Irish Echo, November 2019

LONELY PLANET HEAPS PRAISE ON GALWAY

WALLIS BIRD: A UNIQUE TALENT

One of the best cities to visit PAGE 22

Interview PAGE 21

IRISH TO FACE WALLABIES NEXT YEAR Two-Test tour confirmed PAGE 26

November, 2019 | Volume 32 – Number 11 | AU$5.95 (incl GST)

‘ONGOING UNCERTAINTY’ OVER BREXIT

AINE MCMAHON

NOW is not the time for a general election in the Republic of Ireland as too much uncertainty still surrounds Brexit, Leo Varadkar has said.

The Taoiseach ruled out the possibility after some members of his Fine Gael party suggested calling an election during the break in Brexit negotiations and because the UK is holding a general election on Thursday, December 12.

A pre-Christmas poll is not in the interests of the country, he said.

Mr Varadkar (pictured) said the Brexit process is ongoing and the UK general election could see different parties and a new prime minister holding power at Westminster.

“I don’t think it is the right thing for the country given the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit,” he said.

“We don’t know what is going to

happen on the 12th of December.

“Perhaps Mr Johnson is going to win a majority and ratify the deal before Christmas and we get into talks on the future relationship.

“But it is also possible that the Brexit Party could hold power and we may not get the deal ratified and a hard Brexit could happen.

“We could see a new government; we may get a new prime minister who wants to reopen negotiations entirely and negotiate a softer Brexit.”

Mr Varadkar previously said he favours an election in May 2020.

When asked if he would like to see Boris Johnson remain as prime minister after they had both worked to reach a Brexit deal, he said: “I’m not going to express an opinion on who should win the election in the UK; that is absolutely a matter for the people who vote in those elections.

“I really do hope that a new House of Commons is in a position to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement.

“So far, Boris Johnson is the only one who wants to ratify the agreement ... It is what I want [too] but I also respect the will of the British people, no matter who is the prime minister and what government they decide to elect.”

British or eligible Irish citizens living in Australia can appoint someone [a “proxy”] to vote on their behalf for the December 12 election as postal votes cannot be sent outside the UK.

See Page 5

Breakthrough role: Dublin actress Aisling Franciosi has been short-listed for an AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) award for her performance in the confronting convict drama The Nightingale, directed by Australia’s Jennifer Kent.

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Taoiseach rules out election in December

Controversial role earns Irish actress Aussie ‘Oscar’ nomination

2 | November, 2019

Opinion

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COMMENT

Frank O’Shea

The only surrender will be to self-interest IT used to be that Ulster was synonymous with business.

The Ulsterman was a businessman; he might wear a coloured sash once a year to march behind a hoon pounding a huge, lambeg drum, but the next day he was back behind his counter or tending his cattle or running his city business, happy to serve customers of all hues.

The whole Orange thing was just a club he had to join, a signal to bolster the ‘handgrip, wink and nod’ that were his historical encumbrance. He could not break from it, however well he understood that the whole racket was bad for his livelihood.

Then came Brexit and an opportunity to pause the cycle.

The Ulsterman and his business friends were among the majority of their little state to reject the farrago of nonsense peddled by a group of Old Boys from Harrow and Eton. But the same nation that could boast of Newton and Shakespeare, Darwin and Huxley, Tennyson and Turing were fooled by clever words threatening a

dilution of racial purity, and decided that they would no longer be told what to do by the Jerrys and the Frenchies, and heaven help us, the Paddies.

That was more than two years ago and it took some time for the country to realise what a disastrous choice they had made – above all, disastrous for business. And however bad it would be in the main island, here in this little subsidised pocket, with only a land border to a suspicious neighbour, the result would be unambiguously awful.

In 2000, a poll asked Ulster residents the question “Do you see yourself as Unionist, nationalist or neither?” The figures were Unionist 43 per cent, nationalist 21 per cent, neither 36 per cent.

The same survey was carried out last year when the figure for nationalist was unchanged, but more than 50 per cent identified themselves as neither.

The difference was among Unionists and it is reasonable to suggest that their change of mind had something to do with

“The penny may

have dropped for residents of the six counties that it would make good economic sense for them to be, once again, part of Ireland.

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how, as good business people, they saw the Unionist tag as a drawback.

As Brexit comes to its untidy resolution, more and more commentators are suggesting that the penny may have dropped for residents of the six counties that it would make good economic sense for them to be, once again, part of Ireland.

That conclusion was reached many years ago by the ordinary residents of Cornwall and Newcastle and the Home Counties who must have been wondering how they ever became lumbered with two thirds of Ulster.

Certainly, that message was firmly delivered by the untrustworthy Boris Johnson, with his Irish Sea solution to Brexit. Then, just as we may have thought that there was some hope, a new voice piped up: Ian Paisley, a name we hadn’t heard for years. Forget the Jr letters usually appended, because if you were an Ulster man or woman running your own business, you would have torn your hair out.

Editor/Publisher Billy Cantwell Design Stuart Middleton Office Tina King-Garde Contributors Elizabeth Morgan Meg Kanofski David Hennessy Frank O’Shea Mal Rogers Telephone: +61 2 9555 9199 Postal Address: PO Box 256, Balmain, NSW 2041, Australia E-mail (Admin): hello@irishecho.com.au E-mail (Editorial): editor@irishecho.com.au The Irish Echo is a national publication published monthly

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IRISH AUSTRALIA

DUBLINER’S MENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE CREATES A POSITIVE RESULT FOR PATIENTS

‘It lifts their self-esteem ... they’re going from rags to riches’ MEG KANOFSKI

A DUBLINER is helping Sydney psychiatric ward patients to look good and feel great, and has plans to take his initiative global.

Mental health nurse Keith Donnelly is the driving force behind Keith’s Closet, a walk-in wardrobe for patients admitted to hospital with only the clothes on their backs.

“It really does lift their self-esteem and confidence … they’re going from rags to riches, in a sense. There’s nothing like it around.”

The closet at the Prince of Wales Hospital’s Kiloh Centre is filled with casual and formal gear, shoes, jewellery and more, designed to help patients feel dignified through their treatment.

Mr Donnelly donated his own clothing while working in an admission unit in Ireland, but the movement never took off and he made the move to Australia after becoming dissatisfied with levels of mental health care in his hometown.

After emigrating three years ago with his wife and their three young

children, an industry-wide focus on reducing the use of seclusion rooms motivated Mr Donnelly to implement his project on a larger scale.

“If you were a danger to yourself or others … you’d arrive into this horrible room,” he said. “It was the perfect opportunity to put an idle room into some good use, it’s turned it around.”

Mr Donnelly was able to secure funding for the renovation of the space with assistance from local businesses, transforming the once-dreaded area into one in which patients are happy to browse.

His daughter came up with the affirmations on the fitting room walls, while two Irish nurses are among the team of volunteers keeping the closet in top shape. The initiative should be adopted everywhere, Mr Donnelly believes. “It has a place in every mental health unit,” he said.

Inpatients and outpatients are free to take as many clothes as they need.

One grateful patient left feedback after scoring a three-piece suit that left him feeling ready to tackle a job interview after leaving the ward.

“Dreams do come true”, he said.

Keith Donnelly at his pop-up walk in wardrobe in Sydney’s Prince Of Wales Hospital. Picture: Meg Kanofski

AUSTRALIA MISSES OUT ON PRESIDENTIAL DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDS

Emigrant award winners revealed THE Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney, has announced the names of the recipients of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish abroad for 2019.

There are no winners from Australia this year. Only three of the awards have been given to Australia since their establishment in 2011 with football legend Jim Stynes, writer Tom Keneally and community activist Tom Power honoured.

The Presidential Distinguished Service Award was established by the Government following the 2011 Global Irish Economic Forum as a

means to recognise the contribution of members of the Irish abroad, and the first awards were made in 2012.

Announcing the recipients of the award, the Tánaiste said: “I am delighted to have the opportunity once again this year to formally recognise the achievements of some of the finest members of our global family, our Diaspora.

“The contribution of the Irish abroad, in so many countries and in so many ways has been immense, and the range of their experiences and the contributions they have made can be seen in the diversity of this year’s award recipients.”

“In their own separate ways, each of these individuals have made a remarkable contribution to Ireland and our international reputation. I am deeply grateful for their service and commitment to this country.”

“This is the eighth year in which recipients have received this award, and the Presidential Distinguished Service Awards remains a very important opportunity to acknowledge those who have contributed to realising Ireland’s place as an island at the centre of the world.”

The Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Ciarán Cannon, added: “I am proud that we recognise all that our

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Diaspora have done and continue to do. These 12 people show the remarkable diversity of Ireland’s reach in the world and signify the breadth and richness of our Diaspora. The recipients include those working with the most marginalised and vulnerable, those who have become the voice for those who have none.”

“A total of 189 nominations were considered for the awards this year, and the level and breadth of the achievements of the people nominated are outstanding.”

The full list of recipients of the Presidential Distinguished Service Awards in 2019 is: Arts, Culture and

Sport, Ian Gibson (Spain); Charlotte Moore and Ciaran O’Reilly (US). Business and Education: Paul Drechsler (Britain); Michael Kenneally and Rhona Richman Kenneally (Canada). Charitable Works: Fr. Patrick Clarke (Brazil), Bernard Lynch (Britain). Irish Community Support: Jackie Donohoe (US). Peace, Reconciliation and Development: Sally O’Neill Sanchez (deceased, Honduras). Science and Technology: Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Britain), William Howlett (Tanzania).

The awards will be presented on November 21, 2019 by President Michael D Higgins.

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LOCAL NEWS

IRISH AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS AWARDS 2019

Sean Rooney of Amire Digital Marketing (centre, with trophy), Irish Ambassador Breandán Ó Caollaí (inset) and sponsors.

Top Irish business leaders honoured

EDUCATIONAL technology and renewable energy are the current strong areas of achievement by Irish Australian businesses, as the recent Irish Australian Business Awards clearly showed.

A prominent theme at this year’s awards, in many categories, is the social, community and environmental impact of many of the finalists’ and winners’ businesses. Not only are their businesses creative, they serve a wider purpose.

The awards were held on October 11, in Sydney, attended by the Irish ambassador to Australia, Breandán Ó Caollaí, the consul general, Owen Feeney, and 400 businessmen and women from all over Australia, Ireland and beyond.

The awards, an initiative of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce (IACC), are an acknoweldgment of the success of IrishAustralian businesses, from a local to a global scale.

The awards’ sponsors this year were: IDA Ireland, EISS Super, Qatar Airways, HT&E, FlexiFi, Providence Asset Group, TransferMate Global Payments and the Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

“The business awards reflect our identity [by which] we bring the best of Ireland and Australia to our personal and business lives,” IACC’s president, Carl Walsh, said.

“Tonight, we will see many great

examples of this identity embodied by our finalists, young and mature, female and male, Irish and Australian.

They are building careers and growing businesses locally, nationally and internationally.

“I thank our judges, Jeff Doyle, Helen Waldron, Kieran Hennessy, Sonia Flynn, Ciaran Davis and David Kearns for taking on the challenge of finding our finalists and winners this year. Their skills, diligence and experience ensure that we continue to showcase the best of the best in these awards,” Mr Walsh said.

A new category this year – the Innovation Award – went to edtech company Quitch for its mobile e-learning app, for teachers and students, is aimed at changing the way learners engage with knowledge and improving their knowledge retention and academic performance.

Joining them on the winners’ list was Western Australia’s first winner, McDonald Surveys International, in the Established Business category.

The judges were impressed with McDonald’s ability to harness new technology to forge a diverse surveying and engineering company.

The technology theme continued into small- and medium-sized entyerprise (SME) of the Year category, which was won by Amire Digital Marketing.

In the Young Professional category, Ceire Kenny, environmental and ethical assessment adviser at Lendlease

prevailed in a highly competitive field, for exploration of the potential of more sustainable construction life cycles to reduce the industry’s contribution to climate change, and for better environmental health.

Well-being was centre stage in the International Trader category, which was won by health technology company Halaxy, which has recently opened a Cork office. The judges were impressed by the potential global impact of Halaxy’s record management services and its ability to reduce the time that frontline medical professionals spend on administration, creating more time for patients.

EdTech was back in focus with Young Entrepreneur, Ryan O’Hare’s Keypath Education business, which is used by universities to run online teaching.

Keypath has grown from being run from a spare bedroom to a $35 million enterprise, employing 150 people, and operating in more than 43 countries.

One of the loudest cheers on the night was for Cosmic Group Services, which won the hotly contested Startup category. Its renewable energy business was set up only three years ago by two people who had a germ of an idea and less than $5000 in the bank.

By August 2019, Cosmic Group had 50 full-time employees and an annual turnover of $7 million, which is projected to rise to $12m in 2019-20 as employee numbers reach about 100.

Matt Crossan from Cosmic Group Services winners of the Startup Award.

Grainne Oates from Quitch winners of the Innovation Award.

Ceire Kenny from Lendlease winner of Young Professional.

Drew Abercrombie and PJ Byrne from FlexiFi winners of the Higgins Award.

Young Entrepreneur winner Ryan O’Hare and the Keypath Education team.

irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 5

LOCAL NEWS

BREAKTHROUGH ROLE FOR IRISH ACTRESS

AVIATION

DUBLIN actress Aisling Franciosi has been nominated for an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) award for her performance in The Nightingale.

The film, directed by Australian Jennifer Kent, is set in 1825.

It tells the story of Clare, a young Irish convict woman, who chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family.

On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

The Nightingale swept the AACTA film categories garnering 15 nominations in all.

Franciosi, 26, grew up in Dublin and first came to prominence for her role as the babysitter in the impressive BBC TV drama, The Fall.

After learning of the nomination she tweeted: “Thank you so much for the nomination @AACTA. So chuffed and proud of the team”.

The awards will be presented on December 4.

QANTAS has completed the first non-stop commercial flight from New York to Sydney.

It was used to carry out a series of tests to assess the effects of ultra long-haul flights on crew fatigue and passenger jetlag.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner touched down in Sydney after a flight of 19 hours and 16 minutes – the world’s longest.

Qantas said tests ranged from monitoring pilot brain waves, melatonin levels and alertness, to exercise classes for passengers.

A total of 49 people were on board, in order to minimise weight and give the necessary fuel range.

The flight was part of Project Sunrise – Qantas’s goal to operate regular, non-stop commercial flights from Australia’s east coast cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to London and New York. Two more research flights are planned as part of the project – London to Sydney in November and another from New York to Sydney in December.

“We know ultra long-haul flights pose some extra challenges but that’s been true every time technology has allowed us to fly farther,” Qantas Group chief executive and Dubliner Alan Joyce said. “The research we’re doing should give us better strategies for improving comfort.”

Qantas makes longest flight

Franciosi: rising star

In an interview with coveteur. com, the young Dubliner spoke of her admiration for the director.

“Jennifer [Kent] is just a really smart and very sensitive director,” she said. “She took care of us every step of the way, but also pushed us, because she knew we all wanted to tell a story, and if we were going to tell it, we wanted to tell it right.

“That did sometimes require her to be relentless and tough with us, but we were all happy to [do] that because we all wanted to give it the most authentic feeling it could have.

“It was the most challenging thing I think I’ve ever done, but also the most satisfying, too,” she said. “I’m so proud of the film, like what we did, how we did it, why we told it the way that we did.”

The film has attracted controversy for its depiction of sexual violence but Franciosi defended the challenging nature of the content.

“I’m so happy to have been a part of a film that’s sparked think pieces and debate,” she said.

The Nightingale will be available on iTunes on November 27.

Aisling Franciosi took on a challenging role in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale.

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BELFAST EXPAT ARTIST’S ‘TERRIBLE BEAUTY’ DRAWS INSPIRATION FROM THE TROUBLES

‘Complex layers of a divided country’ inspires artwork TANIA MCMURTRY

GROWING up in Northern Ireland, I knew I wanted to be an artist and dreamt of going to art school.

One of my early works was a large mural of David Bowie on the wall of my parents’ home in Belfast – I did it while they were away, without their approval. I moved to Australia soon afterwards, in the early 1980s.

I did go to art school, and have had a creative career as a painter, sculptor and art teacher, before signing up for a Master of Fine Art at Sydney’s National Art School, from where I’m about to graduate.

Though I grew up during the Troubles and spent my adolescence navigating the political trenches of an oppressive, partitioned society, I have only recently begun making work about this formative experience.

For my graduation work, I have built a monumental immersive sculpture called A Terrible Beauty, a dark chasm hewn from charred wooden beams supported by a steel frame. The black timber conveys foreboding but at the same time has an inherent and powerful beauty.

This melding of beauty and fear relates to growing up surrounded by conflict in a beautiful land. The timber represents the cliff edges of the Irish coast and the bolted steel and burnt charcoal smell recalls the remains of burnt out buses and buildings.

