No single issue in Ireland affects more people in more ways than the ongoing housing crisis. As of the most recent figures, Ireland’s level of homelessness is – once again – at an all-time high, having now crossed ten thousand citizens of this Republic without a place to call home. Rents are spiraling, security of tenure is barely existent, ownership remains out of reach for an entire generation of young adults and housing lists are demonstrably growing beyond what either local authorities or national building policy can keep up with.

And despite all this, the traditional Irish tendency to immediately compare one person’s plight with another persists. To the single mother in emergency accommodation, a rent increase sounds like a pretty good problem to have. To the three generations under one roof, waiting for social housing, negative equity doesn’t seem so bad at all. For the first time buyers, now expected to pony up €320k for something “affordable”, the diminishing profits of developers surely don’t invoke any tears of sympathy.

The sad truth is that everyone – from the homeless, to the renters, to the prospective buyers, to those in mortgage arrears, are all moving parts of one colossal national machine. That machine is increasingly broken, with no apologies made for either the incumbent government or the predatory actions of overseas vulture funds.

If we are to overcome this national crisis it is imperative that we stop the begrudgery. We cannot continue to reply to all news of the hardship felt by others by simply saying “yeah, well, here’s why it’s worse for me”. This approach to the crisis will serve simply to divide. A house divided remains easily conquered, as the natural forces of capitalism have shown time and time again.

In times of widespread adversity, the solution lies in widespread co-operation. The Raise The Roof campaign, comprising a broad coalition of housing policy experts, political parties and trade unions, demonstrates the crucial importance of seeing the crisis for what it is – a national one, not limited by a specific group’s pains but one in need of radical solutions that can benefit all, rather than just those that have profited from housing as a commodity up until now.

Ireland can be a home for all, but if we’re going to live together it’s time we began to truly work together.
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This post was written by Jimi Kavanagh (@ninety6days), editor of soapbox.ie (@talktosoapbox) a website on the go since 2014. Picture by @Ciaraioch

One cannot escape the endless advertising campaigns to recruit young people to the Armed Forces of the UK.  The same thing happens across the world.  All nations recruit.  You will find them in schools, on Youtube, on TV, on the radio, on massive billboards and more recently at the Tall Ships event in Belfast.
 
Alongside the pay and the pensions, the chance to travel the world, and the access to free fitness training facilities, the main shtick that is employed is the promotion of the training and career opportunities that a life in the Forces will provide.  A life in the Forces will create bonds and friendships that will be life-long.  The recruits will join up, get all the training, see a bit of action, retire, and enjoy the rest of their lives.
There is no mention of the high probability that you could be killed, maimed, or left with severe psychological problems due to the service that you will be ordered to give once you put on the uniform. 
 
This is because the young people who join the Forces don’t think like that.  Most young people live in the moment.  Danger is attractive; it is all part of the adventure.  Besides, ‘it can’t happen to me’ is the mind-set.  There is no talk of the ultimate sacrifice for Queen and Country.  That only happens when it happens: up to then, it’s all just a big adventure.
 
This has always been the case.  Those who join up don’t think they are going to be harmed: it's just human nature; a defence mechanism.  This was probably the way it was during World War One too.  You only have to look at the recruiting posters from the time.  The initial thinking was that it will all be ‘over by Christmas’; Christmas 1914, that is. 

It was not over by Christmas 1914 as we all know, in fact, it went on until the end of 1918 but the subsequent propaganda posters called for one ‘Final Push’ to defeat the Hun.  Just another few more recruits would do the trick.  The Hun was on his back and we just had to go over and stick the bayonet into his heart. Easy-peasy. 

There was no talk of the ultimate blood sacrifice. This myth came later.  A lot will be made of the blood sacrifice that was made by the men of the UVF who gave their all for the freedom of Ulster.  Had it not been for their personal sacrifice then Ulster would surely have been lost to Rome.  This is the myth that we have grown up with.  It is a myth that that Northern Ireland was built upon. 

I would like to ask the question: is this true? 

Did all of the young men who left their Ulster homes think that they were going to France to die for the soul of Ulster?  Or did they think that they would be back home after a few months in sunny France?  Was it because of peer group pressure and the stigma of being branded a shirker?  

I have trouble believing that the many thousands who lost their lives on the first few days at the Somme thought that that was how they would die or did they believe the hype of an easy life in the trenches as portrayed in the posters at the time? 

A sacrifice, in my eyes, is to give yourself up, in the face of a certain death, for a higher cause.  Did these young men think that certain death was inevitable?  Was it a conscious individual sacrifice?  Or did the blood sacrifice that we hear of today only occur when the mortars, bullets, bayonets and gas did their job on them?

I am open for challenge on my questions and I hope that there can be a wider debate around some of the myths that hold strong in our society.  I am not trying to denigrate the memories that people have of those who died in France and Belgium during WW1 but I am asking people to look beyond the myths and ask themselves what would you be thinking at the bottom of the ladder about to go over the top. 

