Love thy neighbour? Perish the thought!

Just another short comment on the Irish gay marriage referendum.  The day afterwards a radio discussion programme dwelt on the number of older people, and presumably older Catholics, who voted Yes. A studio guest told that when she arrived at the polling station several people were leaving, some wearing stern expressions (and she assumed these to be the no voters) and others chatting and laughing (these she assumed to be the yes voters).  Two ladies in their sixties were chuckling that “they had done their good deed”.

Which brings to me the letters page of The Irish Catholic.  Columnists and readers of this paper continue to agonise over the gay marriage vote, and in the current edition, the letter of the week, printed under the heading "Many Catholics are out of touch with Church teaching" makes interesting reading.

Dr Janina Lyons of Dublin 15 mourns the result of the same-sex marriage referendum and observes that of those who voted Yes, surely a number were older Mass-going Catholics. So why did they vote yes? Dr Lyons believes that many did so because they thought it was a kind and loving thing to do for their gay family members and friends, and they were persuaded by the slogan “Equality and Love”.

This tells us, she goes on, that there is great confusion in the Catholic Church about Christ’s teaching.  Many Catholics no longer know that same-sex relations are wrong. However much we love our child, sister, friend we cannot change God’s truth to accommodate our feelings and sympathy.

We need a new catechesis of all members of our Church, she says, meaning that the Church needs to make a better job of teaching Catholics what they should believe.

Filing it where it belongs

Being a sad man, I haven't been able to resist writing to the editor of The Irish Catholic expressing the hope this new catechesis will give due weight to Mark 12:29. This is where Jesus, asked to name the greatest commandment, replied first to love God, and second to love your neighbour as yourself. “There is no commandment greater than these.”

Perhaps the Mass-going Catholics who voted yes in the referendum did so in conformity with this teaching, my letter wittily concludes. Will it be printed?  I fear not.  Up till a couple of years ago the editor used to print my letters, but he's wise to me now and recently has filed them where they belong.

Reflections on that referendum

Home to vote: image that appeared in the Irish Examiner the day after the referendum with the caption “one of many emigrants that returned home yesterday to vote”.

A few reflections on the Irish marriage referendum, now that the result is known: Yes 62% No 38%, with a turnout of more than 60%.  

The Yes campaign brought about the largest turnout in a referendum in over two decades (we have plenty in Ireland), and it's led to talk of a “social revolution” and a “tsunami of support”.  A mass invasion of polling stations by young people, and the home to vote campaign (which I've only become aware of in the past couple of days). And grandparents turning out to vote yes too. “The people’s resounding approval of gay marriage was influenced by an energetic, orderly, and unprecedented campaign that points to a potential sea change in the future of Irish politics”  in the words of the Irish Examiner.

I'm not sure I can go along with this tsunami business. 60% turnout? Hmm. But what is true is that anyone over 40 can remember when government and people were in thrall to the Catholic Church. And that's now gone.  On Friday night, before the count, I commented that in this locality Catholic mass attendance by people of my age is high, and I predicted that many massgoers would take their lead from the Catholic bishops.  Well I got a surprise. Looking at the voting figures for our constituency (Cork East) I see they very closely mirror the national average. Fewer Yes's than in Dublin, for sure, where it was over 70% - nonetheless, way higher than I expected.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: not wholehearted

It's worth mentioning that the Catholic Church didn't speak with a single voice.  Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin didn't appear wholehearted in his opposition. “In airing my views in public debate, I do not expect to be listened to on the basis of dogmatic utterance, but on the reasonableness of my argument.”

And more than one Catholic priest publicly stated an intention to vote for gay marriage.  Fr Iggy O’Donovan for one, prompting a reader to the Irish Catholic to write “Dear Editor, I was flabbergasted to read of Fr Iggy O’Donovan’s reported intention to vote yes in regard to the referendum concerning same-sex marriage. I read the article three times to ensure I had not misconstrued the press report!”

An amusing anecdote from the campaign. The loving family appearing in the Vote No poster that featured at the top of my last post, weren't Irish, didn't know about the referendum, and when they found out, came on national radio to explain that they didn't support voting No. Lastly, can I justify the statement that Ireland was recently in thrall to the Catholic Church?  I can but not now.  For a taster I refer to the divorce referendums of 1986 and 1995 (previous post), and what I wrote about the Mother and Child crisis of 1951.

On today's gay marriage referendum in Ireland

Well, have voted in Ireland’s marriage equality referendum, and we’ll have to wait till tomorrow for the count.  All commentators are confident it will be passed. 

The necessity by the way for gay marriage to be put to a referendum, arises due to marriage being enshrined in the Irish constitution; and a constitutional amendment requires a referendum. The amendment voted on today is to add a clause to article 41. I would actually have preferred a different approach. Had I my way, the question on the ballot paper would have been to delete article 41 in its entirety, as it's already a hodge podge.   See for yourself.

It includes the state recognising “that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.” And it contains the grounds for divorce (living apart for at least four years and no reasonable prospect of a reconciliation). Which apart from being too restrictive, just doesn't belong in a constitution, it belongs in legislation.

I should mention the historical background to these divorce clauses being in article 41. The present constitution began life in 1937 and when first adopted included an absolute ban on divorce.  To allow divorce at all, therefore, needed a constitutional amendment; and this was done by the Fifteenth Amendment in 1995.  That was the second divorce referendum. The first was in 1986 where the proposal to allow divorce was defeated by a whopping margin of almost 2:1. The 1937 constitution was a strongly Catholic document, and in 1986 the Catholic Church still held sway to keep it that way.  Even in 1995, divorce only got through by a whisker.  

Two referendums today

There was another referendum today. It was to reduce the minimum age for candidates for the presidency from 35 to 21. Well, OK, I did vote for this, but heavens above, there are more pressing constitutional amendments that ought to have priority, and were considered by a constitutional convention last year.  Blasphemy for one.  The constitution provides that “the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law”, though strangely blasphemy wasn’t actually legislated against until 2009. No that’s not a typo, 2009.

Apparently there was a high turnout today in urban centres which indicates success for the Yes side,  as the No’s are likely to reside in rural Ireland where the Catholic Church still has some residual influence.  Here's this week’s Mitchelstown mass leaflet.