The sculpture’s focal point is a pathway through the middle which both unites and divides, representing for me the complex layers of growing up in and leaving a divided country.

It’s an experiential work engaging all the senses. Some who have wandered through are reminded of bushfires, another form of collective trauma.

There are about 275 timber pieces in the work, a mix of gum and pine sourced from a sawmill in Bilpin. I used a gas burner to char the wood – it was a great physical effort.

The finished work is much more than I imagined and means so much more to me than I could have anticipated. It is deeply personal. It is about unity and division, beauty and fear – it is about landscape and architecture, trauma and resilience. While I have been making physical walls, I have at the same time been breaking down my own psychological walls.

As for the Bowie mural in Belfast, when my parents got home and saw it, they told me off, then took me to an art shop for paints to finish it off properly. The mural became a community talking point – people referred to our house as the one with the Bowie mural.

My parents only papered over it five years ago.

The National Art School’s postgraduate show runs November 7-17 at Cnr Forbes and Burton streets, Darlinghurst.

Beauty and fear: Tania McMurtry (inset) and her creation A Terrible Beauty at the National Art School in Sydney. (Left) McMurtry as a youngster in Belfast during the 1970s.

HOME AND AWAY ACTOR PLEADS GUILTY

FATAL CRASH

A SYDNEY-BASED Cork actor has slammed heavy-handed bouncers and police after being given a good behaviour bond for breaking a female officer’s nose during a late-night scuffle at a Sydney bar.

Keiren Patrick Noonan, 32, from Carrignavar in Cork City, pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers after he refused to leave Darling Harbour’s Cargo Bar in May. At Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court last week, the actor and electrician – who has appeared in the popular TV soap Home and Away – was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order, 100 hours of community service and fined $750.

Noonan was approached by two plain clothes police officers after they saw him refusing to leave the popular nightspot, according to agreed facts on the case. As the police tried to

AN Irishman charged over the death of a young student on a Sydney dual-carriageway was three-times over the legal alcohol limit at the time of the incident, a court has heard.

Patrick Nealon, 38, allegedly consumed 15 alcoholic drinks before getting behind the wheel of his pickup truck and hitting Nicole Lewanski, 22, as she stood on a pedestrian island in Wolli Creek on December 14, 2016.

The court heard how Mr Nealon allegedly tried to dodge a breathalyser test by biting the device’s tube shortly after the incident and that he was over three times the legal limit when tested at a hospital.

Nealon has pleaded not guilty to aggravated dangerous driving occasioning death, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Downing Centre District Court heard that Nealon was driving erratically and could hardly walk after the accident on the Princes Highway.

Prosecutor Christopher Taylor told how an ambulance driver who attend-

Cork actor hits out at heavy-handed police

Sydney-based Cork actor Kieran Noonan.

arrest Noonan, he resisted, hitting the female officer standing behind him in the face, causing blood to gush out of her nose.

The magistrate accepted Noonan’s injuring of the officer was reckless and did not appear to be deliberate.

Outside court, Noonan told reporters that the police and bouncers had been heavy-handed during the incident and it could have been dealt with differently.

“I’m a convicted criminal now, for something … that I didn’t do, to be honest,” said Noonan, who appeared in five episodes of Home and Away last year.

“It’s a disgrace that you can’t even go out in the city anymore and enjoy a few drinks with your friends without … being harassed by this gang that’s dressed in blue and these bouncers that are just super thugs.”

Noonan said he had told the bouncers he just wanted to finish his drink, which they then grabbed out of his hand.

Irishman was three times over the limit, Sydney court hears ed the scene of the accident at 5.45pm asked how much alcohol Nealon he had consumed.

It is alleged that Mr Nealon replied “heaps”. The court heard how Nealon had started drinking at 1.30pm, more than four hours before the accident.

Mr Taylor said: “He [the paramedic] could tell that the accused was intoxicated and flopping himself sideways.”

“Mr Nealon was observed to be swaying slightly. They could smell alcohol from his direction. He was swaying on the spot. His speech was slurred and slow.”

Witness Paul Harrison told the court he was in the car park of a neighbouring supermarket when he heard the accident. Mr Harrison performed CPR on Ms Lewanski but was unable to revive her.

He said after ambulance officers arrived he noticed the ute’s driver had disappeared. Nealon was subsequently found among trees in the supermarket car park in an incoherent state.

The trial continues.

irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 7

IRISH AUSTRALIA

IRISH MOVIE FOR WINDA FILM FESTIVAL

IRISH RADIO SHOW WINS NATIONAL GONG

The Camino Voyage follows four Irishmen (including Glen Hansard, inset) as they row a traditional currach from Ireland to Spain.

Unique voyage creates cinema treat MEG KANOFSKI

AN Irish tale has sailed smoothly onto the programme of a Sydney Indigenous film festival. Dónal Ó Céilleachair’s The Camino Voyage, a documentary featuring muchloved musicians Glen Hansard and Brendan Begley, is the first Irish film to be selected for the Winda Festival.

The festival’s artistic director, Pauline Clague, said the story fit perfectly with 2019’s focus on resilience and native language.

“The language and cultural

elements in the film show the strength of Indigenous peoples across the world. It was important to recognise that the film is Gaelic and that we recognise the Irish as the Indigenous peoples of their community.”

The saga of the amateur navigators enticed the event’s organisers.

The film follows Irish artists on a 2,500-kilometre voyage from Ireland to Spain, and honours Ireland’s mythological seafaring legend.

The musicians, artist, poet and stonemason not only faced the daunting task of sailing a traditional

wooden naomhóg boat on their fourleg sea journey, but also lent their hands to its construction.

Locals at every port paused to watch the eclectic crew arrive in their fragile handmade vessel, one Spanish man proclaiming, “Mother of God, they are authentic Celts!”

The documentary is also a tribute to the late writer and crewmate Danny Sheehy, who died in a boating accident in 2017.

The Winda Film Festival runs from November 21 to 24 in Sydney.

Sydney-based radio show Ireland Calling has won the Excellence in Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasting Prize at the 2019 Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Awards. Ireland Calling is produced and presented by Tina King-Garde, Catherine Crosse along with Cathy and Bob Brazil with support from Pam O’Mahony, Helen O’Neill, Tomás De Bhaldraithe and Tony Hogan. Catherine Crosse (pictured) accepted the award in Melbourne on behalf of the Ireland Calling team.

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IN BRIEF

BRITAIN AND IRELAND OPPOSED TO EURO CLOCK CHANGE PLAN HAVING different time zones in Dublin and Belfast after Brexit continues to be staunchly opposed by both Britain and Ireland. The European Parliament voted in March in support of a proposal that would put an end to the twice-yearly changing of the clocks to accommodate extra daylight hours.

If the EU adopts so-called “double summer time”, then Northern Ireland could be in a different time zone to Ireland for six months of the year after Brexit. Britain’s business minister Kelly Tolhurst said Westminster and Dublin were united in their opposition to the switch. Irish ministers carried out a public consultation on Brussels’ summer time proposals in 2018 but the UK has yet to do the same thing.

The proposal to scrap the biannual time-switch across the Continent derived from a citizens’ forum carried out by the EU. Under an EU directive, all 28 states currently switch to summer time on the last Sunday of March and back to winter time on the last Sunday of October.

irishecho.com.au

BREXIT

TAOISEACH SAYS REUNIFICATION CAN ONLY OCCUR WITH NORTHERN IRELAND CONSENT

Varadkar backs united Ireland AINE MCMAHON

LEO Varadkar has said he would like to see a united Ireland in his lifetime.

Mr Varadkar was taking part in a phone-in show on Irish radio station Today FM where listeners “could ask him anything”.

Asked if he would like to see a united Ireland, he said: “I would, but only in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement so that’s only with the consent of the majority of people in Northern Ireland.

“That’s really important stuff and nobody should be forced into anything they don’t want.

“And also, I think, if we ever get to that point, we need to make sure that unionists in Northern Ireland and British people in Northern Ireland feel that a united Ireland is a warm place for them.

“We don’t want to have a repeat of

Loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson

what happened 100 years ago when a minority were left behind.”

Earlier in the week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was warned that loyalists in Northern Ireland will “not tolerate an economic united Ireland”.

The warning came as a host of loyalists gathered for a meeting at the Constitutional Club in east Belfast.

Loyalist spokesman Jamie Bryson (pictured) said there is “immense anger” within loyalism around the current proposed Brexit deal which will, they say, put a legal, customs and economic border down the Irish Sea. “The unionist and loyalist community have had enough of this one-sided peace process. We’re not going to tolerate an economic united Ireland,” Mr Bryson said. “For three years Leo Varadkar and the Irish Government went to the European Parliament and everywhere else and said we can’t have a border on the island of Ireland because it’s a threat to peace, but it’s OK we’ll just shaft the loyalists and put a border in the Irish sea.

“I think they are entering very dangerous territory.”

Asked if he was stoking violence, Mr Bryson replied: “No one is trying to stoke up violence ... but, ultimately, loyalism’s support for the

VIOLENCE THREAT

WESTMINSTER ELECTIONS

DUP leader hits out at Taoiseach

EU SOLIDARITY ‘A CONCERN WE DID NOT NEED TO HAVE’ THE Taoiseach has said he had concerns he would be pressured into a Brexit deal by European Union partners. “Well, I’ll be very frank with you – in dealing with this issue over two years, there were times when it always crossed my mind that that might arise,” Leo Varadkar said in Brussels. “That I would get a phone call, or find myself late at night being put under pressure from other European leaders, and other European countries, to compromise. But as things went on, the more we realised that it was not going to happen, that this was a concern that we did not need to have. Because there has been enormous solidarity for Ireland, from our European partners, from the institutions and also from the member states. It was never an anti-British thing, but obviously, if one country was leaving and another was staying, there would be solidarity among the other 27. The 27 Musketeers – all for one and one for all,” the Taoiseach concluded.

IRISH FIRMS COULD MOVE NORTH AFTER BREXIT: COVENEY TANAISTE Simon Coveney predicts that Irish companies may move north of the border, such is the extraordinary competitive advantage the Brexit deal offers the region. The agreement presented an “exciting and genuine opportunity” for Northern Ireland to prosper and entrepreneurs would see the rewards of setting up in a region operating under single market rules but with tariff free access to the UK market. “When the politics of this settles down, business leaders will start to look at this for what it is – an extraordinary business opportunity.”

Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill with party colleagues John Finucane (left) and Chris Hazzard (right) as campaigning begins for the December 12 Westminster election.

Picture: Liam McBurney

Sinn Féin targets DUP man’s seat CATE MCCURRY

MICHELLE O’Neill has said Sinn Féin is hoping to unseat “an architect of Brexit” – DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds – as it aims to increase its number of MPs from seven to eight.

The Sinn Féin vice president said the December 12 general election will be about maximising the return of pro-Remain candidates.

“We will stand in our seven constituencies in which we currently hold seats and we will stand in North Belfast to win that seat,” she said.

Standing alongside the party’s North Belfast candidate John Finucane, Ms O’Neill made clear their intention to target the constituency’s MP Mr Dodds.

“We believe there is a real opportunity in North Belfast to oust someone who has been architect of Brexit, someone who has actively worked

against the interests of people who live here on this island, and John Finucane can provide local representation but also will reflect Ireland’s interests in all of this mess,” she said.

Earlier the incoming leader of the Ulster Unionist Party came under pressure on his stance over a unionist electoral pact. Steve Aiken has said his party will stand candidates in all 18 Westminster seats.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson claimed the stance will mean a “unionist dogfight”, and warned this could risk unionists losing seats to Sinn Féin. Unionist rivals the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) said agreed candidates in certain constituencies is a “no-brainer”. A unionist pact saw Ulster Unionist Tom Elliott win the Fermanagh South Tyrone Westminster seat in 2015, but Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew won the seat back in 2017.

The DUP is understood to be keen

peace process and the Belfast Agreement was predicated upon one very simple thing, the union is safe. The threat of violence has been used to undermine the union and drive us into an economic united Ireland and people can read into that whatever way they want.”

Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill said Brexit means the British and Irish governments need to begin preparing for holding a border poll on a united Ireland.

Ms O’Neill said the collapse of the Berlin wall and subsequent reunification of east and west Germany shows that major political events such as Brexit can speed events up.

“Everything is moving in that direction. I believe it was moving there even before Brexit, but clearly Brexit has become a catalyst for it.”

“The prudent thing now is to start planning for it,” she said.

to pursue the arrangement in North Belfast where Mr Dodds’ narrow majority is expected to come under pressure from Mr Finucane.

Mr Aiken said his party will run candidates in all 18 constituencies, “because we cannot turn round and say to the people of Northern Ireland: ‘Vote for a pact with the DUP, support the DUP – the party that put a border down the Irish Sea’.”

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood said a December election “will be a defining moment for Brexit and every opportunity to defend the interests of people, businesses and communities in the North must be taken”.

The Alliance Party leader Naomi Long MEP said people who vote for Alliance candidates “can increase the representation of progressive, pro-Remain MPs and articulate that voice loudly at Westminster”.

THE DUP leader has blamed Leo Varadkar for setting a precedent that has led some loyalists to contemplate violent resistance to the Brexit deal.

Arlene Foster pointed to the Taoiseach’s warnings about the potential for increased dissident republican violence if Brexit led to a hardening of the Irish border, calling his comments “wrong”. Ms Foster was addressing fears around possible loyalist disorder if Brexit creates economic barriers between Northern Ireland and Britain.

Asked about the issue, before the party’s conference recently, Ms Foster suggested Mr Varadkar’s words had been a contributory factor.

“Of course any violence or threat of violence should not be adhered to,” she said. “When Leo Varadkar talked about the possibility of dissident violence along the border if there were any border infrastructure, I thought that was wrong. I said so at the time.

“Because you can’t use the threat of violence to achieve something.

And that unfortunately now has set a precedent where people from loyalism are looking at that, and they’re saying ‘hold on a second, he used that in that particular way, so now we’re going to use that’. That’s wrong. That is not the way forward. [But] unionism and loyalism are all at one relation to this deal, they are rejecting it.”

In response to Ms Foster’s remarks, a spokesman for the Taoiseach said: “The Irish Government is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.

“Protecting peace on the island has and always will be our overriding objective. It should be clear to everyone that Brexit itself has disturbed the political equilibrium in Northern Ireland. It’s the main reason why the Irish Government was against it. We have never wanted any new borders neither north-south nor in the Irish Sea,” the spokesman said.

irishecho.com.au

BORIS JOHNSON’S BREXIT DEAL

Border folk give deal a cautious welcome AINE MCMAHON

THE shopping centre in Newry in Northern Ireland is popular with cross border shoppers taking advantage of the weaker pound.

At one stage in 2008 when the pound was at its weakest, the Sainsbury’s there sold more alcohol than any other Sainsbury’s in the world.

The new Brexit deal was reached between EU and UK negotiators would avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the proposed Brexit deal protects the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland and avoids a hard border. The DUP is not supporting the proposals.

Residents living along the border have greeted the news with caution. Shop assistant Johny Foster, who works in the Costcutter on the Dublin road on the way into Newry, says the decline of the pound amid ongoing Brexit uncertainty means business is brisk with shoppers from the south of Ireland calling into the shop on their way through.

“Brexit hasn’t really affected us much yet and we’re lucky to have a stream of southern customers and

November, 2019 | 9

BREXIT

“Get the deal done”: Newry Super Valu owner Michael Downey.

the usual surge coming up to Christmas for the cheaper drink,” he said.

Down the road in nearby Supervalu, shop manager Michael Downey said he grew up right on the border between Co Down and Co Louth.

“I have shops on both sides of the border so I’m very interested in Brexit and we need a clear decision to be made either way,” he said. “Certain political parties and ones saying no to everything are going to have to give everybody a wee bit of space here because the rest of us have to live.

“Parties need to be thinking 20 years ahead not just the next election round the corner. Get the deal done.

“We lived through the Troubles and are delighted to see them over

and definitely don’t want to see them back. All that craic of army checkpoints and having your car stopped ... it was torture,” he said.

“People just want to get on with their lives but at the same time, I want to see lasting peace in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Over the border in Omeath, Co Louth residents are reluctant to give their names or comment.

A publican in one of the local bars says people living in the town have Brexit fatigue.

“I don’t really understand much of the detail [the deal] but I’m crossing that border up to 10 times a day so if there’s any talk of checks or customs I will leave this area,” he says.

“I’ve been here since the early 2000s and have made a life and business here but all people are sick of all the talk and we just want to know on a practical level what it will mean for us because we’re three years waiting on it,” he said.

