Jim Cusack hits a few nails firmly on the head, I'd say...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/now-th...ch-1410557.html
Now the taigs are filthy rich
By Jim Cusack
Sunday June 15 2008
Earlier this year, when the Rich List for Northern Ireland was published , there was one little detail that went completely unnoticed -- well over half of those on it were Catholics. Places one, two and three were all filled by Catholics. The richest part of Belfast, the Malone Road -- think Ballsbridge in Dublin 4 -- now has a Catholic majority. Across the city, at least 75 per cent of the Victorian red-brick villas in the leafy avenues leading off the upper Antrim Road -- think Clontarf -- are owned by Taigs. They drive big cars and have holiday homes, many in Donegal, but more and more they are jetting off to exotic locations where they dine and play golf alongside their fellow arriviste multi-millionaires from the Republic.
The next time you are in Belfast, drive along the Lisburn Road, which runs parallel with the Malone Road, and check out the boutiques and cafes. There is an exhibition opening in one or other of the art galleries at least twice a week in season. High-end retail in Belfast is booming. In the city centre, the local jewellers, Lunn's, has gone from one to three stores in recent years, the latest branch opening in the city's spectacular new shopping centre, Victoria Square. Jigsaw, the top-end UK ladies fashion chain, which closed its Grafton Street store in 2006 to the dismay of many of its southern customers, has just opened outside the new Victoria Square and is reported to be doing very nicely.
Chris Sherry, editor of the Ulster Tatler, the North's social and personal monthly, refers to the Lisburn Road as getting a "bit like Kensington". Ulster Tatler, the bible of Ulster's social elite, has, according to consultants Millward Brown, 279,000 readers. In response to the consumer buzz surrounding the Lisburn Road, it launched a new magazine, South Belfast Life, a few years ago. "It's doing fine," says Chris.
If you want to see the North's rich living it big, check out the annual Waterloo Ball charity bash organised by the Lord Taverners. They flew in Bryan Ferry this year. Top of the raffle list is one of the last remaining Back to the Future De Loreans.
Hold on a second. Isn't Northern Ireland supposed to be, er, depressed, like, after three decades of terrorist violence? Aren't the Catholics supposed to be "oppressed" like Gerry Adams keeps banging on about and the Southern meeja still seems to believe? Bertie Ahern certainly thought so when he gave €580m (yes, €580 million) of our money to build roads in the North after the St Andrew's Agreement. Incidentally, if it does go to road building, the bulk of it will go to very rich Catholics who dominate the construction industry in the North. Thanks, Bertie.
A Belfast property professional, interviewed to ascertain just how well Catholics are doing in the North -- after he had stopped laughing -- rhymed off a string of Catholics whose fortunes he put in the "hundreds of millions". He had heard recently that 13 private jets were on order for customers in the North. The majority, he said, were ordered . . . that's right, by Catholics.
So why do an awful lot of people in the "26 counties", as Sinn Fein and many Northern Catholics continue to refer to the Republic, still believe the myth about Catholics being "oppressed" in the North? Many people still adhere to the strange belief that the Taigs are the "most oppressed people ever", a kind of northwest European version of the Palestinians: people who have to "struggle".
What did Bobby Sands kill himself for anyway? Was it so that his fellow Northern Catholics could own jets? Drive Beemers?
Bobby would be especially bewildered by what has happened to his fellow Provos. They've let him down big time, poor schmuck. Most of them have moved up the economic ladder, and out of the oppressed "ghettos". Your average West Belfast Provo now lives in one of the new private housing developments that have sprung up in the past 20 years on the western outskirts of the city. One of the most popular with the Lads is the area where Sinn Fein MLA and former bomber, Gerry Kelly lives.
And a funny thing about the rich Provos is this: they are still looked down on by the Middle Class Catholics (MCCs).
When the Provos started buying holiday homes in Donegal, they targeted the lower half of the county. It suited them to head west along the M1, which is beside west Belfast, and head over to Donegal via Enniskillen. Around Glenties, where IRA tout Denis Donaldson was shot dead in his holiday home, is popular. Gerry Adams doesn't much care to rub shoulders with the rank and file and has his holiday gaff a little further north, at Gortahork, a place much favoured in the past by the Belfast middle-class Taigs.
