When writing about JobPath in 2016 I attempted to articulate something disturbing I had seen when the DSP appeared to collude with private companies to deceive welfare recipients into entering into contracts with the private companies, contracted by the DSP to deliver the JobPath “service”. I never quite articulated the more general problem of privatisation, … Read more
Twenty years ago the UN General Assembly made the 20th of June World Refugee Day in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention of 1951, the international treaty giving rights to people to seek asylum from persecution in other countries. Every year around this date myriads articles about refugees and their stories … Read more
You might think of the film ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’ as some dated artifact, featuring Dub-a-lin in da rare auld times. But many of the cultural assumptions revealed in the film, and which later went towards hindering the film’s reception, are still very much alive in today’s Ireland. The sacred cows may have changed, … Read more
Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother’s womb A fanatic heart. W.B. Yeats, ‘Remorse for Intemperate Speech’ (1931) With proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies, Irish elections tend to be colourful affairs. Debate rarely rises above the clamour of claim and counter-claim as … Read more