Letters to the Editor: Not all men... But all women have been harassed
Saoirse Mescal, The Matt Last During Washington, Norton On Show Eddie Ronan, And The Crossick/pa Graham Picture: Month Paul Redmayne Denzel Couch
While out running one recent evening, I had what could only be called a Saoirse Ronan “am I right, ladies?” moment.
With my headphones in, enjoying the dusky autumn air, I was suddenly frightened by the sound of a man aggressively shouting in my ear as he cycled past, incensed that I hadn’t moved quickly enough out of his way. Shocked, I shouted after him in reaction with words to the effect “you could have slowed down, no need to shout at me”.
To my shock, he braked his bike and turned towards me blocking my path and yelling words I will not repeat here.
A couple walking towards me witnessed the exchange and stepped in to support me, saying “you need to calm down” to the enraged man.
I burst into tears, maybe at their kindness, maybe in shock. Another kind man behind me stopped to offer words of comfort. I am writing this letter for a number of reasons, not least in reaction to the familiar feeling of powerlessness and threat when something like this happens and how enraging and demoralising that is.
Winter is coming and the window of safe times for running as a woman narrows. That’s a fact.
I know there may be a response to this letter along the lines of “not all men” and of course that is true; two kind men helped me out today. But, as we hear repeatedly, it may be true that not all men act aggressively, but it’s also just as true that every single woman has had an encounter like this or worse.
I realise, of course, that there are many worse things in the world. I was not physically harmed. There are children dying in Gaza. There are women unsafe in their own homes across Ireland.
Yet I write this letter tonight in my safe home, a little shook and wanting to express my gratitude to the lovely people who helped and my sadness that they had to in the first place.
The people of the United States have spoken — whether we like it or not. 1,400 more days of Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
I suppose there are three positives to salvage from the wreckage and the electoral hecatomb the Democrats have sustained.
- 1. The result is clear and a peaceful transition of power is certain to occur;
- 2. President-elect Trump is instinctively transactional and unsentimental. He will do business with countries that present a strong beneficial business case;
- 3. He has a clear mandate and therefore, hopefully, has no great chip on his shoulder as he prepares to commence his second term as US president.
I can only think of three positives. I suppose it is all about the ‘little things’ now. We take consolation and encouragement where we can. Buckle up. We are in for four more very turbulent years internationally.
Events, dear boy, events.
The economics of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election are very negative for Ireland. Trump’s plans for corporate tax, personal tax, and import tariffs will significantly incentivise senior executives of large American companies to shift operations back to the US. Ireland has a reliance on the corporation tax and personal tax paid by these companies and their high-earning employees — the top 5% of taxpayers here will pay 48.5% of all income tax and USC collected this year, for example.
As we enter the general election campaign, all left-wing parties in Ireland are in favour of even higher taxes on those executives and their higher-earning employees based in Ireland, as well as all other higher-earning tax payers.
Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Social Democrats, and Labour are all in favour of further taxes on those who already pay the most.
The largest of these left-wing parties, Sinn Féin, plans to remove the special assignee relief programme (SARP) which provides tax relief for certain people who are assigned to work in Ireland from abroad.
Sinn Féin also plans to remove tax credits on incomes above €100,000 and introduce a new 3% tax on incomes above €140,000, increase employers’ PRSI for higher earners, reduce the standard fund threshold for private pensions, and increase the rate of capital acquisitions tax. Sinn Féin also says it is in favour of a new annual wealth tax — a tax that is likely to drive investment and wealth out of our highly open economy.
Following Trump’s re-election, Ireland’s left-wing parties must reassess their tax-and-spend plans and surely must see the unnecessary self-inflicted risk in making Ireland even less attractive to high-earning executives and employees.
Corporate boardrooms will reassess their thinking as they examine the implications of the US presidential election outcome. International capital is highly mobile; so too are high-paying jobs. High personal taxes make Ireland uncompetitive and damage Ireland’s ability to retain and compete for highly-skilled employees and the investments they bring here.
From riding in a garbage truck to becoming, again, the most powerful person is the world, Donald Trump is here for the next four years. Let’s hope he doesn’t trash:
- The economy;
- The health system;
- The fight against climate change;
- The freedom to oppose;
- The rights of women to live their lives as they want;
- The safety of the downtrodden and endangered, especially in war-torn countries.
Many will worry about the path he is likely to follow and the people he will take with him.
How absurd the level of exaggeration and fear-mongering in the mainstream media about the American election has proved to be. Particularly in relation to Trump, where we had daily breathless articles from commentators that he was Hitler, a threat to democracy; that he was criminal, unstable, xenophobic and so on ad infinitum.
The American electorate didn’t think so by returning Trump with not only a clean sweep of the swing states but by winning the popular plebiscite with 5m votes to spare — the greatest rout since Ronald Reagan’s in the 1980s.
In Trump’s first term, the world was a far safer place: We had no war in Ukraine, no war in Israel, no Nordstream gas pipeline explosion. These three disasters were aided and abetted by Biden, Harris, and the Democrats. Trump started no wars, began the termination of American involvement in Afghanistan, instigated no sanctions against Russia which, far from crippling its economy, have resulted in that country having by far the best and most powerful army in the world, leading to the rapid rise of Brics and the accelerating decline of Western debt-laden economies.
Harris was never anything but a nodding catspaw for Biden’s backroom team. She was drummed out of the Democratic caucuses in double-quick time in 2020, and was promoted with equal alacrity to be their presidential candidate, contrary to the standard requirement to make such a choice via the democratic majority vote of members. She was never anything but a ridiculously cackling upwardly-mobile socialiser with an eye for the main chance but lacking any of the abilities of an Elizabeth Warren or a Jill Stein for example.
Trump quickly got rid of the main war-mongering members of his entourage such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. Would that Biden had done the same with neocon hawks like Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken, who have overseen the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Clearly, the average American saw through all this.
Traditional Democrat supporters such as Latinos, black men, working white women, had grown tired of being lectured to by out-of-touch elites, when they could see their weekly paychecks being insufficient to keep up with the soaring cost of living. They chose to pivot back to sanity and to completely ignore the hysterical rantings of mainstream television, radio and newspapers, of which only 20% of people under the age of 30 now follow.
On September 5, 1926, a fire ripped through a temporary cinema hall in the town of Dromcollogher, Co Limerick. Some 48 people lost their lives as a result of the fire and the community was left devastated. Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the fire, I am working on a project, funded by the Royal Irish Academy, that is looking at how the people of the town, Ireland, and the Irish diaspora dealt with the emotional trauma of that night with a view to book publication.
I am hoping the public can help me unearth private family-held letters to and from Ireland and diaries that discuss the events of that night as part of this research.
I would also love to talk to people who have connections to those who died in the fire or who survived that awful night. Any help you can give is gratefully appreciated. I can be contacted by email on tmartinwalsh@gmail.com.