Her name was Robin; she was five years old when she fell off the moon walk – a half moon climbing frame, a thrilling favourite in the school’s yard. Her leg was in a cast for six weeks. The school had to remove the playground – it is fair to say that I have never gotten over the emotional trauma of seeing the caretaker hack that wondrous see-saw to pieces. But the most painful thing to swallow; Robin wasn’t even supposed to have gone on the moon walk – she broke the rules in the first place. But even rulebreakers and trespassers have recourse under Irish law.
If you accumulated the monies paid out in 2008 by the Government, companies and private individuals to compensate claims for personal injuries, you could buy every player in Manchester United, every pair of shoes ever designed by Monolo Blahnik, twice, or some other item that costs in the region of €280 million.
When did a sincere “sorry” become insufficient? I am not referring to the true cases of injury; those described by the PIAB’s Book of Quantum as significantly ongoing injuries or serious and permanent conditions. I understand that loss of a substantial nature should be relieved in so far as possible, although in many cases of real suffering money is of little more assistance than a bandage to a corpse.
But the “trivial” claims, those regarding substantially recovered injuries, are brought more and more frequently – and not for the primary motive of ensuring no one else suffers the same fate. I myself considered taking legal action in an effort to redeem my own pain and suffering as I watched the third consecutive Tangle Twister fall from the stick to its doom outside the shop. Instead I settled for a letter begging HB to position the sticks through the centre of that strawberry, frozen-iced goodness. They gave me a free ice cream but more importantly a promise to try their best in the future. However to most claimants such a promise would be insufficient; those of the likes of Mr. McWilliams, who is claiming for approximately the 10th time (his memory it seems is as flawed as the coordination of his feet). They seek damages.
The notion of damages in Tort is as a means to put the injured party in the position they would have been in, had the incident never occurred; encompassing the reimbursement of medical expenses, loss of income (past, present and future), and the relief of pain and suffering. This last aspect can be abused; damages are becoming disproportionate, and more frequently a method to fund the family trip to Mallorca.
Frightened about the prospect of unemployment, terrified that your degree won’t be worth the paper it’s written on? Ireland today has the answer; earn a livelihood from clumsiness and fall over. The Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), or Personal Injuries Board as it’s now known, will be happy to inform you what your leg, kidney or nose is worth in one simple click of the mouse.
We are bargain hunters by nature, but do these people claiming for an Ouchy or Boo-boo ever consider the real cost of their claims?
Obviously if you claim against a private individual the face of the person whose money you are taking will be abundantly clear, but what of the companies who are inundated by personal injury claims? Insurance premiums for the respondent company will inevitably rise, all because you didn’t notice that piece of paper on their floor and twisted your ankle. Against a large company that might not be viewed as the little man sticking it to the big bad corporation, they have more than enough money to go around. But smaller industries who are already struggling could go under as a result of such claims. Plaintiffs do not measure the effect their actions may have on the livelihoods of employees; is a broken finger worth some mother’s son’s job?
Many of these “substantially recovered” personal injuries claims are directed against the local authorities, aka the government, its servants or agents. Subsequently if you do get compensation along with that money I propose you then lose your right to complain that they are misappropriating funds!
Then there is the added cost to the public at large of making such a claim that is overlooked as claimants fill in the online form. Money makes its familiar migration from the taxpayers’ pockets to fund the running of the Courts and the Injuries Board, money that could undoubtedly be better spent.
Frivolous claims irrespective of whether it is a faceless corporation or the man over the back wall equates to court enabled robbery and it is shameful.
But I fear I may be alone in this thought as litigation fever infests deeper in our society. In Ireland today is it any wonder that more and more schools have banned running in their playgrounds? However if the “say sorry, shake hands and we’re all friends again” technique is responded to by the less blameless infant with a cry of “NEGLIGLENCE”, precautions must be taken.
Robin’s parents didn’t think about the rest of us; their child broke the rules and they profited. When other parents are teaching that forgiveness is key and accidents happen, perhaps they were of the now widely held school of thought in our pro-litigation society. A school that teaches:
“That Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,/ and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, /Tragically all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men /Couldn’t put Humpty together again. But thankfully dear Humpty was blameless and now he owns half of the kingdom!”

