Standing outside a Dublin hostelry in the drizzle, I fell into conversation with an Ulsterman who arrived with impeccable republican-socialist credentials. I assumed, this would make him sympathetic to the recently vanquished Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
I breezily opined that the long-serving MP for Islington had been the first post-War Labour leader to challenge a neo-colonial consensus in British politics, to which I received a surprising response.
“He’s just like the rest of them,” he said, pausing before almost spitting out the words, “the allotment,” and muttering “that’s how you can tell.”
Only on reflection do I recognise the origin of a prejudice against anyone holding an interest in the dark arts of composting, training vines, or even the life cycle of the carrot fly.
He echoed savage criticism of privileged do-gooders with an evangelical zeal for horticulture, from that most quintessential of English writers, George Orwell.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall
‘food-crank’
In The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) Orwell dismissed a certain type of socialist ‘food-crank’, ‘sandal-wearer’, ‘fruit-juice drinker’ as ‘a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcass; that is, a person out of touch with common humanity.’
He maintained: ‘The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots.’ But added, revealingly: ‘the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food.’
Orwell articulated an enduring English working class aversion to a New Age paternalism, which my Republican-Socialist interlocuter outside the pub appeared to share.
Well-intentioned, but often tone deaf, efforts to instil passion for horticulture continues to emanate from aristocratic scions such as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. His Dorset estate became a TV showcase for sustainable gastronomy in a country more renowned for mushy peas and fried batter, washed down with Irn-bru.
There is, however, a curmudgeonly quality to Orwell’s critique, reflected in a stated preference for Anglo-Saxon words over those of French or Classical origins in ‘The Politics of the English Language’. In England, and not only among working class, plain food, as well as plain words, are generally preferred over anything sophisticated, complex or, worst of all, French.
However, in my view, Corbyn comes from an honourable lineage of Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: genuine social reformers that secured parliamentary approval through the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act. This brought 1,500,000 plots into cultivation by 1918, thereby ensuring a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables in many metropolitan districts.
It also led to a wide diffusion of gardening skills, which became a valuable resource during World War II when, denied of imports, the population was urged to Dig for Victory, withimpressive results.
Nonetheless, what Orwell acknowledged as “the peculiar evil” of working class people turning their noses up at healthy produce suggests early industrialisation of food production in Britain – particularly the preponderance of refined sugar – had a lasting effect on the British pallet, and sadly the Irish one too.
In England today organic is a by-word for posh, and unaffordable: “not for the likes of you and me.”
Sadly, reflecting the colonial experience, Irish tastes are often just as blinkered. This is apparent in a lasting aversion to cultivating fruit and vegetables, which has informed the state’s agricultural priorities since independence.
Notably, the celebration of specifically ‘Irish’ food did not figure prominently among Irish nationalist at the end of the nineteenth century. Crucially, with the inception of the state, agriculture was identified as a primary source of export revenue.
This perpetuated a pattern of development that can be traced to the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, when a reduction in the price of grain on the British market created economic conditions in Ireland favouring raising cattle for export, often ‘on the hoof’.
The potato has long been identified with the Irish people, but it has not become a cherished foodstuff in the same way rice is to the Japanese for example. Early nationalists were more concerned with promoting self-sufficiency in wheat. Moreover, the Great Famine remains a relatively unexplored trauma, at least in terms of the Irish relationship with food, and the land.
Tony Kiely describes Dublin working- class meals in the 1950s as follows: ‘Family diets were very basic, consisting in the main of bread, tea, oatmeal, cocoa, potatoes, cabbage, herrings and pairings of cheap meat pieces for stews and soups .…’ While: ‘Bread was both a staple, and a constant companion at all meals.’[i]
Anthony Farmar suggests that an absolute rule among the Irish middle class in the 1960s was never to talk about food: ‘to enjoy eating as such was unbecoming to a serious person’. He quotes an American commentator who claimed cooking in Ireland was ‘a necessary chore rather than an artistic ceremony, and that in restaurants “‘nine out of ten ordered steak every time with nine out of ten ordering chips with it.”’[ii]
Among the post-Great Famine diaspora, there is little evidence of recreation of native dishes. Panikos Panayi claims that in Britain: ‘Irish food did not have enough distinction from that of the ethnic majority to warrant the opening of specifically designated food shops.’[iii]
Regarding nineteenth-century Irish-American immigrants, Hasia R. Diner reveals: ‘They rarely talked about food, neither did they sing about it, nor did it contribute to community institutions and rituals.’[iv]
Self-consciously Irish recipe books emerged only after independence. Most Irish nationalists did not view eating distinctively Irish food as an important cultural marker, except perhaps when it came to eating bread made from home-grown wheat.