Would you have been thinking about the Soul of Ulster or was it just an adventure gone wrong that looked far better on the 1914 billboards or at a stall amongst the Tall Ships?
 
This post was written in July 2015 by Paul Gallagher (@cutdabegs) who writes at cutdabegs.blogspot.co.uk The post was originally titled “Examining our Myths: A Blood Sacrifice or Just Seeing the World?”. Paul is a campaigner for victims of the troubles and a social justice campaigner.

Stephen Donnelly, the man with a plan. He was an anomaly in the Irish political landscape. Being unattached to a political party or dynasty, he was truly independent of the system. He didn’t have a background of parish pump politics to his CV to make himself presentable to his prospective constituents, which was something stalwart independents had in spades in the past. Instead he presented himself and his no nonsense attitude with direct, sharp views on the financial mess the country was in, how it was being managed and how it should actually directed for any improvements to occur.

He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. In the mess of NAMA and Anglo, in the IMF and in the Trioka, and in the ECB, you found yourself half confident in half knowing what he was talking about half the time.

He blazed a trail in being a new age politician; a person who, after seeing the faults in the public and political realm, came from the private sector to put these wrongs to right, or at least highlight them in his capacity, with no ulterior motive or personal profit to be gained.

After some time of building up his brownie points in Dáil Éireann, he went into business with Catherine Murphy, a complete legend of a politician with a hard working red background and a very public presence of bringing to light the consummate failure that was, is, and forever will be Irish Water.

Another shareholder in the new venture was Roisin Shortall, one of the few Labour ministers who had the courage to call bullshit on the then government, walking out on James Reilly when he was doing his best gerrymandering impressions regarding Primary Care Centre locations.

While they were baptised the Social Democrats and placed themselves left of centre, Donnelly was certainly the one to keep it “centred”. But even at that, they had found a common ground to create a new political dialogue away from the predictable civil war stuff that he himself decried. He purple suited his introduction to politics.

The likeable Murphy, the honourable Shortall and the believable Donnelly, how could the Social Democrats lose to an electorate who were sick of everything to do with anything?

They didn’t win, nor did they lose, strictly speaking they drew. They must have been disappointed not to gain seats, coming very close with Gary Gannon, but identifying themselves as a new party was still an achievement.

Fast forward some months after #GE16 (as the kids called it), and Donnelly left the purple party. Irreconcilable differences. The parting was a moot point for both sides, and while far from amicable, it seemed they both said their pieces are were happy with that.

Fast forward again and we get to him joining no ordinary party, Fianna Fáil, the party that “more or less” got us into the mess, the party that repeatedly lied and said all was fine, the party that he blamed on the stagnation of the Irish political scene, the party that will beautify CJ Haughey for all time to come, ever and after, forever and ever.

Admittedly, I was very quick to scoff and laugh from my very high horse, Morality, and I made the bare minimum requirements of a joke regarding Fianna Fáil on Twitter no less. But then I stopped.

To a certain extent, some SD followers got behind them due to Donnelly’s “charisma”, not necessarily a friendly kind, but it was a confidence and accuracy he held, no doubt from his days as a consultant. Do they now feel slightly betrayed?

The man who held views we all agreed with has gone bad in our eyes. It must also be said that his elevation to Spokesperson on Brexit would have certainly ruffled feathers in the party’s backbenches. But just because he is now on the frontbench for Fianna Fáil, that doesn’t change them. Sadly though, it just kind of changes him. By joinging Fianna Fáil, he’s chosen his own destiny, and whether he wins re-election is another matter, he has to win back the minds of the cynics who finally had a little bit of hope.
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This post was written by Paul McCarrick (@PaulMcCarrick), who every now and again takes time to write some great political satire, in between bouts of social commentary at paulmccarrick.wordpress.com The original title in full was “The Not So Curious Case of Stephen Donnelly in A Fianna Fail Dress. I also note that since this article was originally published Lisa Chambers has become Fianna Fail’s spokesperson on Brexit. Stephen Donnelly is currently the Fianna Fail spokesperson for Health. 

Never has Ireland been so divided over politics, at least not when it comes to a state visit from the President of the USA. So why are we at odds with a man who holds potentially the most prestigious office in the world, and represents his country in doing so?

Do we understand Trump or his country? Reflecting the title of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest shockcom “Who is America”, writer William Wall examines the true nature of the USA in his latest article, which neatly explores Trump’s power base and a side of America we’re not so familiar with.  

Firstly, let me say that Donald Trump is not the American Nightmare. He is, in fact, the American Dream Writ Large. He is rich, arrogant, shallow, individualist and lacking in empathy for others. When Americans say they don’t want to pay for medical care for others, they are talking Trumponian.

When they say America is the greatest country on earth, a beacon of freedom, the leader of the free world, the kind of place that people look up to, the home of the free or the brave or any of the other standard epithets, they are talking Trumponian.