In this locality, mass attendance by people of my age is high, and many massgoers will, I'm fairly sure, take their lead from the Catholic bishops. Younger generations, less so. Generally, young voters appear to have been hugely energised by the Yes campaign, especially in urban areas.

According to the Irish Times whose website I've just consulted, the turnout across Dublin county was 65%, and in Cork city was above 60%.  For a referendum that's high, apparently.

I forgot to mention what would follow if my plan were to be followed to scrap article 41 entirely.  I would then enact legislation which would delete “marriage” from all laws. The state would register civil partnerships only, and all existing marriages would be reclassified as civil partnerships.  Henceforth marriage would be a cultural event that you could do in church or other venue of your choice.   If you believe that marriage is a union of man and woman, open to the procreation of children, and a gift from God, then there would be no apparent conflict between that belief and the law of the land.

Frederick Douglass and coffee at the embassy

Group photo in the embassy, includes 4½ Swedes - Tom's book - Tom (right) presents book to ambassador

Last Monday to a coffee morning hosted by the Irish ambassador in London. We have Frederick Douglass to thank, a major figure in US 19th century history, though little known on this side of the Atlantic.  Indeed I had never heard of Douglass till Tom told me about him. That’s Tom Chaffin, husband of my Swedish cousin Margareta and a professor of history at the University of Tennessee. The occasion was Tom presenting the ambassador with his book Giant’s Causeway: Frederick Douglass’s Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary

Frederick Douglass - Daniel O'Connell
When they met in 1845 Douglass was about 27, O'Connell was 70.
So you could say these images are ill-chosen, for which I can only apologise

A memorable day, and what I didn't expect, the ambassador, Dan Mulhall, was himself an historian and a specialist on Daniel O'Connell, so had a real and not mere diplomatic interest in Tom's book, which includes Frederick Douglass's meeting with O'Connell in 1845. O'Connell is himself a colossus of Irish 19th century history. Dublin’s main street and bridge are named in his honour. A little digression here, the original name was Sackville Street changed in 1924 amidst a flurry of patriotic post-independence re-naming, and I always assumed O'Connell Bridge got its name at the same time as the street. But I crossed the bridge last week and was surprised by a plaque saying the Dublin Corporation re-named it in 1882. And to heap digression on digression, according to Wikipedia O'Connell Bridge is unique in Europe as the only traffic bridge wider than it is long: a circumstance evident in the photo below, though it had previously escaped me. Douglass’s bridge is in Washington DC, but I've sought in vain for any idiosyncratic facts about it to entertain you with.

Top, O'Connell Bridge over the Liffey in Dublin: broader than it is long.
Bottom, Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge over the Anacostia in Washington, D.C: rather dull.

A bit more about Douglass. He escaped bondage in Maryland in 1838 aged about 20, and eventually earnt a living as an abolitionist lecturer, travelling widely across the North, enthralling audiences and raising funds for the campaign. When his prominence brought him into danger from slave catchers he crossed the Atlantic to lecture in the British Isles. Tom’s book is about the four months he spent in Ireland, and Daniel O’Connell’s influence on him. There were complex reasons why Douglass avoided taking sides on the Irish national question, which Tom deals with in this 2011 New York Times article.  Also worth reading, this one about Douglass and Lincoln, and how he influenced the president’s thinking on the emancipation question in the latter half of the Civil War.  An aspect of Irish and American history that I find of abiding interest, is the widespread Irish-American support for slavery, and hostility towards abolitionists. Here's a review of Tom’s book that focuses on this, and also on Douglass and the famine.
 
A salute

Can't finish this post without saluting John Green, Chairman of the Glasnevin Trust, who was the fixer for the day. Not only did he fix the embassy meeting, but also a lecture for Tom at Dublin’s Glasnevin Museum a couple of days earlier, and moreover he fixed a guided tour of London’s Tower Hill Memorial where my Swedish great uncle Axel is remembered. My mother’s sister Barbro was especially keen to see this. Axel lost his life on a torpedoed British merchant ship in 1917.

No space here for an essay on Glasnevin Cemetery. Originally established by Daniel O’Connell in 1828. If you’ve an interest in Irish history, the cemetery and museum are a must. My cousin Meta and I had a guided tour in twilight, magical! 

And finally, I said Douglass is little known on this side of the Atlantic. But Meta tells me our uncle Gösta used to give his books as presents, so maybe I ought to have said “little known to me” …  

John Green, fixer and Chairman of Glasnevin Trust

Of the Irish Constitution and half a red beard

1924 portrait of Darrell Figgis. The beard is red.

This is about a red beard and knives, but you'll need to bear with me while first I give a bit of context. In University College Cork's library yesterday I picked up the American Journal of Legal History and found an article on the Irish Free State Constitution. It's by Laura Cahillane who used to be at UCC, and as I narrowly missed a seminar she gave on this very topic a couple of years ago, I was delighted to find it. What I was actually looking for was something on the law of outer space but that’s another story.

The Irish Free State Constitution was the first Constitution of independent Ireland. Drawn up after the close of the Irish War of Independence, it was born in the midst of the Civil War, which broke out over disagreements as to the status of the embryonic Irish State and the continuing ties with the British Empire. The Free State Constitution was in force from 1922 until 1937, when it was replaced with a new constitution: Bunreacht na htireann.  However Cahillane’s point is that the 1937 constitution was not a completely new document; on the contrary, it contains (with certain additions and subtractions) most of the Free State Constitution, which still forms the spine of Ireland’s current constitution (now widely recognised as out of date).

She intends to rescue the Free State Constitution from undeserved obscurity, claiming that because of its Civil War birth pangs, it has been the subject of controversy and misinformation, and indeed the butt contempt and derision; as a result of which it is (she says) one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Irish legal system, neglected by legal and historical scholars.

That’s the preamble. Now we're getting nearer to the beard. It belonged to Darrell Figgis, known as an fear fēasōgach, the bearded one, and deputy chairman of the 1922 constitution drafting committee.  Michael Collins appointed himself chairman of the committee but whilst chairman in name, he did not have time to become actively involved in the drafting process. Apart from the initial meeting, he attended only one other, but he did keep in regular contact with some of the members and his instructions guided the committee in its work.

The Constitution Committee meeting at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. Figgis is seated fourth from the left.