Thus, in a pamphlet addressed to the women of Ireland, the writer and Irish language activist Mary Butler crafted a list of fifteen ways in which to foster authentic Irishness in their homes. Revealingly, ‘no traditional recipes, foodways, food names, or food practices as instruments for building Irish identity were included.’[v]
Image (c) Daniele Idini.
Aping the English
According to Benedict Anderson, ‘by the second decade of the nineteenth century if not earlier a model of the independent nation state was available for pirating.’[vi]
This is important in the Irish context as the model most readily available was English or British nationalism, a society that prized letters and sporting prowess, and in which a native culinary tradition had been ‘decapitated’[vii] by the end of the nineteenth century.
In 1880 the surgeon and polymath Sir Henry Thompson observed:
On questioning the average middle-class Englishman as to the nature of his food, the all but universal answer is, ‘My living is plain, always roast and boiled’—words which but too clearly indicate the dreary monotony, not to say unwholesomeness, of his daily food; while they furthermore express his satisfaction, such as it is, that he is no luxurious feeder.[viii]
The disinterest exhibited by the English in cookery and the discussion of food was compounded by the nutritional impoverishment of the working class.
Sidney Mintz estimates that by 1900 nearly one-fifth of average caloric intake came in the form of refined sugar, which was mainly consumed in tea or jam.[ix] Apart from being nutritionally deficient, this diet lacked variety and bred conservatism as older traditions of food preparation yielded to bland industrial products.
With no sophisticated models of food consumption to compete against, the Irish cultural elite was not drawn to food as an expression of identity; unlike Italians, for example, situated within the domineering cultural orbit of French cuisine.
An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store by Cork artist Daniel MacDonald, c. 1847
Poverty
This was compounded by the virtual extinction of many traditional foods as a result of poverty and changes in agricultural production in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution.
David Dickson ‘suspects that much of what is today regarded as traditional Irish cuisine—soda bread, barm brack, boxty, champ, colcannon etc—’ was only developed in the nineteenth century ‘in the kitchens of the solid farming class.’[x]
During the Famine, those unaffected by starvation bore witness to suffering on a scale that is hard for those of us living in contemporary Ireland to fathom. Joseph Lee likens its effects to the Jewish experience of the Holocaust and explores a psychological legacy:
They will have seen corpses, if not in their own dwellings, then on the roads and in the ditches. Many are likely to have felt a degree of guilt, of the type that often afflicts survivors of tragedies, not only of the Holocaust, but of events like earthquakes and mining catastrophes. Why did you survive when others in your family did not? A sense of guilt can simmer below the surface, to perhaps breakout in uncontrollable and, to uncomprehending outside observers, in apparently inexplicable ways.[xi]
Crawford and Clarkson concur, suggesting that survivors carried psychological scars and that their physical and intellectual developments were stunted.[xii]
Image (c) Daniele Idini.
Alternative Crops
The dominance of the market generated a snobbery directed against foraged foods, which according to Louse M. Cullen acquired a ‘stigma.’[xiii]
Kevin Myers once mused in his Irishman’s Diary that: ‘It’s almost as if those who live on the land here are culturally and emotionally disengaged from its essence as a living thing.’[xiv]
The impact of colonisation cannot be overlooked. According to John Feehan: ‘it seems more than likely that the loss of the Gaelic tradition of farming was accompanied by a decline in the lore of wild plants and animals as food or medicine.’[xv]
Furthermore, the absence of a native ‘improving’ gentry, especially after the Act of Union in 1801, limited experimentation in and demand for ‘alternative’ crops: fruit and vegetables varieties with limited market value.
By the eve of the Great Famine three million (out of a population of eight million) were living on a mere one million acres of land, which represented just 5% of a the total acreage of 20 million.’[xvi] It is remarkable that until the blight arrived, without modern machinery or chemicals, so many were able to subsist on such small plots .
Moore Hall, County Mayo.
Lack of Variety
Writing in 1971, Rosemary Fennel bemoaned the demise of country markets, saying a ‘frequent complaint in Ireland is the lack of variety of in vegetables for sale and the high prices charged.’[xvii] Media coverage of the subject of food in the form of recipes, reviews and features only really took off in the 1990s.
