I often get lost in my own mind imagining headlines from the future such as;

“Liberals Fail to Comprehend Trump Winning Second Term”

“Clone Genetics Extend Possibility of Eternal Life”

“Donald J Trump Wins Fourth Election in A Row”

Sure the world was imperfect in 2016, but we recycled, we worried about endangered species, envisaged a planet sustained by renewable energy, there was a gradual shift towards transparency & equality. 2016. How we will come to remember you as humanity’s final days.

Critics will say not enough was achieved in the ‘Hope’ years, that progress had its chance but failed to realise it. The old myth that ‘change is gradual’ will be debunked as the neoliberal Empire Strikes back with rapid expanding global stupidity. The world will be privatised, I mean globalised, no wait I mean held at ransom by Trump’s NATO death star.

Billions and billions of dollars means jobs for the Empire. Well if you consider the manufacturing of drone warplanes for the Middle East a good job you’ll be perfectly content in the knowledge that dictators have been empowered globally to enslave your fellow man. In the future human rights are not such a big issue, global warming has slowed down because the ice caps have already melted, and hope in general is dead.

Hope is a thing people believed in around the year 2016. It was indeed a thing with feathers. 

The robot authority actually detect any feeling of hope and beat you on the spot until you either admit you’ve no chance of making the world a better place or you bleed all the hope out of your defiant and shattered body, onto the streets of broken dreams and streams of liberal fantasies more commonly referred to as snowflake rivers.

Ah yes the years we lived in hope where the world was gradually changing for the better, what a wonderful time that was. With sunsets, and birds, and feminists. Such simpler times. 

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

Ireland seems to be the land of the shambles these days with a continuous downpour of corruption clogging the drainpipe. The government seem to be completely out of touch and have actually resorted to saying prayers before work in order to fix the country. Sometimes I think we’re more and more like an episode of Fr Ted than Dermot Morgan could ever have portrayed.

For every backward notion the government come up with it, it seems like the people’s best defence is to rely on the strength of community and hope that the lads in the Dail aren’t being that serious.

That’s why Junior Justice Minister David Stanton’s attack on the GAA has really bothered me.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ireland is now suffering deeply with problems created by unregulated gambling, with more Casinos popping up in Dublin city than Starbucks global five year expansion plan. If it continues to grow at this pace Dublin will end up looking like an impoverished and tacky Las Vegas strip. There are also huge concerns with the way licensed bookmakers operate both on the street and online, completely unrestricted and unregulated they operate from far afield destinations such as Gibraltar & Morocco, these are the real vultures Ireland needs to be worried about.
However David Stanton is looking to break the back of bingo halls and small community fund raisers with his priority to outlaw GAA lotteries that exceed €5,000.

"Some commentators have described it as the wild west out there," he said. "Every time you pull a string in the gambling ball of twine other things emerge. For example, most lotteries at the moment are not legal. Most raffles that occur are not legal. There is a lot of stuff going on out there that is not legal at all."

"Some of them, not all of them, may be acting without proper authority and regulation." He said people can "mean well", but could be flouting the law due to a lack of awareness.

For me the GAA is one of the backbone organisations of rural communities, it is one of the subtle threads that makes Ireland such a great place to live and like everything in Ireland has suffered greatly as a result of recession economics and poor government, which has seen mass migration and cuts in funding in the last decade.
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For the government to turn around now and target local fund raising efforts in a guise to tackle problems created by unregulated and out of control gambling corporations is absolutely despicable. This government will continue to damage Ireland and its communities while doing absolutely nothing to stop vultures prying on the weak and addicted. GAA raffles are a pinch of salt compared to the thousands of fruit machines which have infested O’Connell Street. This is really an issue we need to put the horse before the cart on and start introducing bans on gambling advertising as well as online promotions which target our youth. Remind your TD that you’re focused on the big issues and not the bingo hall.