Darrell Figgis was a renowned literary figure in Ireland. He had also been an active member of the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Fein. Cahillane thinks that in many ways, Figgis was a curious choice as he was very unpopular.  Despite this, he was highly talented and a major influence on the shaping of the Free Sate Constitution, both in his daily attendance at the committee and in the subsequent debate in the Constituent Assembly.  Figgis applied himself to the study of constitutions and developed specific ideas on how the new constitution should be structured. He was the author of one of the three eventual drafts submitted by the committee to the Provisional Government.

Half of his beard

He was moreover famous for his red beard, of which he was immensely proud. In a footnote - and here we come to the nub of the matter - Cahillane relates a strange incident in June 1922. Three men broke into Figgis’s house in the middle of the night with knives and cut half of his beard off. Details of the attack remained vague until one of those responsible broke his silence 36 years later. He was the future Lord Mayor of Dublin, Robert Briscoe, who explained that Figgis had been attacked because of disobliging remarks about the IRA.

You can find an account of the incident and an extract from Robert Briscoe’s memoir in the Wikipedia article on Figgis.  It specifies a glittering razor rather than knives, and there is no mention of only half the beard being cut off.  So here we have a discrepancy, which after some soul-searching, I've decided I don't have the time to resolve.

The constitution had to be approved by the British government as well as the Irish parliament. This was by virtue of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. And because the draft sounded too republican, and didn't say enough about being part of the British Empire, the British government threatened to go to war with Ireland again. But I won’t say any more on that as I really just wanted to tell you about the beard, and let you know that if the only reading material in front of you happens to be a journal of legal history, that may not be as dull as it sounds. 

Will Ireland defy tobacco giants?

Were this image from a 1930’s film poster it would suggest cool and sophisticated (though perhaps in the 1930’s cool didn't mean sophisticated). Be that as it may, the image is actually from the Irish Examiner website where it's meant to suggest sinister and harmful, and it heads a story that Irish prime minister Enda Kenny has got a letter encouraging him to scrap plans to become the second country in the world after Australia to impose plain packaging regulations on cigarette companies.

The letter is signed by 27 members of the European parliament, nearly half of them members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. They say plain packaging legislation could threaten Ireland’s financial recovery, and according to an Irish Examiner editorial of 12th August,  the letter is a thinly-veiled threat.  Which is good news in a way as it confirms that existing tobacco controls in Ireland, and plain packaging already introduced in Australia, are working. The Australian regulations came into effect in December 2012. Clearly, tobacco companies fear that these measures might be replicated across an ever-more health conscious European Union.

The Irish Examiner’s main leader last Tuesday flew under the heading “Fighting the tobacco giants - Government should defy lobbyists”, and began “Tobacco conglomerates spent decades challenging the science that proved nicotine was addictive. They dishonestly spent decades rubbishing the science that identified their products as cancerous and the root cause of fatal diseases.”

Read it in full to be reminded of the issues. It concludes by urging the Irish government to press ahead with their plans to make it ever more difficult to sell tobacco in this country and to tell the German lobbyists where to get off.

Other links
 
Irish Examiner analysis piece, by their political reporter, 12th August
Wikipedia, for a history of plain packaging around the world, evidence, criticisms, opposition
 
From this blog
 
January 2013: Irish cancer report gives the lie to Big Tobacco 
September 2011: Australian plans to force tobacco companies to use plain packaging carrying graphic health warnings

A statue of a king with horse's ears, perhaps

On a trip to Armagh with Cork Astronomy Club I missed the tour of Armagh Observatory but in the crypt of Armagh protestant cathedral I was delighted to find this statue. The photo, I fear, is unprepossessing, but it's the best I could do. It's either of Lowry Lynch or Queen Macha.  I hope it's Lowry Lynch, because I like his story, which I'll outline in a minute.

The protestant (Church of Ireland) cathedral is built on Ard Macha – the Hill of Macha, which gives Armagh its name.  It is this hilltop enclosure which St Patrick is said to have acquired and within which he built his first ‘Great Stone Church’.  If that story is true, there's been a church on this site since the 5th century.

Armagh Church of Ireland Cathedral

As to Macha, she was an ancient goddess, or a warrior queen, a key figure in the Ulster Cycle, a series of pre-Christian tales that have deep historical significance for Armagh. These tales are the spiritual account of the early Celtic people of Ulster and tell of legendary warrior heroes and heroines who fought great battles against Queen Maeve and the warriors of Connaught. 

Horse’s ears

The statue is medieval and eroded and stands between two and three feet high.  It was found somewhere on the site, but I couldn’t find out much more about it; perhaps not much more is known. The cathedral guide, a very helpful fellow who took me on a personal conducted tour of the crypt, told me the statue is either a bare-breasted Queen Macha holding her bow aloft, or else King Lowry Lynch holding out his horse’s ears.  Lowry Lynch was ashamed of his horse’s ears and each time he had his hair cut he put the barber to death so he couldn’t tell. But at length his shameful secret was told by a singing harp, and Lowry Lynch repented of all the barbers he had put to death and admitted his shameful secret.

And maybe, the cathedral guide told me, this statue is him doing just that, in an it's-a-fair-cop gesture.

For the full Lowry Lynch tale and the Greek myth of King Midas on which it is based, you can read a children’s story I've written.

Reflecting on arrest of Gerry Adams

I'm bringing you the thoughts of two columnists in today’s Irish newspapers.  Writing in The Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole says there are two ways of dealing with the legacy of the atrocities: all or nothing. And the McConville case signals a pressing need for an independent commission of inquiry.

He is reflecting on the 1972 abduction, murder and disappearing of Jean McConville, about which Sinn Fein [1] leader Gerry Adams has been interviewed by the Northern Ireland police, and though released on Sunday, may still be charged. It's an atrocity that cries out for accountability, says O’Toole (and if you want to be persuaded of this, listen to a BBC interview with her son, age 11 at the time – he says he knows but daren’t say).

But O'Toole goes on to list numerous other killings – “murder after bloody murder” – about which the same can be said.