It may be that the enduring absence of alternative agriculture and gastronomy owes something to the rejection of the ‘Big House’ in whose walled gardens, orchards and hothouses horticultural experimentation had occurred prior to independence, which precipitated the departure of a significant proportion of what remained of the landlord class.
In an independent state dominated by a petit -bourgeois farmer class, the Big House, was despised. In 1944 the Minister for Lands Sean Moylan condemned them as ‘tombstones of a departed aristocracy’ remarking ‘the sooner they go down the better. They are no use.’[xviii] More recently Nuala O’Faolain admitted: ‘We cannot, or at least I cannot, look at the Big House without some degree of rage.’[xix]
Certainly, since independence the focus of the state has been on securing export revenue from agricultural produce. In her history, Mary Daly argues that ‘it is evident that the Department [of Agriculture] has traditionally looked at agricultural matters from the perspective of the producer rather than the consumer.’ She cautions that the identity of interests between farmers and the Irish nation ‘does not necessarily apply on issues such as food policy, or the environment.’[xx]
Securing land has never been easy. Frank Mitchell and Michael Ryan observed in 1997: ‘In Ireland it is still next to impossible to rent land on a lease of sufficient length to make improvements and where land can be bought it is often in small parcels at too high a price.’[xxi]
The Irish Breakfast Roll.
Changing Habits of a Lifetime
Pierre Bourdieu claims that ‘it is probably in tastes in food that one would find the strongest and most indelible mark of infant learning.’[xxii] Developing a taste for brown bread and carrots perhaps does not come easily if white bread and jam have been childhood staples.
One way to bring about a shift in Irish tastes could be through increased participation in small scale agriculture. This might lead to wider agricultural reforms, as people gain an appreciation of seasonality and even terroir – the unique flavour imparted by the growing environment.
A gastronomic awakening could lead to the cultivation of gardens across suburban and rural Ireland, and in more built-up areas public allotments – yes “allotments” – ought to be developed, but this will require state intervention.
More public land should be set aside for allotments given the importance of consuming sufficient fresh fruit and vegetables in our diets; not to mention the potentially huge savings if people were able to grow more of their own. Recall that on the eve of the Great Famine three million were subsisting on a mere one million acres of land!
My own district of Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown, which contains vast under-utilised parklands has just two public allotment sites available for a population of over two hundred thousand. One at Goatstown with 136 plots and another in Shankhill with 95 plots. Unsurprisingly, both are over-subscribed.
Meanwhile in the more congested Dublin City Council region, where there is still ample public land availabe, some zoned Z9 for Lands/Green Network, there are nine, again over-subscribed, sites.
Until there is an adequate distribution of land, horticulture will remain a privilege of property owners with gardens. This has important implications for the endurance of the perception that fresh fruit and vegetables are ‘posh’ food.
[i] Tony Kiely, “We managed”: reflections on the culinary practices of Dublin’s working class poor in the 1950s’, in Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Eamon Maher (eds) Tickling the palate, gastronomy in Irish literature and culture (Oxford, 2014), p.108.
[ii] Anthony Farmar, Privileged lives: a social history of middle class Ireland 1882-1989, (Dublin, 1989), p.180-2
[iii] Panikos Panayi, The multicultural history of British food (London, 2008), p.43.
[iv] Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish foodways in the age of migration. (Cambridge, 2002), p.114.
[ix] Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: the place of sugar in modern history, (New York and London, 1985) p.6
[x] David Dickson, ‘The potato and the Irish diet before the Great Famine’, in Cormac Ó Grada (ed.), Famine 150 commemorative lecture series (Dublin, 1997), p.19.
[xi] Joseph Lee, ‘The Famine in Irish history’, in Cormac Ó Grada (ed.), Famine 150 commemorative lecture series (Dublin, 1997), pp.168-9
[xii] Leslie Clarkson and Margaret Crawford, Feast and Famine, (Oxford, 2001), p.134.
[xiii] Louse M. Cullen, The Emergence of Modern Ireland 1600-1900 (London, 1981), p.173
[xv] John Feehan, Farming in Ireland, (Dublin, 2003), p.201.
[xvi] Raymond Crotty, Irish Agricultural Production: Its Volume and Structure, (Cork, 1966), p.63
[xvii] Rosemary Fennell, ‘The domestic market for Irish agricultural produce’, in Baillie and Sheehy, Irish agriculture in a changing world, p.106.
[xviii] Terence Dooley, ‘The Big House and Famine memory: Strokestown Park House’, in Crawley, Smith and Murphy, Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, p.625.