The angry mob that has sprung up in response to Church paedophila needs to calm down, according to Eamonn Hynes.

There’s nothing like a good paedophile story to drum up the outraged, liberal-media-reading masses; most of whom have never experienced the horrors of child abuse, nor are they charged with cleaning up the mess left behind by a bunch of sick perverts. Cribbing and moaning from the sidelines and making snipes at the Catholic Church are the tactics of a coward and symptoms of their ignorance. It is in an air of calm that I write this piece in support of the Irish Catholic Church and in support of the Irish clergy in their mission to cleanse the institution and continue on the path of repentance, healing and renewal.
First off, we should calm down. Is one really that interested in the kind of slippery implication that one reads about in the holier-than-thou Irish media who bandy about terms such as “misprision of felony” and the 1937 Offences Against the State Act like bullies in a school yard. The fact is that in order for a person to be guilty of a crime (such as this Section 17 of the Offences Against the State Act that we hear about so often), proof of fault, culpability or blameworthiness in both behaviour and mind is required. Some of the stuff I’ve read in recent weeks would lead you to believe that Pope Benedict is the anti-Christ and Cardinal Brady one of his evil minions. But getting back to the issue that caused shock-waves of outrage across the nation, I say this: The then-Fr. Sean Brady never at any stage consciously acted to further harm an abuse victim with an accompanying level of mens rea. Yes, Fr. Brady was a man in a position of responsibility, but I do not believe for one moment that he purposely acted to expose more children to the care of a sex pervert. Brendan Smyth went on to abuse children after Fr. Sean Brady interviewed him, wrote his report and sent it on to his Bishop, but to say that this is because of an act or an act of omission on the part of Cardinal Sean Brady 35 years later is a farce. We’d better start building prisons, because if we’re going to hold leaders of all institutions to those kinds of standards, we need to round ‘em all up, drag ‘em all before the judiciary (themselves of course squeaky clean in matters pertaining to child abuse and child pornography) and imprison them in a dungeon. There are plenty of company directors in the construction sector who have seen people killed under their watch: a tragedy that cannot be undone. Any right-minded Christian will acknowledge that the death or serious injury of a worker is a tragedy and that seeking vengeance against those higher up the hierarchy is futile and counter-productive in the process of grieving and recovering from life’s setbacks. There’s a big difference between the justice demanded by the angry mob and the type that civilised society dispenses. We must also remember that there are different standards of accountability in society, in that those who work 40 hours per week can engage in their little perversions outside office hours, unlike priests who are on duty 24 hours a day and cannot be “sacked” no matter how grave their crimes.
The Church is an earthly institution run by humans with human failings and human temptations. It has been this way since the time of the Apostles. There have been terrible Popes in its 2,000-year history, not to mention lots of scandal. But that is not the real story of the Church: the Church is the largest charitable organisation in the world, has been responsible for the conversion of hundreds of millions in Africa, is the bedrock of the great European cultures, motivates and inspires over a billion people all over the globe to follow in the footsteps of Christ, has played a central role in the peace process of Northern Ireland and provides a moral blueprint for life in the family and life in the community. Modern capitalism, the culture of consumerism and globalised business do not take human factors into account when deciding how to maximise their profit margins – a nation full of dumbed-down, individualistic, intoxicated consumer types who live on top of one another in apartment blocks and are continually in debt is their goal: not happiness, family life and divine sustenance. Bourgeois society with all its pretensions of decency and morality is hypocritical when it comes to the matter of child abuse. So what’s all this got to do with perverted priests? Well, be very careful what you wish for: if one wishes for the ruin of the Church, what will it be replaced with? The model for society that we currently have, complete with public drunkenness, violent crime, teenage pregnancies, widespread sexual perversion, abortion, drug-taking, murder, rape and the birth of a social underclass who will never work a day in their lives? What those who knock the Church know full well and artfully suppress, is that any system that operates on such a scale will occasionally make mistakes, even bad ones, since all human institutions are manned by people with human weakness. We must strive for perfection, minimise mistakes and when mistakes do occur, they must be rectified. The bien-pensant Church-bashers fear their censure and crave approbation: they are quick to point the finger and not in the habit of examining themselves. They don’t have the mechanisms of accountability that currently exist in the Church, having been instigated several years ago from the highest levels of the clergy. The fact is that young childing are safer in the hands of the Church than any other organisation in the country as no other organisation has such a rigorous vetting scheme and child protection procedures.