But what are the values of the USA?

I’m not talking about Mom’s Apple Pie and the so-called ‘American dream’. I’m talking about the values of the state that is the USA. It’s possible to deduce these values from the actions of that state. What states say about their values can, of course, be dismissed unless the rhetoric matches the reality.

The USA places a very high value on projecting its power. This is clear from the size of its military forces and the amount of national expenditure it eats - especially if taken with sweetheart deals and tax breaks for the military-industrial complex.

The USA places a high value on being able to extract resources from weaker countries. We can see this in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in its conflicts with countries like Venezuela which refuse to buckle to the power of the USA.

The USA values its power of life and death over its citizens and its power to incarcerate minorities and awkward presences - often for a very long time indeed. 

The USA places a very high value on the subservient behaviour of vassal states such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, so much so that it wastes vast amounts of scarce resources on them. I say ‘scarce’, because clearly there are not enough resources left over to take care of its own citizens.

The USA places a very high value on being able to interfere in the internal workings of unfriendly states in order to achieve the right result in elections and coups. I hardly need to give examples of this, but Pinochet is an outstanding one of many.

The USA places a high value on war and death and has defined a particular kind of heroism for its soldiers which involves them losing life or limb for very little reward. Soldiers are valued as killers, but also as role models, making appearances in schools, colleges and sports stadiums, for example. Many unrelated businesses (cafes, bars, restaurants, etc also reference the military as objects of charity which reinforced the role-model effect).

The USA places a high value on weapons, from ‘personal' weapons including sniper rifles and assault weapons to nuclear weapons. It is only possible for America to be continuously at war because ordinary people are at war: white people with black and brown people and Native Americans; rich people with poor people; capital with labour; fascists with anti-fascists; states with the state; Christians with atheists, Muslims, and Jews; straight people with queer people; men with women.

Why else would the USA have the highest rate of gun-ownership in the world? And why would a state tolerate such gun-ownership? Because guns are for war, and the people are at war, and the state is at war.

The central tenet of the state’s creed is not liberty or equality, but authoritarianism and conformity.

This is not to say that ordinary Americans support these values. Many do, many don’t. Many don’t see them. I am not speaking of people and their values, but the values of the state.

This post has been slightly shortened/edited, the original, called “American Values”  is from The Ice Moon Blog by William Wall (@wiliamwallbook). William Wall is the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature. He has also won the Doolin Prize for poetry, Virginia Faulkner Award, The Sean O’Faoláin Prize, several Writer’s Week prizes and The Patrick Kavanagh Award. You can access more of his writing including free books and essays @ http://williamwall.net/ 

A United Ireland is inevitable. A phrase you will hear being debated a lot more in the climax of Brexit negotiations. Demographically and politically we are heading towards a United Ireland and for most analysts it’s only a matter of time before this happens. What will a United Ireland look like and how deep is the cultural divide between Nationalists and Unionists. In this provocative thought piece, Emma Rainey raises the question “If the Irish Language Act is Cultural Supremacy, then what is the 12th July Arlene Foster?”

“It’s the case of making sure that those we represent also feel valued in Northern Ireland – what we can’t see is one section of the community having cultural supremacy over the other members of the community of which they live. What we wanted to see happen is that everyone is respected and that there would be mutual respect across Northern Ireland, and that it is regrettable that Sinn Féin won’t enter into that sort of dialogue.” – Arlene Foster, Leader of the DUP following the breakdown of power sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly

Like many other of thousands of people who’ve probably heard this statement from Arlene Foster my mouth literally dropped open. The sheer cheek of her to accuse a community, of which for decades has been oppressed politically, socially and culturally, of seeking ‘cultural supremacy’ over another is just gob-smackingly hypocritical.

As many of my readers know I live abroad in Brussels, Belgium and have been doing so for the last five years. I often try to get home to Belfast 3-4 times a year, usually for a week each time because even though I love my life in the EU capital there is just no place like home. However, I usually try to avoid going home in the month of July – predominantly for one reason – The Twelfth.

For those who are not familiar with what the 12th July is and what it represents, it is essentially the biggest day in the year, along with the 11th July bonfires for the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) community in Northern Ireland. It celebrates the victory of the Protestant king William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. On the Twelfth and throughout the month of July, parades are held by the Orange Order and Loyalist marching bands, streets are bedecked with British flags, colouring and symbols, and large bonfires which tower over houses are built to be lit on the night of the Eleventh.