The following is a submission to the Citizens Assembly on Dublin by a former Lord Mayor of Dublin Dermot Lacey, who argues for a new regional approach to Dublin that would include provision for a directly elected mayor with real power and responsibility for the whole city.
Throughout the developed world Regional and Local Government is taking its rightful place at the heart of sustainable decision making. From the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies in the United Kingdom, to the Federal Parliaments in Germany, the Cantons in Switzerland local-relevant decision-making is growing. One of the founding principles of the European Union is subsidiarity – however that particular guiding principle seems to have been lost somewhere in the Irish Sea.
Here in the Republic of Ireland, with a nod to European Union objectives but a more stellar eye on European money we have invented three new Regional Assemblies; the Southern Regional Assembly, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and here on the east coast and adjacent counties the Eastern and Midlands Regional Assembly.
Comprised of Councillors from twelve Local Authorities this artificial construct has no real power, no funds, no democratic mandate and Government ignores it at their pleasure. Meanwhile Dublin the only City Region by real international standards and the economic powerhouse of the State is deprived of any co-ordinating body covering the full County. Without such a co-ordinating body, without a Regional Authority for the Dublin area with power and resources Ireland is the principal loser. So, what do I want for Dublin? But then again What Dublin do we mean when we refer to it?
Dublin is often described as the ‘Fair City’ – but is it? Is it a city that treats its people equally? Is it fairly run? Does it treat all its citizens fairly? Does it protect its culture, heritage and environment fairly and sensibly? Is it a democratic city? Is democracy necessary? Or is democratic consultation and decision making central to the future of Dublin. Does any of this matter?
The answer, of course, is that yes, it does matter – or at least it matters to me. Dublin is my home. It always has been and I hope, it always will be. It was and will again, be one of the finest cities of Europe. It is a great and beautiful city, ideally located between the scenic natural beauty of the Dublin Mountains and the incredibly clean and majestic Dublin Bay. A Bay that has been so sadly neglected and indeed damaged by decisions taken by unelected Public Servants and in reality, unaccountable Politicians from outside its borders.
It is a city with a great history and culture; a city of literature and with a genuine appreciation for the arts; above all it is a city and county with a resilient people still enthused by the notion of community.
Unlike Margaret Thatcher, Dubliners do believe there is such a thing as society. This is demonstrated every day of every week in the volume of community work, youth and sports activity and community activism actively engaged in by, and for, Dubliners. Perhaps this has never been expressed so forcibly as it was during the Covid crisis and now in the response to the War in Ukraine.
It is also, however, a city of unnecessary complexity. It is a deeply undemocratic city, with decisions made at a remove from the people of Dublin and, in far too many cases, at a remove from the democratically elected representatives of those people.
It is poorly served by the administrative and governance structures imposed on it by successive national governments. It is scandalously under-funded and under-resourced. It has a confused transport system, unacceptable poverty, inadequate housing and a divided and unequal series of communities. None of this is necessary. We need to imagine a better future for Dublin and we need to create that better future for Dublin.
The tragedy for Dublin and Dubliners is that when times were good and finance available, we had one of the least imaginative, backward looking governments in the history of our state. It is true also that when times were bad and the opportunity for real reform was there that Local Government was set back decades by the pretence of “reform” that was “Putting People First”.
It is why we need a new approach to build a new and better Dublin. It is but one of the many reasons why we need a New Deal for Dublin – a Fair Deal for Dublin. It is also a very clear example of why the model suggested by a few commentators of introducing a Minister for Dublin, is not the answer.
Can we solve Dublin’s problems – yes we can. Can we make it a better place for all – yes we can. Can we have a democratic and inclusive Dublin – yes we can. The pertinent question is how do we achieve at least some of these objectives? How do we make Dublin the inclusive and democratic county that it can be and I want it to be? How do we create our own future for Dublin?
The answer lies in real reform of our local government structures. This should not have had to wait until, as some would have it, the country’s problems are fixed. Local government reform is not an optional extra – it is, in my view, integral to our country’s future. Ireland can be transformed through the reform of local government. We cannot do it any other way. It is not possible to reform our political, economic and public sectors if we do not at the same time reform local government.
In the case of Dublin, my preference would be for a directly elected Mayor and a new Dublin Regional Assembly. In the course of this submission I hope to outline why that is the case.
While Dublin is a changing city and county, it is a city and county that administratively and politically does not work. The city and county does not work for citizens, for business, for communities, or for Ireland. Despite it being the engine of growth for the economy and the fact that, in a European context, it is the only real city-region in the country, the governance of Dublin has largely been ignored and any real reform avoided since the establishment of the State.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) categorises city regions by their population size and the smallest size considered is 1.5million (OECD Territorial Reviews: Competitive Cities in the Global Economy 2006).