No special victims and no special perpetrators

His conclusion: if Gerry Adams had anything to do with the killing of Jean McConville, he should answer for his actions. But it would be far better if he gave those answers to an open, independent commission with a remit to investigate all unsolved killings by state forces or by paramilitary organisations. If, by design or accident, Adams seems to be singled out, while other crimes are ignored, the cycle of selective memory and selective amnesia will go on. There are no special victims and there must be no special perpetrators.

I simply don’t believe him

Also worth reading is a piece by another of my favourite columnists, Fergus Finlay in today’s Irish Examiner, under the headline Adams’ arrest a grim reminder of how fragile the peace process truly is.

“Like thousands of others” says Finlay “I simply don’t believe him when he says he was never in a leadership position in the IRA. But I also believe that without him, the process of ending the violence in Northern Ireland would not have succeeded …  he did succeed in bringing a largely united movement from violence to democratic participation, and that was a historic achievement.”  Finlay also suggests, probably wrongly I think, that Adams could have done this much faster had he wished. 

Left: Thousands believe only the words on that new mural about Adams — leader, peacemaker, visionary. Though the Irish Examiner’s Fergus Finlay is not numbered amongst them. Right: Michael McConville knows but dare not say.

But I want to return to Fintan O’Toole, and to quote him at length (green, with my interpolations in black). Amongst atrocities on a par with the one Gerry Adams is now accused of, O’Toole cites Ballymurphy.  Long after the British army’s parachute regiment left the west Belfast estate of Ballymurphy in September 1971, he writes, one of its members, Harry McCallion, recalled with pride that “we had over 15 confirmed kills but had claimed many more ... It was merely convenient for the IRA that most of them had not been sworn in as members.” 

These “kills” had not been sworn in because they were not members of the IRA at all; they were innocent civilians. Eleven of those killed by the Paras between August 9th and August 11th, 1971, were unarmed. Among them were a Catholic priest, Fr Hugh Mullan – who was clearly carrying an improvised white flag made from a babygro – and a mother of eight children, Joan Connolly, who was shot multiple times as she went to help a wounded boy. These events happened in the chaos of the introduction of internment, when the IRA launched concerted attacks on the British base in Ballymurphy. But the evidence strongly suggests that the victims were not caught in crossfire – they were killed by enraged soldiers in what were, at best, acts of appalling recklessness and, at worst, deliberate murders.

Last week, shortly before Gerry Adams was arrested, Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers announced there would be no independent inquiry into the Ballymurphy killings. Sinn Féin rightly pointed to the outrageous double standard implied here. But Villiers also announced that there would be no inquiry into the hideous La Mon hotel fire-bombing in 1978, when the IRA incinerated 12 members of, of all things, the Irish Collie Club. The families of the La Mon victims believe, rightly or wrongly, that transcripts of police interviews with IRA suspects relating to this disgusting crime were deliberately removed from the files in order to protect senior figures of importance for the peace process. Did Sinn Féin complain about the continuing failure to give the La Mon families the comfort of truth? Of course not – it has double standards about double standards.

To make sure the unionist UVF get a mention, he also cites the McGurk’s Bar bombing of December 1971, in which 15 people died. 

People with guns killing people without guns

While the gunmen on all sides preened themselves with talk of “kills” and “war”, the truth is that the conflict was largely about people with guns killing people without guns. So-called republican and loyalist paramilitaries lost between them 563 members. Well over three times as many defenceless civilians were murdered (1,879) – mostly by paramilitaries but in some cases by so-called security forces in or out of uniform. The slaughter of the innocents was not a byproduct of the Troubles – it was the main event.

Competitive necromancy

It was not enough, though, for these poor people to die once, to be the human fuel for a conflict that careened obscenely onwards long after it had lost any semblance of logic. Like souls in Dante’s hell, they have been given an excruciating punishment; they are recruited to fight, again and again, in the strange meta-conflict that replaced the real one – the fight over which of the perpetrators can claim the coveted status of victimhood. There is, rightly, lingering outrage about the IRA’s “disappearing” of victims like Jean McConville, the denial of a decent burial. But in a sense, most victims are still denied a decent burial. Their bodies are figuratively dug up and paraded through the streets or dumped back again into the abyss of amnesia, depending on who needs them for what political purpose. Tribal disputes are still conducted in part as a form of competitive necromancy.

There are just two decent ways of dealing with the legacy of these atrocities: all or nothing. The nothing option has a certain integrity – it at least prevents the political exploitation of the dead. But it denies to bereaved families the right to know what happened to their loved ones. The only way to counter the exploitation of the dead is to start with the most obvious thing about them – that they died horrible, untimely deaths. Death brings a terrible equality: it does not discriminate between Protestant or Catholic, uniformed policeman or masked gunman, or even between innocent and guilty. Every violent death was a rending in the fabric of the lives of spouses, children and families. Each deserves acknowledgement – not for any political purpose but for its own sake and as a condition of a civilised society.

[1] Sinn Fein is an unusual political party in that it embraces two states, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and Gerry Adams is leader of the whole party in both.

The Stations - they'll miss it when it's gone

Everyone complains about the Stations. A common theme of conversation hereabouts is it's time they were abolished. I don't agree, but as a blow-in and a non-believer my views count for little. Twice a year on a weekday in March and October all the neighbours from 15 houses in this vicinity of North Cork gather at one house where the parish priest celebrates a mass, followed by sandwiches, cakes, tea and beer. This is known as a Station Mass, or more commonly, just "the stations". Three weeks ago it was our name on the rota, and consequently we spent much of the preceding month painting and cleaning. This is regarded as a huge pain and it's what gives rise to the calls for abolition. But to me it's a price worth paying. Some neighbours help with making sandwiches, some bring apple pies, and some bottles, and it's all very chummy. Mary brought the mass kit and dressed our dining table into an altar. An official church website advises that for this purpose the host family is meant to supply: a table cloth, two candles, a crucifix, holy water, and a small jug of tap water.

Clockwise from top left: making sandwiches in the utility room, dressing the altar, admiring the altar, the priest robes up, studying the prayer sheet, the priest hands out communion, an altar no more.

Including ourselves, 32 people were present. The priest turned up at 8, and heard confessions in the parlour, though few participated in this. The mass started about fifteen minutes later and  lasted about half an hour, whereupon envelopes were collected. These envelopes contain “dues”, money for the priest. €20 is the going rate. Up to only a few years ago, everyone’s name was read out and defaulters were noted, but that has lapsed. [1] The empty envelopes were handed round in the preceding couple of weeks. As host of the stations this time round, it was Eileen’s job to attend to this. 