The Pope’s letter to the Catholic people in Ireland which was read out in every Church across the land last Sunday gives us much to think about and highlights the current challenges and future work that needs to be done. While some will never be happy no matter what the Pope writes (ultimately, even if they had his head on a plate, they would not be satisfied), the opus Dei must go on. It is not often that a Pontiff addresses the island of Ireland in such a direct manner. Having one of the world’s greatest intellectuals write over 4,000 of the most humble and apologetic of words on this particular issue demonstrates just how serious this matter is in the minds of the most senior clergy in Rome. I don’t expect this post-Celtic Tiger society of ours to embrace the words of the Pope quite just yet: there are still a lot of closed hearts to be healed, but I do expect that at some point in the future, we will look back and see the direct intervention and solemn apology from Pope Benedict as a major milestone in the purification of the Irish Church.
Cardinal Brady’s moving St. Patrick’s Day homily made several references to his own failings, the plight of abuse victims and the Church’s duty to them. He equated the challenges currently facing Irish Catholicism with those faced by St. Patrick when he managed to lead a nation of pagans to the way of Christ. Brady openly acknowledged that he is a sinner, just like St. Peter who, when asked by God to become a fisher of men, replied: “Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man.” Cardinal Brady took office in 2007 and his primary duty since then has been in tackling the child abuse issue head-on in the spirit of Christ. This is no easy feat. The 71-year-old has taken on this task, probably the most challenging of his life, with a level of fortitude that most men half his age would balk at. He has managed to achieve all this in the most sensitive, soft-handed manner in which the recompense of abuse victims is central and the Gospel is his guiding light.
That said, his journey has not ended and there is much still to be done. This sinner wishes for Cardinal Brady to remain steadfast through these difficult times and expects that he will bring repentance and healing to the Catholic Church.

The country is presently in a tizzy over legal highs and their source, the infamous head shops. In the UK, a more immediate outcry has arisen out of the deaths of two men who had taken mephedrone while out clubbing. The Labour Party here has published a bill that would force head shops to apply for planning permission before opening, while the government is reportedly planning to ban a range of well-known legal highs. (If I were in government and listened to Joe Duffy, I’d make damn sure it were reported that I was planning to ban this stuff, too, whatever the truth of it.)
So far, so good, or at least so expected. The reason for this outcry and response is that the vast majority of people do not believe the simple proposition that “Drugs are rarely intrinsically harmful if used in a safe way”. They are more comfortable with the South Park Thesis that “Drugs are bad, m’kay”.
Take mephedrone. This is a legal substance related to qat, a stimulant used widely in some Arab and African countries. It produces a mild feeling of euphoria, mild physical side-effects and a not-so-mild psychological dependency (this should be contrasted with physical dependence, as you’d get with nicotine). In other words, you might try it, mightn’t like to keep on using it, but if you do nothing very bad would happen.
The men who died on Scunthorpe last week had taken it in combination with alcohol and methadone, the heroin substitute that is given to recovering addicts. That’s about all I know about the matter, but it’s enough to reinforce my view that mephedrone is nothing to worry about. Even if it did have something to do with the tragedy of these men’s deaths, over and above the other two drugs, I think that, quite frankly, mixing alcohol and methadone with anything would be bloody dangerous. Unfortunately, adding anything stronger than Cidona to that mixture was risky, and I don’t think the poor guys who died from it didn’t know that. They just chose to go for it regardless.