Tinkering with the boundaries in breaking up the old County Councils, thereby reducing the power to seriously drive the region, and a collapse in funding have sadly been the hallmarks of government intervention over the last decade or so. Incompetent interference, followed by inertia, has been the closest thing to positive action from those on ‘the inside’ those really in power.
The legislation introduced by former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan TD, seriously set back local Government in Dublin and abolished the Dublin Regional Authority. While much political comment since has been on his unwise abolition of Town Councils the reality is that it was bad, very bad for Dublin.
Politically it gave more power to bureaucrats, reduced the powers of Councillors, removed a realistic Regional dimension and imposed more work, on more un-asked for Councillors. In doing so the Minister simply compounded the indefensible record of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government – a Department, which one well known commentator, has described as the one Department of State actively hostile to the three nouns in its [then] title, Environment, Heritage and Local government.
Any real reform proposals must provide for a better future for Dublin because a better future for Ireland will in reality be predicated on Dublin sustaining real economic growth and administrative and governmental cohesiveness.
No doubt any serious changes will meet political, departmental and institutional opposition to real reform. For far too long power and authority in Ireland has rested with unaccountable mandarins in government departments and their agents, whether via quasi-independent agencies or through the city and county managers process.
Real change is, however, necessary. Irish people are open to new ideas and new ways of doing business and exercising governance. With courage and vision, and above all a serious commitment to reform from the top, we can have a meaningful, inclusive, democratic and relevant local government system. We can make Dublin work and in turn make our country work.
Regrettably, what is equally true is that despite all the recent talk of reform, changes to our local government structure hardly featured at all in public debate. Reform of governance at a local level was discussed not at all during recent General Elections. The truth however, in my view, is that is simply impossible to reform our national political and public sectors if we do not start on the ground, in our communities and in the chambers of our city and county councils and the regional authorities.
Before any decisions are taken, or any reforms contemplated, we need agreement on what is meant by local government itself. Quite simply, we need a collective ‘buy in’ on local government. For me, local government is about the delivery of comprehensive public services in a manner required, demanded and agreed to by the local community. It must be about the provision of services, in an accountable and democratic manner, to the people in receipt of, or entitled to, those services. Without these attributes it is neither local nor government. Sadly, here in Ireland, that is the present reality.
Bemoaning the plight of local government is also easy. There are library shelves bursting with reports and analysis. I would like to be more positive and constructive. There are others, more capable than I, who can comment on the national situation. I hope they do. I want to concentrate on Dublin. It is a City I had the privilege to serve as Lord Mayor and a county the privilege to serve, as Cathaoirleach of the Dublin Regional Authority and as Cathaoirleach of the Eastern and Midlands Regional Assembly – the only person to have held the three roles.
In the context of this submission as well as defining local government itself, we need also to define: where and what we mean by Dublin; Is it the City? Is it the County? Is it the Dublin region?; or, as some would have it, is it the larger Metropolitan area? While there are many reasons to define a new governance area as being the greater Dublin area or, as it has been described, the ‘drive-to-work’ Dublin area, my view is that here in Ireland, rightly or wrongly, local identity is important, loyalty is important and a clear definition of boundary, in a governmental context, is important. In all respects, therefore, I believe we should focus on the traditional County of Dublin.
It is this County of Dublin that needs our focus and attention. It is this area that has been and will again be the engine of our economy. Rebuilding and growing that Dublin will help once again to grow our economy and strengthen our society. It will help Ireland grow and develop. Part of my role as an advocate for Dublin, is to dispense with the old and very outdated argument of ‘Dublin versus the rest’. The reality is that what is good for Dublin is invariably good for Ireland. Our future as a people is intertwined. Dublin is our collective capital.
For Ireland’s sake, Dublin needs to run Dublin. That is the very essence of this argument. The present situation, in which disinterested quangos (largely unaccountable state bodies and often disconnected governmental departments) interfere in the affairs of the county without any appreciable knowledge or sympathy, cannot be allowed to continue. Power and authority currently lies with the unelected and the unaccountable, whilst the elected city and county councillors see powers removed on a near daily basis. Dublin deserves better. Ireland needs better.
The existing situation in which more than 60 bodies have responsibility for traffic is the most obvious example of this. At least nine separate bodies are responsible for Dublin Bay and most absurdly national government appoints the St. Patrick’s Day Festival Committee, which largely, though not exclusively, affects Dublin. There are far more examples than this. Surely this cannot continue into the future.