The Belfast MCCs congregate further north. They drive there via the M2, north to Derry. Marks & Spencer, that definition of middle-class taste, has located a new food-only outlet just before John Hume Bridge over the Foyle to cater for them, when they stop off on their way to Donegal for the weekend. They fill up at the wine department, which saves them having to drink pints with the Gaelic-speaking yokels.
The MCCs -- remember, most of them are only one or two generations away from the "ghettos" -- are, like middle classes anywhere, smug: they love to make jokes at the expense of their social inferiors. The Malone Road and Antrim Road crowd even have a witty quip about the holiday-home class demarcation in Donegal. The Sinn Fein voters whose cottages are in the south of the county drink their lager in "Costa del Provo". The middle classes chill out and sip their M&S wine in "SDLP sur Mer".
The Shinners may now have loadsamoney, big motors and holiday homes, but they are still social death. You move to Malone ward in Belfast not only to ascend the social ladder but, more importantly, to get the hell away from west Belfast and the Provos.
Malone votes for three parties: the SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance, usually in that order. There is apparently a handful of votes for the Shinners, a cause of great amusement and some speculation at dinner parties. On the Malone, they call it the "Tiocfaidh ar la-di-da vote". They joke about Sinn Fein's latest wheeze of gaelicising street signs -- done largely to annoy Prods -- and laugh at how Malone Road will become Bothar Maigh Lon.
The most ambitious and the group that most hates Sinn Fein in the MCC scene is the less rich mob: the young aspiring professionals and those in mid-ranking civil service jobs. They occupy the smaller houses on the avenues that stretch away -- but not too far away -- from the mansions on the Malone and Antrim roads. They dream of large piles on Malone Park.
This mob is as ferociously anti-Shinner as Paisleyites, but for different reasons, of course.
In the last general election, Gerry Adams had apparently convinced himself that this Catholic social stratum was ready to embrace his great love and leadership. The Shinners poured massive resources into Belfast South in the 2005 election. The growth of the Catholic middle-class vote in south Belfast meant that the seat went, for the first time, to an SDLP candidate, Dr Alastair McDonnell.
Sinn Fein candidate Alex Maskey's profile had been pumped massively by the SF machine, which made sure he appeared alongside Gerry Adams on every single "peace process" photocall -- and there were lots of them. Maskey came fourth, beating the Rainbow Dream Ticket candidate and the guy from the Workers' Party (they still have that up there).
Truth is, cross the Ormeau Bridge over the Lagan, up into those nice leafy streets, and the arriviste MCCs would rather be seen wearing shell suits and trainers than vote Sinn Fein. Gerry, baby: Middle Class Catholics define their social position primarily through the distance between themselves and you and your voters. About as many Catholics vote Sinn Fein in south and south west Belfast as in Dun Laoghaire. If you live in a part of Belfast that has a street sign in both Irish and English, any self-respecting MCC would cross the road to avoid you.
The story is the same in Foyle and south Down -- the other two Westminster constituencies where the SDLP was returned. In the last local government elections in 2005, there was a tussle between Sinn Fein and the Green Party for one of the last seats in South Down. The Greens won. In short, you can easily spot rich Catholic areas in the North at election time. They vote SDLP.
Recently, the MCCs have been in revolt over -- no, not British oppression, dummy, but over the Sinn Fein Stormont Education Minister Catriona Ruane's attempts to abolish academic selection for 11-year-olds.
The North has a secondary education system that is based on selection: children who do well in their 11-Plus exams go to grammar schools, and those who don't do too well go to "secondary" schools. Lefties and Sinn Fein hate the 11-Plus exam. But, the Catholic middle class got where they are today because they were smart and determined and they went to exceptional secondary schools where the results are exceptional.
The MCCs in the North are as nuts on education as middle classes anywhere. Grammar schools such as St Malachy's on the Antrim Road gets near-as-makes-no-difference 100 per cent of its A-Level students into third level. Twenty or 30 pupils a year from St Malachy's go to Cambridge or Oxford, making it one of the top-rated schools in the UK.