The hysteria of legal highs here has reached such a pitch that, as the blogger Twenty Major pointed out at the time, those engaged in the scaremongering bear some of the culpability for the subsequent arson attacks. Even where the protests are non-violent, they certainly aren’t based on long years of reflection on the minutiae of drugs policy. The Irish Examiner reports one Cork-based Labour councillor as calling for an examination of the head shop issue “from the ground up and the top down”. Marvellous. Meaningless. But it’ll play well in Clon, no doubt.
It’s interesting to note that the Labour bill was originally designed to crack down on sex shops. Lumping these together with head shops as undesirable businesses is conceptually unhelpful – unlike drugs, sex is never bad for you, no matter how much you do it – but does tell us something about how politicians and society view these outlets.
It’s a natural point of view. Most of us have the sort of innate conservatism that makes one feel uneasy about, say, a sex shop near a primary school. There’s not much of a rational basis to it, unless you envisage gibbering gimps emerging periodically to lure little children into their pit of depravity, but you’d just feel happier if it wasn’t there, and was safely down in a basement somewhere in Dublin 8.
They are seedy. There’s no denying that. A faint air of disreputability constantly clings to them, rather like those 24-hour casinos. Even when what they sell is legal and always will be so, as with sex aids and pornography, they’re just not kosher, not mainstream, not OK to walk into for a scope around. You can’t put these sort of establishments beside a hairdresser’s, butcher’s and post office – or, God forbid, a school – what kind of message would that send?
Well, it would send the message that sex is nothing to get worked up about, figuratively speaking, once you’ve passed the age of 20 or so. It would send the message that gambling at four am after a nightclub is a bad idea, but only for that particular punter. And it would establish that drugs are only bad if you misuse them.
We use drugs in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons, one of which is recreation. It may be a pity that people use drugs like alcohol to further social intercourse (commonly in the hopes of furthering a different kind of intercourse) but from a societal standpoint we understand it, and from a political standpoint we don’t see any need to ban it.
Where there are health risks, people ought to be allowed to reflect on whether they want to run it in the interests of a good time. If something is going to kill you outright, granted, there’s not much sense in legalising it. But for a product that has shifting and variable side-effects, dependent on frequency of use and even your genetic predisposition, why not take a decision on whether or not to use it? This is, after all, what we do with alcohol.
The same ought to hold true for other recreational drugs, including legal highs, and things like cannabis that are currently banned. Many of them will cause you some degree of harm, generally less than that of alcohol, and normally only if you abuse it, mix it or take it in some unimaginably vast quantities. (I’m sure mephedrone could eventually kill you, in the same way that eating too many bananas is supposed to give you lethal potassium poisoning, and it is possible to die of over-hydration if you drink water non-stop for hours at a stretch. That’s not really the point.)
The Labour bill, insofar as it has its roots in populist conservatism, is therefore more than a little misguided. But a requirement of planning permission for head shops, or even a more wide-ranging system of licencing, is actually a fine idea, so long as it is not merely a tool to bully them out of business. They would help them shake their down-market image, insofar as that is possible, and help ensure that nothing illegal or dangerous reaches their shelves. You could require that products be properly labelled, for example, so that people know what they’re getting and exactly what it might do them. The provision of information enhances personal autonomy.
There’s a social context to recreational drug use as well. The reason the media seem to think that these dozens of head shops around the country only existed since January is because there aren’t social problems associated with the products they sell. You’d certainly worry if you saw people walking around stoned in the middle of the day, or turning up to work off-their-tits on bath salts, in just the same way you don’t want to see people drinking vodka in Mass. There’s a time and a place; most users of receational drugs know this.
Once you accept that getting high is no different and no more harmful than getting drunk, legal highs start to look pretty good. They certainly look a lot better than illegal highs, not necessarily because they are less harmful, but because they don’t fund crime. The best argument for head shops is that they give you a way to buy drugs without going to a dealer. As we’ve seen, you might not particularly like the look of the guy behind the counter in a head shop, but presumably he pays his taxes. If he doesn’t, that’s a matter for the Revenue Commissioners.
