For To The Over Hurling We Letters Editor: Not Have To Peek Should Wall

Letters to the Editor: We should not have to peek over wall for hurling — Chaoimh Shc Picture: Páirc Last Pitch After Week Celebrate The Brennan/sportsfile Daire On Thrilling Supervalu Supporters Munster Cork At Win Ui Their

Sat, 18 May, 2024 - 01:00

Every nation marshals and elevates a cultural artefact to be its solar plexus or defining thing.

Here in Ireland, we have become Atlanticist, European, modern, and progressive. We have made our peace with Britain. We still dance at Lughnasa and our writers have often defined us abroad.

In every country, national identity is both true and contrived. But there is one thing we have in this country that no one else has. Hurling. The fastest ball game in the world. Faster than ice hockey in Canada. Faster than pelota in the Basque country. Roy Keane once showed hurling on video to his Manchester United millionaire world-beating soccer colleagues to rev them up. He intoned into silence: “These players. Playing this game. Are amateurs.”

I remember Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh asking a Welsh rugby kingpin in Croke Park on RTÉ: “How would you like to be down there today with your hurley?”

He received an eloquent response: “Well. I tell you, boy. I would not like to be down there without my hurley.”

Hurling is a national treasure. No one else in the world is mad enough to play it. It is something that should NEVER be put behind any wall of any kind.

Michael Deasy, Bandon, Cork

GAA 'losing spectators' over paywalled games, warns minister

Recalling Dublin bombings 50 years later

I was a history student at Trinity College when the bombs went off in Dublin on May 17, 1974. I can clearly remember hearing the three bombs going off at two-minute intervals, culminating in the third one at South Leinster St (directly outside the wall of Trinity).

Some of my fellow students from the North instantly recognised the loud explosions as car bombs. When I went out onto College Green there was panic and confusion everywhere. Even the gardaí didn’t seem to know what to do.

It was a Friday evening and the bombs were designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties. There was a bus strike at the time and this added to the difficulties faced by people in the aftermath. I had to walk as far as Templeogue in the outskirts of the city and from there I hitched a lift home to Co Wicklow.

Outside the Welcome Inn following the Dublin bombing of 1974.

I stayed in a flat in Dublin during the week but went home at the weekends, so I knew I would be expected home and I was anxious to reassure my worried parents (there were no mobile phones back then.) I also remember the Taoiseach of the time Liam Cosgrave coming on television that night and saying that, regardless of who actually planted the bombs, anyone who had ever resorted to such tactics was also to blame.

His comment was clearly aimed at the IRA and it was fair enough comment in the circumstances. Nevertheless, even then, it did strike me as somewhat odd coming from the Taoiseach. It seemed as much designed to spread the blame as to find out who exactly committed the outrage in the Irish State.

Looking back on it now, in the light of the Blaney report and other evidence, Mr Cosgrave’s reaction was in keeping with the section 31 narrative of the time that the IRA were the basic problem in the North and that loyalist or British state violence was merely a response to the IRA. Conor Cruise O’Brien would always refer to loyalist violence as the Protestant backlash and he never tired of predicting that it could get even worse.

The Dublin bombings definitely had the overall effect in the Republic of reinforcing the section 31 attitude that the Troubles were, in essence, a regional sectarian conflict which the less the south had to do with the better. In this way, it could be said that the bombers who struck Dublin and Monaghan on that fateful day in May 50 years ago succeeded in their objective.

John Glennon, via email

Speeding in towns must be addressed

The residents of the upper Mill Road, Midleton, are experiencing vehicles travelling at 70km/hr on average and higher on a constant basis. I have informed gardaí and the council on a number of occasions. Gardaí say the council needs to implement traffic control measures and the council says it has adequate measures in place and gardaí should control by enforcement.

We all should be afraid that schoolchildren are going to be seriously hurt in the future if a speeding car mounts a footpath at 70km/hr in a 50km/hr zone. A member of the road policing unit called to my house and advised that the road wasn’t suitable for hand-held radar detection as the Mill Road is too straight and gardaí would be seen. Speeding on the road is a general problem at all times of the day unless the traffic is heavy around the school drop-off and pick-up time.