St Malachy's has wonderful facilities that make "top" schools in the Republic look just ordinary. And, get this, school-fee-paying parents of Dublin: St Malachy's is, more or less, free. All the schools in Belfast are. Those damned Brit-oppressor taxpayers pick up the tab. The poshest girl's school in Belfast, Victoria College (twinned with Rathdown in Glenageary in South County Dublin) does have fees, around £370, or about a twelfth of Rathdown's. Of course, the posh Catholics are also sending their children in larger and larger numbers to the post-Protestant/state grammars such as Royal Belfast Academic Institution, Belfast Royal Academy, Methodist College and Victoria. This is the first generation of Catholic boys and girls in the history of Northern Ireland to play rugby and hockey. This is the first generation of Protestant/state pupils to have Irish on the curriculum.
While the Catholic middle class flourishes, the Protestants aren't having such a good time. They feel oppressed now. Their sons and daughters, when they pass their A Levels, tend to go to university in Scotland and England -- and afterwards, they inevitably stay there. They don't like Queen's in Belfast because it's full of rough Sinn Fein-supporting country types who get drunk and play hurling with each other at night in the flatland around the university. The Belfast journalist, David McKittrick (working-class Prod from Shankill married to nice middle-class Catholic girl) last year made famous a new acronym that describes the flight of these young middle-class Protestants -- NIPPLES (Northern Ireland Protestant Professionals Living in England and Scotland).
OK, so life is good for the MCCs but not so much the PCCs whose children are clearing off. But at least they are all living well. Remember, they have one of the finest hospital services in Europe and, of course, that's free as well. Aneurin Bevan's free-from-cradle-to-grave health service encompassed Northern Ireland. Those damn B*atard Brit oppressors at it again. The only way to spend a night on a trolley in the North is to actually demand it. And it would probably be a nice corridor.
OK, enough of the good life of the MCCs. What about those who haven't made it? What's it actually like living in a Catholic working-class ghetto? It's sh*te, according to people who live there and the social workers and academics who study them.
In Belfast, there are 83,000 "income-deprived" people, and an awful lot of them are Prods.
Eight out of the 10 most deprived electoral wards in Northern Ireland are in Belfast. Nine of the 10 worst "health-deprivation" wards are in Belfast. Belfast is now 47.2 per cent Catholic and 48.6 per cent Protestant, so you can guess at the maths. Maybe the income deprivation is a bit higher on the Catholic side because the Protestants have been moving out of the city to places like east Antrim where they are in a big majority.
The peace process spawned an incredible number of "community" jobs, which have proved a haven for ex-terrorists. A study by Ulster University found recently that there are 30,000 "community workers" in Northern Ireland, again, paid for by those dirty Brit taxpaying sonsabitches (although we and the other EU taxpayers have also fired in a couple of billion to help smooth the way for ex-terrorists into less destructive work).
But, nonetheless, west Belfast, Ardoyne and West Bank in Derry have gone down the plughole. These are the social and economic models of a Sinn Fein-dominated society. They are like a German Democratic Republic on the dole, and on dope.
Adams and his mates have largely decamped. On March 14 this year, Gerry was living it big in New York with his new best buddies, multimillionaire CEOs of companies such as bankers and sub-prime mortgage operators, Mutual of America and Lehman's, at Bobby Van's on 54th Street, the steak house where Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack ate, drank and picked up broads.
Later that same evening, back home in the heart of west Belfast, Frank "Bap" McGreevy, a 51-year-old ex-IRA prisoner, well-known and liked in the community, was beaten to death in his home. A TV was smashed over his head as he lay unconscious in the living room of his flat on Ross Road in the lower Falls. Bap was one of the IRA people who didn't cash in on the peace process.
Years ago, the Provos would simply have kneecapped the trouble-causing youngsters, but since getting into Stormont they have had to stop the punishment beatings and shootings, which has not been popular with the electorate. The Shinners can no longer blame the Brits or the "Black Bastards" in the RUC/PSNI now that they have signed up to policing and the British Army has left for sunnier war zones.
Drink- and drug-fuelled joyriders and thugs are making life a misery and there are no IRA goon squads to break their legs any more. The Shinners set up a community restorative justice scheme -- paid for by them Brit taxpayers -- but it has been useless.