I’ve just given you a very watered-down and simplified version of what this day is. Now here is the real truth of it…

As mentioned earlier, these celebrations are usually led by the Orange Order and Loyalist marching bands.  The Orange Order, which dates back to 1795, is a Masonic-style brotherhood sworn to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy. Its name is tribute to King William of Orange and each year they hold Northern Ireland hostage with marches in remembrance to this event whilst wearing their Orange sashes and black bowler hats. Along with them are the Loyalist marching bands, who were once paramilitary organisations but are now little more than drug-dealing thugs. These parades and marches are controversial for a number of reasons;

1. They are associated with sectarianism, triumphalism and supremacy. Since the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, the Irish Catholic population have been subjected to outright discrimination purely based on the fact that they are not British and Protestant.  They’ve been the underdogs for a long time in the short history of the region and the PUL community like to remind them of this as often as they can.
2. In relation to the first point, the Orange Order were able to parade wherever they wished; therefore, a favourite choice is to parade past areas where an Irish Nationalist community reside. These communities usually vacate their homes due to fear because at the end of the day, who wants intimidation at their doorstep? However, since the establishment of the Parades Commission, rules have been put in place to regulate these marches and some of the rulings have not gone down well with the Orange Order and PUL community. They believe they have a god given right to ‘march on the Queen’s highway’ and have caused severe riots in the past just because they had to compromise
3. Public spending on these marches is ridiculous on a number of levels. For a starter, funding for Orange Order Halls has quadrupled from £500,000 to £1.9m on the watch of former DUP minister Paul Givan. Not only does this lead questions in regards to transparency and good-governance of public money, it basically endorses at an institutional level, an organisation whose core ideology is based solely on hatred, dominance and subjugation. Moreover, as these parades are so contentious, riots and violence often follow them wherever they go. In 2014, £6.7 million of public money was spent to police these parades and I would hazard a guess that that number hasn’t changed much in its variation each year since.

Parades with sectarian songs and symbols of triumphalism is one thing; however, there is nothing more sickening than seeing what your average bonfire on the eleventh night looks like. It’s common knowledge to those of us from Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland that the PUL community have a competition to have the tallest bonfire – why? The bigger it is, the more the ‘Taigs’ will see it.

Some of these bonfires are more than 70-80 ft. tall and are often constructed using hazardous and polluting materials such as wooden pallets and tyres. They are also built in densely populated housing estates were they are close to homes of which last year, three houses had caught fire as a result of a bonfire. Managing these bonfires had in fact cost the Fire Service £667,159 between 2010-2015 whilst the clean-up of the bonfires costs ratepayers and councils on average £280,000 a year.

In addition to the cost, there are the sectarian connotations attached to the bonfires. The PUL community have a tendency to hate a number of groups – Catholics, Irish, LGBT, Palestinians, immigrants, EU nationals, etc. So on these bonfires, they adorn flags, slogans and effigies that represent these groups. So a statue of the Virgin Mary, an effigy of Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and pictures of other politicians, GAA flags, LGBT flags and xenophobic statements, will be the average thing you’ll see on a bonfire. Believe it or not, they consider this to be culture but it is nothing short of hate crime, and in most other societies this would not be tolerated.

To put a long story short, if you’re a member of the Catholic/Irish/Nationalist/Republican community, this month is dread for you. You will more likely try to arrange your one summer holiday of the year over the week of the Twelfth just to get away from it. Everything about this month highlights the lack of willingness to move on from the past from certain groups, it shows that Northern Ireland is far from being a ‘shared’ society, that compromise is not a phrase often used and that one group does inflict a hateful ‘cultural supremacy’ because they believe they’re entitled to because of an event that happened over 300 years ago.

Now here is something to consider, I am actually not against the Orange Order or PUL community in maintaining their ‘cultural’ events. I believe they should have them as long as they remain respectful, non-sectarian and regulated.

They can march in their own areas all they want for there is no need to parade in areas where they are not wanted. I personally don’t understand the mindset that would want to make someone feel intimidated in their own home. It’s inhumane. They can also build all the bonfires they want as long as they are not environmentally dangerous and unsafe. It would also be great if they could just remain plain without any bigoted hatred spewed all over them. Would it not be better to have one big communal bonfire in a shared open area that aims to facilitate cross-community relations?


Claiming that the Irish Language Act would somehow allow the Irish Nationalist community and other Irish speakers to dominate the culture of Northern Ireland, is a smoke screen because Arlene Foster and the rest of the DUP know that the jig is up. Having a standalone Irish Language Act along with a standalone Ulster Scots Act would simultaneously enhance the cultures from both communities. However, what Arlene and her ilk know is that Irish as a language is more widely known and used by those who culturally identify with it. They’re scared it would become too mainstream and heaven forbid if their ‘British Ulster’ was to have a strong Gaelic presence. Northern Ireland would no longer be Unionist supreme, it would be a region of equals.

So let’s twist Arlene’s words against her… “It’s the case of making sure that those you SHOULD equally represent also feel valued in Northern Ireland – what we no longer want to see is one section of the community having cultural supremacy over the other members of the community of which they live. What we want to see happen is that everyone is respected and that there would be mutual respect across Northern Ireland, and it is regrettable that the DUP won’t enter into that sort of dialogue.”