The first quote I used in paragraph two was lifted from an article by Professor David Nutt, who was forced to step down as an advisor on drugs policy to UK government after calling for cannabis to be regulated according to the harm it causes. On the facts, as Professor Nutt interprets them, this is not very much at all – but it suited the government to posture, to reclassify cannabis as a more dangerous Class B prohibited drug, instead of engaging with this reality.
Irish policy-makers are no better. Although it’s tempting to see the election of Luke “Ming the Merciless” Flanagan to Roscommon County Council as a harbinger of change, most politicans are still going to be guided by popular misconceptions rather than take a more nuanced approach to drugs in Irish society. As we have seen, this does nothing to add to public safety, restricts personal choice and allows criminals and publicans to retain control of most of the market for recreational drugs.
So by all means, head shops could do with some regulation. But using regulation to drive them out of business is a bad idea.

Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski is the current President of Dublin City University and his ten-year term will come to an end in July 2010. This begs the question: what will such an esteemed academic do next? There are rumours that he may be considered for the distinguished position of Provost of Trinity; while these have not been confirmed it is not entirely out of the bounds of possibility as, coincidentally, the current Provost John Hegarty’s ten-year term comes to an end in 2011. Arguably, the more pertinent issue is not whether Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski will apply for the post of Provost or not, but whether he would be an apposite candidate and ultimately make a good Provost.
Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski has a fascinating family history; he is an Irish citizen of German origin. He comes from a military heritage, a direct descendant of his namesake Ferdinand von Prondzynski, a 19th-century Prussian General from Groschowitz near Oppeln in Silesia (now Groszowice, near Opole in Poland). His grandfather fought in WWI and his father was a Captain during WWII and a Knight of the Order of Malta. Later his father became a director of the cement-producing company, Dyckerhoff AG.
Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski’s academic career began in Trinity; he graduated in 1978 with a BA and an LLB. He subsequently went on to obtain a PhD in Law from Cambridge. From 1980 to 1990 he was a Lecturer in the School of Business Studies in Trinity and became a Fellow of the College in 1987. He earned the nickname the “Red Baron” due to his views on industrial relations and labour law which were notably sympathetic to trade unions. He continued to be highly influential in these two areas as an active commentator and he co-authored the first Irish textbook on employment law.
Initially he argued for a disengagement of the law from industrial relations, believing that disputes were better resolved through bargaining rather than litigation and this was a very modern and forward-thinking approach for its time. His ideas were expressed in his book Freedom of Association and Industrial Relations (Mansell, 1987). Significantly, the recently established Commercial Court, which was set up specifically to deal with commercial disputes more expeditiously and expediently through encouraging and facilitating the use of alternate dispute resolution (ADR) methods rather than them culminating in a trial, concurs with this view.
Later his views began to moderate and he argued for a framework of employment regulation that took account of economic pressures and the need to maintain competitive conditions. He more prominently advocates that while the law should protect employees’ rights, it must also promote business success and economic growth, obviously a highly topical and concerning issue at present. He has also published a number of books and articles on social policy and in particular on the importance of legal protection against discrimination.
From 1991 to 2000, until he became President of DCU, von Prondzynski was Professor of Law in the University of Hull; for much of that time he was also a Dean: first of the School of Law, and later of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
It is interesting to note that during his Presidency of DCU there has been some controversy involving industrial relations disputes between the University and tenured academic staff. Three incidents reached the stage of litigation, peculiarly in the precise area of legal expertise – employment law. None of the actions were directed at von Prondzynski personally but he was involved in all of them.
On a personal level Ferdinand von Prondzynski is married to Dr. Heather Ingman, a novelist and Lecturer in English Literature in Trinity, and an occasional writer in The Irish Times with whom he has two sons. Von Prondzynski is a member of the Church of Ireland and an enthusiastic follower of Newcastle United football club. He is also a keen amateur photographer, and DCU has published several calendars of his photographs.
Von Prondzynski writes a fascinating blog (which is well worth having a quick read of) dealing with topics mainly relating – but certainly not limited – to higher education and public policy: (universitydiary.wordpress.com) It is succinct and insightful and focuses on pressing issues of education and employment that are extremely relevant to students; for example some of the recent topics discussed range from grade inflation to gender quotas in politics.