A local woman who was walking her dogs along the scenic Carlingford Lough said she believed the news of a deal was good but if it is not supported by everyone then it is “too soon to celebrate.”

NORTH-SOUTH TRANSPORT

Motorway connecting Dublin to Derry ‘must be a priority’ AINE MCMAHON

CONSTRUCTION of the A5 motorway to connect Dublin and the border counties to Derry must be a priority for the Irish and British governments, a report has said.

In 2015, the British and Irish governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland committed £50 million for the A5 Western Transport Corridor serving the north-west.

The Irish Government was to make a €27 million contribution to the project but this was deferred because of the cost overrun at the National Children’s Hospital.

In February, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the project has also faced delays due to the stalemate in re-establishing the Northern Ireland Executive.

The recently-released Cross-Border Cooperation: Challenges and Opportunities report examines the impact of Brexit on border communities and makes findings and recommendations to counter the negative effects of Brexit.

The chairman of the committee, Sean Crowe TD, said the committee has recommended a comprehensive upgrade of infrastructure, both transport and broadband, to help connectivity in the border region.

“Both governments must formally recommit to the long-planned A5-N2

Dublin to Derry project, highlighting its priority nature and repledging what was originally agreed,” he said.

Uncertainty over Brexit makes any assessment of challenges very difficult, he added. EU funding has been “indispensable and transformative, particularly in the area of peace building and reconciliation”.

The committee said there are concerns around the future of EU funding beyond 2020, particularly programmes which have contributed to the peace process.

“The importance of maintaining these programmes was emphasised. In the event that these programmes cannot be maintained, establishing comprehensive successor programmes is essential,” said Mr Crowe.

The committee previously heard how communities along the border both north and south are lagging economically since 2016 in stark contrast to strong economic growth and employment in other parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

To tackle this, the committee recommends the promotion of the border region as alternatives to the Dublin area for foreign direct Investment; the promotion of the three border regions as areas of national importance and the comprehensive upgrading of infrastructure, both transport and broadband.

10 | October, 2019

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November, 2019 | 11

IRELAND

PICTURE OF DUBLIN POVERTY IS A REMINDER OF THE LEGACY OF IRELAND’S ECONOMIC CRASH

Homeless crisis ‘like social cleansing’: charity founder I wanted to help people.”

Gill started off with one friend and one flask of stew. Nowadays she A WOMAN who feeds more than 300 can feed up to 400 people a night, people a night at a Dublin city soup kitchen says the current homelessness depending on the weather.

“I know myself, when I’m hungry, I crisis feels like “social cleansing”. can’t concentrate. You see kids having On a Monday night in late October tantrums because they just want to be at 7.30pm, as Keira Gill and her team fed,” Gill says. “I would like to say ‘feed of volunteers are setting up their the kids first’, but you can’t do that makeshift canteen outside the Bank because everyone’s hungry.” of Ireland building on College Green, Later she tells me that the children a queue of about 50 people is already at the front of the queue being told forming around the trestle off by their mother are a family of six table. who live in homeless accommodation.

The temperature is a chilly 8C, They were living in a car after their and the early visitors are mothers landlord increased their rent, and they and their children. Most are wearing could not afford it. their school uniform under zipped-up There are about 14 volunteers per winter coats. night, men and women. One man, Alan When the food is beginning to be from Ballymun, who is retired and in brought to the table from waiting his late fifties, has designated himself nearby cars, some pushing starts the bouncer. He collects hot water between small girls and boys, the from the Spar on Dame Street for tea youngest of whom is about five. and coffee, collects the rubbish, and One mother gets involved, telling hangs around them to wait, to if any of the stop playing with minor rows or the pile of napkins, pushing get and nervously looks They’re messing too animated. around to see who is The food is watching her chastise up an entire placed on the the children. generation because long table in a “They get ratty row, hot food because they’re so it’s easier than first: pasta hungry,” Gill says. bakes, stew, She started the building houses. chicken curry, “soup-run”, now rice, potatoes, known as A Lending meatballs and Hand, in 2013, spaghetti, with Styrofoam bowls, plasafter being turned down for a morttic forks and napkins also available. gage.

“We can’t count the people as “I had worked and saved for so long, there’s too many, so we work out how and when I was turned down, I basically had a breakdown. After that I just many people we’ve fed by counting the bowls we use. Most people have felt there has to be more to life than two bowls each,” Gill says. this, more to life than material things.

AOIFE MOORE

“

”

DOCUMENTARY

IRA planned to take out power grid, doco says THE IRA planned to knock out the power supply to the south east of England in the final years of its paramilitary campaign, a former member has claimed.

Former US Marine turned IRA gun runner John Crawley made the claim in a BBC series marking the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the troubles in Northern Ireland.

In Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History, Mr Crawley, who once was caught smuggling guns from the United States to the IRA, said he was arrested just before a plan to bomb London’s electricity supply was carried out. “We were going to knock out the power supply of the south-east of England but we were caught before we could do it.”

“I wondered why they [British authorities] didn’t kill us, because … they knew where we were going and to this day, I don’t know why they just didn’t take us out of it.”

A lending hand: Keira Gill and her team feed 300 people every Monday night at College Green. The queue for food (inset) is getting longer.

When I tell her I am struck by the number of families seeking food, she sighs. “[Seeing] the children; that would be a newer thing for most people. Not to us; we’ve been dealing with more and more kids the last three years.

“We help them with school stuff, books and uniforms. It’s nice seeing them getting housed.

“Nowadays, there are so many levels of homelessness. Years ago we would’ve dealt with more rough sleepers – ‘down-and-outs’, my da would’ve called them. Nowadays we feed people in their work gear.

“People with jobs, hugging and kissing you because you gave them lunch for the week. There’s no dignity queuing for food, but it shows the level of deprivation if you’re forced to publicly

wait for your dinner in the street.”

While I’m there, there are many, mostly men, in work clothes, branded polo shirts and hi viz, but there are women too, in clean clothes and shoes, avoiding eye contact as they come and go quickly carrying steaming bowls in freezing air.

“We find a lot more men than women; men take their chances on the street. Women can’t as easily sleep in a doorway, but we’ve seen an increase in a lot of women coming here for food.

It’s their living circumstances [that make them come for help]. The hostels are vile. If you have any kind of addiction problem and you’re put into an emergency hostel, you’ll end up back on [drugs/alcohol]. That’s why we have more men using our service;

they’re so beaten down and fed up with the system.”

Gill is steered away several times to speak to people who know her by name. Some are in tears or distress.

“It feels like social cleansing,” Gill says after an emotional conversation with a teenage girl, who has left state care after turning 18 and has nowhere to go. “When I went back to college, to Trinity, my dole was cut three or four times. I genuinely felt it was personal because I was from a working class area, and even when you’re trying to better yourself, they’re kicking you down and you’ll give up.

“The kids are going backwards, they don’t have the skills they need for life.

“They’re messing up an entire generation because it’s easier than building houses.”

BIRMINGHAM PUB BOMBINGS FAMILIES’ CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE GOES ON

Renewed calls for public inquiry AINE MCMAHON

FAMILIES of the 21 people killed in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings are asking the Irish Government to back a public inquiry into the attack.

The Justice For the 21 group met President Michael D Higgins in Dublin last month as part of their three-day visit to Ireland. They also met Tánaiste Simon Coveney.

Julie Hambleton, sister of one of the victims 18-year-old Maxine Hambleton, said she hoped their visit to Ireland would “make a mark”.

Ms Hambleton said successive British Governments had done nothing to help victims of terrorism and the group was humbled by the support it had received from the Irish Government.

“It has been humbling. People are so kind and spiritually generous. It shames our own British authorities because they treat us with nothing but contempt,” she said.

“With this visit to Ireland we will

In April 2019, an inquest jury found a botched IRA warning call led to the deaths of 21 people in the 1974 pub bombings. Two massive detonations caused what one witness described as “pure carnage”, ripping apart the packed Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs on the night of November 21, killing 21 people and injuring 220 more. Ms Hambleton said the inquest had “left more questions than answers”.

“If we can get a public inquiry then the information that has been locked away can Margaret Hambleton, who lost her daughter Maxine come out,” she said. in the bombings, with President Michael D Higgins Ms Hambleton spoke (right) at Aras an Uachtarain. Picture: Brian Lawless about the impact that the death of her sister had had have seen more dignitaries than in on her life and that she would continour own country that want to speak ue to fight for justice to honour the to us, meet us and listen to us. We are memory of those who were killed in asking the President, the Taoiseach the bombing.

“I chose not to have children and Tánaiste if they will endorse our because of the murder of my sister,” continued plight for justice.”

she said. “We cannot in all good conscience not fight, not only for our 21 but the future generation where murderers are allowed to come to our cities and kill with impunity.

“We have experienced the worst of humanity but in our latter years we have experienced the best of the Irish community. There are far more good people in the world than bad and it has restored a sense of humanity back to us.”

The chairwoman of the board of Glencree Peace and Reconciliation centre, Barbara Walsh, said: “For the last couple of days, the Birmingham group have told what life is like for them and about the loss of people they lost in the bombs.

“They have also met other people from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland who back in the ‘70s, at the beginning of the conflict also lost people. Sometimes, when people experience a great trauma, they sometimes feel they are the only one so to be heard by others and hear other people’s stories is helpful.”

12 | November, 2019

irishecho.com.au

IRELAND

IN BRIEF

FEMALE TEACHER JAILED FOR HAVING SEX WITH MALE STUDENT, 16

OLDER MEN LIVING ALONE MORE LIKELY TO FEEL LONELY

Teacher abused her position of ‘trust and authority’: judge

OLDER women are less likely to feel lonely than older men living on their own, a study has found. Loneliness is most prevalent among over-75s and those living alone, the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing has found.

The study found almost 10 per cent of older adults are socially isolated, meaning they have little or no regular social contacts with other people.

Social isolation is more prevalent in Dublin than in rural areas, with seven per cent in the capital saying they often feel lonely. The study found older people who live alone are almost twice as likely to be the most lonely compared to those who live with others. Loneliness was found to be damaging to the health and well being of older adults, with those feeling lonely having a poorer quality of life.

ALLEGED BOMBER DENIED BAIL A man being prosecuted for the murder of two soldiers in Northern Ireland has been refused bail. John Downey (pictured), accused of the murders of two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers in August 1972 and a further explosives charge, faced Omagh Magistrates Court after being arrested in Donegal and extradited. In 2013, Downey was charged with murdering four Royal Household Cavalrymen in a bomb attack in London’s Hyde Park in 1982. He was tried at the Old Bailey in 2014 but the case dramatically collapsed after it was revealed he had received a written assurance from former prime minister Tony Blair’s government that he was not actively wanted by the authorities. The letter was allegedly issued under the terms of the controversial On The Runs (OTRs) scheme.

RESISTANCE GROWS TO HOUSING ASYLUM SEEKERS IN TOWNS PLANS to accommodate 130 asylum seekers at an apartment complex in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim have been postponed. The Ballinamore Community Group began a 24/7 protest outside an apartment complex in the town in opposition to plans to accommodate the asylum seekers there. “The minister has now agreed to pause the department’s plans in relation to the provision of an asylum centre in Ballinamore,” the group said. Spokesman Gordon Hughes said the group is not against immigration, but the direct provision system for asylum seekers is broken and does not meet their needs. The Department of Justice has also faced resistance to opening new direct provision centres in other rural towns including Moville, Co Donegal, Rooskey, Co Roscommon and Oughterard, Co Galway.

CATE MCCURRY

A 25-YEAR-OLD teacher who had sex with a secondary school student has been sentenced to three years in prison, with the final two suspended.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that she was a substitute teacher and he was a fifth-year student at the time of the offence.

Judge Martin Nolan said the crimes were serious and that the perpetrator must face a custodial sentence.

He said she was a young and inexperienced teacher at the time of the offences, adding that her behaviour had brought shame on herself.

“She abused her position of trust and authority,” Judge Nolan said.

The court heard that the substitute teacher was 23 years old when she met the student in a nightclub in 2017, and they continued to communicate through social media.

The woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the boy, waited until his 16th birthday before she had sex with him as she believed this was the age of consent.

Sentencing the defendant, Judge Nolan added: “Undoubtedly her behaviour brought shame on herself.

“It seems almost certain that she has lost her opportunity to teach for a considerable period of time.”

Judge Nolan said he could accept that she believed the age of consent to be 16, however he added that she

was a teacher at the time and should have known the legal age.

He said the mitigating factors in the case were her early pleas to two counts of defilement; that she had fully co-operated, that she made full admissions and had no previous record. The aggravating factors in the case were that she was a teacher of the boy, and that she was in a position of authority and trust.

“Unfortunately she abused her position of trust,” he added. “It is completely unethical and immoral for a teacher to have these sexual relations with a student. It became criminal when the student she had sex with was under the age of consent.”

He said the real question was

TAOISEACH REVEALS CLIMATE PLAN TO CUT EMISSIONS

IN A SINGLE BOUND: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the launch of the First Progress Report on the Climate Action Plan. Picture: Brian Lawless

‘Every citizen must play their part’ AOIFE MOORE

EVERY citizen and business will have to play a role for Ireland to reach its climate targets.

The first progress report on the Climate Action Plan, published last week, said it aims “to secure a cleaner, more sustainable, healthier Ireland for future generations”, with directions for 12 key sectors to ensure the country is prepared for the climate crisis.

The report came a week after the Environmental Protection Agency said Ireland was lagging behind in climate policy, with 2018 marking the third year in a row the state missed EU emissions budgets.

Ireland is well off track to meet 2020 and 2030 targets.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, flanked by

a number of cabinet ministers, including Health Minister Simon Harris; Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, and the Minister of State for the Office of Public Works and Flood Relief, Kevin Boxer Moran, launched the report.

“No sector, business or home will be untouched,” The Taoiseach said.

“This is a plan that was only produced last June, and now we need to carry that through, and the carbon tax one was one that was important.

“A lot of people are very enthusiastic about some of the climate actions that don’t really affect them, but get quite queasy about the ones that might affect them. That’s the area the government took a decision to do something [about]. We know what needs to be done. With this progress

report we are making ourselves accountable to ensure it is done.”

Since the plan was published, the Government has listed key milestones such as the new scheme for 1,200 on-street public recharging points for electric vehicles, the first Luas tram extension being planned, and a climate action-focused budget with a commitment to increase the price of carbon to €80 per tonne in 2030, with all the proceeds going towards the Government’s climate plan.

Mr Varadkar said Ireland has little to celebrate in terms of environmental targets.

“Our greenhouse gas emissions are down two years in a row, but they need to be falling by 2 or 3 per cent a year and we’re nowhere near that,” the Taoiseach said.

whether the defendant deserved an immediate custodial sentence, adding that it was the view of the court that she did. “She was a young and inexperienced teacher at the time,” he said.

The reports said it was unlikely she would offend again. Judge Nolan added that he considered supervision of the probation services when she is released, but he said it is not appropriate as he does not believe she will reoffend.

The defendant, who wept throughout the hearing, was sentenced to three years in prison, with the final two suspended on the condition that she keep the peace and be of good behaviour.

HOMELESSNESS

Minister urged to resign after new homeless totals revealed THE number of people in emergency accommodation in Ireland rose again in September, with almost 10,400 adults and children experiencing homelessness.

Department of Housing figures released on Thursday show 10,397 people, including 6,524 adults and 3,873 children, accessed emergency accommodation in September.

The homelessness total passed the 10,000 mark for the first time in March this year.

Among adults, the biggest proportion of people accessing emergency accommodation was those aged between 25 and 44.

There were also almost 1,000 more men than women who were homeless.

The figures show there were 1,756 families experiencing homelessness last month. Some 76 per cent of people accessed emergency accommodation in Dublin, followed by Cork, Galway, Limerick and Kildare.

The chief executive of homelessness charity Inner City Helping Homeless, Anthony Flynn, said Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy should resign, in light of the figures.

“Further increases in the number of families, children and adults that are now homeless in the State have made the Minister’s position untenable. He needs to leave his post as the relentless persistence in expecting the private markets to resolve the homeless crisis have clearly failed,” he said.

The national spokesman for the homelessness charity Simon Communities, Wayne Stanley, said: “Homelessness is not normal and as a society we long ago set out that it should not be acceptable.”

irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 13

IRELAND

FINANCE MINISTER DEFENDS ‘PLAYING IT SAFE’ BUDGET

Possibility of hard Brexit casts shadow over Budget KEY POINTS FROM THE 2019 BUDGET

AINE MCMAHON AND CATE MCCURRY

FINANCE Minister Paschal Donohoe has defended his Budget against accusations he played too safe.

Mr Donohoe said he needed to find a balance between preparing the country for a no-deal Brexit while also ensuring people got something back in the Budget.

“If I announced a Budget that was all about a no-deal Brexit, I think the needs of many citizens would have been slighted,” he said.