Emma Rainey @afootin2places is an advocate for social change, she blogs at afootintwoplaces.wordpress.com covering Current Affairs, Politics, Feminism, and Activism.
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Image featured is art by Victor Sloan who can be found at http://www.victorsloan.com/

Cork is a beautiful and strange city. The historic centre lies between two walls of water - the North and South branches of the river Lee. Originally a marsh divided into islands, the ghosts of the dividing channels still remain, bridged over and hidden but returning to haunt the city on rising tides at certain times of the year.

It’s a busy city, but there is a melancholy sweetness along the river on June or September evenings, the city tranquil, the river full, sunset softening the high houses on the ridge of the Northside. There is a watery quality to the light, good days or bad, and a shimmering, dancing wit in the people which I have always felt was related to the the three waters of bog, river and the proximate ocean

The river is confined within stony banks but nevertheless the city floods. Not just the rare occasions when the mountains pour into the Lee and the river overspills its banks, but more frequently from the sea surging up through the old buried channels and out through every opening, penetrating the old streets in places like Morrisson’s Island, The Marsh or The Coal Quay.

There is water inside and outside the old walls and, it seems, water is under the city too, a deep hidden second River Lee and a huge aquifer that means the city is essentially a watery raft floating on a geological mirror of the surface.

The recent Office of Public Works (OPW) proposal for flood-protection will do irreparable damage to this old city. The walls will replace old cast-iron railings, old cut limestone, stretches where the river is open. They will block the vista of the river that is so central to how Cork thinks of itself. They will wall the river out and wall the floodwaters in – so much so that the OPW plans pumping stations to vent the sea-flooding into the river. If it works it will feel like being inside a flooded prison. If projections for rising sea levels due to climate change come true the wall will be taller than the average person. Wherever you go in the city, open vistas will become blank walls.

This is my first objection to the Cork wall. It will change the nature of the city’s relationship with the river. It will be ugly and it will be forbidding.
 
But this is all assuming the wall will work. This report suggests otherwise. Walls fail, the Dutch say, and they should know a few things worth knowing. And these walls are to be built on marshy ground, on a raft floating on an aquifer, with holes that channels directly to the sea, a giant dam upstream that once caused a catastrophic flood when the rainfall in the in the Lee catchment almost overwhelmed it (extreme weather events are predicted to be more frequent as the planet warms).

This is my second objection: Cork is not a city ideally suited for such a project.

I know nothing about engineering but I do know something about logic. Imagine a situation where a complex large storm brings torrential rain on the catchment air and then or later, high south-easterly winds and exceptionally low pressure. I remember one such storm. The rain swells the river, perhaps following on a period of heavy rain and therefore already high. The south-easterly wind drives the sea up the harbour and into the city (this is actually what happens, not a speculation). Low barometric pressure allows the ocean to ‘spring back’ since the pressure of the column of air holding it down is lessened, thus allowing the tide to rise. These events are sometimes called ‘super storms’, but it is worth reminding ourselves that they are not unheard of on this little rock facing the Atlantic, and we can expect more of them as the planet warms.

Imagine then a large release of water from the dam, the river in spate exploiting a weakness in the wall. The Dutch Government warns that flood defence walls always fail at some point. The floodwaters pour through the city just as the sea comes up through the old channels. The walls now turn the city into a basin, trapping the water within. There will be pumping stations to help evacuate the water, I am told, but by the time the pumps are needed the city is already flooded. 

Unlikely, you say, but nevertheless possible. Logic tells us that there are two factors to weigh in relation to a risk: the probability of an accident and the magnitude of the damage. It would be criminal, for example, to build a house that was not earthquake ready on the grounds that the last earthquake was a long time ago. We might see such a storm once in a hundred years, but when did the clock start ticking? And why should we visit our calamity on future generations?

This is my third objection: The magnitude of the catastrophe should the walls fail outweighs all considerations as to frequency. In any case, frequency of extreme weather events will increase as the planet warms, this what all the science tells us.

There are more complex possible solutions: care for, protection of, and even development of flood-plains up river; improvements in dam management and the management of the reservoirs upriver; most technically challenging, a tidal barrier downstream of the city. None of these, of course, will shovel money into the pockets of the builders, and in this country the one group of people who must be kept happy are the builders.

This is my final objection: A beautiful, tiny jewel of a city is to be sacrificed so the OPW can practise its block-laying skills.
 
Save Cork City

This post is from The Ice Moon by William Wall (@wiliamwallbook). The post was called ‘Prison Walls for a River’. William Wall is the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature. He has also won the Doolin Prize for poetry, Virginia Faulkner Award, The Sean O’Faoláin Prize, several Writer’s Week prizes and The Patrick Kavanagh Award. You can access more of his writing including free books and essays @ http://williamwall.net/ 
 
The picture used is taken from http://savecorkcity.org/ which is a site opposing the OPW’s Wall Scheme. 