In the past year, two other local men have also been murdered as crime and drug-taking have spiralled out of control in Gerry Adams's heartland, from which he is increasingly absent. Harry Holland, another decent and popular ex-republican, was stabbed to death as he tried to stop youths stealing his van from outside his grocery shop. Another man was killed in a machete and hatchet attack at his home off the Falls Road.
In any other constituency in the UK, you might expect the local political leadership to come in for some kind of criticism. But Sinn Fein has turned west Belfast into an old-fashioned, GDR-style fiefdom and no criticism of the Great Leader is allowed.
What Adams and no one else expected was an attack from inside his own backyard. After the murder of Bap McGreevy, the local rag, The Andersonstown News, ran an anonymous column attacking Adams and his rich pals for abandoning the area to hoods and scumbags. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The newspaper owner and Adams devotee, Mairtin O Muilleoir (a former Sinn Fein councillor who was present at Bobby Van's in New York and wrote up Adams's lunch with the CEOs on his blogsite) must have been equally shocked. In the next edition, the "Andytown" carried a front-page reply from Adams denouncing the article as "offensive and hurtful" and a suitably grovelling apology from the editor and presumed author of the offending article, Robin Livingstone.
So there you have it: rich Catholics living in Brit-supported paradise. Poor Catholics living in Sinn Fein-dominated hell. Neither wants a united Ireland. And, incidentally, just in case you were thinking about it Mr Cowen, we really couldn't afford to keep them.
- Jim Cusack
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:01:40 PM
Jim Cusack hits a few nails firmly on the head, I'd say...
Then you'd be wrong. There's enough holes in that article to drain away all the flood water from the gardens of the MCC, but like any other Cusack piece it's not actually meant to be a bit of serious analysis, so I won't bother.
Love the way he describes our health service as free..why does he think we are heavily taxed and where does he think this money goes?!
Complete and utter shite to equate the wealth of a few upwardly mobile Fenians with the rest of the nationalist population ... typical Jim Cusack crap to blame everything on the Shinners. I live in west belfast and IMO the real reason for the rise in crime is because the PSNI - and that english p***k of a chief constable who spends more time issuing writs against newspapers who dare question the level of his expenses than doing his job - are a shower of useless bastards.
Off course its not your terminology............... ::)
Dont you have some work to do or something eg...................YAWN
Quote from: Donagh on August 19, 2008, 02:08:17 PM
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:01:40 PM
Jim Cusack hits a few nails firmly on the head, I'd say...
Then you'd be wrong. There's enough holes in that article to drain away all the flood water from the gardens of the MCC, but like any other Cusack piece it's not actually meant to be a bit of serious analysis, so I won't bother.
Ah, it must be "full of holes" because you say so. Fair enough, no need to clog up Tinternet by pointing out exactly how so, then.
What's that? Oh, it's because he's not actually being
serious.That's curious, because if he was being sarcastic or satirical, or even merely out for a laugh, you'd wonder why he took the trouble to quote so much evidence, much of it statistical (Rich List, voting patterns, Education, demographics etc), which constitutes clear evidence to back his central thesis...
Sorry, Donagh, but you'll have to do better than that. Perhaps next time you should wait until someone in Connolly House is available to compose a reply for you.
What's that? They're all at their cottages in South Donegal until September? Bummer. ;)
Cac bó. ::)
Btw I'm sure the great and good amongst Stoop "MCC's" were/are against the 11 plus as well.
Still why let that get in the way of a good old anti SF rant!
Quote from: full back on August 19, 2008, 02:19:31 PM
Off course its not your terminology............... ::)
No, it wasn't. You still smarting from the U105 thread? (Btw, you might want to know that MCC's listen to Radio Ulster, or even - shock horror - Radio 4, if you want to fit in at their Dinner Parties)
Quote from: full back on August 19, 2008, 02:19:31 PM
Dont you have some work to do or something eg...................YAWN
Nah, the
Taigs sorry, Catholics, have got all the jobs...
Anyhow, much as I love to talk about me, and more especially to hear you talk about me, this article is about something else entirely. So do you actually have anything constructive to say about it?
Nah?
Thought not... ::)
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:26:12 PM
Anyhow, much as I love to talk about me, and more especially to hear you talk about me, this article is about something else entirely. So do you actually have anything constructive to say about it?