Mr Donohoe said he had to be cautious with tax cuts for workers and “the squeezed middle” because he did not want to see a scenario in which they would have to be reversed if the economy was to suffer.

“For those that are disappointed about the budget, I would ask them to consider the changes I made in the last two budgets in relation to GP care, funding the National Childcare Scheme and prescription charges,” he said. “What I would also like to say to those citizens is that we all remember what it was like when there was a whole suite of measures that had to be undone all over again.”

Mr Donohoe said he did not want to see a situation where tax reductions for workers had to be reversed.

“I’m really determined to try and

Minister Paschal Donohoe handed down his 2020 Budget before the Brexit extension was announced.

avoid doing that again,” he said.

Speaking to members of the public who rang into a post Budget phonein show on RTÉ radio, he defended against accusations the budget did little to help single people.

A builder who described himself as a single worker said he had worked on the National Children’s Hospital.

He accused Mr Donohoe of spending money “left, right and centre” and doing nothing for people who “get up at 5.45am and go to bed at 9.30pm”.

Mr Donohoe said tax credits for single people were changed in the

previous two budgets and that he had to plan his Budget with the prospects of a hard Brexit in mind.

“I’ve put tax changes in place in my two previous budgets that have been equivalent to €1,500 where I’ve increased the point of which you pay the higher rate of income tax.

“In this budget we are better off playing it safe and dealing with a huge risk that we might have to deal with.”

Meanwhile, the challenges faced by single parents will not be remedied by the extra €15 per week offered in the budget, it has been claimed.

IRISH MEN CHARGED OVER LORRY DEATHS

Community in shock over driver’s arrest DAVID YOUNG AND REBECCA BLACK

RESIDENTS of the rural village where Mo Robinson lived are clinging to hope that the truck driver is an innocent party in the container deaths horror, a councillor has said.

The community of Laurelvale in Co Armagh, where Mr Robinson’s parents live, was said to be in “complete shock” after his arrest over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals, who were found dead in a refrigeration container in Essex.

Councillor Paul Berry said the family was very well respected in the area, and people were struggling to take in the enormity of the events.

“In the local area the feeling is one of complete shock and hope this is not a true story in terms of his involvement,” he said.

Robinson was subsequently charged with 39 counts of manslaughter of persons unknown, conspiracy to traffic people and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Appearing in court, the defendant was dressed in a grey prison tracksuit and spoke only to give his name, his address as Laurel Drive in Craigavon in and his nationality as British.

DUP MLA William Irwin said

A sketch of Mo Robinson in court.

locals felt uneasy at the level of attention, as well as the uncertainty around what was happening.

“The enormity of the sheer loss of life has been a shock to everyone,” he said. “I don’t know the man personally but I know members of the family who are very decent people.”

The Robinson family are well known in the area and are heavily involved with local football club Laurelvale FC. The dog-loving trucker, who attended Southern Regional College in Co Armagh, is known to have worn a cowboy style hat when at the wheel.

Meanwhile, Essex Police have started extradition proceedings to bring 22-year-old Eamonn Harrison from Ireland to the UK. Harrison, of Newry in Co Down, Northern Ireland, appeared in Dublin High Court last week charged with 39 counts of manslaughter, along with human trafficking and immigration offences, and was remanded in custody. Detectives have also urged Ronan Hughes, 40, and his brother Christopher, 34, said to have links with the road haulage and shipping industries, to hand themselves in.

The pair, from Armagh in Northern Ireland, are wanted on suspicion of manslaughter and human trafficking.

It is understood Ronan Hughes spoke to police shortly after the driver of the lorry, Mo Robinson, 25, was arrested following the discovery.

Three other people arrested in connection with the incident – two men aged 38 and 46, and a 38-year-old woman –have been released on bail.

The bodies of eight women and 31 men were found in a refrigerated trailer attached to a lorry in an industrial park in Grays, Essex, in the early hours of October 23.

The 39 migrants are all believed to be Vietnamese nationals, police have said.

Mother-of-one Leah Speight, 41, from Dublin, says the €15, although welcome, does not go far enough.

“We’re talking about the budget for 2020, eight years since the budget that cut everything, and particularly hurt single parents,” she said.

“Fifteen euro looks good, but if you look at the detail, I’m not saying I don’t welcome it, but there are specific areas they should be looking at to avoid further child poverty.”

In 2016, there were 218,817 single parent families, an increase of more than 3,500 families since 2011.

BREXIT A €1.2 billion package was announced, which will be deployed in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

CLIMATE CHANGE The carbon tax will be increased from €20 to €80 per tonne by 2030.

TRANSPORT Some €2.7 billion will go to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to include €9 million for sustainable mobility projects, including greenways and cycling projects, and an additional €3 million for electric vehicle infrastructure, doubling the number of on-street recharging points.

EDUCATION More than 150 new teaching posts.

HOMELESSNESS A further €20 million will be spent on homeless services, which will bring the total funding to €166 million in 2020.

HOUSING The help-to-buy scheme has been extended for another two years to the end of 2021.

JUSTICE Up to 700 new Garda recruits, and extra civilian staff to allow for more frontline policing.

HEALTH Free GP care to be expanded to children under eight and free dental care for children under six.

SOCIAL WELFARE All social welfare recipients to receive a Christmas bonus payment in 2019.

DISRUPTION ESSENTIAL TO FORCE CHANGE

Tactical advice: Mary Robinson

Climate protestors should change tack, says Robinson FORMER Irish president Mary Robinson has warned Extinction Rebellion protesters that they risk alienating the public without smarter tactics.

The UN Special Envoy on El Nino and Climate said disruption was necessary to affect change, but that it could take many forms. She also praised the work of Greta Thunberg, saying her address at the UN’s Climate Action Summit brought her to tears.

“I think what Greta and her generation are doing is humanising the issue of climate change in a very vivid way because what they’re saying – which is correct – is that we, the adults in the world, are not guaranteeing them a safe future; a liveable future,” Dr Robinson said.

“I was in the UN General Assembly and when I heard her say ‘You have

stolen my childhood’ I cried, actually.

I thought, this is not fair.”

Dr Robinson said climate change protests were one way of causing disruption, but that the most effective method was through investors, asset managers, and pension funds.

“I see no significant move on the part of the emitters to change,” she added, “so I now feel it’s time for disruption . And disruption takes many forms. Disruption can be litigation, disruption can be shareholder questions at meetings, disruption of a very effective thought can be when investors are warning about being invested in stranded assets.

“Disruption can be bottom up … but the most effective is the investors.

If they can really move that needle, it can move very fast.”

14 | November, 2019

FG MEPS VOTE AGAINST ASYLUM SEEKER MOTION

‘Deep shame’ for Irish MEPs AOIFE MOORE

FINE Gael MEPs have been criticised after they voted against a resolution to step up search and rescue for refugees in the Mediterranean.

Last week, the European Parliament rejected the vote asking member states to step up efforts to save asylum seekers making the perilous crossing. All of Fine Gael’s MEPs – Mairead McGuinness, former Rose Of Tralee Maria Walsh, former Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald and former GAA president Sean Kelly – voted against the resolution, which lost by two.

Fellow Irish MEPs – Green Party members Ciaran Cuffe and Grace O Sullivan, Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy, and Independents Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Mick Wallace – all voted for the resolution.

No votes were recorded for Independent Clare Daly, the DUP’s Dianne Dodds, the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long or Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher.

The resolution calls on the “EU Member States to enhance proactive search and rescue operations by providing sufficient vessels and equipment specifically dedicated to search and rescue operations and personnel, along the routes where they can make an effective contribution to the preservation of lives”, and “to step up their efforts ... in the Mediterranean”.

irishecho.com.au

IRELAND

Fine Gael’s Maria Walsh

Ms Anderson said her fellow Irish MEPs should feel a sense of deep shame for voting against the measure.

“The motion fell by two votes, further adding to a damning record of the EU on the deepening humanitarian crisis,” she said “It is a matter of deep shame that four Fine Gael MEPs actively voted to maintain a ‘fortress Europe’ status quo that has seen thousands of men, women and children drown simply for seeking sanctuary.

“While Fine Gael wax lyrical about the ‘four freedoms’ of the EU, including the freedom of movement, they are ready to side with their right-wing EU colleagues to ensure these values don’t extend to those fleeing destitution, war and persecution.”

“It’s soul-destroying to me and I am gutted. This was a vote that was swayed by the far right, who worked hard to kill the amendment and cheered when it was defeated.”

Challenged on her vote, Fine Gael’s Ms Walsh replied: “I am the first to shout the loudest for the protection of our citizens, but this report wasn’t good enough.

“It was a short-term Band-Aid, and I believe would have cost lives.”

“We need a coherent, comprehensive and long-term EU response to search and rescue in the Mediterranean. The resolution does the opposite by calling for Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, to share intelligence about its operational activities with every boat in the Mediterranean.

“That would endanger more lives by facilitating, instead of dismantling, the business models of smugglers and human traffickers. We could not support that,” Ms Walsh said.

“We can do so much better than the text which was voted down by the Parliament, which plays into hands of people smugglers and lacks workable solutions.”

There have been 1,078 drownings in the Mediterranean in 2019, the Missing Migrants Project says. The vote was held one day after 39 Vietnamese nationals were found dead in a lorry in Essex.

HALLOWEEN COMES HOME

SCARY STUFF: Púca – a shapeshifter – one of the folklore characters taking part in the Halloween Festival at Trim Castle, Co Meath. Fáilte Ireland’s inaugural Púca Festival celebrates Ireland as the original birthplace of Halloween. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

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November, 2019 | 15

IRELAND

DRONES SET TO REVOLUTIONISE IRISH FARMING

Technology to drive radical change for Irish farmers CATE MCCURRY

DRONES are set to revolutionise farming in Ireland through a major research project aimed at improving and enhancing the aerial vehicle.

While drones are already used in a number of areas including filming and search and rescue, they could soon become the future of farming.

Data collected by drones can be translated into useful information for farmers. Images provided by the drones will count plants, their sizes, height as well as crop density.

It will also detail whether there are infestations and where water is needed in fields.

The crops are monitored in the field from when they are planted to harvesting. The data will also give the number of animals in the field and whether the animal is standing or lying on the ground.

Dr Tim McCarthy, senior lecturer at Maynooth University, explained the research was produced from the U-Flyte project.

“The project looked at how we use these drones for mapping out the real world and looking at how they can be used for logistics and also supporting specialist services, like search and rescue,” he added.

“Farmers can use a drone to check the quality of grass land, weed control and trying to figure out if you have infestation. We are using drones to not only count animals but to figure out if they are are in a place in a field they shouldn’t be, like caught in a ditch.

“Drones are highly automated and they can programmed to take off to fly a flight plan and land really without any human intervention.

“In the future you might have a

sheep farmer who spends a lot of time going out and counting animals, so you can imagine the future of that person sitting in the kitchen pressing a button, the drone takes off and not only counts the animals but make sure they are OK and the animals are in reasonable shape.

“It might be that some of them are due to give birth and it might keep an eye on that before the farmer brings them in.”

The technology could save farmers time and money as well as through its automated collection of data.

Further research is being carried out at Maynooth University to improve how drones are used.

It comes as Minister for Business Heather Humphreys announced €25 million funding for six infrastructure projects, including the National Autonomous Technologies Data Platform at the university.

Ms Humphreys was given a demonstration of how a drone can transform agriculture at a farm in Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan.

“It’s amazing to see how things are changing in terms of food production, agriculture and how this new technology can change the way we do things,” the Mionister said “The drone we saw is able to photograph the landscape and then you can quickly identify where you need to take remedial action in terms of crops.

“It’s very important for the future as that’s what future jobs are all about.

It’s about embracing new technology and preparing us for tomorrow’s world. Farming has been transformed over the years. I see Irish farmers are always willing to embrace new technology. It helps farmers to do their jobs better and be more productive.”

Taoiseach draws the line at cows in climate fight

Monaghan dairy farmer Mark Wilson with one of the drones set to revolutionise farming in Ireland. Picture: Cate McCurry

REDUCING the country’s cow herd will be a last resort in tackling carbon emissions, the Taoiseach has said.

In 2018 agricultural emissions went above 1990 levels for the first time in 18 years. Ireland’s agricultural sector has consistently been the largest emitter of greenhouse gas, and it had a 1.9 per cent rise in 2018, driven by an increase in dairy cows, whose herd numbers have risen by 27 per cent in the past five years.

Speaking at the launch of the Government’s Climate Action Plan last week, Mr Varadkar said: “In the plan that we set out, we believe we can reduce agricultural emissions without having to reduce the herd, with that means doing a lot around forestry, things like bio gas, around slurry, around use of fertilisers and so on.”

“Reducing the herd will be the last resort. We believe we can [reduce] emissions without having to do that.”

Mr Varadkar added that the way emissions are categorised will have to be changed.

“We do need to produce food [but] all forms of agriculture, even tillage, produce CO2 emissions and cause climate change. As we get beyond 2030, we’re going to have to consider whether we treat food differently.

“We’re a country of five million people that feeds 50 (million) and yet all that food production gets accounted for in Ireland as a contribution to global warming, but that food production is going to have to happen somewhere.”

TD RECUSES HERSELF FROM ‘VOTE-GATE’ PROBE AS CONTROVERSY GROWS

TDs voting for each other in Dáil AOIFE MOORE

A GOVERNMENT TD has recused herself from the investigation into voting irregularities in the Dáil after admitting she had voted for party colleagues in the chamber.

The chairwoman of the Members’ Interests Committee, Hildegarde Naughton, said she would not be able to take part in the investigatio, as she too had voted for colleagues, who were present in the Dáil at the time, on “less than a handful of occasions”.

The issue emerged after it was reported that Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley’s vote was recorded on six occasions despite his absence from the chamber.

An inquiry report found that when he voted on Mr Dooley’s behalf, TD Niall Collins was of the belief that his colleague would be returning to the chamber.

The chamber has since heard apologies from Fianna Fail representatives Lisa Chambers, Niall Collins,

Phantom votes: Fianna Fáil’s Timmy Dooley

Barry Cowen and Mr Dooley, while Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail said that the controversy had further eroded public confidence in parliament.

The report, which was fuelled by further revelations that votes had been cast by more Fianna Fail TDs who were not present in the chamber

at the time of the ballot, also recommended that no disciplinary action should be taken against offending representatives, but a wider review of the voting system is needed.

In the time since, more TDs have admitted in taking part in the practice, stating they only did so when their colleague was in the chamber.

“The Taoiseach, the Leader of the Opposition and many other members of Dáil Eireann have voted for a colleague while asked to do so while that colleague was in the chamber,” Ms Naughton’s statement read. “So have I, on less than a handful of occasions.

I have never voted for someone who was not present in the chamber.”

Earlier, the four Fianna Fail TDs at the centre of the voting controversy apologised in the Dáil.

The chamber heard apologies from Lisa Chambers, Niall Collins, Barry Cowen and TD for Clare Timmy Dooley, whose voting pattern was the genesis of the scandal in the media, who said he had “been honoured to

serve as a senator and deputy, and I accept that ... I fell short as a member of this House”.

The inquiry report found that Mr Collins was of the belief that his party colleague Mr Dooley would return to the chamber when he voted on his behalf. Mr Dooley apologised to the house, adding; “I gave deputy Collins the impression I would be in the chamber, I accept and regret my conduct has led to controversy which is unwelcome to the house, and I should’ve been here for the vote.”

The Ceann Comhairle said that for the time being votes will only be taken when all members are in their designated seats.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin’s speech was criticised after he went after the government’s conduct, rather than an expected contrite response.

His statement began by acknowledging wrong had been done: “At the outset it is important to say that serious issues of public concern have

been raised and must legitimately be addressed”, before going on to criticise “the behaviour, motivation and record of many here who clearly have no interest in dealing with this matter with any balance.

“Fine Gael’s claim to be outraged has been undermined by the sound of laughter and backslapping coming from their corridors,” Mr Martin added. “I have no difficulty in accepting the explanations and good faith of deputie. What I will not accept is an attempt to impose different standards [on] different people.”

Catherine Connolly TD said Mr Martin’s speech was disgraceful, and that she had expected him to apologise.“[Irish Times and RTÉ political sketch writers] Miriam Lord and Oliver Callan can take a holiday.

They don’t need to work from imagination; they could use this report,” she said. “A TD who voted six times, who doesn’t know why he stopped, and the obvious answer is his finger got tired.”

16 | November, 2019

irishecho.com.au

IRELAND

MORE THREATS AGAINST QUINN DIRECTORS AS TORTURERS REMAIN AT LARGE

‘This is your last warning’ “A month ago, I still had ambitions to go back into those office and sort out the Quinn Group. Not today,” he said. When asked why he has changed his position, he said: “Kevin Lunney.”