The final agenda item was agreeing who hosts the stations next October. Then it was on with the kettles and out with the sandwiches.

A compromise without merit

Sadly the abolitionists will get their way. And I fear all too soon. Because it's really only the over-50’s who participate in all this. The younger families absent themselves, and gradually the pool of those able and willing to host the stations dwindles. A compromise in which I see no merit whatsoever is for the station mass to be held in the local church.  When the number willing to host the stations reduces to the level where your turn comes round every two years instead of every four, then I foresee that the last hardy few will say enough’s enough and the institution will suddenly die. And then everyone will say do you remember what great times we had when we used to have the stations.

A starched white cloth

In most houses round here after the mass the priest is ushered to a table in the parlour, with a starched white cloth, and it’s considered an honour to be asked to join him, while the remaining neighbours shift for themselves in the kitchen, or have to await the priest’s convenience for a second sitting. Up to the 1970’s, it was the men who joined the priest and the women who stayed in the kitchen.  I witnessed the tail-end of this tradition. I must have attended my first stations during the 1980’s, and I can recall once, and I think only once, being ushered in to join the priest for a cold plate along with all the men. Very uncomfortable, but this was already widely deemed old-fashioned. 

Being seated next to the priest is a dubious honour for most people who don't actually know what to say to him. Eileen and I frequently manoeuvre ourselves into the hot seats, which seems to be suit everyone;  though Eileen and our neighbour Sean place me under strict interdict against “haranguing”. How I've acquired a reputation for “haranguing” priests I'm at a loss to know. But in whatever this haranguing consists, it appears to cause remarkably little offence, if I can judge by the lack of reluctance to be sitting next to me on these occasions.

I remember a station mass soon after the 2011 general election.  Fr Michael Fitzgerald (since elevated to Canon) discussed the allocation of cabinet posts in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government, and went on to comment that Labour was a bit too radical for him. At this point, had I not been under interdict, I should have hit him with the Jesus was a socialist theme. But I dutifully let it go.

A little bit of history

The stations seem to date from the 17th century and the Penal Laws. At that time in Ireland and up to about 1750, the Catholic church was oppressed and public ceremonies involving Catholic clergy were banned. Moreover there were no Catholic churches. In this climate two new traditions emerged: the Mass Rock and the Station Mass. I think it’s a matter of debate amongst historians how energetically the penal laws were enforced, but the popular image is of the priest arriving in disguise while locals kept a look-out from vantage points in the landscape on alert for any approaching English militia.

A modern reconstruction of an 18th century open-air mass with look-outs and approaching soldiers, reproduced here on a devotional card

The Irish countryside is peppered with mass rocks which are still considered by some to be special sacred places. An alternative mass venue was in private homes. Word was put about locally that mass would be said at a given house on a given day. The neighbours would gather for what was often a rare opportunity to receive the sacrament. This mass became known as the "station mass" because the venue was only temporary, one of the early meanings of the English word station.  And for all I know, of the Irish word stáisiún.  A discussion of etymology if you want it.

Lack of church buildings, as much as fear of persecution, may have driven open air and station masses.

Abolishing dinners

In the 19th century, the Catholic Church tried to regulate the stations, as well as some other aspects of popular Catholicism. A strange leap from persecution to control, which remains a puzzle to me. Some clerics thought the stations were just an excuse for partying, and would have abolished them altogether. James Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin from 1819–1834, was influential. He saw the station dinner rather than the station itself as the main abuse, so the dinners were abolished, but stations allowed to continue. In 1843 the statutes of the Armagh diocese permitted stations but forbade the station dinner, the priest only being allowed to have a snack. [2] How far was this observed I wonder?

I understand that until the 1970’s, the station mass in our area was always held in the morning and was followed by breakfast for the priest and neighbours.

[1] Even further in the past, before my time, the actual amounts were read out. A farmer £10, a labourer £1, and so on. That I understand occurred up to the 1960’s and is now recalled with disgust.  It seems priests in those days were unfamiliar with the gospel story of the widow’s mite: witnessing temple donations made by rich men, Jesus calls attention to a poor widow contributing only two mites, and observes this was all she had, whilst the rich give only a small portion of their own wealth.  (Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4)

[2] The Religious Condition of Ireland 1770-1850, Nigel Yates, Oxford 2006. Some day I shall read the 1843 statutes for myself to see if this means the priest alone being allowed to have a snack, and everyone else nothing at all.

Why I welcome the vote to keep the Irish senate

Two posters both urging a YES in yesterday's Irish referendum. 10/10 for the Socialist Party poster.  0/10 for the inaccurate, dishonest and populist poster put up by Fine Gael, the centre-right main government party.

Irish senate referendum posters, Dublin Socialist Party left, Fine Gael right. The Socialist Party focuses attention on the tiny elite electorate for the senate, congregated in Dublin 4. Dublin 10 is a working class area. They put up similar posters in other cities.

The voters were asked to assent to a government proposal to abolish the upper house of the Irish parliament, Seanad Éireann.  Although you can't argue with the Socialist Party case, I did. I voted no, and I'm glad about the result: YES 48.3%, NO 51.7%,  on a miserable 40% turnout (nearly).

Just to be clear, none of the reasons for keeping the senate are strong and most are invalid. The Irish Seanad bears no resemblance whatever to the US senate (either in its composition or powers) and a very close resemblance to the House of Lords. So why keep it for heavens sake? I certainly don't support keeping the Seanad in its present form (no-one does) and I'm not even wedded to the idea that Ireland needs a 2-chamber parliament. A lot needs fixing in the Irish constitution. The Dáil is (like the House of Commons) a tool of the government of the day, the Seanad is almost powerless, local government has even less independence than in England, corruption is an issue.

Had the abolition proposal come to us as part of a reasoned plan to strengthen the parliament against the government, and to loosen the iron grip of centralisation, it would have had my support. But I objected to being thrown the “less politicians” bone to distract from austerity. This referendum was a stunt pulled by prime minister Enda Kenny and he got the result he deserved.