Nah?
Thought not... ::)
I dont think you got enough hugs & kisses as a child...hence coming on here & trying to wind people up & looking for attention
Run along to the owc thread, Im sure your post will be applauded
Quote from: Gaoth Dobhair Abu on August 19, 2008, 02:20:48 PM
Cac bó. ::)
Nearly as devastating a critique as Donagh's! Wow! ::)
Quote from: Gaoth Dobhair Abu on August 19, 2008, 02:20:48 PM
Btw I'm sure the great and good amongst Stoop "MCC's" were/are against the 11 plus as well.
Still why let that get in the way of a good old anti SF rant!
Stop Press! One late point of substance from GDA. Hooray!
Anyhow, I'd have thought you might have picked one which better suits your case. You see, the SDLP are actually playing this rather cutely, from what I can see. On the one hand, they are holding the high moral ("Socialist") line by being officially opposed to selection, whilst still actually sending their children to selective, even (Shock Horror!) Prod schools. And they're leaving it to SF and the Unions etc to criticise those Catholic schools which want to retain selection (Lumen Christi, anyone?)
Meanwhile, when it all goes to Hell in a Bucket, all those MCC parents will find they're having to fund their kids' education to get into a decent school, and those aspiring Working Class Catholic parents who can't afford it will find that their local grammar school is becoming a "sink" comprehensive following its merger with the local secondary school. At which point, the SDLP will be able to dodge the blame, since that will land firmly on the shoulders of Catriona Ruane, before you can say "Colombia"!
Alasdair McDonnell! He could at least tried to spell the candidates name correctly. ::)
The last seat in SOUTH Down tussle between SF and the Greens, would that maybe have been North Down where Brian Wilson got the last seat for the Greens, just beating Joe Boyle of the SDLP! A constituancy may I add that has absolutely no Nationalist representation!
Lazy sensationalist journalism.
There are many other facts incorrect in this piece but I couldn't be arsed wasting any more of my day at the minute anyway.
Rarely would come acorss a political analysis with so little basis in fact and so dependent on lies, half-truths and exagerations
QuoteAren't the Catholics supposed to be "oppressed" like Gerry Adams keeps banging on about and the Southern meeja still seems to believe?
Jim name one instance where a Nationalist leader has recently said that Catholics are oppressed. They were, they aren't any more, thanks to a lot of hard work froma lot of people.
QuoteHe had heard recently that 13 private jets were on order for customers in the North. The majority, he said, were ordered . . . that's right, by Catholics.
So the fortunes of 7 or 8 people are somehow reflective of a trend in society. Bit of a jump there.
QuoteWhat did Bobby Sands kill himself for anyway? Was it so that his fellow Northern Catholics could own jets? Drive Beemers?
This one isn't worthy of comment.
QuoteThe MCCs -- remember, most of them are only one or two generations away from the "ghettos" -- are, like middle classes anywhere, smug: they love to make jokes at the expense of their social inferiors. The Malone Road and Antrim Road crowd even have a witty quip about the holiday-home class demarcation in Donegal. The Sinn Fein voters whose cottages are in the south of the county drink their lager in "Costa del Provo". The middle classes chill out and sip their M&S wine in "SDLP sur Mer".
Making up something and throwing in a few foreign names doesn't actually make it true.
QuoteIn the last general election, Gerry Adams had apparently convinced himself that this Catholic social stratum was ready to embrace his great love and leadership. The Shinners poured massive resources into Belfast South in the 2005 election. The growth of the Catholic middle-class vote in south Belfast meant that the seat went, for the first time, to an SDLP candidate, Dr Alastair McDonnell.
The Unionist vote split in two following Martin Smith's retirement. Alaistair came through the middle to win the seat. Little to do with a growth int he middle classes. The main growth in the consituency in recent years has come from SF who had no seat in 1998 but now have a fairly safe seat for Maskey.
QuoteEight out of the 10 most deprived electoral wards in Northern Ireland are in Belfast. Nine of the 10 worst "health-deprivation" wards are in Belfast. Belfast is now 47.2 per cent Catholic and 48.6 per cent Protestant, so you can guess at the maths.
