentery.

Cheers lads.

There was just time at the end of the night to nip down to Downes, a cozy little pub that has the distinction of being one of the few remaining bars in the country to blend and bottle their own whiskey, the altogether tasty No 9, where we caught the tail-end of The Brownbread Players comedy group featuring the ever-talented dodger of TV license inspectors Ms Dorothy Cotter, another person whose gigs you should definitely check out if ever you have the opportunity.

All in all a great night was had by all and a huge thank you to my sister for being such a wonderful hostess.

For you and for me, and the entire human race

Thursday AM, my phone rings. It sits at the side of the bed as I sleep, never switched off, but never ringing. People know better than to phone me on Thursday AM.

Wait, that's not right, I've done this bit before, something's not right.

Its Thursday, 7:45am, and my phone is ringing. I'm up out of bed and answering before I know where I am, or what I'm doing, people know better than to call me at, checks the time again, 7:46am, this is going to be bad.

Its Thursday, 7:46am, and my good friend D. is calling me from Bratislava, which is odd. Its not odd that he is in Bratislava, for that is where he lives (I have visited him there a number of times, its nice), it is odd that he is calling me at 7:46am. Calls at stupid o'clock are normally of the a) 'something bad has happened to someone you know' variety, or b) 'something bad has happened to the person calling' variety. Option a) involves much grief and visits to the hospital, Option b) involves the sending of money, the lending of a new set of clothes and the keys to your car, or the participation in a nefarious government conspiracy that somehow involves the doctor out of ER who used to have a crutch, and mysteriously now does not, all in an attempt to avoid much grief and visits to the hospital.

"Davie," for he calls me that, "Its D. I need you to go out and buy me all the Dubliner cheese you can. And some marmalade. And maybe some porridge".

This, I was not expecting.

"D.", I say, "Where are ye, are they holding you against your will, and what exactly is the porridge for, is this a cholesterol thing?"

"I'm in Bratislava, and its for the women, Davie, its for the women"

"The porridge? The marmalade?"

"The whole lot, Davie, the whole lot."

Now, I am confused. Its 7:48am.

While I stand there in my rather crumpled birthday suit in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what type of emergency is best rectified by lashings of marmalade and porridge (one involving lost Peruvian bears, no doubt), his words slowly filter through to my still semi-conscious brain. The local ex-pat communities in Bratislava aided and abetted by their respective Embassies (so it was a government conspiracy, I thought, one involving multiple governments, but where does the cheese come into all of this?) are hosting a fundraiser for a local women's charity. The fundraiser involves each country setting up a stall selling their nation's produce, only the person supposed to be sending over all the stuff for the Irish stall fell through at the last minute (ah, that's why they want the cheese. I was waaaaay off with what I was thinking. Never mind), and D. was hoping I could go out and do a bit of shopping for him.

"Ah," I thought to myself, "that makes sense."

"No it doesn't, monkey boy" said my lizard hindbrain, which being less evolved than my proper brain isn't as polite as it should be, "it's 7:51am! Who calls someone at 7:51am to ask you to go out shopping?"

Although I was surprised that my lizard hindbrain understood the concept of shopping, it had a point.

Unfortunately while my monkey-boy brain and lizard hindbrain were having this little tete-a-tete somehow my mouth had said, "Um, sure, no problems D." and the call ended.

"Stupid Mouth!" my monkey-boy brain and lizard hindbrain said in unison, exasperated that 200,000 years of human evolution had given neither of them any more control over my mouth than the Greens have over Paul Gogarty.

It was now 7:55am. I went back to bed.