“People can say whatever they want about me but I don’t want to be seen as being the beneficiary of abuse of criminal activity,” he said.

Mr Quinn said he had no part in commissioning, or sanctioning the abduction and torture of Mr Lunney.

“I’d have no hand, act or part or no knowledge or no gain; I’d have no benefit of doing anything to Kevin Lunney. Kevin Lunney and I were good friends for years.”

Mr Quinn said people in his local community are angry about how he claims he was treated. “The locals are also very angry about what they’ve done to me: throwing me out the gate, giving me nothing, sacking me. They’re very very angry.”

Mr Quinn said the attacks being carried out on Quinn executives are not being carried out in his name.

“I’d think somebody with a high IQ would know that Sean Quinn is not a real fool. And that he would know that if something would have happened to Kevin Lunney, that people would be looking in his direction. So, unless they consider me a real idiot, there’s no way that I could allow that to be done in my name.”

THE directors of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) have received a second death threat, telling them this was their last warning.

The anonymous letter containing the threat was delivered to the Irish News newspaper in Northern Ireland, and the contents were relayed to QIH directors by police.

Responding in a statement to the alleged death threats contained in the letter, directors of QIH said: “Regrettably, continuing threats are no surprise to QIH. It is just proof positive that this issue will not be resolved until the paymaster behind it is brought to justice and law and order is restored to this peace-loving community.”

Last month, Kevin Lunney, a director of building products manufacturer Quinn Industrial Holdings, was kidnapped and badly beaten after being abducted from outside his home in Co Fermanagh.

He received knife wounds to his face and neck, and had one of his legs broken in two places in a sustained attack before being dumped by a roadside across the border in Cornafean, Co Cavan.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said Mr Lunney sustained severe, life-changing injuries.

The directors were told in the letter they had not learned their lessons after what happened to Mr Lunney.

“This is your last warning to resign to the directors of QIH; obviously you haven’t learned your lesson after what happened to Kevin,” it reads.

“Directors of QIH were given a mandate to hold the company in safe hands for the Quinn family until a position was put in place to buy it back.

“The local community won’t stand by any longer and see it continue in its current projectory (sic).

“The Quinn family that employed hundreds of people were stabbed in the back. We have the capability and the manpower to see this through until the end and achieve a permanent solution.” The five directors are Kevin Lunney, Tony Lunney, Liam McCaffrey, Dara O’Reilly and John McCartin.

There have been about 70 incidents throughout a five-year campaign of violence and intimidation directed at the management that has been running QIH since the fall of Sean Quinn. Paramilitary involvement is suspected.

Mr Quinn, who was once Ireland’s richest man, says he has no desire to take back his former companies following the Lunney attack.

His empire collapsed in 2012 and

EMPLOYMENT

‘NOTORIOUS’ DUBLINER LIVING UP TO HIS NAME

AINE MCMAHON

‘Devastating’ job losses revealed

Sean Quinn

he lost control of his portfolio of businesses. He was later employed as a consultant at his former companies, but left that role in 2016.

The Quinn family has consistently condemned and distanced itself from those attacking the new owners.

Mr Quinn, who originally founded the business, has publicly condemned the attack on Mr Lunney, attacks against QIH employees and property.

In an interview with Channel 4 news, Mr Quinn said he no longer wants to take back control of his former businesses.

PATRICK DALY

UP to 320 people are set to lose their jobs at the Novartis pharmaceutical plant in Co Cork.

Management at the company announced the decision at a staff meeting at the Ringaskiddy plant last week. In a statement, it said it was closing one of its production buildings at the site and would be moving a number of global services roles from Cork to central Europe and Asia. More than 500 people are employed at the company’s Cork site and 700 more in Dublin.

Novartis said the decision was strategic and was part of a wider evaluation of the manufacturing network around the world.

In a statement, Fianna Fail leader and Cork South Central TD Micheal Martin said the job losses were devastating for the community.

“This is a very worrying time for the families and their loved ones.

The job losses are particularly disappointing as Novartis in Cork was high-end manufacturing,” he said.

Meanwhile tech firm Molex has announced that it will cease operations in Shannon by next year with the loss of up to 500 jobs.

In a statement, the firm said that products made at its Irish plant had “insufficient ... growth potential”.

IN BRIEF

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, ABORTION NOW LEGAL IN NORTH THE first same-sex marriages in Northern Ireland are likely to taking place by Valentine’s Day 2020, the British Secretary of State has said.

Julian Smith said he also plans for the new legal framework for access to abortion services in the region to be in place by March 31. He was speaking just hours before new legislation was set to take effect on both samesex marriage and abortion in the region. The legislation was passed by Westminster in July and took effect last week. Mr Smith told the House of Commons on Monday that consultation will open very soon. “A new legal framework for lawful access to abortion services in Northern Ireland will be put in place by March 31 2020 in line with the 2018 UN Cedaw (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) report.

SNORING IS MOST ANNOYING BED HABIT: SURVEY SNORING is Ireland’s most annoying habit in bed, the largest national sleep survey has found. Three times more people rate their partner’s snoring (43 per cent) as the most annoying habit in bed, with stealing the duvet the next most-hated characteristic. The Hastings Hotels group surveyed 8,500 people to find out what really influences sleeping and bedtime habits. Other grievances include; partners coming to bed late (7.5 per cent) and using screens (4.6 per cent). Respondents cited partners pretending not to hear the children during the night, playing videos in bed and waking them up to say that they were snoring as the most annoying night-time irritations.

VARADKAR MULLS MINOR VAPING BAN

UFC fighter Conor McGregor (centre) leaving the Criminal Courts of Justice, Dublin, where he appeared on an assault charge after allegedly punching a man at the Marble Arch pub in Drimnagh, Dublin, on April 6, while promoting his brand of whiskey. McGregor has been remanded on continuing bail and the case will return to court this month. Picture: Brian Lawless

THE IRISH government is to consider restricting the sale of vaping products to minors and prohibiting advertising.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that any changes to legislation on e-cigarettes will be based on scientific advice and what is advised by public health doctors and experts. Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin claimed the vaping industry is targeting children and young people through colourful and flavoured vaping products and ads. Mr Martin accused the industry of trying to hook” young people to get them addicted to nicotine through vaping devices. He claimed these strategies mirrored the ones used by the tobacco industry.

“The financial muscle behind this epidemic is provided by the tobacco industry,” Mr Martin added. “Children are being targeted, with colourful and flavoured vaping products.”

Mr Varadkar said that research is being carried out into the impact of vaping on the health of people and children. “You need to assess the extent to which is damaging to somebody’s health and then respond.”

irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 17

IRELAND

WOMAN AT CENTRE OF IRISH-BRITISH CITIZENSHIP BATTLE VOWS TO FIGHT ON

Test case for Good Friday accord DAVID YOUNG

A DERRY woman who lost a challenge against a ruling that she is British by birth has vowed to continue her legal battle.

Emma DeSouza, from Northern Ireland, accused the British Government of failing to honour the spirit of a commitment in the Good Friday Agreement that people from the region could identify as British, Irish or both. Ms DeSouza, who insists she is Irish and has never been British, claimed the Home Office’s hardline approach was an attempt to restrict access to EU entitlements in Northern Ireland post-Brexit.

The Home Office won an appeal last week against an immigration tribunal case that upheld Ms DeSouza’s right to declare herself Irish, without first renouncing British citizenship.

The long-running wrangle centres on her sponsorship of an application for a residence card from her USborn husband Jake.

After the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber ruling, Ms DeSouza, from Magherafelt, Co Derry, pledged to take her case to the Court of Appeal in Belfast.

“After four years it’s safe to say we won’t be lying down any time soon,” she said. “During that time we have had a lot of personal losses. We have lost family members; we have lost time with our families; we have lost the first four years of our marriage, so we are certainly not going to go quietly into night with this decision – a decision that really goes against the spirit and purpose of the Good Friday Agreement.”

In 2015, Mr DeSouza attempted to secure a UK residence card under European Law, with his wife sponsoring his application as a European Economic Area (EEA) national.

However, the relevant immigration regulations define that a sponsoring

EEA national must be a citizen of an EEA state who is “not also a British citizen”.

As the Home Office considered Ms DeSouza a British citizen, it said she did not meet the definition of an EEA national and rejected the application.

She then had the option to assert British citizenship to secure residency for her husband under UK domestic immigration rules, not EU law. Alternately she was told she could renounce her British citizenship and then reapply as an EEA national.

The Co Derry woman insisted she should not have to declare herself British to enable her husband to stay in the UK, and should have the right, as an Irish woman, to avail of entitlement as an EEA national.

She argued that she never considered herself British, so how could she renounce citizenship she never had. During the stand-off, the Home Office retained her husband’s passport for two years – a move that forced him to quit a music band and prevented him from attending his grandmother’s funeral in the US. Ms DeSouza took a legal challenge against the Home Office and won, with a judge at a First Tier Immigration Tribunal ruling in 2017 that she was an “Irish national only who has only ever been such”.

The Home Office appealed against that decision at an Upper Tribunal hearing earlier this year. Those judges found in its favour. Government lawyers argued that the British Nationality Act 1981 was the relevant legislation, not law flowing from the Good Friday Agreement.

They highlighted that the provisions on citizenship outlined in the agreement had not been incorporated into the corresponding piece of domestic legislation linked to the peace treaty, the 1998 Northern Ireland Act. The British Govern-

Identifying as not-British: Emma DeSouza and her US born husband Jake in West Belfast. Picture: Niall Carson

ment said the British Nationality Act (BNA) ruled that anyone born in Northern Ireland was automatically British, until such time as they renounce that citizenship.

Finding in the Government’s favour, Mr Justice Lane, president of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, said to make citizenship dependent on “consent” raised a “host of difficulties”.

Justice Lane said the omission of self-identification and nationality from the Northern Ireland Act was “entirely deliberate”.

He said if the UK was unable

to confer nationality on a citizen born in Northern Ireland then, it followed, that neither could Ireland.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald called on the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to step up to defend the Good Friday Agreement.

“I invite you to insist that Boris Johnson moves at speed to introduce the required legislation through Westminster to ensure that our Irish citizens living in Ireland are recognised and respected as Irish,” said Ms McDonald. “You now need to step up and defend Emma, defend her rights and the rights of

all Irish citizens.”

Mr Varadkar said the Irish Government will continue to uphold the Good Friday Agreement and respect the fact that people in Northern Ireland have the right to be British or Irish or both.

“This judgment appears to make a distinction between identifying as British or Irish, as opposed to being a citizen … and that is a misreading, in our view, of the Good Friday Agreement, so we will continue to seek an outcome of that review ... and I will raise it with the Prime Minister,” he told the Dáil.

ANGER GROWS AFTER TWO YEARS OF STORMONT STAND-OFF

Money for nothing: Stormont MLAs paid for not working REBECCA BLACK

The Stormont Assembly has not functioned properly in more than two years.

STORMONT MLAs have been paid £15 million since the Assembly collapsed more than two years ago.

Britain’s Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith described the sum as unacceptable, and said he plans to look at MLA salaries if there appears no prospect of the stalemate ending.

“If you look at the thousands of political decisions which are not being made each week ... and if you reflect upon what it took to deliver the Good Friday Agreement and deliver these institutions, it is an absolute tragedy that this Assembly is not up and running,” he told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

Devolved government at Stormont collapsed in January 2017 following a breakdown in relations between leading parties the DUP and Sinn Féin.

Multiple rounds of talks to revive the Assembly have ended without agreement, and in the

absence of local ministers, senior civil servants have been left to lead departments.

Mr Smith said it has been one of his priorities since becoming Secretary of State in July to get the Assembly functioning again.

He said he has had good discussions with all the parties, but it remains challenging to get them working together.

“The Irish Government and the British Government are committed and working very closely on trying to get a text that everyone can agree on,” he said. “I think when the direction on Brexit is secured, that will much more straightforward.”

It emerged during the committee meeting that the 90 MLAs have been paid just under £15 million since the Assembly collapsed.

North Down MP Sylvia Hermon said the general public “are absolutely furious that MLAs continue to receive handsome salaries for not doing their full job”.

Salaries were cut by Mr Smith’s predecessor

Karen Bradley in 2018.

Mr Smith said: “If it looks as if the Executive and Assembly do not get up and running, I will be looking at what we do on salaries.

“To defend MLAs that are working in their constituencies, doing casework and working for people across Northern Ireland, I do believe the vast majority are doing good work, but clearly for citizens going to work this is extremely frustrating.”

However Mr Smith said reintroducing direct rule would be a retrograde step.

Direct rule of Northern Ireland from London was most recently used between 2002 and 2007, ending with the St Andrew’s Agreement.

“I just feel it is a completely retrograde step to move back to London taking control,” he said.

“Each party, I believe, does want to get back into the Assembly and Executive. Obviously getting everyone to agree to be back in has been difficult.”

18 | November, 2019

irishecho.com.au

TIME OUT

Cr ssCountry Mal Rogers scans Ireland’s regional media for what’s making news in your county.

LIMERICK

No love-in for Limerick council A MOTION to allow the live streaming of Limerick City and Council metropolitan meetings would lead to “scenes like out of Love Island”, a councillor has claimed.

Social Democrats Councillor Elisa O’Donovan called for Standing Order 99, which prohibits the use of video equipment and recording devices in the council chamber, to be amended in order to allow the meetings to be live-streamed.

But Cllr John Costelloe was against the move.

“I would not support it.

Unfortunately, I think we would see scenes like out of Love Island. People will use it to their own advantage. This is not the theatre of dreams,” said Cllr Costelloe.

Love Island is a popular reality dating-type television show in both Ireland and the UK. Scenes can be quite explicit.

The Social Democrats councillor had initially moved to repeal Standing Order 99 altogether, which would have allowed for any recording of the meetings. After some discussion, however, she instead moved to amend the standing order, so that just live streaming would be allowed. But this was voted down.

Cllr O’Donovan expressed her disappointment at the outcome of the vote. “I am very disappointed. What was suggested instead is that this will go to party leaders. I am not very hopeful. I am concerned that some councillors would prefer that this is kept behind closed doors, but that is not acceptable in this day and age.”

CORK

No barrel of laughs for Guinness thieves A GROUP of friends stole a keg of Guinness by wheeling it down the road to a house in a shopping trolley.

Faye Moss aged 25, of Skibbereen, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to the theft of the keg, which belonged to the Horse and Hounds pub in the town.

The Irish Examiner reports that Sgt Paul Kelly told Skibbereen District Court that in the early hours of July 24, Ms Moss and three others were seen on CCTV taking a full keg of Guinness worth €250 from Townshend St in the town.

He said the keg was taken on a trolley to Ms Moss’s house, which was later searched under warrant by gardaí. The court heard the keg was recovered, but that some of the beer had been taken.

Ms Moss had two previous convictions, both dating from 2015, and her solicitor, Flor Murphy, said his client had carried out the crime

alongside three others, one of whom also recently pleaded guilty to her involvement. A probation report was sought by Judge James McNulty in relation to that offender and Mr Murphy asked for the same for his client.

Judge McNulty convicted Ms Moss and ordered a probation report be prepared, deferring penalty until the report is provided to the court.

BELFAST

Catholic school torched ‘in revenge’ FORMER residents of a west Belfast Catholic-run school have claimed responsibility for an arson attack in revenge for sexual and physical abuse by staff.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that St Patrick’s Training School was run by the De La Salle Order and was among 22 institutions investigated by the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry. The derelict building had been due for demolition to make way for a new housing development and was set alight on September 19.

A spokesman claiming to be from the St Patrick’s Survivors group, which represents around 140 former residents, contacted the Belfast Telegraph to say nine of their members “torched the place to the ground”.

Only the nine individuals taking part, he said, were aware of the plan.

Speaking anonymously, he said those responsible had been abused at the school in the 1990s.

He said none of them have received any redress, and destroying the derelict building was their way of getting closure.

He claimed precautions were taken to make sure no one was inside and the fire would not spread, risking injury and further damage.

With much of the evidence destroyed in the blaze, he said he and his accomplices do not fear prosecution. He also said they do not intend to carry out any more illegal acts, and will only pursue any future compensation and redress by legal means.

ANTRIM

Woman lived with corpse to claim medication, court told A WOMAN who lived with her partner’s corpse while claiming his prescription medication told relatives he was in bed with back pain, the Ballymena Guardian reports’ Angela Irwin, 54, admitted preventing the lawful burial of a corpse and was jailed for a year.

The offences took place between November 13-22, 2018.

The charges followed the death

of 40-year-old Robin McMaster. Mr McMaster’s body was discovered after family members became increasingly worried about his whereabouts.