This is an extract from an article by @MEneaney which was posted in @lustforlife recently. The article discusses mental health stigma in the workplace and asks anyone who feels like they have been singled out to get in touch with Mary. Mental Health is an area we are only beginning to explore in Ireland and a difficult topic to discuss. Mary intends to present her finding to the Oireachtas Committee on Mental Health so please help bring this discussion forward as it may help someone you know.

The issue of depression and associated stigma in the workplace is a difficult one to address but it is one that has to be addressed if the rights of those who declare a mental health difficulty are to be safeguarded.

To apply stigma to an employee who discloses that they have suffered from depression is to mark them as being distinctly different from their colleagues. It is a most damaging and soul destroying experience for any employee. For any employee who has or who has had a battle with depression, it is a frightening prospect and there is little doubt that it serves to compound the stigma. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. There is a reticence among people to inform their employer about anything relating to mental illness and statistics would suggest that this reticence is justified.

It would seem that mental illness is possibly the last remaining taboo in Irish society and it would follow that this transfers into the workplace. If employees are obliged to disclose their medical history, it would seem that those who had experience of mental illness are left to ponder the implications of disclosure.

The results of a survey carried out by St Patrick’s Mental Health Service is no surprise to those who have been labelled or fear being labelled. The isolation and loneliness associated with mental illness was reflected in the fact that 25% of the respondents reported that they would tell no one if they were experiencing suicidal thoughts, 38% would not tell their partner if they were taking anti depressants; and 36% would not tell their partner if their child was being treated for depression.

In relation to the employment setting, 31% reported that they would not feel comfortable explaining to their boss that they need time off due to a mental health difficulty, 29% did not think someone who experiences panic attacks could be head of a company and 73% believe society views those who receive in-patient care for mental health difficulties differently. Imagine if there was evidence of similar attitudes in relation to cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease. What if employees who disclosed any of these illnesses were clearly labelled and pointed out? It would, of course be deemed incorrect and unacceptable on every level. Why is it acceptable in relation to mental illness?
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Picture is from website of @davidshrigley

You’re a decent reasonable pro-life man and a close female relative or friend asks for your help with the expense of a journey to England.

She’s pregnant. She doesn’t want to be pregnant. She wants to have an abortion. She has thought about it a lot and her mind is absolutely 100% made up, so nothing you can say will change it.

If anything your reasonable arguments will just cause her even more distress and you obviously don’t want that because you aren’t some kind of monster. You’re just a Reasonable Man, with reasonable beliefs that just happen to coincide with your deep Catholic faith.

If you aren’t prepared to help she’ll still have the abortion, but it’ll take her several weeks to save the money. Several miserable weeks during which the foetus will continue to develop and the required procedure will become more and more complex and invasive.

As you continue to wrestle with your conscience you might not feel that you can personally justify the idea of ending the life of an unborn child, but can you justify the idea of forcing a person you love to go through pregnancy and childbirth against their will?

Are you aware of the health risks? The months of nausea, the vomiting, the anemia, the pelvic floor damage, the scarring, the physical pain of giving birth… And of course, the rarer, but very real and life-threatening risks – eclampsia, blood-loss, cardiac problems.
Are you prepared to accept those risks on someone else’s behalf? Is that reasonable?

Would you simply tell this person whom you love that you’re simply not prepared to assist with the procurement of an abortion, as it goes against your strongly-held moral beliefs?

Or would you as a Reasonable Man calmly and rationally accept that it is not about you and give her whatever help she requires, especially if it means that the abortion will take place at an earlier stage of the pregnancy?

For most of us a debate on the moral rights and wrongs of abortion is always worth avoiding. For a start it all hinges upon when you believe the clump of cells… foetus… unborn baby… whatever you want to call it, becomes an actual human person whose right to life matches that of an already-born woman. Suggesting that it happens at the point of conception is no better than suggesting it happens at birth or at some other arbitrary point in between, like when scans reveal that the clump of cells from certain angles has taken on the vague appearance of a person whom we’re all agreed is the absolute spit of his grandad.

The debate about the circumstances under which abortion should or should not be legal is a far simpler one, based around practical questions rather than ethical ones.
Pragmatism is why it’s legal in just about every civilised society in the world. It has long since been proven that banning it will not prevent it from happening; it just means it’s more likely to happen dangerously and without medical supervision. Only in countries like Ireland, where religion held undue influence over the state and its people for decades does it remain illegal. Even in Ireland, in our own typically Irish way, we’ve been oh-so pragmatic about it too, steadfastly looking the other way as thousands of Irish women have their abortions in the UK every year.

It’s important not to think of the referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment as merely a ‘what are your views on abortion?’ survey. You can remain personally opposed to it in all circumstances whilst also taking the pragmatic view that it should not be criminalised and that if it’s going to happen, it should happen safely. A vote to keep the Eighth Amendment is not a vote against abortion. It’ll continue to happen just not safely and legally in this country and all those Reasonable Men who call themselves ‘pro-life’ will be happy to continue looking the other way.