Some indefinite time later I got up for the second time to check my email, and found that the following shopping list had arrived:

10 x Dubliner Irish cheese 200g
10 x Kerrygold Butter 200g
10 x Old Time Irish coarse cut marmalade
20 x Cadbury selection pack snowman
2 x Cadbury Heroes 900g
5 x Cadbury Crunchie treat size 274g
5 x Cadbury Twirl treat size 274g
10 x Flahavans Porridge 1.5kg

Two immediate problems sprung to mind. The first philosophical, the second far more practical. To begin with the majority of items on the list are not actually Irish, most of the Cadbury's are made in the UK (and obviously its a UK brand), and despite its "Old Time Irish" moniker none of the marmalade is actually made here, again it is all from the UK. The cheese, butter and porridge is all Irish, but they are responsible for the second of the most pressing concerns, the fact that 20 kilos of porridge, butter and cheese is just not going to fit comfortably in the basket of my rented DublinBike.

Unfortunately I don't actually figure out that second problem until I am standing in the rain outside the supermarket with 20 kilos of porridge, butter and cheese, staring forlornly at my rented DublinBike.

"Stupid monkey-boy!", my lizard hindbrain says helpfully.

Ignoring the philosophical conundrum as being above my pay-grade on this particular mission, and after trips to four city centre supermarkets, I have the bulk of the order, and now must set about the second part of my task, delivering the goods safely to Bratislava in time for the fundraiser and for this, at least, I know my rented DublinBike will be no good.

Thankfully D. had arranged for the kind people in the Slovakian shop on the Quays to take the delivery over to Bratislava in their van tomorrow, and so off I go in a taxi to bring the emergency marmalade, porridge and cheese and draw to a close this most bizarre of mornings.

Did you know there are two Slovakian shops on the Quays?

These are the things you learn only after your taxi has disappeared over the horizon leaving you standing in the rain with 30 kilos of porridge, butter, marmalade and cheese, much to the amusement of the (wrong) Slovakian shopkeepers pointing out the other (right) Slovakian shop a further 1.1km further down the Quays.

Luckily I spotted a DublinBike station across the road from the (wrong) Slovakian shop.

"How did you guys ever climb out of the trees?" asked my incredulous lizard hindbrain.

A second taxi-ride later I had successfully entrusted my emergency marmalade package to the care of the very nice people in the (right) Slovakian shop. Duty done, friendship upheld, women saved, and the honour of Ireland preserved through the selling of UK-produced goods.

Somehow this counts as a win in my book.

*sigh*

Showin' how funky and strong is your fight

Speaking of loving a good march, and despite being out of college for considerably more years now than I was ever in it, I snuck out of the house for a few hours today to wander down for the fun and frolics that was today's USI march on the Dail. Ostensibly the protest was over speculated increases to third-level fees and changes to the current means-tested maintenance grants system operated by local authorities, but at its heart was genuine concern over continued attacks on education funding in general by the current Government.

Reports put the turnout at anywhere between 20,000 and 25,000 students, which would make it the largest student march in years. As the head of the march looped past Holles Street Hospital and around Merrion Square the tail was still at College Green, and for most of its length marshals from USI and individual colleges seemed to keep things in pretty good order.

It was a true mark of globalisation that many of the placards mocked Tea Party misspellings, and more than a few "Careful Now"s and "Down With This Sort of Thing"s were well in evidence.

Reports coming in towards the end of the event suggest that a number of protesters occupied the Department of Finance leading to a violent response from the Gardai, but for the time I was there everything was far more light-hearted and carnival like.

This sort of march, with these sort of numbers, is great in isolation, but how much better would it be to see these students out marching arm in arm with public and private sector unions like we witnessed over the last week or two in France?

On the evidence of public activism during last week alone, December's budget is shaping up to be a very interesting time indeed.

Links
More Photos

You see a sight that almost stops your heart

From the somewhat Vanilla consensus building exercise of Claiming Our Future, Saturday then turned to the altogether tastier Oatmeal Cookie Dough of a 'Halloween Treasure Hunt" through the bankerland of D4.

Organised by the 1% Network, the event took the form of a nighttime fancy dress tour along Shrewsbury and Ailsbury Roads in Ballsbridge, starting outside AIB Headquarters, and passing by the homes of a veritable rogues' gallery of financiers, developers and speculators who made millions while bankrupting our country, including Dermot Gleeson, Paul Coulson, Derek Quinlan, Dennis O’ Brien and Bernard McNamara and others, pausing outside each home to hear a report of who they are and what they did. Outside the worst offenders' homes the organisers left a symbolic gift, a bill for unpaid taxes, a box containing the hopes and dreams of the people whose lives they have destroyed, and so on.