Hidden speed checks would slow down those who are speeding. How many speed violations have been detected in the urban area of Midleton in the past year by gardaí? The majority of speed excess detections are now by the Go Safe vans on major routes as the road policing units don’t have the manpower or equipment to deal with the speeding in the urban areas which is where pedestrians are most vulnerable. Fixed speed cameras as used throughout the UK would resolve this issue and save a lot of lives.

With respect, I’d like to say there’s no long-term benefit in a marked Garda car parking recently outside the Educate Together school performing traffic stop duties as traffic slows temporarily but then speeds up once they move on.

Joseph Buckley, Midleton, Co Cork

Hypocritical response regarding Israeli imports

You reported on Monday that Ireland imported roughly €3.6bn worth of Israeli goods in 2023 and that the figure so far for this year indicates no slowdown, despite the horror in Gaza ( ‘Irish-Israeli trade buoyant despite war’).

Remarkably, as you outlined, the Irish State is among Israel’s top 10 export markets, while our own exports to Israel amounted to a little over €500m worth of products last year. Consequently, Ireland is contributing significantly to the economy of a state that is engaged in blatant breaches of international humanitarian law against Palestinian civilians.

This means, of course, that Ireland has substantial economic leverage. If the Government here sincerely wishes to make an impact, it clearly must bring in trade sanctions against Israel by enacting, for example, the Occupied Territories Bill. Such a move would undoubtedly have the support of most people in Ireland, who have shown huge sympathy for the besieged civilians of Gaza.

Inexplicably, however, the Government appears to be doing everything possible to avoid holding Israel to account in a tangible manner. Why sanctions against Russia but not against Israel? It is understandable that many see the inaction as hypocrisy.

Fintan Lane, Lucan, Co Dublin

Border checks are the last thing we need

We have an open northern border, unimpeded access in both directions. There are no tiresome checkpoints. No time-consuming delays. We have freedom to roam, and that’s the way it should remain.

The border is blurred and the Common Travel Area (CTA) that exists between Ireland and the UK is heavily prized. Anything that might upset this order of things should be resisted. Considerable numbers enter Ireland via the North. Others come through our own ports and airports. Spot checks on the border won’t prevent or deter them.

They know they can cross into the Republic of Ireland at any number of points along the 499 km border that stretches from Lough Foyle to Carlingford Lough. Checks are more easily conducted on buses and trains, but by their very nature, they are random, hit-and-miss affairs, usually carried out on the basis of the colour of a person’s skin. Racial profiling is dangerous and abhorrent.

For example, asking a black Irish citizen for their ID, and ignoring others because they look ‘Irish’, is not the solution and merely reinforces ethnic profiling. No, forget making the border the be-all and end-all in this battle to stem the tide of rising illegal immigration.

The existing Common Travel Area laws are sufficient to deal with this problem, and our Government must use the laws that are there now to return migrants to their point of origin.

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I would call on our Government to work closely with the devolved Executive in Belfast. The Executive doesn’t have power to deal with the migrant issue but what ministers can do is use their influence to encourage the British government to take action in a more structured and collaborative way.

Under the Common Travel Area agreement, migrants can be returned in days. It shouldn’t take weeks or months. That would be a real deterrent and very quickly, those intent on coming here illegally would get the message that they’ll be sent back with the minimum of delay.

I welcome the decision to cut social welfare payments to migrants from Ukraine in state-provided accommodation from €232 per week to €38.80. This makes the system fairer and better understood. All recipients of temporary protection status will now receive the same benefits.

I also call on the Government to review payments being made to the Red Cross as more than 50% of payments are being absorbed in so-called handling services. This is not value-for-money.

There has been a failure to support our towns and communities in Midlands-North West that have borne a disproportionate share of migrants. We’re at bursting point. Our health services and schools are buckling under the weight of it all. We’ve accommodated too many and are unable to deal with the influx.

People are angry and some live in fear. There has been an unequal distribution to certain counties as other parts of the country are allocated fewer migrants. Last year, Leo Varadkar promised a support package that never materialised. Not one penny in assistance came to the Border Midland and Western counties which have taken far more than their share of migrants.

Our people are compassionate, caring and patient but their patience has worn thin as this problem remains unresolved.

Senator Niall Blaney, Seanad Éireann