Relatives who phoned the home Mr McMaster and Irwin shared were told

by Irwin that he was in bed with back pain and could not be disturbed.

His brother entered the flat on 22 November last year to find scented candles burning and “barged past” Irwin to find Robin McMaster dead in the bedroom.

He telephoned police who discovered a severely decomposed body.

The court was told Mr McMaster’s brother has since been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

A prosecution barrister said police investigating the case found Mr McMaster had not been seen since 13 November, nine days before his body was found.

However, medical evidence suggested he could have been dead between two and three weeks, given the extent of decomposition.

Irwin was originally arrested on suspicion of murder, but Mr McMaster’s cause of death was later found to be most likely an overdose of Tramadol and other prescription drugs he was taking for medical conditions.

The court was told that a plumber carrying out work at the flat on 15 November had interrogated Irwin on the smell in the property.

A day before Mr McMaster’s body was found, the court heard Irwin ordered sleeping tablets and antihistamines from his GP in his name which she used herself.

A defence barrister said Irwin wanted to “convey her unreserved apology and sympathy” to the family of the deceased.

It was heard Irwin suffers from anxiety and depression, and has abused prescription medication.

A judge said it was a very tragic case. He told Irwin she had been living a sad and squalid life at the time of the incident, and “simply lived in a retreated world and denied what was happening”.

Irwin was given a two-year sentence – one to be served in prison and one on licence.

LAOIS

Abbeyleix welcomes newest residents ABBEYLEIX sent out a warm céad mile fáilte to residents of the town’s Hibernian Direct Provision Centre at an uplifting and memorable community gathering.

The Laois Nationalist reports that more than 500 people packed into the parish hall for the welcoming event which aimed to promote cultural sharing and understanding between the local community and the town’s newest residents.

The centre on Main Street is home to 66 children and adults from 20

Ganaa Devee, a surfer from Mongolia, watches the waves along the sea front in Lahinch, Co Clare, on the West Coast of Ireland as thousands of homes and businesses have been left without power as Storm Lorenzo passed across Ireland. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

different families, who come from a variety of nations ranging from Guatemala to South Africa and Syria.

Since arriving in the town more than a year ago, many have become involved in sporting groups such as Portlaoise Rugby Club and Abbeyleix GAA club and a variety of community and school activities.

SLIGO

“It probably doesn’t matter where we go, the same craic will go on.

They’re complaining about taxpayers money yet it’s them who have to pay for this house to be redone, three times now.

“You can’t win either way,” Ms McGinley said.

KERRY

Travellers’ travails

Boats collide off West Kerry coast

A TRAVELLER family whose newly allocated council house caught fire in mysterious circumstances say they do not feel safe to move into the home, \ the Sligo Champion reports.

Johnny and Rosie McGinley’s house was set alight, the third incident since they signed a tenancy agreement with Sligo County Council and which would see them move out of Connaughton Road Car Park, where they have been living, for many years, in a caravan.

Mr McGinley has lived on Connaughton Road all his life. His wife said it was no place to bring up a family and that they had been so looking forward to moving into their new home.

The house has had a security guard posted to it by the county council. The property has had windows smashed, flooding and a toilet broken, before, Mrs McGinley says, it was set on fire.

Speaking to The Sligo Champion, Ms McGinley said she and her husband signed a tenancy lease with the council and were all set to move into the house.

However, days later the house was flooded after she believes someone broke into the house and tampered with plumbing in the attic and also smashed a toilet.

THE Marine Casualties Investigation Board has told The Kerryman it continues to liaise with French and Hong Kong authorities following a collision between two boats off the coast of west Kerry.

A fisherman was removed to University Hospital Kerry with suspected spinal injuries following the collision.

The Kerryman understands that the incident occurred about 65 kilometres west of An Tiaracht, one of the Blasket Islands or Blascaodí.

The collision involved a 37-metre fishing vessel, whose home port is registered in France and which had nine crew on board at the time, and a much larger cargo ship.

Valentia Coastguard tasked Valentia RNLI’s all-weather lifeboat to come to the assistance of the fisherman injured on board the smaller vessel.

After considering the situation and the condition of the fisherman, emergency services decided to escort the fishing vessel to Dingle.

The National Ambulance Service was then tasked to take the injured fisherman to University Hospital Kerry for medical attention. Valentia RNLI said that its crew was at sea for seven hours as it dealt with the situation.

MERC_XMAS_FUNCTIONS_ECHO_2019_FA.pdf

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1

28/10/19

4:19 pm

THE IRISH ECHO

November, 2019 | 19

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20 | November, 2019

Hurler

They said it...

on the ditch

Posthumous gag

AN Irish grandfather has pulled a viral prank at his own funeral. Dublin man Shay Bradley, who died last month at the age of 62, organised the prank with his son Jonathan, and footage has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media since the funeral.

As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, a pre-recorded tape of Mr Bradley pretending to wake from the dead and knocking on the lid was played out. The video shows tearful mourners bursting into laughter as Mr Bradley’s voice can be heard shouting: “Hello? Hello? Can someone let me out? Hello? Let me out it’s f***** dark in here! Is that that priest I can hear? I can hear yous! Let me out!”

In the recording, Mr Bradley then goes on to serenade the mourners at his own graveside.

Jonathan Bradley said the pair hatched the plan last year while his father was ill with cancer.

“It was a collaboration between and me and my da over a year ago over lunch. We had a cup of tea and a sandwich and talked about a couple of different things he could do and we decided to record into my phone him pretending to wake up and be let out of the coffin,” he said.

“I’d no idea it would get this popular,” Jonathan added.

“It was a complete surprise. It was meant as an internal family joke, and my sister-in-law took a video to show people at the afters, when it got posted to Facebook it grew legs.”

irishecho.com.au

TIME OUT

“The company was entirely unaware that the trailer was to be used in the manner in which it appears to have been.”

from his time as Ireland coach. “[Scrum half] Peter Stringer may as well be looking for a Mars bar in a bucket of shit”.

A statement by Irish trucking company Global Trailer Rentals Ltd (GTR). A lorry belonging to the company is implicated in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese nationals trying to reach the UK.

Titanic theme works for Boris Mourners crack up at Dubliner Shay Bradley’s grave humour.

Eddie’s king of the euphemism FORMER Irish rugby coach Eddie O’Sullivan was a popular distraction for distraught Irish fans on RTÉ during the Irish network’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup, not least for his folksy range of euphemisms.

Eddie tends to focus on what you can’t do, rather than what you can.

This is not exactly useful for Irish rugby right now but here are a few of his most popular phrases.

In the ‘You can’t’ range are: “You can’t fire a cannon out of a canoe; “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube” and “You can’t unring a bell”.

Eddie’s also fond of metaphors and he has referred to certain players as “the full bag of chips” or “a different bag of hammers”.

In dismissive mode, he has been known to say: “Thanks for the use of the hall. Game over” or, menacingly, “Take them to the woodshed”.

Paul O’Connell, in his biography, shared one of O’Sullivan’s bon mots

Quiz 1. Charles Lightoller was the most senior crew member to survive which 1912 maritime disaster?

2. What was the name of the nationalist movement that Theobald Wolfe Tone led?

3. In 1172 at The Synod of Cashel, the Bishops of Ireland, under duress, pledge allegiance to which English king?

4. An tUasal agus Bean is Irish for what?

5. In which county does the River Shannon rise?

6. The Theatre Royal, Waterford claims which honour in Irish history?

7. Which Dublin man, who later went on to become a prominent unionist and British government minister, prosecuted Oscar Wilde in the libel trial that saw Wilde incarcerated in Reading Gaol?

8. On May 5, 1981 the speaker of the British House of Commons, Mr George Thomas, rose to his feet to announce the death “of the member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone”. He offered no condolences to the family — something which is traditionally done by the speaker on the death of a Member of Parliament. Who was the MP? 9. Jem Finer is the co-writer of which song?

10. What is the name of the stretch of water separating South Wales from Ireland?

“My bags are always packed for Brussels, and packed they are again.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the impending EU leaders’ meeting.

BORIS Johnson received a rousing reception at the DUP conference last November when he invoked Belfast’s most famous ship as a way of warning of the consequences of letting Brussels set rules for Northern Ireland.

“The Titanic springs to mind and now is the time to point out the iceberg ahead,” he said at the time.

Johnson made clear fresh regulatory and customs checks in the Irish Sea would not happen on his watch.

Such a system, he said. would leave Northern Ireland as an “economic semi-colony of the EU”.

“I have to tell you, no British Conservative government could or should sign up to any such arrangement,” he said to cheers.

Johnson railed against what he saw as a interference from Brussels.

“We will have to accept large swathes of EU regulations now and in the future on a whole range of Brussels policy making – lawnmower noise, the labelling of sardines and on the use of personal recreational watercraft. And, of course, nowhere has a more illustrious history than Northern Ireland when it comes to the creation of recreational watercraft. The Titanic springs to mind, and now is the time to point out the iceberg ahead.”

Touché.

“The first thing you learn about Northern Ireland when you go to investigate it is that almost nobody tells the truth. It was referred to as a ‘dirty war’ – but it was first and foremost a secret war.”

Jeremy Adams, editor of the BBC series Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History.

“The controversy that has ensued following the voting one week ago has further eroded public confidence in how our national Parliament conducts its business. Like many members I have received emails, phone calls and correspondence from the public, which have been highly critical of our voting practices.”

The speaker of the Dáil, Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail, speaking about the voting scandal that has engulfed Dáil Éireann.

“We are working with gardaí and local authorities to identify and remove any materials at or adjacent to rail lines which could potentially be used for Halloween bonfires.”

A statement by Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) after youths allegedly armed with sticks and poles blocked an exit at a DART station.

“Even though the Olympics is giving me this choice, there really wasn’t a choice because all I’ve done throughout my life was play golf for Ireland. And why would that change just because the tournament’s changed?”

Golfer Rory McIlroy, confirming that he will represent Ireland in the 2020 Olympics.

The ‘Echo’ Crossword Clues across: 1. Actor might limp raunchily (7,6) 8. Man or woman at Magheraliskmisk (3) 9. Hanged man whose eye is number one (3,5) 10 & 24 across: Rotten name for a London singer and musician with Irish roots (4,6) 12. Depriving one of self-esteem in a room below ground level (9) 13. Nicholas actor in cell (4) 14. Embarrass at a party (5) 15. This secret puzzled me as I assumed it was a geographical area (4) 18. Insect found in Corkonian territory (3) 19. Nary a change to man’s name (4) 21. Wield a brush or bristle, perhaps?

(5) 24. see 10 across 28. I’m going round a lap by African antelope (6) 30. I brag languidly here about Dublin road famed in song (6) 33. I cheat, so a mixed-up result is a leader (9) 34. Proud fiends savage Oscar Wilde work (2,9) 35 across, 17 & 23 down: Right at home call boy detective in search of canine star (3,3,3)

Clues down: 1. Sentence, or those sent to Australia in chains? (8) 2. Bald guys confused by spotted beetles (8) 3. You’ll realise ultimately that lurking here is the daughter of the king of Ireland (6) 4 & 29 down: Pinball or lunar mixed landscape in Australia (9,5) 5. Upended container with, ah, Stan in Indian area (9) 6. Haphazardly seek any Americans (7) 7. A limit I set for soldiers’ group (7) 15. Part of the leg found in Kildare, it’s said (4) 16. Me elementally with silver and oxygen leads to villain in Shakespeare’s Othello (4) 17. see 35 across 20. Woman from article five in Rome and an article (3) 22. Not so good in Aughakillymaude (3) 23. see 35 across 24. Fifty beasts of burden --- all females (6) 25. Singer in Cloghgaldanagh (4) 26. Resurrection at hand? Not entirely, according to this prophet (6) 27. Me and Brad make a ribbon of a river that runs through Antrim (5) 29. see 4 down 31. Note the tear in the bag (4) 32. Singing voice in Cloonamealtogue (4)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

17

18 19

21

22

30

24

28 31

20

23

27

16

25

26

29

32 33

34

35

LAST EDITION’S ANSWERS: Clues across: 1. Glen Campbell. 8. Oval. 9. Inisheer. 10. Travesty. 11. Rome. 12. Mandalay. 15. Yen. 16. Tunnel vision. 18. Yeoman. 20. Empire. 22. Eton. 22. Ike. 23. Davitt.

25. Ossian. 27. Sultan. 28. Dingle. Clues down: 1. Going My Way. 2. Emigrant. 3. Caha Mountains. 4. Portballintrae. 5. Edward. 6. Love. 7. Bantry. 13. Assam. 14. Aboriginal. 17 & 26 down: Celtic Sea. 19. Eskers. 20. End. 24. Aran. 25. Owl. 26. see 17 down

Answers: 1. The Titanic; 2. The United Irishmen; 3. Henry II; 4. Mr and Mrs.; 4. Cavan; 6. It’s the oldest continuously operating theatre in Ireland, having begun 1875/1876; 7. Edward Carson; 8. Bobby Sands; 9. Fairytale of New York; 10. St George’s Channel.

irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 21

THE IRISH ECHO

Interview “IT’S ELEVEN songs and 36 minutes. It’s 36, the age that I am and it’s my coming of age record and a retrospective of 2019,” Metor Award-winning Enniscorthy singer-songwriter Wallis Bird tells The Irish Echo about her new album, Woman. “The album takes so many vast subjects such as love and respect and peace and sex and death and healing and guns and war and fighting for your rights.”

Although never before a political singer, Wallis was compelled to explore themes like solidarity, LGBTIQ power and feminism in the new record: “It’s a step sideways. What I normally write is quite generalised and universal but this one is very informed by what’s happening in social systems and the economy and the environment and how we’re treating each other. It’s looking at what’s happening in the world right now, especially from a female perspective.”

Recent years have seen both Ireland and Australia legalise gay marriage. Wallis was pleased to see her Catholic home country being pioneers as she grew up unsure of how her sexual preference would be accepted by her own community: “Of course, I was immensely proud. I mean I’ve lived most of my life in secrecy until I moved away from Ireland and that’s a torturous, poisonous way to be as anyone who has had to live that kind of life will tell you.

“I was a churchgoer. I was an altar server and I was really involved in my community. I loved it and I was really scared. I was scared for a long time that I would be letting people down, really worried about that the most. I didn’t want to let anybody down or have anyone be worried about me or think that I was sick or going to Hell or something. Time changed that.

“To be seen as sick in the eyes of so many people for so long [legalisation of same-sex marriage] was a life validation, down to its very core. I was normalised as a human being. Somebody looked beyond my sexual preference and saw me for the person that I am. it was extremely liberating for myself personally and for my parents and people like my parents who always knew it was okay but were afraid to be seen to be totally forward thinking about it. They just wanted to care for me and they always did but now they were given this validation that this is normal and this is okay. They were like, ‘Yeah, okay, I felt it my whole life’. For such a Catholic country, it’s beauitful to see we have materialised through the past and we’re taking the best bits of our past and making it inclusive for everybody.”

Just last year Wallis released her single Ocean. Directed by Sydney-based Irish director Sinéad McDevitt, the video depicted a lesbian love story: “That was a really special project. Just talking things through, (Sinead and I) saw that we didn’t have anything that was queer positive when we were growing up. We had to really search for it. We said that we wanted to offer that kind of exposure and a beautiful love story and a beautiful video.

We wanted to offer something really pure and different which highlighted our queer backgrounds and to offer that to people like us when we were 15, to say, ‘Look here, this is a beautiful love story, it just happens to be two women’.”

Woman is Wallis’ sixth studio album. Her 2007 debut Spoons was critically acclaimed while her follow-up New Boots reached 14 in the Irish album charts. Her eponymous 2012 album earned her a Choice nomination

Singing like a

bird

as well as respectable chart positions around Europe. Recent years have seen the #metoo movement empowering women to expose their collective abuses and saying enough is enough: “It’s a very natural thing to be happening. It seems to be a very natural shift in consciousness towards women and woman’s rights, reproduction and not having to reproduce, also the rights of women in social equality and equity. I’m just kind of taking a step with the way the Western world is moving. It’s quite a socially political record, it’s just more aware of what’s going on around and pointing out fractions of what’s happening, rather than talking about love, like I usually do.”

The album’s first single, As The River Flows, is devoted to Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee whose drowned body on a Turkish beach in 2015 became a powerful image and summary of the Syrian refugee crisis. The Irish Echo talks to Wallis Bird while she tours the United States and plays her new material. “I’m definitely playing the songs because a lot of it is looking to America which was seen as the leader of the free world and saying look, ‘We have to be careful because things are going quite pear-shaped’. You can see, being over here, that they’re really taking responsibility of what’s happening over here. There’s huge changes while I’m here, they’re legalising weed and at the same time they’re going backwards on women’s reproductive rights. They’re trying to completely criminalise abortion in America, so in terms in moving forward with things like weed and moving backwards by basically criminalising half of the world, women. I’m singing it with peace in my heart, with good intentions. I’m not trying to point fingers or anything because now that I’m here, I see that they already know and I’m preaching to the converted really so I try not to preach,” she laughs. “I just sing the songs.”