The 1% Network are an interesting coalition, bringing together a number of groups on the left, The Workers' Solidarity Movement, the socialist/Republican group Éirígí, the Irish Socialist Network and Seomra Spraoi (the autonomous social centre modeled on similar groups in Italy), all focused on highlighting the vast inequality in Ireland where 1% of the population holds over 34% of the nation's wealth. The problem with the Left in Ireland, indeed in almost every country, is that traditionally groups on the Left spend more time fighting each other than campaigning against inequality and capitalism. From Trotsky and Lenin to the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front, as soon as any left-wing group grows beyond a single member it is only a matter of time before the inevitable rancorous split. Calls for a unified Left are as old as the idea of the Left itself, and usually just as ignored, and that is why the appearance of the 1% Network, along with the newly formed United Left Alliance (People Before Profit/SWP, the Socialist Party and the Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Group) is so interesting because it is a measure of just how bad things have become here that the various marginal/radical Left groups have decided to stop fighting each other and come together to campaign under a single banner.

Well, under two single banners.

*Sigh*

Anyway, it was thus with a fire in my belly and a distinct lack of paint on my face that I joined the good people of the 1% Network on Saturday night and set off in search of the Minions of Mammon that conspired together to so effortlessly destroy this rainy little island we call home. While a valid argument might be made that people have a right to privacy inside their homes a) at no stage did any of the 40 or so participants do anything more than stand on public footpaths outside these homes for a few minutes and b) it appeared that none of the actual owners were present at the time being either tax exiles or actually on the run from the Irish courts.

Despite the absence of any of those on the tour's name and shame list, Garda presence was impressively high. Arriving outside the AIB headquarters participants were greeted by two uniformed Gardai on the street and a further two plain clothes Gardai in a parked car videoing all who arrived. When the tour started off along the footpath it was accompanied at all times by these uniformed Gardai and by a Garda van following on the other side of the road, again filming all participants. When the tour reached the corner of Merrion Road and Shrewsbury Road a marked Garda car was parked and a further two Gardai joined in to walk along Shrewsbury Road with the tour, and these were augmented by a number of additional plain clothes Gardai stationed outside specific houses. At times over the course of the tour the ratio approached one Garda for every four participants. I have never felt so safe walking down the streets of Dublin in my life.

Perhaps because of the comforting presence of so many Gardai, the mood on the tour was good natured, light and jovial. The organisers and many participants were dressed in a variety of costumes, from Vampire Capitalists and Zombie Developers to Ghost Estates. Outside each home a litany of misdeeds were read out, and the crowd reacted with suitably halloween-y groans and moans designed to strike fear and terror into the heart of any capitalist, "pay your taxes, ooooooohhhhhh", and all in all a good time was had by all (even some of the Gardai, who definitely cracked a smile or two at some of the comments from the crowd). This was a great example of an imaginative, well thought-out protest, designed to be fun, inclusive, and encouraging participation.

While it cannot be denied that I love a good march, events like this walking tour show the powerful effect that a small group of determined and imaginative people can have, and if you get a chance to go along on another 1% Network tour, do so.

But dress up warm. Its colder out there than you think.

Links
The 1% Network
Indymedia coverage of the event

I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

Given the recent irregularity in the frequency of posts and the sudden downturn in the pleasantness of the weather you would be forgiven in thinking that I had slunk away with my metaphorical tail between my allegorical legs to climes more hospitable in both meteorological and economic terms, but alas, no, I have merely been simultaneously too busy and too lazy to commit pen to paper, or the digital equivalent thereof. But do not take this lack of posting to be indicative of a shying away from grumpy curmudgeonly activities, for in fact I have been going beyond the mere writing of angry words and engaging in what can only be classified as the doing of angry deeds, or as close an approximation as one can get without actually endangering life, limb or liberty.