Perhaps, more than anything else, Dublin needs someone who understands how things work, or more accurately, how things do not work, and who will stand up for the city and county. To create that better future that we seek, Dublin needs a spokesperson for the whole community. It needs someone, who can be a political advocate armed with the mandate of direct election. That is why I believe that central to any meaningful reform must be a longer-term Mayor and that direct election would provide the mandate. The Mayor needs to be a champion for Dublin who will market and promote the region internationally and who will stand up for it nationally.
The proposal to have an election for a Mayor of Dublin would give us an opportunity to create that voice. The election campaign itself would provide an opportunity for a collective debate on the future of Dublin.
The visibility and accountability of such an office holder would considerably help inform the public on the choices involved on issues of concern. That is why, with all its imperfections and limited powers, I welcomed the publication by former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, John Gormley of the Local Government (Mayor and Regional Authority of Dublin) Bill draft legislation in 2010. All political institutions grow and evolve over time, and I believe the implementation of that Bill would have proved no exception.
That legislation clarified some issues. It specified the county as the area involved and provided a new structure for the regional authority. The proposal that the Mayor would chair the authority, to whom he or she would be accountable, was, I believe, a rare defect in the draft legislation.
Similarly the proposal to establish a Regional Development Board was unclear, as was its composition and democratic mandate. Unless the public service agencies are accountable to this body, and not equal participating parties as at present, it would not have worked.
The creation of the proposed Dublin Transport Council was inadequate but a significant step in the right direction. Yes, there were deep flaws and absences from the legislation. There was a real lack of integration of services and roles. There was uncertainty about the relationship with the department and the Minister.
It was however an important start – unfortunately one not taken. While some Political Parties are once again raising the issue and this Citizens Assembly has been established it does seem to me to be a “can kicking” exercise and I am not convinced that the permanent Government will do anything to facilitate it happening. Nevertheless, I believe there is still a need for the debate and for the campaign to continue. It remains an aspiration worth pursuing.
The absence of an independent source of funding was a major flaw in previous proposals and must be addressed whenever a future government is serious about reform.
Many believe that we need more than the simple introduction of a directly elected mayor, and they are right. A new mayor can and must drive further reform and a real debate about the future of Dublin.
Two of the arguments used against the introduction of a directly elected mayor are cost and the issue of ‘celebrity’ candidates. Both are bogus. Properly structured, a newly elected Mayor, working with the Dublin Regional Authority, will see the need for many of the existing agencies reduced and or incorporated into the mayoral structure with significant savings.
On the ‘celebrity’ candidate issue, the answer is simple: we are meant to live in a democracy, so let the people decide. I have great faith that, subject to a fair and balanced media presentation, the electorate will decide intelligently. While not the subject of this essay, it is this issue of media coverage of a campaign – the absence of a fair and informed media on Local government matters – that would concern me most.
This is particularly true of the national broadcasting service – RTÉ – whose understanding and knowledge of local government is virtually non-existent and access to the airwaves is a rare privilege accorded only to a chosen few. Clear guidelines for their coverage of a campaign and debate on the issues would be crucial if genuine progress is to be made.
It is clear to anyone interested that our current system of local government requires renewal and reform. Clear too is the fact that the various local councils are directed, unofficially, but in reality, by city and county managers, answerable to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the permanent officials therein. It is striking that the term of office for a city and county manager is seven years – which can and usually is extended to ten years and that under our current system the term for a mayor is usually one year. Longevity itself is power.
Understanding that relationship is the key to understanding our present problems and breaking that relationship is the key to resolving them for the future. The proposals in the Labour/Fine Gael Programme for Government to abolish the role of county managers and replace them with ‘Chief Executive Officers’ was executed but the change in title was all that was delivered – not a change in role or powers.
None of this should be taken as a personal reflection on the four very fine public servants, Frank Feely, John Fitzgerald, John Tierney and Owen Keegan with whom I have worked during their terms as Dublin City Manager/Chief Executive. They all served Dublin well. It is the structural and relationship issue and problem that need to be resolved.
I believe that Dublin desperately needs a longer term Mayor who would serve for the full local government term, and a Mayor directly elected by the people who would have the authority and mandate needed to serve for such a term. We also need substantial reform of the structure of the four local authorities in the Dublin city and county areas. Such a Mayor working with the members of the Council and with sufficient powers and resources is needed now more than ever to rescue this city and county from the clutching, incompetent and disinterested control of central government and administration.