We plough the fields and scatter

The field behind our house:  the tractors were there last week.  We have plans.  A wildflower meadow.  A bit of lawn in the middle. A summer house. The photo with the sheep (of which more below) shows how lumpy the field used to be, most uncomfortable to walk on, with the risk of sprained ankles. So we paid for the field to be ploughed, harrowed, seeded and rolled, and now we’ve had plenty of rain and each morning look for first signs of the grass sprouting. 

One could ask, indeed I do ask, why our field hasn’t become a wildflower meadow already. I neglected it for years, withstood insistent advice from farmers to spray the nettles, and had a donkey in it all summer. Too late, oh too late, I've read this advice from Plantlife on creating a wildflower meadow:

“Firstly, remove the top few inches of very fertile topsoil in late summer, perhaps making some raised beds for vegetables from it. This can be hard work but is essential, as wildflowers must have poor soil to thrive.”

That nettles grow prolifically, is a sign of fertility, I believe.  So I guess my hopes will be frustrated. I do have one last throw of the dice though. Yellow rattle: a lovely annual “with a slightly sinister character”. Its roots tap into those of grasses, stealing their nutrients and suppressing their growth. This keeps them in check and many other meadow flowers benefit from the reduced grass growth. Must investigate where to get the seed.

A plug for Plantlife, an organisation I'm proud to belong to. It speaks up for and works to protect wild plants and fungi in Britain, campaigns on invasive plants, claims success in updating the law to include over 50 species that it is now an offence to plant or cause to grow in the wild, campaigns for a ban on sale of invasive plants, and owns a farm reserve in Kent with a 57 ha wildflower meadow.

Now a word about those sheep. The flock (I counted 23 of them) invaded our field in late July. For over a week they drifted in and out, visiting the fields of the surrounding farmers.  Everyone knows whose land they came from, though I'm too polite to mention your name here! As it happens we didn't mind the sheep invading our little field; but still and all it was a bit of a liberty.  And the adjoining farmers were NOT PLEASED. They resented the sheep eating their grass every bit as you would resent a neighbour walking into your house and plugging in an electric cable to power their tumbler drier from.

Emmet's speech: is it real?

Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock the night before his execution in 1803 is an icon in Irish nationalist historiography. In preparation for today, the 210th anniversary, I've done a bit of digging. It's the speech that concludes:-

I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

This day last year I posted the full text. Yet soon after doing so, I began to entertain doubts. Is it genuine? What is the source? Has the speech that has come down to us - it extends to five pages - been "improved"? My suspicious mind had me to wondering if the whole thing is just a bit too good to be true.

After spending a good few hours in University College Cork’s Boole Library, I am somewhat reassured. It turns out that there are several versions of the speech, based on notes taken by Emmet’s friends present in court.  No one version, even those taken in shorthand at the time, agrees exactly with another. The unforgettable final paragraph (quoted above) may be an exception to this; though the most recent account I've found ascribes it to just one note-taker. [1]

Dr Madden

It seems we are indebted for the speech to Dr Richard Robert Madden (1798-1886) who published The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times in seven volumes between 1842 and 1846. This has been described “an adulatory rather than a scholarly” account. But so far as I can tell historians agree that Dr Madden submitted all the versions of Emmet’s speech to trustworthy persons still alive, and we can be confident that the text that has come down to us contains the substance of the speech, and much of the actual language.

Dr. Madden says: No published report gives any adequate idea of the effect its delivery produced on the minds of his auditors. Emmet pronounced the speech in so loud a voice as to be distinctly heard at the outer doors of the court-house; and yet, though he spoke in a loud voice, there was nothing boisterous in its delivery, or forced or affected in his manner; his accents and cadence of voice, on the contrary, were exquisitely modulated. His action was very remarkable; its greater or lesser vehemence corresponded with the rise and fall of his voice. [2]

“The man is telling the truth”

The trial stretched over one long day, 19 Sept, from 9:30 in the morning till 10:30 at night. Not even a lunch break (huh? what about the judges & jury?) It would have taken longer had not Emmet instructed his lawyers to make no defence of his actions. Leon Ó Brion [3] tells us:

Whenever they wished to overthrow a witness he stopped them, saying, “Don’t, don’t, the man is telling the truth”. He would not even allow them to make the normal speech at the conclusion of the case for the Crown. “Don’t  try to defend me”, he said “it's no use”.

Ó Broin strikes a skeptical note as to the veracity of the speech as we have it. Setting the scene for the speech from the dock, he says
 
Outside in the streets there was a great mass of people, a silent mass, but every single person was sympathetic to the prisoner. These were the people the government wanted to win over to its side. It was of them, also, that Emmet was thinking. He knew how important it was that he should pick and weigh his words carefully. But what he did not know was that neither enemies nor friends would give him the last word.  The government improved on his uncomplimentary references to France, and his friends altered his ideas in other ways, with the result that it is not possible to be sure that we have his speech exactly as it was delivered. The various versions only agree as regards the peroration.

As to the government improving on his uncomplimentary references to France, see below; but I haven't found in what ways his ideas were altered by his friends.

Authorities feared an escape plot

Emmet started his speech at 10 pm, was very tired and asked for judgement to be delayed till the next day. His speech was supremely important to him; perhaps he wanted time to write it; certainly he will have wanted time to collect himself.  But his request was denied. It's likely the authorities feared an escape plot. So, a remarkable performance at the end of a long day, in the knowledge that tomorrow he would almost certainly hang.

Tradition has it that the speech was extempore, but the historian Ruán O’Donnell doesn't go along with this. It was prepared he says; though to an extent Emmet did need to extemporise in response to frequent interruptions from chief justice Lord Norbury.

The accusations ringing in Emmet’s ears were that he was selfishly ambitious, had betrayed his country, was an emissary of France, and that he alone was responsible for all the blood that had been shed.  [T]he speech profoundly stirred all those who heard it. It even moved [chief justice] Norbury, a callous, brutal man who was capable of jesting when consigning poor wretches to the gallows. Now, having sentenced Emmet to be hanged, drawn and quartered the next afternoon in Thomas Street, the scene of the insurrection, he was deeply touched by the tragedy of the situation and burst into tears. That was dramatic enough, God knows, but there was more to come. A group of young men moved over to the dock to bid the prisoner farewell – these were the Trinity students who wore the King’s uniform – and they had to answer later to the authorities for shaking hands with a condemned traitor.  [4]

Castle spies

Unknown to Emmet at least one of his two lawyers (and according to some historians both of them) were actually Castle spies. This made no difference to the trial so far as I can see, as we have already seen that he instructed his counsel not to cross examine witnesses, or state any case.  This was probably part of a secret commitment Emmet had made to Wickham, the Chief Secretary. Emmet would accept responsibility for the rising, and in exchange Wickham would suppress an intercepted letter to Emmet’s lover Sarah Curran. It seems that both Wickham and Emmet honoured this compact.