In conclusion, it seems that Professor von Prondzynski would certainly make an excellent Provost, not solely because of his undoubted academic stature and leadership experience in DCU, but because he is engaged and active in contemporary issues that matter, especially to students. He displays a critical, questioning and challenging attitude that all students should aspire to. This is perhaps best expressed and epitomised in his comment on his blog regarding the disapproval of Brother Shaun O’Connor of people attending a rugby match on Good Friday: “In fact, the one who died on Good Friday had a habit of mocking the rules and restrictions of the religious hierarchy of the time.”

It is often said that you can determine how bad your situation really is by the calibre of those who attempt to help you out; well a slight variance to that old cliché may very well apply to the much deplored Malcolm Glazer. The owner of Manchester United is so unpopular that a motley crew of city bankers have began circling “The Theatre of Dreams” to the enormous approval of United fans, agitating to buy out the American tycoon. We shall return to these “Red Knights” as they like to be known later, but first, in full acknowledgement and respect of the fact that it is these same fans who make Manchester United great, allow me to begin by threading very carefully.
The Glazer dynasty is bad for Manchester United and indeed football as a whole, very bad. The Glazers arrived at United in 2005 without a proverbial pot in which they could relieve themselves in and, as it stands at this point, have plunged the never-previously-in-debt Red Devils £700 million into the red. A shocking statistic on its own but one further compounded by a recent UEFA announcement which decreed that as of the beginning of the 2013-14 season, clubs who wish to compete in the highly lucrative European Champions League will need to demonstrate to the governing body that their financial books exist in a peaceful state of equilibrium. Further added to this toxic potion are rising ticket prices, further emphasis on attracting the “Corporate Customer” and the knowledge that Malcolm Glazer treats Old Trafford like his own personal bank machine. Had United not raised £80 million in the sale of Christiano Ronaldo then the club would have ended last year with a financial deficit of £30.8 million, it is clear that something must be done.
But what can be done? Before we sell our soul completely to the devil in exchange for a solution, let us first apply to the “Dark One” for the position of advocacy. Allow me to be frank here: this consortium of city bankers, who have labelled themselves “The Red Knights”, have an absolute shambles of a proposal on the table at the moment which is receiving so much publicity purely because of the absence of any other alternative. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the power struggle taking place at Old Trafford at the moment, think of Pontius Pilate asking the baying mob of biblical times to choose between Jesus Christ and the murderer Barabbas at the festival of Passover. These “Red Knights” come with some pretty formidable experience it must be said; Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill and hedge fund owner Paul Marshall being just a couple of the names attempting to revive the reputation of the banking sector on the back of Manchester United. The proposal itself is, according to how cynical the eye of the beholder happens to be, extremely ambitious or extremely unrealistic. Through initial proposals with the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) the “Red Knights” have explained that they plan on recruiting 50 “high net-worth” individuals who will each contribute in the region of £10-15 million in order to raise £500 million. Still running a little short, what they then plan to do is to rouse a further 100 less wealthy though no less altruistic souls who are willing to part with between £1-5 million in the restoration of Manchester United’s glory. Ok, unlikely but not nearly as laughable as the final cog in the shining armour of these “Red Knights” who then want the fans to put their hard-earned money where their mouth is and, as members of MUST, each contribute a whopping £2500 each!
Now you will not find any in-depth knowledge of the complexities of investment banking in this article, but at the very least we have all seen Dragons’ Den and we know that when these wealthy folk invest their money, they want more than a say in how the company is run. In football, democracy does not work; at Liverpool, they have two equal-sharing owners whose constant bickering has torn the very heart out of the club and, more importantly, has descended on to the pitch were Liverpool are a shadow of their former selves. What sort of chaos would unfold if United had 60 screaming voices in the boardroom? Apologists for the Glazer clan often present an altogether too easy to make rebuttal to accusations of mismanagement on their behalf; one almost feels guilty saying it but under the reign of Glazer, on the field at least, Manchester United have been very successful. In fact, though United’s trophy cabinets have never really been short of silverware, it could be argued that since United are currently contesting their fourth successive league title, have reached the finals of the past two Champions League campaigns and have just recently destroyed AC Milan to ease into the quarter-final of this current European campaign, the period coinciding with the Glazer tenure has been the most successful in the history of the club. Of course, this success has far more to do with the management skills of Alex Ferguson and the exceptional talent at his disposal than the ownership of Malcolm Glazer, but it is important to recognise that the Glazer era has not had the same type of counter-productive impact on Manchester United as, say, Hicks and Gillett have had on Liverpool, Berlusconi on Milan or Florentino Perez has had on Real Madrid.