Repeal
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This post was written by Ray McGrath (@RayMcGrath) and first featured on his wonderful site ray-mcgrath.net It’s an engaging address to any reasonable prolife men out there and refreshing to see men looking to directly communicate with other men on the issue. 

Less than a week away and a lot of my male friends have told me they don’t think they’ll be voting on Repeal the 8th. Some have told me they’re pro choice but don’t believe it’s something we should have the right to choose, ie they say they’re prochoice but anti abortion and are thus confused and opting not to vote.

I don’t know how such an important issue has managed to pass them by and I’m a bit disappointed. My male friends and thousands of other Irish men have simply ignored the real life stories of the women and their partners who’ve had to travel to the UK and further a field for a medical termination of pregnancy.

I know some of my male friends have seen the ‘No’ posters and have concluded this referendum is about babies, they’re simply not aware it’s a referendum about women’s rights and consequently the greater freedom of the Irish people (both women and men).

Amidst the struggle with trying to inspire some of my male friends to vote, and quite frankly to vote ‘Yes’ I came across a wonderful post by Áine Mulloy (@AineMulloy ) called ‘Where Are The Men in The Fight to Repeal’.  This is a shortened version of her post but follow the link for the full story:

I know many guys who are pro-choice. Sometimes they are vocal about it, but often only when asked. When it comes to social media, encouraging people to vote, sharing content, or marching they are notable by their absence. Now that’s not to say that all men are like this (#notallmen) but it’s noticeable. It’s clear there’s a sense that this is a women’s issue, a thought piece, some abstract notion that doesn’t impact men, and therefore it’s not their place. And this is a problem. In order for the 8th to be repealed, we need the support of men.

When writing this piece, I reached out to several men – but only one replied. Writer and weekly columnist with avondhupress.ie, Donal O’Keeffe shared some of my same observations. “A recurring comment I’ve heard from a couple of men is that the Eighth Amendment doesn’t affect men, and therefore men shouldn’t have a say in the upcoming referendum. I understand the point they’re making, but with respect, that’s like saying heterosexuals should have abstained from voting in the marriage equality referendum. That’s not the way democracy works, lads, and it’s not the way universal suffrage works either.”

And this seems to be the problem. There is a disconnect. In many ways men aren’t directly impacted, so it’s merely something to be thought about and cast aside. It’s not a constant lurking weight hanging over their heads.

This may seem dramatic, but it’s not. Ask around. Ask the women that you are friends with how they’d feel if faced with an unplanned pregnancy. It’s a topic that’s constantly discussed by women, as we know we’d bear the brunt. Women are the ones who are questioned by pharmacists, and doctors. Women shell out for pills, and implants, and coils, and whatever else.

Our bodies get poked and prodded; our consent can be stripped by the State. Medical information withheld and blatant lies told to our faces. We’re the ones who stress after every encounter. Meanwhile the 8th does impact us all. There’s a very real imbalance at play here. The worst part is that this imbalance is enshrined in law.

There needs to be an acknowledgement from everyone that it’s not up to the constitution to decide what happens to another person when they seek healthcare. Staying silent on this issue, or worse, not voting on the issue asserts that you are happy to be stripping people of the power to make decisions about their own healthcare. This might seem harsh, or unfair, but it’s true. By staying silent you are effectively supporting the status quo. The status quo is dangerous.

You don’t need to be pro-abortion, to be pro-choice. And the 8th doesn’t just impact on access to abortion. It’s much wider than that. If we want people to be able to be actively involved in their own healthcare, and for healthcare professionals to be able to do their jobs safely then we need the 8th Amendment to be repealed. In order to do that, we need the voices of men alongside the voices of women.

Repeal the Eighth.

Áine Mulloy is a co-founder of GirlCrew, she has some great posts about Repeal on her site which are well worth checking out, and since sharing this she has also written another great follow up post called ‘An Open Letter to Undecided Men – and Those Voting No’. 

In Ireland, as everybody knows, if you need an abortion you have to go overseas to get it. The Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast can only perform simple abortions and legally, in Northern Ireland, only when the life of the woman is at risk.

In the Republic of Ireland, abortions for molar and ectopic pregnancies are routinely performed – but the hospitals and the government carefully don’t refer to them as abortions.

The antichoice brigade call themselves “prolife”, because they are against ending foetal lives safely and legally. They tell themselves stories about how women don’t need abortions: they use phrases like the “abortion industry”, assuring themselves that women who say they are happier and healthier for having had an abortion are deluded, or lying.

There is considerable evidence that the Irish healthcare system will not provide abortions to the women who need them for health reasons because the stigma against referring for abortion is so great.

If the woman can travel to London, a doctor will simply advise her to do so. There is a systematic culture of denial among Irish prolifers that there is ever any need for a woman to have an abortion to preserve her health or save her life.

In December 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that if abortion in Ireland is allowed when a woman’s life is at risk, then the Irish government must make it possible for a woman to have an abortion. The court said the Irish government had failed to properly implement the constitutional right to abortion if a woman’s life was in danger.

