Rose could find better use for her time than seeking repeal of Eighth Amendment
A Chara, We read again of the Sydney Rose, this time of the temptation she feels to come back to Ireland to help promote the removal of our Eighth Amendment.
I think the organisers of the Rose Festival should remind this young lady of some alternative campaigns. She could start one in defence of our men, against the liquidation of farm holdings under our very liberal divorce laws. She could campaign against the actions of the banks in the tracker mortgage scandal.
Or I could, with the help of the Festival organisers, introduce her to two young ladies, about her own age, who complained to me that in their universities, here in Ireland, they are intimidated into silence by the group-think that favours abortion.
Here is something else. Australia has a bitter experience of forced assimilation, the forced assimilation of its native people into the society of the new settler. I don’t know if Australia had the language eradication policies that we had here in Ireland, where the use of Irish was punished – punished by parents and school masters usually.
I can see a direct parallel with what is now being attempted. Eradicate, not this time the native language, but the spiritual heritage of the people – and get the people themselves to go along with this.
The Festival organisers should inform the Sydney Rose of some positive developments in our democracy recently, which augur well for the removal of celebrities and funded lobby groups from our legislative process. Our Taoiseach bravely defied the group thinkers recently with his statement that the pre-born child is human and merits protection, and that a disabled child bears no blame for being disabled. He defended the Parliament as the place to make laws, laws that are right for our own country.
Equally, it was encouraging to learn that the main opposition, Fianna Fáil, voted by a majority, at its annual convention, to protect the unborn.
The Festival organisers might also explain the following to the Sydney Rose. The town of Tralee is historically the seat of the Kerry elite: it’s the place where ordinary people were hanged. It was the place from whose sea port our poor were transported to penal settlements overseas.
In many ways Tralee remains a ‘ baile gallda’, with no significant Irish initiative to match what Monsignor Ó Fiannachta legacied to Dingle.
Le meas,
Gerald O’Carroll, Dooradoyle, Limerick.