Why not tell us the maths though Jim? Couldn't be hard for a top jounalist like yourself to find out. You can be sure that if the maths actually backed up his arguement he wouldn't be asking us to guess.
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:01:40 PM
[So there you have it: rich Catholics living in Brit-supported paradise. Poor Catholics living in Sinn Fein-dominated hell. Neither wants a united Ireland.
obviously has finger on the pulse, that one line give cusack and his article all the credeence it needs.
Still its nice to see the unionists have at last found an Irish newspaper they like ...... so much so one of them actually started a thread!
Quote from: full back on August 19, 2008, 02:36:43 PM
I dont think you got enough hugs & kisses as a child...hence coming on here & trying to wind people up & looking for attention
It seems to me - if the opening responses from "the usual suspects" are anything to go by - that
Cusack is doing a very good job of winding people up without my help! :)
Quote from: full back on August 19, 2008, 02:36:43 PM
Run along to the owc thread, Im sure your post will be applauded
It's already on there. But what's the point of "preaching to the converted"? In my experience, consensus doesn't tend to lead to healthy debate, which is why I thought to post it here.
On which point, have you anything constructive to say about the piece itself? Or do you just prefer to "shoot the messenger"?
Quote from: red hander on August 19, 2008, 02:14:58 PM
I live in west belfast and IMO the real reason for the rise in crime is because the PSNI... ...are a shower of useless b**tards.
So it's the PSNI who are murdering and terrorising people in thier homes, joyriding cars and dealing drugs, then...
I see.
I didn't know lord's was flooded?
Cusack's article read like a bad David McWilliams parody.
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:01:40 PM
So why do an awful lot of people in the "26 counties", as Sinn Fein and many Northern Catholics continue to refer to the Republic, still believe the myth about Catholics being "oppressed" in the North? Many people still adhere to the strange belief that the Taigs are the "most oppressed people ever", a kind of northwest European version of the Palestinians: people who have to "struggle".
The most salient point of the article, the very point he is trying to rebutt, is the one that lacks any credibility and no evidence is offered How many (and who) think that people are being oppressed? Is "MOPERY" an Irish/Nationalist-only trait? Cusack offers some soft evidence: unnamed business men (chuckling away), rich lists from magazines, imaginary lines in Donegal and selective use of election results. I haven't checked all the "facts" used but in my past experience of this publication I have found such "facts" to be nothing of the sort.
I find his analysis of crime in West Belfast very odd indeed. No doubt as an elected representative Gerry Adams can and should contribute to solving a problem. However, anti-social behaviour is not unique to West Belfast or Northern Ireland. First and foremost you expect local policing to be at the forefront of tackling such issues. However unintended (I suspect) on his part, Cusack is adding grist to the mill of those who say the police are failing republican communities.
Personally I have damn-all time for Sinn Féin and their brand of politics, however I hope that they have truly turned a corner. I feel however that others (like Cusack) actually harbour a hope that republicans go back to their old ways, just so they can be proved right.
No doubt Sinn Fein (probably due to their socialist outlook) are more popular in working-class areas. That is true in the republic too. That doesn't necessarily mean that Sinn Féin are the reason these areas are working class or impoverished. Also aside from Adams' holiday home and Kelly's Belfast home, I have don't know where any Shinners representatives live (salubrious or otherwise)
I'd be interested to know which nails are hit on the head here.
/Jim.
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:50:57 PM
Quote from: red hander on August 19, 2008, 02:14:58 PM
I live in west belfast and IMO the real reason for the rise in crime is because the PSNI... ...are a shower of useless b**tards.
So it's the PSNI who are murdering and terrorising people in thier homes, joyriding cars and dealing drugs, then...
I see.
No, they're so crap at their jobs that when people report murders, people being terrorised in their homes, joyriding and drug dealing, it takes them so long to tear themselves away from the chinese takeaway that the culprits aren't caught, and are so emboldened by the pathetic response of the rozzers that it just encourages them to carry on with their law-breaking
Can anybody explain the constant attacks by that paper on Northen Nationalists - is there a reason for it?
Cusack is a complete joke on the North - I've read articles that were just absolute tabloid rubbish but yet he is allowed free rein to motor on.