Since then, prolifers in Ireland – possibly funded by American right-wing campaigners who find the Irish ban on abortion a convenient talking point – have been insistently and sometimes very publicly arguing that there is absolutely no need for any change: no matter how much heartbreak, trouble and expense the ban places on women who need abortions, there are to be no abortions in Ireland.

John Fleming, Bishop of Killala, wrote:
The key moral issue, therefore, for Catholics is that the life of the unborn can never be taken intentionally. Our Catholic faith has a very clear view on the dignity of the human person, human rights and, in particular, the right to life.

For Christians, our bodies are not our own to do with them what we will. Our bodies come from God, are created in God’s image and destined for eternal life with him in heaven. This is our faith and this is what distinguishes us from those who do not share our faith.

From the moment of conception each of us has developed as a human being, not into a human being. The child in the womb is not a “potential” human life, but a human life with potential.

The Diwali festival in Galway was cancelled the same year Bishop Fleming wrote this, out of respect to the woman who choreographed the dancing and who would have danced to celebrate the festival, Savita Halappanavar.

Savita Halappanavar, 17 weeks pregnant, died of septicaemia in hospital under prolife care. Looked after by prolife doctors and nurses who did not want to save her life because that would have entailed killing the foetus that was dying inside her.

After the 31-year-old dentist was told that she was miscarrying, her husband reportedly said that she had asked for a medical termination a number of times over a three day period, during which she was in severe pain.

But he said these requests were denied because a foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told at one point: “This is a Catholic country.”

Medical staff removed the dead foetus days later after the heartbeat stopped but Halappanavar died of septicaemia on 28 October 2012.

Praveen Halappanavar said:
“The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldn’t survive.” The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few hours. There followed three days, he says, of the foetal heartbeat being checked several times a day.

“Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby. When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning Savita asked if they could not save the baby could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said, ‘As long as there is a foetal heartbeat we can’t do anything’.

“Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita [a Hindu] said: ‘I am neither Irish nor Catholic’ but they said there was nothing they could do.

“That evening she developed shakes and shivering and she was vomiting. She went to use the toilet and she collapsed. There were big alarms and a doctor took bloods and started her on antibiotics.

“The next morning I said she was so sick and asked again that they just end it, but they said they couldn’t.”

Savita Halappanavar died because she was denied an abortion: because she was in hospital in prolife Ireland, in the country where – as Bishop Fleming says – they have such a clear idea of “the dignity of the human person, human rights and, in particular, the right to life” that when the foetus’s heart is still beating inside a pregnant woman, she must be left to die in intensive care, in a prolife hospital, since Catholic ethics would not permit killing the foetus to save a woman’s life.

“I still can’t believe she’s gone,” said Mr Halappanavar.

“I was with her those four days in intensive care. Every time they kept telling me: ‘She’s young. She’ll get over it’. But things never changed, they only got worse. She was so full of life. She loved kids.

“It was all in their hands and they just let her go. How can you let a young woman go to save a baby who will die anyway? Savita could have had more babies.”

“What is the use in being angry? I’ve lost her. I am talking about this because it shouldn’t happen to anyone else. It’s very hard. It has been a terrible few weeks, very hard to understand how this can happen in the 21st century, very hard to explain to her family.

“If it had happened in the UK or India, the whole thing would have been over in a few hours. We just pray now, wherever she is, she is happy.”

If you’re a man, think about your mother, sisters, wife, girlfriend and female friends. Would you prefer they die rather than have access to an abortion? Because that’s what this is all about.  In this progressive European country, successive governments have steadfastly refused to introduce legislation that would allow women, who would otherwise die, access to life-saving medical treatment. Elsewhere in the Western World, such an odious public debate, displaying such a disgusting disregard for the lives of women, would be treated with the contempt it deserves.

It’s Twilight Zone stuff — especially when one considers that a majority of the Irish people endorsed the very limited terms of the X Case in a referendum in 2002.

So why do I still call them prolife?

Because that’s what they call themselves. It is bitterly ironic that they name themselves prolife and campaign to have women die, but I will continue to use their name and require them to call us prochoice.

Prochoice is pro-life however ‘ProLife’ is not Pro-choice. The spectacle of doctors and nurses standing by while a patient under their care slowly dies should horrify anyone. Ireland’s health service executive and the University Hospital ordered investigations into how this was allowed to happen, but we all know, John Fleming, Bishop of Killala, gave the answer.
 
This post is part extract and slightly edited from edinburgheye.wordpress.com
The original post was written by Jane Carnall (@EyeEdinburgh) and was published on the 14th of November 2012, originally titled 'Why do I Still Call Them Prolife?' 

​Jane is an advocate for LGBT rights as well as covering topical political issues such as Scottish Independence and Brexit.
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The cover art is called ‘Sleepless’ by Kostas Skopelitis (@kskopel863)