David Hennessy chats to multi award-winning singer-songwriter Wallis Bird about her new album Woman, which tackles important issues like feminism, LGBTQI rights and women’s rights.

Woman by Wallis Bird is out now.

Wallis will tour Autralia next year.

22 | November, 2019

TIME OUT

Travel

irishecho.com.au

Get snap happy with the oh-so photogenic world of Ireland.

Looking to enhance your Instagram feed? There are so many places on the island of Ireland where you simply must whip out your phone. Here are five of the best.

Crowds watch the Macnas Halloween Parade making its way through Galway city centre

1. Slieve League Cliffs: Ireland is renowned for sublime views and vistas at every turn, but the astounding Wild Atlantic Way panoramas at Slieve League in Co Donegal make for some truly stunning images.

2. The Dark Hedges: Planted in the 18th century as the formal entrance, these entwined beech trees are among Northern Ireland’s most photographed sights after doubling as the Kingsroad in Game of Thrones.

“Brilliantly bohemian”

Galway has been named one of the world’s top cities for travellers in 2020 by world-leading travel authority Lonely Planet.

THE city received the accolade in Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2020, the highly anticipated annual collection of the best travel destinations, trends, journeys and experiences to have in the coming year.

The Wild Atlantic Way destination features fourth in the list of top cities for 2020, behind Cairo, Washington DC and Salzburg, and ahead of the likes of Bonn, Vancouver and Dubai.

The travel bible says Galway is “arguably Ireland’s most engaging city”, where “brightly painted pubs heave with live music” and “cafes offer front row seats to watch buskers perform”.

Galway’s renowned creative exuberance will be supercharged next year by a string

of events marking the region’s role as the 2020 European Capital of Culture. The largest and most complex cultural event held on the island of Ireland will start on February 1, with a week of fiery celebrations in Co Galway’s towns and villages, culminating in a spectacular opening c eremony in Galway city on Saturday February 8, 2020.

Throughout the year there will be more than 1,900 events across projects, partnerships and collaborations with local, national, European and international artists and cultural organisations from more than 30 different countries.

Galway’s world-renowned annual calendar of music, horse-racing, food and arts festivals will also feature enhanced

programmes. Lonely Planet’s experts say Galway in 2020 will be all about street spectacle, live and digital art as well as world-class music, theatre and dance.

Experiences advocated by the travel authority as unmissable next year include enjoying the groundbreaking flavour combos in Galway’s Michelin starred restaurants and taking in the live music at Tig Cóili “where the walls are decorated with photos of those who’ve played there and two live céilidh sessions a day draw the crowds”.

They also recommend visitors make themselves feel at home at the Tigh Neachtain pub in Galway city, “where the timber walls frame roaring fire and locals crack gentle jokes”.

3. Guinness Storehouse: Bordered by black gates adorned with the golden harp, the Guinness Storehouse offers an unmissable chance to Instagram the illustrious history, crafting and tasting of Ireland’s most famous export.

4. The Mountains of Mourne: Famously sweeping down to the sea in Co Down, the Mourne Mountains hold some of the most Insta-worthy spots in the whole country. Totally camera-ready whatever the season.

5. The Rock of Cashel: Set on a prominent hill, ‘The Rock’ is one of the most spectacular heritage sites in Ireland’s ancient east. Ideal for snapping impressive ancient structures and a world of medieval and Celtic history.

FIND OUT MORE :: www.ireland.com

irishecho.com.au

Review

November, 2019 | 23

ARTS

Mirror on our inner selves BOOKS KNOCKFANE

By Homan Potterton MERRION PRESS 269 Pages €16.95

CCCC

THE OUTSIDER

By Emily Hourican HACHETTE AUSTRALIA 393 Pages $32.99

CC Frank O’Shea HOMAN Potterton was only 33 when he was appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland; he retired nine years later to devote himself to writing. His first book, Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled was reviewed on these pages where I agreed with The Irish Times that it was indeed “a classic memoir.”

I refer to Rathcormick here, because there are obvious comparisons between that house and Knockfane. The family in each case is Protestant, reasonably prosperous or thought to be so, and with only casual or business relationship with their neighbours. In Knockfane, the inhabitants are the Esdaile family, consisting of father Willis, son Edward and two daughters Julia and Lydia. The

that held at all times story is based around the relationships was the need to between these four characters and in hide any suggestion particular the problems that arise with of what was called the ownership of Knockfane after the illegitimacy – a rule death of Willis. that applied to both The book is unusual in a number of religious groups, ways, not least in the time span involved and a condition that in the story. The history of the house appears at least three times in the story. and the family is described as the story The strongest feature of the book of another family, the Odlums, and their is the way that the story unfolds. It is estate near Bandon in Cork. Annette almost as if you and the author are Odlum was Willis Esdaile’s wife who died sitting and he is telling you as much as giving birth to the youngest child Lydia. you need to know From then, Willis to be able to follow ran his estate the action with efficiently, having ease. There are no decided that The strongest feature attempts at purple Lydia would be of the book is the way prose or grandiose the one to look philosophising; in after him in his that the story unfolds. fact, the style could old age. almost be described When the sto- It is almost as if you as conversational. ry starts, she is an and the author are It is as if the story infant and what comes first and you Ireland called The sitting and he is telling the reader need to Emergency had you as much as you be able to follow not yet begun; need to know to be it because there is by the end, she much to tell. New is approaching able to follow the characters are 50, so that the action with ease. introduced at various changes in Irish stages, including one attitudes and crucial person near Irish society the end who seems in that half almost like an accident, but is vital to the century are part of the narrative. Topics resolution of the problems. like mixed marriage, the Ne Temere The other feature is the way that document decreeing that children of the author is not afraid to leave a topic such a union should be raised Catholic, and move forward in time, leaving all the Land Commission and its role in the action behind. At one stage, for redistributing land to smallholders, are example, in the middle of a paragraph, all central to the story. So are the role we read “Lydia did not enquire when of the local parish priest and the rule she replied to say that Todd had never forbidding a Catholic from entering a been in touch since the day she left Protestant church. The other social rule

“

”

Knockfane. It was almost sixteen years before Lydia had any news.” With that , the story moves forward sixteen years without any ado, and while the time span would not always be as long, that style is maintained throughout.

To read this book is to go back in time. To the years when the story is set, certainly, but just as significantly to a time when the story came first, when the reader was the most important part in a bargain with the writer. And so long as the reader accepted the slightly genteel, always polite way that the writer deals with his material, the result is complete satisfaction. ________________________________ SARAH is the outsider who gives this book its title. We meet her first in 1998, aged 11 on holidays in Portugal with her engineer father and over-protective mother. Painfully shy, but happy in her own company, she is rescued from what she thinks is drowning by a girl of her own age named Jamie. The two become buddies, creating a close friendship between their two families.

Jamie has three older brothers, two of whom will play key roles in what follows.

Her father is one of the new rich who prospered in the Irish development boom at the turn of the century; her mother Miriam is about the only person in the 400 pages that the story takes to unfold for whom the reader can feel any

Black Books creator explores the universe’s dark corners

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MORAN

COMEDY DYLAN MORAN AUSTRALIAN TOUR Dr Cosmos Sydney Opera House Wednesday October 30

CCCC Billy Cantwell

BASED on ticket sales, Dylan Moran remains the most popular stand-up comedian in Australia.

The 47-year-old’s current Dr Cosmos tour includes dozens of shows across the continent including, remarkably, three nights at the Sydney Opera House concert hall last week (he has a further Sydney show at the State Theatre at the end of November).

Having forged an international following through his 1990s’ sitcom Black Books, Moran has continued to cultivate his stand-up niche as a cerebral comic, taking aim at conceit and superciliousness, materialism and mendacity, populism and pompousness.

But like most clever comedic performers he often includes himself

in the joke and in Dr Cosmos he shares his personal insecurities about trying to get fit, how invisible he is to his teenage children and his acute discomfort at middle-aged, middle-class dinner parties.

Having packed in drinking and smoking “before someone told me I had to”, Moran has lost a little of his curmudgeonly edge (along with about three stone) but none of his acid wit.

On his seventh tour of Australia, the Meathman feels confident enough with his audience to even include some colloquial barbs with Scott Morrison, the Townsville accent and even Sydney itself in the comedic crosshairs. “There’s so much you could still do on a Wednesday night in Sydney,” he says. “It’s not too late to catch a flight to Melbourne.”

Although he calls Edinburgh home these days, his Navan childhood still inspires many of his best gags.

Ireland in the 1970s, he quips, was like “Chernobyl with priests”.

Moran (right), who is writing a new series for the BBC, is still energised by being able to share his view of the world with audiences.

The sell-out crowd at the Opera House would have happily listened to him take aim at the state of global politics but, apart from a passing mention, Moran resisted the lowhanging comic fruit of Brexit, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

That points to a performer who is confident in his own skin, assured of his material and in control of the room.

sympathy. The others, children as well as adults, are narrow, spoilt and selfish, traits that Sarah gradually adopts and eventually masters over the dozen years the narrative covers.

Most stories are told from the point of view of one of the characters. This one is different, the author moving between characters, from Sarah to Jamie or one of her brothers, or concentrating on one of the adults for a chapter before moving to someone else in the next chapter, sometimes covering the same events in both. Inevitably there is repetition, though this can be useful, particularly when moving from teenager to adult or vice versa.

The greatest strength of the book is the way that it presents a view of the Irish middle class in the years when the expression Celtic Tiger seemed to encapsulate what the society had become – narrow, self obsessed, a society that lived for the day, that took what it could because it could. The final chapter moves the action to 2009, by which time the bubbles were bursting everywhere. The impression the author gives is that the moral standing of the country was on a level similar to the commercial and economic.

To dismiss The Outsider as chic lit would be a mistake, but to describe it as “evocative and moving” – words used

by Sinead Moriarty on the back cover – would also be an excess of praise.

24 | November, 2019

irishecho.com.au

THE IRISH ECHO

Visa-bility

Your visa questions answered.

SEPTEMBER

Co Antrim native and registered migration agent John McQuaid provides a uniquely Irish perspective on immigration issues.

Hi John, My partner and I are in Melbourne on a working holiday visa.

I have been offered sponsorship as a hairdresser but been told the visa is only allowed for two years and no option for a permanent visa. Is this true? My partner works in marketing. Would he be better to get sponsored?

We are looking for options that would allow us to stay here for the long term.

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Jess DEAR JESS, visa may be a great option. It works a little bit like the present employer-sponsored 482 system.

Options for temporary and permanent skilled Your employer must be approved as a sponsor visas depend on the occupation you work in and and nominate you; you then apply fowr the visa. which immigration skills list it sits under.

The 494 is a five-year temporary visa that Currently the occupation of Hairdresser is allows you to apply for the permanent residence on the Short-Term Skill Occupation List – this 191 visa after three years living and working in the means it is only eligible for two-year temporary regional area. sponsorship visa in the major cityw areas. One Another benefit is that you don’t need the option is to renew for two years and no path to employer to nominate you at the permanent visa permanent visas unless you applied for the visa stage. before 18 April 2017.

You do need to have at least three years’ work But there are some new regional visa options experience at the skill level and have obtained a coming online that offer alternatives – provided skills assessment in your occupation. Allow extra you are open to re-thinking where you want to time to get the skills assessment in place. live and work.

Because this is a temporary to permanent visa From 16 November 2019, Immigration will option the 494-visa fee is set at the permanent push regional migration by offering different visa skilled visa level: $4,045 for options for three distinct the main applicant and $2,025 geographical categories: for partners.

They are Employers also benefit 1. Major cities; (Sydney, because they pay only one Melbourne and The other new set of Skilling Australia Fund Brisbane only). regional 491 levies at the 494visa stage.

2. Cities and major There are no fees at the regional centres; visa option does permanent visa stage.​​ 3. Regional centres and not require an You can search the other regional areas. occupation lists at the Perth and the Gold employer sponsor. immigration website: immi.

Coast will no longer be homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/ classed as major cities. working-in-australia/ Locations other than skill-occupation-list Melbourne, Sydney and The other new regional 491 visa option does Brisbane will have access to the 25,000 regional not require an employer sponsor. visa places, a broader list of occupations with This option is a skilled points tested visa that pathways to Permanent Residence. requires you to be sponsored by a regional These locations include Perth, Adelaide, the area, or an eligible family member residing in a Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Canberra, regional area.

Newcastle/Lake Macquarie, Wollongong/Illa The minimum points needed is 65 points. warra, Geelong and Hobart.

Points will still apply based on your age, qualifiOther locations may also have Designated cation, years of overseas and/or Australian skilled Area Migration Agreements (DAMAS) that offer work experience, but new higher points claims occupations in demand in their areas. can be made for nomination by a family member There are currently seven areas with DAMAS, or a region; if you have a skilled partner; if you including Norther Territories, South Victoria, are single, or if your partner can demonstrate Kalgoorlie and Orana region of NSW. competent English.

As the occupations of hairdresser and marketing specialist are on the Regional Occupation List If you do need help or advice on your visa (ROL), if you can find an employer sponsor outoptions, you can find a registered migration agent side Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane the new 494 at mia.org.au

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irishecho.com.au

November, 2019 | 25

SPORT

Boxing :: Katie Taylor wins another world title

AFLW

Boomerang trip for Tipp footy star MICHAEL WHITING

Katie Taylor goes toe to toe with Christina Linardatou in Manchester last weekend. Picture: Richard Sellers

LEGEND GROWS WITH LATEST VICTORY IRELAND’S Katie Taylor beat Christina Linardatou by a unanimous points decision to claim the WBO super-lightweight title in Manchester last weekend.

Following the hard-earned victory, the 33-year-old becomes a two-weight champion, already holding the lightweight crown. Taylor’s last contest ended with a split-decision win over Delfine Persoon in New York, which saw her unify the entire division with the WBO, WBA, WBC and IBF titles.

Following a cagey opening to Saturday’s 10-round showdown against the Greece-based Dominican Republic fighter, Bray boxer Taylor slowly upped the tempo. Taylor, though, was also on the end of some big shots,

which saw her right eye swell and was also caught by a left hook early in the fifth round.

As the fight entered the latter stages, Taylor had to respond again following another powerful left from her 31-year-old opponent.

The 2012 Olympic lightweight champion regrouped for the closing stages, landing a big punch in the final round which removed Linardatou’s gumshield and ignited the crowd.

With neither fighter able to produce a finish, the result went to the judges’ scorecards, which fell in Taylor’s favour 96-94, 97-93 and 97-93.

Taylor, whose record now stands at 15-0, felt she had boxed clever to fend off Linardatou’s challenge.

“I’m making history again, breaking boundaries again and I’m a twoweight world champion and there’s still more to come,” Taylor said afterwards to Sky Sports. “I thought I boxed beautifully on the outside and I didn’t get sucked into a fight.”

Linardatou caused controversy after the fight, saying that she thought Taylor was being “proetcted”.

“I feel I won that fight. I feel that they are protecting her. This is not fair,” she said. “What she going to do?

Is she going to lose all the time and then be undisputed, say she is undisputed and say she is a two-weight champion? People see. People know.

If she respects herself she has to give a rematch to me.”

ORLA O’Dwyer was born in Sydney, has lived most of her life in Ireland and now calls Brisbane home.

It was a roundabout way of getting back to the country of her birth, but the Tipperary Gaelic football and camogie star is quickly settling into her new life as an AFLW player with the Lions.

She became the first Irish woman to sign with Brisbane, inking a deal mid-year, and after a 24-hour travel to Australia less than a month ago, was unveiled at the Gabba with Brisbane’s new draftees O’Dwyer said the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“I played camogie and Gaelic football in Ireland and they’re amateur sports … to get the opportunity to come overseas and play a sport at a more professional level is obviously something every athlete aspires to do,” she said.

“It’s definitely a big challenge but I’m definitely looking forward to it.”

Now 20, O’Dwyer was born in Sydney but spent just the first year of her life in Australia before her parents ended a four-year travelling expedition by taking their new family back to their Irish homeland.

A proven performer at both of her chosen sports, the ever-smiling O’Dwyer said having so many Irish players in the AFLW – there’s now 18 in total – gave her confidence.

“A lot of the skills are transferable from Gaelic football, the reading of

Tipperary’s Orla O’Dwyer was born in Sydney and now plays for Brisbane

the game, the kicking and the way the game works, it’s just the oval shape that’s different from the sphere, it’s hard to get used to,” she said.