In fact, the Glazer family has been positively cordial in their handling of the protests that have greeted their every appearance in Old Trafford. They have maintained a very dignified silence which has served not to inflame the supporters’ anger – the son of a Liverpool co-owner encouraged a protesting Liverpool supporter to acquaint himself orally with the board member’s genitallia. They have not attempted to employ any tacky publicity stunts and left the day-to-day running of the company to chief executive David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson. The most concerning aspect of this very impressive fan protest is what would happen if the fans actually did somehow manage to wrestle control of the club? Manchester United have not been a local club in the traditional sense in many decades and it would be quite interesting to witness what exactly would happen if a certain number of fans actually did feel they had more of a stake in the club than others. This is the case in Italy where a relatively small number of “Ultra” supporters have a disproportionately large say in how the club operates. This has resulted in a serious case of what you could term as “Supporter Elitism”, where most stadiums are now only half-full on match days because the supporters who actually have real lives Monday-to-Friday feel like second-class citizens in these grounds and so stay away. Manchester United means so much to so many; most fans could tell you the moment they began truly “following United”. For me, it was the final day of the 1992-93 season; United, having already won the league, were beaten by Blackburn 2-1 when Gary Pallister, being the only member of the team not to have scored, came up and sunk a free-kick into the bottom corner. But, so too can I tell you the day that my support will end: it will be the day when some self-righteous fan accuses me of being a second-class supporter because I was unwilling to part with £2,500 to rid my team of a man who we feel is trying to exploit us of our hard-earned cash.
There is another danger, one which isn’t intended to be insulting but will no doubt manifest itself that way: David O’ Leary once unwisely said that fans are fickle and it is with this testament that I am inclined to agree. These same United fans who are calling for Malcolm Glazer’s head on the boardroom floor were once calling for Sir Alex Ferguson’s head, granting him a brief stay of execution only after a Mark Robinson winner in an FA Cup tie against Norwich in the eighties. Darren Fletcher has become one of the most complete midfielders in world football, but just two years ago he was appreciated by the Red Devils faithful about as much as an episode of “Robbie Fowler: This is Your Life”. This isn’t a fickle affliction which solely affects Man Utd supporters. Newcastle United, for instance, have one of those “local businessmen done good”, who they carried to power on a wave of popular triumphalism the likes of which are usually reserved for African dictators; then, when things got bad, the fans grabbed their pitchforks and banished this local monster of consumerism out of the stadium. Now times are looking good again, the Geordie faithful are considering letting him back in. Malcolm Glazer isn’t perfect – he doesn’t even come close to that – but neither are these “Red Knights”, nor perhaps any other potential owner of such an enormous economical asset as Manchester Unite. As fans, perhaps we should just take a step back, breathe, reassess the situation and see if that which glistens really is Green and Gold.

Voices and words. It’s always voices and words, or voices about words. Contemporary society. Irish literature. The latter hasn’t embraced the former. Or has it? I’m not going to be so stupid as to decide one way or the other. Luckily, Julian Gough, god’s gift to literature and self-appointed arbiter of literary distinction, has investigated the issue for us. First of all though, a digression.
Whenever my old man sees me struggling to write something, he always tells me to start with a quote, or to shove a good one in wherever I’m stuck. So here’s a quote. A clever man once said a clever thing: “tradition is the illusion of permanence”. That’s Woody Allen. Very clever. Keep that in mind, we’ll come back to it. Anyway. Julian Gough.