Every aspect of Northern Nationalist life is ridiculed by that paper and that is no exaggeration - you only need to look at the vitriolic attacks on Armagh the year they won.
O'Reilly seems genuinely interested in the North and made big donations to Queens so the reason for this is beyond me.
Cusack, Harris, O Connor & Co are all a bit too predictable at this stage.
Article is full of unsubstantiated pish. St Malachy's has about 1 person per year going to oxbridge, and more than a few MCCs on the Malone Road that I know would be more republican than a lot of people I've met from West Belfast.
cusack may not be capable of accurate journalism , but he is in the ha'penny place when compared to a real anti taig 'writer' like yer man graig in the 'times on sunday'.
he is on a one man don quixote-esque mission to tell everyone that the ira are still fighting some war and so on
I wonder where he says this war actually is, as after reading the headline of his piece , my interest wanes after the first sentence to then go read more accurate things like the horroscopes! :D
Being a southerner I dont get the paper, like you oppressed nordies ::)
However if that article is anything to go by, it seems like the daily sun for Unionists. Of course thats just a guess based on one article.
Poorly written stuff with no substance, obviously written to either wind one side up, or play to the lowest common denominator on the other side.
Not worthy of further comment or debate to be quite honest. I dont think it was meant as a serious article at all, so shouldnt be taken seriously.
On a side note, from a southerner, I wasnt of the opinion that catholics were currently being "oppressed" in the North. But thats just me.
If what Cusack wrote can be taken as fact, I see a case of history repeating itself.
I'm referring to Michael Davitt and the Irish Land League and the period in question was the late 1800s.
I assume there no need to go into this in detail but Davitt was the prime mover and shaker behind the League in its struggle to gain wrest ownership of the land from the landlords of the day and have it transferred to their tenants.
His oft quoted assessment was that: "the land question can be definitely settled only by making the cultivators of the soil proprietors." (That's some mouthful!)
At any rate, Davitt and the league were to be successful and, beginning with the Land Act in 1881, a series of laws was passed, gradually transferring the land from the landlords to the tenants.
That should have been that, as the old saying puts it but Davitt was to get an awful shock!
Once the tenants who had been oppressed and downtrodden got a foot onto the property ladder they dropped all interest in his dreams of a new political order and concentrated on matters of a more earthly nature.
They wanted to get as rich as possible and as soon as possible.
Poor Davitt was to refer to this disappointment many times in his later career.
If Jim Cusack is to be beloved, I'd imagine that Gerry Adams must be feeling the same as Davitt did. Maybe the Nationalist masses get greedy when they get their hands on loads of dosh and concentrate on matching and surpassing the lifestyles of their neighbours.
Maybe Cusack's article was a load of verbal bull manure.
Did Jim_Murphy_74 got it right instead?
QuoteThe most salient point of the article, the very point he is trying to rebutt, is the one that lacks any credibility and no evidence is offered How many (and who) think that people are being oppressed? Is "MOPERY" an Irish/Nationalist-only trait? Cusack offers some soft evidence: unnamed business men (chuckling away), rich lists from magazines, imaginary lines in Donegal and selective use of election results. I haven't checked all the "facts" used but in my past experience of this publication I have found such "facts" to be nothing of the sort.
Quote from: his holiness nb on August 19, 2008, 04:32:18 PM
Poorly written stuff with no substance, obviously written to either wind one side up, or play to the lowest common denominator on the other side.
Spot on holy man.
The highlighted part would be very apt for the people reading & posting this drivel
Quote from: Evil Genius on August 19, 2008, 02:19:42 PM
That's curious, because if he was being sarcastic or satirical, or even merely out for a laugh, you'd wonder why he took the trouble to quote so much evidence, much of it statistical (Rich List, voting patterns, Education, demographics etc), which constitutes clear evidence to back his central thesis...
Thesis? Get real. This is just the ramblings of a lazy journalist, content in the knowledge that his readers are unlikely to be well enough informed to ridicule him.
"They fill up at the wine department, which saves them having to drink pints with the Gaelic-speaking yokels."
That is complete bullshit. I love a nice pint with the Donegal locals, have even invited a few to my garden parties on occasion.