In a notorious incident at the end of the trial his lawyer MacNally, leaning over the rail of the dock, “Judas-like, kissed him on the cheek”. O’Donnell has it the other way round: “Before leaving the court Emmet embraced his duplicitous defender, MacNally, and kissed him on the forehead.” [5]

Speech bubble

Three artists attended the trial to draw portraits. One was Henry Brocas who had been commissioned by the government anticipating a requirement for a suitable image for its propaganda. The prosecution wanted to make use of the trial to denigrate the whole revolutionary movement. Here's Brocas's famous print of the scene in court:

Someone in the government press office has added a speech bubble. You'll find images of this print sometimes with, and sometimes without, the bubble, which says: “If the FRENCH land in Ireland, Oh my Countrymen! meet them on the Shore with a Torch in one hand – a Sword in the other – receive them with the all the destruction of War - Immolate them in their Boats before our Native Soil should be polluted by a Foreign Foe”.

Now whilst Emmet did say something about opposing the French, what he actually said was: “Were the French to come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of my strength ...” and he goes on to deny that the French would have come as invaders or enemies. See page 4 of full text of speech.

That’s the extent of my digging on Robert Emmet’s trial and speech.

[1] Robert Emmet and the Rising of 1803, Ruán O’Donnell, Irish Academic press, 2003
[2] Library Ireland
[3] Leon Ó Brion The Unfortunate Mr Emmet (1958) Ch 27
[4] Ó Brion p 164
[5] O’Donnell p 159

Uncle Mickey

Michael O'Brien in the uniform of the Irish Free State army, about 1923

This is Eileen’s Uncle Mickey, her father’s eldest brother. He's one of those people who habitually attracts the sobriquet “larger than life character”. Till now I never had a decent photo. His grandson Patrick brought it a few weeks ago.  For joining the Free State Army Mickey was widely reviled within the family and accused of being a turncoat. An expression I never fully grasped until Eileen told me of the following episode that occurred around 1985 (by which time Mickey had been dead some years). Eileen was with her Uncle Joe (Mickey’s younger brother) in a pub in Kilworth a few miles from here called The Butchers. An old codger accosted Joe and asked him if he was Mickey’s brother.  I say asked but it was more in the nature of an accusation. You really need to hear Eileen tell this story, I don't do it justice. Next he loudly proclaimed that Mickey had turned his coat, making the while a theatrical show of turning his own coat inside out and displaying the lining. Uncle Joe remained cool under the provocation and confined himself to muttering “he did the bastard”, which had the effect of releasing some of the tension.

Now I need to say that this coat turning business is something that Eileen and I disagree on. Mickey is held to have supported the wrong side in the 1922-23 civil war. The pro-treaty government side that is. But to my way of thinking Mickey’s conduct was perfectly consistent. During the War of Independence he gave his allegiance to Dáil Éireann and after the 1921 Treaty he continued to give his allegiance to Dáil Éireann. It seems to me that it was O’Connor and de Valera and their followers who turned their coats. They disregarded the Dáil vote to accept the Treaty, and started the Civil War. But within Eileen’s family that’s never been a popular view.

Taken this afternoon: the borheen where Jonty confronted Mickey; perhaps, for all I know, the very spot. In 1922 it was a rough unmetalled track. From here the family home was about half a mile further up the hill. Our house is about half a mile down, to the left of the picture, which was taken by my friend Mark.

Another story. This one was told to Eileen and me by another brother, Uncle Jonty, when in his eighties, not long before he died. Jonty would have been 18 at the time of this incident, the fifth in a family of 11, and Mickey was the eldest, age 22, and you need to keep that dynamic in mind. It would be late 1922 I imagine. Jonty had joined the anti-Treaty IRA and was on manoeuvres in the vicinity of the location of this afternoon's photo. A Free State Army truck drove along the road (right outside the window where I'm writing this) and out jumped Uncle Mickey in his uniform and strode up the borheen, up the hill towards the family home. Jonty ran to intercept him and challenged him. Maybe he said “Halt who goes there” I'm not sure. Anyway, Mickey brushed him aside, retorting “you know very well who I am, I'm off to see my mother, now shoot me or get out of my way”. With genuine regret in his voice Jonty told us that he was not under orders that night to shoot, so had to let him go. Quite chilling actually. Some years later Eileen was discussing Neil Jordan’s recently released Michael Collins film with some old fellows in Ballyporeen who confirmed the story and added that Mickey was lucky to survive the night. Men came to the house looking for him, but didn't find him as his mother had hidden him out in the fields.

18th August 1922: one of the Crossley Tenders in the convoy

Mickey used to claim (but no-one can positively confirm this) that he was at BealnaBlath on 18th August 1922 the day Michael Collins was shot in an ambush there. A defining event in Irish history. I've been in touch with the Collins 22 Society. They haven't succeeded in compiling a complete list of those present, though they are still trying.  There were 20 soldiers in two open trucks known as Crossley Tenders. For all anyone knows Mickey was one of the soldiers in that photograph above.

Of course his claim to have been at BealnaBlath on 18th August may not have been a claim to have been on duty in the actual convoy that conveyed Michael Collins. Doubtless troops would have been despatched urgently from Macroom as soon as the report came in. Suppose Mickey was amongst these, that would still count as being at BealnaBlath on 18th August. Or indeed the whole thing could just be a colourful tale he made up. BealnaBlath is in Co Cork about 80 miles from here. 

Mickey had huge charm. Eileen remembers him from when she was five. After falling into a clump of nettles she had to have iodine, and fled from anyone who threatened to apply the dreadful stuff. But when Uncle Mickey called her she ran to him even though she knew he would hold her down while the purple stinging liquid was dabbed on her nettle burns. I'm sorry I never met him. Eileen says he would “light up a room”.