“I hardly read Irish writers any more,” says Gough, “I’ve been disappointed so often.” For the sake of a bit of fun and controversy, I would love to be able to say that Gough has launched a scathing attack on the Irish writers. Unfortunately, that isn’t really the case. Rather, he scribbled on his blog. However, The Guardian did pick up on his words and a little bit of a storm has brewed in the tiny teacup that is popular literary criticism. Gough did quite a bit of scribbling actually, so it might be worthwhile to sample his words on the Irish writers that he, by his own admission, hardly reads anymore.
“To revive a useful old Celtic literary-critical expression: I puke my ring. And the older, more sophisticated Irish writers that want to be Nabokov give me the yellow squirts and a scaldy hole. If there is a movement in Ireland, it is backwards. Novel after novel set in the nineteen seventies, sixties, fifties. Reading award-winning Irish literary fiction, you wouldn’t know television had been invented.”
According to Gough, contemporary Irish writers are out of date. They are only contemporary insofar as they exist and write now. They don’t really have any meaningful link to modern society and seem to be in denial of their position within it, clinging to the past in dour nostalgia.
“I don’t get the impression many Irish writers have played Grand Theft Auto, or bought an X-Box, or watched Youporn. Really, Irish literary writers have become a priestly caste, scribbling by candlelight, cut off from the electric current of the culture. We’ve abolished the Catholic clergy, and replaced them with novelists. They wear black, they preach, they are concerned for our souls. Feck off.”
There must be concessions, surely. Yes, there are. Young Irish literary talent exists. Gough kindly gives a few suggestions as to where that talent lies. Among the literature suggested was something a little alarming. Guess. Just guess. For Christ’s sake. Obviously. Those Ross O’Carroll Kelly books.
“For me, the only writer to grab the Celtic Tiger by the tail and pull hard while the tiger roared was Ross O’Carroll Kelly, the pseudonym of Paul Howard. And that was a newspaper column, collected every year into a new book – read them all if you want to understand Ireland’s rise and fall. No other writer caught it while it happened.”
Brilliant. Gough champions Howard’s books as the “best, funniest, and most historically important run of Irish satirical journalism since Myles na gCopaleen.” Should I take these books apart? I should, they deserve it, but I won’t. I have to argue. I have to get back to Woody Allen. Remember him?
Tradition is the illusion of permanence. Tradition is supposed to trickle down through passing generations, to defeat time by preserving something, whatever it may be, good or bad. The Irish literary tradition is notorious, producing a ripple effect that is, for a comparatively small speck on the globe, disproportionately large. Consistently Ireland has known itself as a land of literary scholars. I think Gough (who?) has bought into that.
Tradition is the illusion of permanence. The real problem with Irish literature, what is not taken into account by Gough and the many that share his opinions, is that this lettered legacy is just a tradition. It is a fallacy. It is an illusion. It does not mean that Irish literature has a divine right to be brilliant at all. We as an island of emotional, imaginative and humourous wordsmiths feel we can just spew whatever runs through our stream of consciousness and it will be art. It will enlighten a world devoid of passion and fire as only the words of an Irish man or woman can.
Note: Gough uses Tommy Tiernan as an example of Ireland’s wonderful voice. “Tommy Tiernan is Ireland’s most philosophical voice, but he has chosen stand-up comedy as his way of delivering his philosophical prose ... On the right night you will end up on the floor weeping tears of laughter and recognition as he takes Ireland apart.” This is rubbish. Tommy Tiernan is a twit who swears too much, has a mildly amusing accent played for lowbrow laughs and abandoned satire a decade ago to please the glorious graduates of Copper Face Jacks who fill Vicar Street to see him.
Tradition is the illusion of permanence. Maybe what Gough fails to state is his assumption that Irish literature is failing by not advancing its position as traditionally remarkable. This position is not permanent, obviously. If the best we can produce is Ross O’Carroll Kelly and Tommy Tiernan then it is difficult to see how Julian Gough can be so hopeful. Striving for greatness is a noble act, but to assume greatness is an Irish illusion of permanence.