Cusack is as simplistic as he is daft. His article never even scratched the surface and wasn't ground-breaking with new information. In fact, if anything, numerous people have done studies of the northern statelet in fewer words and made more sense. I wonder when Cusack was north last and who exactly he is talking to. Is it bar flies in the Bot ?
He tries to encapsulate so much in so few words and fails, miserably.
Quote from: red hander on August 19, 2008, 02:14:58 PM
Complete and utter shite to equate the wealth of a few upwardly mobile Fenians with the rest of the nationalist population ... typical Jim Cusack crap to blame everything on the Shinners. I live in west belfast and IMO the real reason for the rise in crime is because the PSNI - and that english p***k of a chief constable who spends more time issuing writs against newspapers who dare question the level of his expenses than doing his job - are a shower of useless b**tards.
you support spin fein?
not surprised you want to see the brits back on the streets of west belfast.
jim cusack is a traitor for writing that shit.there are irish men and women living in occupied ireland that are still being denied human rights.
i reckon all the st.brigids lads would have something to say to this ejit. its as if he takes pride in being ignorant
ive changed my last post.i was angry and upset when i wrote it first.
Is there any truth in it. It would seem that alot of Sinn Fein MLA's have moved up in the world so to speak. Has that left much mis-trust or anger amoung the more working class Nationalist areas,
Quote from: thejuice on August 20, 2008, 12:49:25 PM
Is there any truth in it. It would seem that alot of Sinn Fein MLA's have moved up in the world so to speak. Has that left much mis-trust or anger amoung the more working class Nationalist areas,
No.
What a wind up merchant Cusack is !
Quote from: smcafee on August 20, 2008, 09:40:44 AM
Quote from: red hander on August 19, 2008, 02:14:58 PM
Complete and utter shite to equate the wealth of a few upwardly mobile Fenians with the rest of the nationalist population ... typical Jim Cusack crap to blame everything on the Shinners. I live in west belfast and IMO the real reason for the rise in crime is because the PSNI - and that english p***k of a chief constable who spends more time issuing writs against newspapers who dare question the level of his expenses than doing his job - are a shower of useless b**tards.
you support spin fein?
not surprised you want to see the brits back on the streets of west belfast.
jim cusack is a traitor for writing that shit.there are irish men and women living in occupied ireland that are still being denied human rights.
Where in my answer does it say that, killer? You're talking even more shite on this thread than you do on the two or three football ones you started, and that's saying something
smcafee. You deleted your comment before I saw it, but other posters have included it in quotes. Angry or not, there is absolutely no place for that sort of thing on an internet forum. I think you need a while to cool the jets.
Cheers
I feel like we should all have them big foam hands they get on gladiators so we can sing "another one bites the dust" while waving them :)
Quote from: his holiness nb on August 20, 2008, 02:05:06 PM
I feel like we should all have them big foam hands they get on gladiators so we can sing "another one bites the dust" while waving them :)
........meanwhile in Dublin, at campaign headquarters, Tankie reaches for the marker pen, and begins...................... ;) ;)
Quote from: An Fear Rua on August 20, 2008, 02:20:27 PM
Quote from: his holiness nb on August 20, 2008, 02:05:06 PM
I feel like we should all have them big foam hands they get on gladiators so we can sing "another one bites the dust" while waving them :)
........meanwhile in Dublin, at campaign headquarters, Tankie reaches for the marker pen, and begins...................... ;) ;)
I'm sure I'm being slow here and the penny will drop soon, but what? ;)
I notice that when talking about schools, he didn't mention Rathmore, possibly the most successful school in the country. Completely free and until a few years ago completely run down, the constant target of sectarian petrol bomb attacks with half its classes taking place in mobiles. Malone Road, Finaghy, Poleglass, Twinbrook, Lisburn, Crumlin- everyone sends their kids there.
I wasted ten minutes of my life reading through that shite.
Cusack's articles in Gaelsport Ulster are much more entertaining, better researched and logical.
Only someone who is insane, criminally ignorant or the foolest of tomfools would try to pass that article off as serious journalism.
eg, the average net worth of someone in the roi is e175k in the north its closer to e130k. so northern nationalists not only get focked into a state they had no interest in by you lot, your also costing them money ;D ;D