Shamefully, the sections of the 2001 Local Government Act, enabling this, courageously and correctly introduced by Minister Noel Dempsey, were reversed by his successor, Minister Martin Cullen.
More shamefully, the Green Party Minister, John Gormley, was thwarted in his efforts to introduce plans for a directly elected mayor and Regional Authority. Even more shamefully was the pretence of reform introduced by Minister Phil Hogan at a time when people were crying out for real reform. It was perhaps the greatest wasted opportunity of all.
There are many ways in which real reform could be achieved. I want to propose a simple model that I believe would be in the best interests of the future of Dublin city and county. While there may be debate about the appropriateness of retaining the existing four Dublin local authorities I believe that it is better, for the present, they remain. This would also allow that for a period of five years they would continue to elect their Chairpersons/ (Lord) Mayors in line with current practice.
I propose that the number, jurisdiction and roles of the four existing Local Authorities should be reviewed after a period of five years, or one term of office, of a proposed Dublin Regional Assembly. This period should be used to assess the possibility of introducing a series of genuinely local District Councils – perhaps along the lines of the Municipal District Councils that exist outside Dublin. These would serve populations of approximately 100,000 people each. It would also allow for a timely debate and gradual merging of the roles of Lord Mayor and Mayor. Whilst for many this is an obvious step, I believe that there are distinct roles and we should assess the respective merits of retaining them as separate roles or combining them into one.
Essentially these different roles stem from the unique requirement of the Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin to regularly act as the official host for guests to Dublin and Ireland and often as a sort of unofficial Ambassador for the whole country. There is also the role of Civic Cheer Leader and Ceremonial office holder for appropriate civic occasions. The new role envisaged for a Mayor for Dublin will be more executive and more political. I remain open to persuasion as to which is the best way forward.
Contrary to common perception Ireland has a very low ratio of elected councillor per head of population. The following table gives some idea of the European average. It is worth noting that the UK figures do not take account of the existence of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies. These bodies have respectively: Northern Ireland Assembly 108 members; Scottish Parliament 129 members; and the Welsh Assembly 60 members.
Country
Country Population (m)
No. of councils
Average population per council
Population per councillor
France
59.6
36,700
1,600
118
Austria
8.2
2,350
3,500
209
Sweden
8.8
310
28,400
256
Germany
83
15,300
5,400
350
Finland
5.2
452
11,500
410
Italy
57.7
8,100
7,100
608
Spain
40
8,100
4,900
610
Belgium
10.3
589
17,500
811
Greece
10.6
1,033
10,300
1,075
Denmark
5.4
275
19,600
1,115
Portugal
10.1
308
32,800
1,131
Netherlands
16
548
29,000
1,555
Ireland
4
114
35,000
2,500
U.K.
59.6
468
127,350
2,603
Source: Hughes, Clancy, Harris and Beetham (2007), Power to the People: Assessing Democracy in Ireland. New Island.
In Dublin the figure is a staggering figure of 12,400 people to each Councillor.
Such District Councils, as I propose, would, over time, replace the existing, South Dublin, Fingal and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councils and Dublin City Council. In order to enhance a sense of local identity and ownership, these Councils should be based on real communities of location and interest. Areas such as Tallaght, Lucan, Swords, Dun Laoghaire and Ballyfermot are obvious possibilities for this. With the increasingly global nature of our world real social cohesion in the future can be best enhanced through the promotion of the local and community awareness.
Pending completion of the overall reform project there is no reason why such pilot town or district councils could not be established at an early stage. Composition of these councils should also be used to create greater equality in terms of councillors and population with the rest of the country and a consequential equalisation of Seanad voting rights if the Seanad is to retain its present form.
I am also suggesting that in order to provide a local/national link that the directly elected mayor would be ex-officio member of Seanad Éireann and that a similar provision be made should directly elected mayors be introduced for the other larger cities. This should be done without increasing the overall membership of Seanad Éireann and could be done in tandem with other proposed reforms of the Seanad.
Dublin also needs an over-arching strategic regional approach. In that context I suggest that a new Dublin Regional Assembly be established. Such an assembly would be comprised of about 30 members. This would entail six constituencies electing five members each. In order to ensure best internal regional balance there would be two north-side constituencies, two south-side constituencies and two to the west of the county. This would enable a sufficiently broad based (political and regional) membership to ensure a robust and inclusive assembly. The assembly would have one committee for each of the policy areas listed in the next section.