Mickey’s descendants have only sketchy details of his participation in the War of Independence and the Civil War. 

Black & Tan Medal (no bar)

The image is of a medal Mickey was awarded, known as a Black & Tan Medal, in reference to the Black & Tan War, the popular name for the War of Independence. The official description is Medal, without bar, to persons whose service is not deemed to be active military service, but who were members of Oglaigh na hEireann (Irish Republican Army), Fianna Eireann, Cumann na mBan or the Irish Citizen Army for the three months ended on the 11th of July 1921. July 1921 was the start of the Truce period: so this indicates that in the War of Independence Mickey had a non-combat role of some sort. However, I've seen a website which claims that despite the official description it would be wrong to conclude that all those who received the medal without the Bar were not in combat; in many cases men who had confirmed combat records did not receive the Bar, and the reason came down to politics and money - the Bar brought with it a pension.

If Mickey applied for a War of Independence pension (which Patrick says he likely did, and was rejected) and a Free State Army pension, files will exist. All medal and pension applications are being processed to be available to the public in 2016, an event eagerly awaited by historians and family researchers. The date has been selected to mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising.

The old cliché 

Uncle Mickey’s story illustrates the old cliché about the Civil War pitching brother against brother. But Eileen says there was remarkably little animosity within the family arising from these events. Nobody spoke of them and it was years later that she first heard the stories I've related here.

Mickey’s son John (Eileen’s cousin) has some memories worth sharing. Chief amongst these, that his father was a devoted follower of Michael Collins and from time to time would literally cry about his being assassinated. This would turn into a tirade against Dev (de Valera), whom he held to be responsible, fervently praying that he should be shot.

John adds: “As kids we took no notice, knowing nothing of these matters, regarding all his mutterings as little short of rubbish. Anyway my mother had a very curt and common sense way of dismissing such things as totally irrelevant and a complete waste of time.”

Mickey’s occasional outbursts aside, John never at any time while he was growing up heard the civil war mentioned, or opinions being expressed anywhere, inside or outside of the home. Nor was it touched on at any school he attended. No more than if it had never occurred. He supposes that in the 1940’s everyone was too close to the events for dispassionate views to be expressed: not history yet, but rather a subject to steer clear of as memories could still be explosive. It was as if the entire nation was in denial, he says. Moreover Hitler and the world war seemed to tie up people’s thoughts in other directions.

John adds that when he was young, relations with his uncle Jonty were always most cordial “so fortunately the incident in the borheen was passed over with no lasting ill effects.”

I visit passage tombs in the Boyne Valley

With Cork Astronomy Club last weekend to Newgrange (top photo) in the Boyne Valley. A passage tomb - a vast mound covering a passage of stone slabs, and a chamber where cremated remains were interred. Older than the pyramids of Egypt. You can stand under a 5000 year old roof, as good today as the day it was built.

Am penning an essay which will include the regrettable reconstruction by O’Kelly in the 1970’s, why passage tombs were not observatories, why neolithic farmers didn't need calendars to tell them when to plant, and why I was unconvinced by a film at the visitor centre suggesting the builders of Newgrange believed they had to propitiate the sun-god to prevent it disappearing entirely in midwinter.

At Loughcrew several passage tombs are built at the top of a high hill (bottom photo - yes I'm afraid that old codger is me). I'm not clear if they had to haul the stones up the hill, or did they find them at the top?

Flogging a dead horse

Food waste crime scene

Best horse burger joke so far: Tesco has been flogging a dead horse.  Seriously though what grieves me is the food waste issue. In Ireland (and UK for all I know) they're going to bin thousands of perfectly good burgers just for containing horse meat. Yes mislabelling them is a crime - but throwing them away is a crime too.

And I know we can debate that perfectly good bit ... deeply substandard is nearer the mark. But it's not the horse meat that makes them substandard. Some Irish charity leaders have asked for the burgers to be donated to them. The official line however from Ireland's poverty charity St Vincent de Paul (SVP), in a statement in today’s Irish Times, dissents: “Food poverty is an important issue and one which the SVP has actively sought to highlight. But the SVP nationally does not ask for the distribution of the beef burgers withdrawn from sale to be directed to charities. We do not believe that it is a feasible option in terms of the nature of the product or the logistics in its redistribution.”

If it's true the burgers pose no health risk, which the authorities claim, then the shops ought to put them on sale at a knock down rate with the rubric “These burgers may contain horse”. At the right price they would sell like hot cakes.  If I was king there would be a food waste law to enforce this sort of thing.

(PS: if the horse meat got in there illegally how can the environmental health inspectors be so sure about no health risk? Seeing as they weren't there at the time to check it's not dead racehorses full of noxious chemicals? Still they do seem to be sure.)

Links: a food waste blog in the London Independent last week before the horseburger story broke, and a piece about freegans I wrote 16 months ago .

Assisted suicide: a way must be found

Marie Fleming lost her case for assisted suicide. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Sad but not surprised to see that Marie Fleming has lost her case in the Irish high court clamming her right to assisted suicide so that she can be spared a horrible death and die lawfully and with dignity with her family present. 

RTÉ radio reported that the judges were deeply impressed with Marie Fleming as a witness. President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said: "Her courage in adversity is both humbling and inspiring … She was in many ways the most remarkable witness which any member of this court has ever been privileged to encounter."

Even though she lost her case she has been awarded costs. According to The Irish Times, an appeal is almost certain, and the Supreme Court is likely to facilitate an urgent hearing, possibly within weeks.

It seems it was the “Pandora’s box” argument which won the day ...  “unforeseeable and perhaps uncontrollable” changes in attitude and behaviour regarding assisted suicide ... even with the most rigorous safeguards it “would be impossible to ensure the aged, the disabled, the poor, the unwanted, the rejected, the lonely, the impulsive, the financially compromised and emotionally vulnerable would not avail of this option in order to avoid a sense of being a burden on their family and society” ...  “deeply worrying” evidence of “a strikingly high” increase in involuntary deaths in countries where assisted suicide is legal.

Those issues are crucial, yes, but I'll just say that in my bones a way must be found. If it was me I would want it. I find it hard to believe there's anyone who wouldn't.