On Saturday a nation awoke to the sight of thousands of ordinary citizens tired of political intransigence, meaningless rhetoric and a complicit media that exacerbates the worst aspects of the situation, gathering en masse to provide an alternative vision for their country's future based on positive communication, polite discourse and meaningful engagement with each other and the wider society around them. Nope, I'm not talking about the little shindig that happened on DC's majestic National Mall over the weekend, I am instead referring to the other Rally to Restore Sanity that occurred in the only slightly-less-majestic Royal Dublin Society, the modestly named "Claiming Our Future" event, and I was pleasantly surprised by just about every aspect of the day.

Billed as "a progressive movement for an equal, sustainable and thriving Ireland" and based on a similar movement in Iceland, the day brought together over a thousand citizens (and a thousand more on the waiting list), a hundred facilitators and good few organisers and volunteers to try and formulate a non-political positive response to our current social and economic woes. The organisation of the event itself was very impressive; held in Industries Hall it was a conference in the round, with a central (slightly) raised podium that hosted the speakers and musical interludes surrounded by a hundred tables, each seating up to ten participants and a facilitator, with a networked PC or laptop on each table for use by the facilitator to capture the discussions and allow for data from all participants to be collated and aggregated over the course of the event. The cost was covered by a number of donors ranging from Atlantic Philanthropy through to SIPTU, though I believe that many of the donations were strictly for the event itself as a once-off occurrence and were not commitments to fund an ongoing movement. The participants were a diverse group, drawn from all aspects of civil society, and while for many this was their first attempt at any meaningful form of civic engagement there were also a wide range of activists (the usual SWP/PBP and WSM suspects were out in force) and other notables present (I spotted Dr Katherine Zappone facilitating at a nearby table). There was a fairly good gender balance throughout both the participants and the organisers, though the participants did tend towards the older end of the age spectrum, with far more over 50's than under 30's, but sure with the kids today (shakes fist in the air) what else would you expect?

The format of the event was highly structured. There were almost no speeches, just the posing of a number of questions designed to create policy priorities for the movement to focus on, all to be discussed by participants at individual tables. Each question was presented along with five suggested policies and the tables were asked to rank them in order of priority, with opportunities to add comments or suggest alternative policies. Each facilitator had a computer and submitted their table's decisions and comments, and the results were tabulated and the aggregated decisions were then relayed back to the participants later in the day. The suggested policies were based on the outcomes of a series of preliminary meetings held since the start of the year between the groups that coalesced to form the Claiming our Future movement, and thus reflected a diversity of economic, social and environmental priorities.

It was this multiple-choice nature of the decision making process, the fact that discussion was effectively limited to a small number of possible topics with limited and predetermined outcomes, that seemed to be the major focus for criticism on the day, that the exercise seemed to be one in consensus building rather than open and free-form dialogue. I do not fault the organisers for this though, the difficulties inherent in attempting to hold an event of this magnitude and deliver any form of meaningful outcome at the end necessitated a highly structured approach. In advance of the event there was an open call for online submissions from prospective participants and a number of regional consultation events were hosted, all of which fed into the proposals submitted for discussion in the RDS. While Saturday's event was quite directed and formulaic, the process and movement itself was overwhelming endorsed by an afternoon vote by the participants.

The participants themselves were the subject of the other major criticism that I heard on the day. Much of the value that any individual took from the event depended on the nature of the discussions that occurred at their table, and despite strong facilitators the quality of any dialogue was entirely dependent on the composition of any given table. Given that participation was open to any, and indeed was intended to be broadly representative of civil society, it was inevitable that the quality of participation would very. When preregistering for the event participants were asked to indicate their field of interest, and based upon the broad range of backgrounds at my own table I had assumed that each table was composed to give as diverse a range of opinions as possible, but talking to other participants it seemed that some tables ended up being top-heavy in particular fields (political activism for example), and this led to more intransigent and less productive discussion.