“Some of the girls that came over last year, there was five of them, Aisling McCarthy (Western Bulldogs) was from the same county as me, and she got on very well.

“Of course there’s Cora Staunton (GWS) who was one of the first out here has got on so well.

“Seeing how successful they were, it gave us in Ireland (the thought), ‘if I got a chance I’d love to go as well’.

“It’s definitely a more physical game, lots more contact, but I’m looking forward to that.”

Rugby :: Ireland v Australia 2020

Irish to face Wallabies in two-test series BILLY CANTWELL

THE Wallabies will seek redemption for the 2018 series loss to Ireland in Australia next year.

Ireland will tour Australia for the second time in three years with Test matches scheduled for July 4 and 11.

Both teams will be keen to put the disappointment of the Rugby World Cup behind them with new coaches.

Ireland will be under the leadership of new head coach Andy Farrell following the departure of Joe Schmidt while Australia’s replacement for Michael Cheika is yet to be announced.

The first Test will take place at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on Saturday July 4. The Sydney Cricket Ground will host the second Test on July 11.

Rugby Australia Chief Executive, Raelene Castle said: “The Sydney Cricket Ground is one of the most iconic venues in Australian sport and has hosted some of the most famous rugby Test matches ever played in this country. Returning there in 2020 will be a nostalgic experience for those who watched Test matches there through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and a chance to be part of history for the younger generation watching a Test at the SCG for the first time.”

“The last time these two countries played in Sydney the stadium and the whole Paddington and Moore Park precinct came to life and was flooded with fans wearing green and gold, not to mention the on-field action which went right down to the wire as Ireland

pipped the Wallabies to win the Series,” Castle said.

Ireland currently holds the Lansdowne Cup following the 2-1 series win last year.

The Irish have played the Wallabies 16 times on Australian soil, winning five test matches and losing 11.

In 1979, Ollie Campbell kicked Ireland to victory against the Wallabies at the SCG with two drop goals and a penalty. The win gave the Irish a historic series clean sweep after a 27-12 over their hosts in Ballymore two weeks earlier.

The NSW Waratahs, now under the guidance of former Munster coach, Rob Penney, have played a number of their home matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground this year.

Glory Days: Irish players celebrate their series win over Australia in Sydney last year.

26 | November, 2019

irishecho.com.au

SPORT

Rugby :: What happens next?

Rugby :: End of the Schmidt era

How do Ireland move forward?

NICK PUREWAL

Johnny Sexton and Keith Earls after Ireand’s humiliating exit from the World Cup against New Zealand.

COACH’S LEGACY WILL NOT BE TAINTED NICK PUREWAL

LUKE McGrath insists that Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final sticking point will not taint departing head coach Joe Schmidt’s legacy.

Leinster scrum-half McGrath was left with little choice but to salute back-to-back champions New Zealand’s sheer brilliance in the wake of Ireland’s 46-14 loss to the All Blacks in Tokyo. Captain Rory Best retired as a result of the defeat, with boss Schmidt stepping down as long since planned. Schmidt led Ireland to a maiden stint at the top of the world rankings, their first two victories over New Zealand and three Six Nations titles, including the 2018 Grand Slam.

The former Clermont and Leinster boss could not break Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final curse though, and while that shortcoming will always rankle McGrath is adamant it will not leave a lasting shadow for the Kiwi.

“The quarter-finals obviously are a sticking point for us, but we never once talked about that,” said McGrath. “It’s unfortunate that we’re out at the quarter-final again, but you have to look and say they fully deserved to win, they were the much better team. That’s hugely frustrating for us. So we have to go back and look at where we can improve. It’s disappointing that we didn’t put in a performance to do justice to our fantastic support. But we’ll be back.”

McGrath insisted Ireland are well capable of fixing their shortcomings however, with the half-back battling to strike a positive note for the future.

“It genuinely doesn’t taint their legacy,” said McGrath. “It’s disappointing that this is how we say goodbye to Joe Schmidt and Rory Best. But we’ll look over it and move on from here. We didn’t talk about the quarter-finals, we just knew the All Blacks would be a massive challenge. They were the much better team.

“It’s sad that Besty and Joe are leaving us, they were emotional in the changing rooms. They’ve been incredible for the whole squad, and they should be proud of their achievements for Irish rugby.”

WHERE do Ireland go from here?

Well, firstly to a new coaching staff and a new captain. Andy Farrell steps up to take the coaching helm, with former England centre Mike Catt joining as attack coach from Italy.

John Fogarty will replace Greg Feek as scrum coach, while Simon Easterby stays on as forwards specialist.

Captain Rory Best has retired now too, leaving Farrell to deliberate on a new skipper.

Who should captain Ireland now?

Lock James Ryan would be the prudent long-term choice.

The Leinster star has rocketed up the global ranks in the last 18 months, has the temperament and the playing quality – and does not tend to suffer low standards lightly. Ryan would be both a safe pair of hands in public and a taskmaster behind the scenes.

Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony have both captained Ireland in Best’s absence in the last few years, but it would be a tall order for either man to push on through to the next World Cup. And so appointing Ryan would allow Ireland to push forward into a new era without delay.

How can their gameplan evolve?

This will be crucial to Farrell’s reign as head coach. The former dual-code international simply must expand Ireland’s limited approach to gain success in the role.

Meticulous coach Schmidt’s gameplan had to be inch-perfect or would fail. For so long Ireland were able to produce exactly what he wanted, and that helped them beat everyone in the world in the last four years.

But when it mattered most, that poise and exacting, scientific approach deserted them.

Schmidt always talked about “fo-

rensic” detail, but when that did not work, Ireland had no answers.

Schmidt’s team effectively peaked in 2018, and that inability to hit their best in a World Cup year continues to haunt the Irish.

Farrell must look to New Zealand’s example of playing deep, fast and wide in order to revolutionise the Irish approach. New Zealand have shown the world that a fly-half can direct a game from deep rather than flat on the gainline, provided there are sufficient playmakers in the wide channels. That means men with vision at outside centre and full-back.

This is an approach Ireland never countenanced under Schmidt, but now is the time for change.

Does that mean wholesale playing personnel changes then?

Maybe not. Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton are still Ireland’s premier half-backs for example, and so should continue into the 2020 Six Nations and beyond.

Sexton has made no secret of wanting to push on to the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour, but already aged 34 his time is quite clearly limited.

The Schmidt era involved an over-reliance on Lions playmakers Murray and Sexton, and that has to change now.

Luke McGrath has progressed well with Leinster, while Joey Carbery is shining at Munster. Both those halfbacks need to play regular Test rugby to be ready to dominate matches at the next World Cup. Elsewhere, Ireland’s age profile still looks strong with many young players in the squad. Robbie Henshaw, Josh Van Der Flier and Tadhg Furlong are just 26. Dan Leavy is 25.

Garry Ringrose and Joey Carberry are 24. Jacob Stockdale and prop Andrew Porter are 23. Jordan Larmour is 22.

Rugby :: Former Irish international urges caution in World Cup review

Don’t hit the panic button, says Quinlan NICK PUREWAL

ALAN Quinlan believes Ireland must not hit the “panic button” after their seventh quarter-final defeat in nine World Cups.

The former Munster and Ireland flanker has called on incoming head coach Andy Farrell to cut out the “predictability” that left Joe Schmidt’s side hamstrung in 2019.

Ireland swept the board in a glittering 2018, claiming a Six Nations Grand Slam before beating back-to-back world champions New Zealand for the first time ever in Dublin in November.

Head coach Schmidt’s team peaked with that stellar year however, slipping off the pace afterwards with the astute Kiwi’s tenure ending with a 46-14

thumping by New Zealand in Tokyo.

Now defence coach Farrell will take the reins with former England centre Mike Catt joining the set-up, and Quinlan admitted Ireland have to reinvent their attacking game.

“I certainly wouldn’t press the panic button and do something like move on seven or eight players,” Quinlan said. “But what I would try and do is bring in a number of young players.

I’m sure Andy Farrell will do that.

“A week before everyone was saying how badly Johnny Sexton was needed against Samoa, for example. But there does need to be new blood, new faces, and that can bring enthusiasm.

“We’ve heard the word predictability a lot in the last 12 months about how Ireland play.

“A lot of teams have given Ireland compliments that even if you work out their game plan they are so efficient that you can’t stop them.

“But the game has moved on, and it’s moving on again, to having more variety in breaking down defences.

“Ireland have been stopped a lot in the last 12 months, so they have to start doing things differently and making it difficult for opponents to analyse them. Ireland have decent strike runners and they probably don’t get enough of the ball. We saw a master class from New Zealand in how to get the ball to your strike runners really quickly. And it’s not about them scoring tries off that but it’s the line breaks they make. It’s actually setting them up one-on-one in a bit of space,

and that in turn creates quick ball. It’s very disappointing and it’s tough on them, but they should be criticised because they under-performed.”

The comfortable 27-3 win over Scotland perhaps masked some shortcomings when viewed in hindsight, and Quinlan now believes Schmidt has suffered for not finding a solution to Ireland’s attacking deficiencies. “This defeat does taint Joe Schmidt’s legacy a little bit because it’s the World Cup, but I don’t think it should,” said Quinlan. “Unfortunately it’s another four-year wait to try to go past that quarter-final. And it’s the tag around Irish players’ necks. I don’t think they ever healed from the Six Nations, then losing at Twickenham and to Japan damaged confidence. ”

BITTER PILL: Irish head coach Joe Schmidt said he was broken by Ireland’s loss.

irishecho.com.au

IN BRIEF

IRELAND THROUGH TO T20 WORLD CUP IN AUSTRALIA IRELAND sealed their place at next year’s T20 World Cup after finishing top of their qualifying group with a major hand from Jersey. The Irish had gone top of Group B with victory over Nigeria, but three teams could have knocked them off their perch on the final day. Oman were best placed to do so but they suffered a shock 14-run defeat against Jersey to stay level on eight points with Ireland but behind on the run-rate. A big win for either Canada or United Arab Emirates in the final group game could also have knocked Ireland down to second, but a 14-run win for the hosts in Abu Dhabi went nowhere near close to doing so. The T20 World Cup takes place in Australia in October/November next year. Ireland will be a pool with Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Oman.

IRISH INTO RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP IRELAND have joined England, Wales and Scotland in the 2021 World Cup without playing a game. The Irish moved a step closer to qualifying by beating Spain 42-8 in Valencia and became the 13th nation to secure their spot when Italy beat the Spaniards 34-4 in Lignano The draw will be made on November 27, two years out from the final.

IRISH HOCKEY TEAM QUALIFY FOR 2020 TOKYO OLYMPICS IRELAND’S women have qualified for the 2020 Olympics following the most dramatic of finishes against Canada in Dublin. Following two scoreless draws the game went down to penalty shuttles. Ireland trailed 3-1 in that shootout but goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran pulled off two stunning saves, while Beth Barr and Chloe Watson scored to send the shootout to sudden death.

Roisin Upton somehow shot the ball in from the tightest of angles and Canada couldn’t convert their penalty and Ireland began to celebrate. The men’s team was not so lucky. In the second leg of an Olympic play-off against Canada in Vancouver, Ireland trailed 2-1 but led 6-5 on aggregate until literally the final second, when a video referral by Canada — made while Ireland celebrated having heard the final whistle — resulted in the Canadians being awarded a penalty stroke. Canada subsequently leveled proceedings and forced a shootout, in which Ireland led by two goals at the halfway mark but subsequently lost.

HISTORY FOR O’BRIEN AT BREEDERS CUP JOSEPH O’Brien became the youngest trainer to win a race at the Breeders Cup festival when Iridessa won the Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita last week. The Irishman also won the race as a jockey on St Nicholas Abbey, trained by his dad Aidan, in 2011.

November, 2019 | 27

SPORT

Golf :: McIlroy edges out Schauffele to win in China

Rory lands another win RORY McIlroy edged out Xander Schauffele in a play-off to win the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.

The world number two won at the first extra hole at the Sheshan International Golf Club after the pair both finished on 19 under.

Schauffele, the defending champion, had birdied the 18th to take the event into a play-off but he could only score par as the pair played it again in sudden death.

McIlroy, who had to lay up after flirting with water on his first playing of the 18th, duly sank a birdie putt to claim his 27th career title.

It was also McIlroy’s third win in a World Golf Championships event, his fourth win of 2019 and the first in his defence of the FedEX Cup title.

It lifted him to the top of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and fifth in the European Tour’s Race to Dubai rankings but he still trails American Brooks Koepka as world number one.

McIlroy told Sky Sports: “It’s a tough closing stretch even though there are holes you think you should birdie. There are dangers waiting around every corner.

“I played conservatively when I needed to and thankfully it paid off.”

McIlroy shot four birdies in his closing 68 while fast-finishing Schauffele recorded seven birdies, five of which were on the front nine, in a 66,

Rory McIlroy on his way to victory at the WGC-HSBC Champions Trophy in Shanghai. Picture: AP

although a bogey at the sixth was to prove costly.

South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen finished third on 17 under after a 69, two shots ahead of Victor Perez, Matthias Schwab and Abraham Ancer. Britain’s Matt Fitzpatrick finished seventh on 14 under.

McIlroy now hopes to round off

2019 with success on the European circuit’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai later this month.

The Northern Irishman said: “I got off to a good start in the FedEx Cup last year and being up there from the start is huge. I think this win gets me to number one in the FedEx Cup and

that’s nice going into the break. I’m going to take two months off after I play in Dubai in a couple of weeks’ time. I am looking forward to that break but I have still got one tournament left this year at a place where I’ve had some success.

“I want to finish the year on a high note,” McIlroy said.

Football :: Ireland facing do-or-die clash with Denmark

Players have moved on from Danish thrashing: Duffy SHANE Duffy is confident the Republic of Ireland have put their World Cup nightmare at the hands of Denmark firmly behind them as they prepare to meet again with Euro 2020 qualification at stake.

The Danes will head for the Aviva Stadium on November 18 with the winners – barring an unlikely turn of events which would leave the pair and Group D rivals Switzerland locked together on 15 points – securing their passage to next summer’s finals.

As the game approaches, minds will inevitably be cast back to the World Cup play-off between the sides two years ago when, having drawn 0-0 in Copenhagen and taken the lead in Dublin through Duffy’s early header, Ireland capitulated to lose 5-1.

However, the Brighton defender said: “We’ve moved on from that now. We’re a different team, a different manager, so hopefully we’ll go there and we’re quite confident in front of our home fans.

“One more final game at home and we know if we win, we’re there.”

The Republic had a chance to ensure their participation in a third-successive European tournament finals with victory in Switzerland last month, all the while knowing there would be a second chance if they came up short.

A disappointed Aaron Connolly after Ireland’s scoreless draw with Georgia last month but the teenager has emerged as a great young talent for Ireland and his club Brighton.

In the event, they went down 2-0 at the Stade de Geneva on a night when Haris Seferovic’s early strike and Duffy’s late own goal either side of a red card for skipper Seamus Coleman – he will be suspended for the Denmark game as a result – and Darren Randolph’s penalty save from Ricardo Rodriguez saw the Swiss run out 2-0 winners. Vladimir Petkovic’s men, who are currently ranked 11th in the world, closed to within a point of Ireland as a result and know wins over Georgia and Gibraltar next month will be enough for them.

Duffy said: “We know it was quite a

tough group and the three teams were going to be battling for the two (places). At least we’re in with a chance, and I think we can do it.”

The defeat in Geneva was Ireland’s first of the campaign, although coming three days after a disappointing 0-0 draw in Georgia, it proved all the more painful.

Duffy said: “We’ve been up and down. Obviously we’ve been getting the results, but I think we’ve got more quality in us, so hopefully at the Aviva, we can get it rocking and finally beat Denmark. A little bit of revenge, hopefully.”

One positive from a difficult few days for Mick McCarthy’s men was the emergence as a genuine senior international player of Duffy’s club colleague Aaron Connolly.

The 19-year-old striker, who shone as a late substitute on his debut in Tbilisi, was handed a first start against the Swiss and – although it proved as trying an evening for him as for the rest of his team-mates – Duffy is convinced he will have a significant role to play in the future.

He said: “We’ve got to be patient with him. It was his first start and it’s no tougher in this group than away to Switzerland, so there’s plenty more to come from him.

“Hopefully he’ll keep banging them in for Brighton now and in November, hopefully he’s still firing and ready for another big one.”

Brighton boss Graham Potter agrees that Aaron Connolly needs to be protected following his rapid rise from academy prospect to international striker but is keen to ensure he does not fizzle out.

“We have to look after him, make sure that he has a long successful career,” said Potter. “For him to get that international debut, it’s fantastic for him - disappointed obviously for him and the Irish boys that the result wasn’t what they wanted.”

28 | November, 2019

THE IRISH ECHO

irishecho.com.au

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