My own table seemed very balanced, four women and three men (and a female facilitator), three mature students, one self-identified environmental activist, one social worker, one self-identified women's activist, a blogging curmudgeon (me) and a monk. A dairy farming monk. There in purely a personal capacity, neither representing his order nor his cattle, but determined to be a part of making things better. Perhaps it was the lack of any overtly political activists (self-identifying with a particular party or organsiation), perhaps it was the strong gender balance (reflective of a pretty good gender balance across the 1000 participants as a whole, if not at every individual table), but I was rather impressed with the level of discussion at our table; no one person dominated, there were no arguments even when strongly differing opinions were held and a genuine consensus was reached on each topic (and no, that doesn't mean I got my way each time. Far from it in fact). While I didn't come away from any of the discussions with a changed opinion, I did enjoy the debate which was both collaborative and constructive, and I felt that the final submitted results and accompanying notes accurately reflected the mood of the table, even if I was not always in agreement with them, but hey, that's what Democracy is supposed to be all about.

The big question though is on whether any of this made any difference whatsoever, and that all depends on what happens next. The organisers themselves seemed unwilling to suggest any immediate next steps, preferring to draw suggestions from the participants and report back later. Marches and other public demonstrations were mooted, as were ongoing capacity building exercises using the skills of those in the room to train up others around the country to go out and promote whatever it is that Claiming Our Future eventually decides to do. Overall the mood in the room was that this was definitely the start of Something, but that despite the adoption of various policy strands nobody was exactly sure what that Something was.

Not as radical as I would have liked, not as radical as its Icelandic counterpart and altogether a bit too comfortable and middle-class, but I was glad to have been there and genuinely hopeful that this may lead to real change if only because it shows that there is a genuine demand for action from civil society, and all that needs to be done is for someone to figure out how to properly tap into that desire.

(many apologies for the poor quality photos, as I was there to participate rather than observe I didn't bother bringing along a camera and just snapped a few pics with my phone)

Summary of Outcomes

Question 1 - What are the Values that Claiming Our Future should promote at this moment (twelve values presented, top five as voted by the participants listed below):

Equality
Environmental Sustainability
Accountability
Participation
Solidarity

Questions 2 & 3 - Right now Ireland faces serious challenges and choices and people need hope that their future will be more secure. What sort of transformative policies should guide Ireland into the medium term?

2a: Economy and environment policies (five presented, to be ranked in order of priority, top two as voted by the participants listed below):
1) Change the current development model and define and measure progress in a balanced way that stresses economic security and social and environmental sustainability.
2) Regulate banking to change the culture from one of speculative banking to one where currently state-owned banks and new local banking models focus on guaranteeing credit to local enterprises and communities.

2b: Income, Wealth and Work policies (five presented, to be ranked in order of priority, top two as voted by the participants listed below):
1) Achieve greater income equality and reduce poverty through wage, tax and income policies that support maximum and minimum income thresholds.
2) Prioritise high levels of decent employment with a stimulus package to maximize job creation in a green/social economy.

3a: Governance (five presented, to be ranked in order of priority, top two as voted by the participants listed below):
1) Reform representative political institutions to enhance accountability, equality, capacity, and efficiency of national and local decision makers.
2) Develop participatory/deliberative forms of citizens’ engagement in public governance and enhance democratic participation by fostering the advocacy role of civil society orgs, civics/ethics education in all school levels and a diverse media

3b: Access to Services and Public Sector Renewal (five presented, top two as voted by the participants listed below):
1) Provide universal access to quality healthcare, childcare and services for older people.
2) Invest in equality in access to and participation in all levels of education (preschool to university).

Question 4 was an open vote on endorsing the continued existence of the Claiming Our Future Movement

Question 5 was an open brainstorming session on the next moves for the Movement. Suggestions and ideas will be collated and published soon on the Claiming Our Future Website, but a quick analysis on the day showed that there was a strong sense that the Movement should not become a political party, and should continue to operate outside the party political system.