An alternative model would be to have three such constituencies, north, south and west with five members each leading to the election of what would effectively be a fifteen-member executive for the county. Each policy area would be overseen by three members of the assembly who would have executive responsibility for the area involved. In this scenario, the overall scrutiny and monitoring role would be provided by members drawn from the four Dublin local authorities on a basis similar to the previous Dublin Regional Authority.
The Leader of the Assembly would be the Directly Elected Mayor of Dublin.
I am suggesting that the powers and responsibilities of this suggested assembly would be as follows:
1) Land Use Planning and Strategic Development. This would deal with devising strategic planning guidelines and monitoring and planning development across the region. Responsibility would also include implementation of national spatial strategies and economic development.
2) Traffic and Transport Co-ordination. The assembly would be the Dublin Transport Authority and would provide for an accountable and integrated approach to traffic and transport, including responsibility for all public transport, active mobility and taxi provision and regulation in the Dublin region.
3) Social and Affordable Housing. The assembly would replace the existing agencies in the Dublin area and co-ordinate housing provision and allocation across the Dublin Region. It would also have responsibility for developing new initiatives for housing provision and responding to the issue of homelessness.
4) Dublin Bay, Waterways and Mountains. These great assets of the region are presently largely under-appreciated. The Dublin Mountains Partnership initiated by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin County Councils has shown the possibility that does exist with imagination in this area.
5)The Assembly would also have a coordinating and/or monitoring role in relation to county-wide services provided by agencies such as the HSE, Education Training Boards, Enterprise Ireland, tourism development, policing and relations with other regional authorities and relevant bodies. One of the first tasks in this area would be to develop coterminous boundaries for all public service providers in the Dublin region.
Some of the above would be done in conjunction and co-operation with the existing local authorities.
I am also suggesting that the Dublin Regional Assembly would provide a forum to which, and in which, the Dublin Members of the European Parliament could report back and consult on issues of relevance to their work. This would significantly enhance engagement with the European institutions and improve the opportunity for Dublin and Dubliners to engage with and benefit from European Union initiatives.
In addition to the elected Assembly I want to see established a Dublin Civic Forum, comprising representatives of civic society across the county. The forum members would receive no payment and would convene as appropriate to advise the Assembly on matters of relevance.
I have previously suggested that the Dublin Regional Assembly should be based in the old Parliament Building on College Green with the remainder of the building housing an Institute for Dublin Affairs and a much-needed Dublin Museum building on the fantastic work of the Little Museum of Dublin. The Institute would be a collaborative model drawing on the expertise of the third-level institutes in Dublin and would act as a policy feeder to the Assembly.
The old Parliament building would also be the location for meetings of the Civic Forum. This could all be done in conjunction with other proposals to develop the building as a National Cultural Centre and the creation of a major Public Plaza to the front of the buildings. Transferring ownership of these former Parliament Building might provide some recompense for the €8.5billion pumped into Bank of Ireland and relocating the bank headquarters to Docklands might help the rejuvenation of that area.
There is also much scope for the development of new forms of democratic participation such as citizens’ juries and participative budgeting. These could be facilitated through the Dublin Regional Assembly office and could enable citizens to engage with public service providers in a meaningful way.
There is a widespread consensus amongst politicians, commentators, academics and the public that we need to reform local government. This is articulated regularly in a general rather than specific sense and is thrown into the wider debate about Political Reform. However, that is where the consensus ends. The promise offered by the optimism of the Better Local Government project initiated by Brendan Howlin TD, and the early enthusiasm of Noel Dempsey TD, were followed by inaction, inertia and, on occasions, outright hostility to democratic local government, by the very ministers and the government department that should have been its champions, reformers and defender.
Of course we need real reform, and of course we need Councillors to take more responsibility. As Lord Mayor of Dublin, in difficult circumstances, I did accept such responsibility in relation to the city budget. Since then the majority in favour of the budget has increased with each passing year.
A directly elected mayor should only be one small – though important – part of a total reform of the failing system of local government. Powers which have been stripped from elected representatives and handed over lock, stock and barrel to city and county managers, effectively, if not officially, answerable to the minister of the day, need to be restored to city and county councillors across the country. If we are truly to build a better future for Dublin and for Ireland, Local government must be the heart that drives that forward.
The issue of the financing of local government also needs extensive review. Quite simply there is no real governance role without independent finance raising responsibilities. There must be a clear link between local spending and local revenue and the accountability of the councillor. The successful operation of the BIDS (Business Improvement District Scheme) scheme in Dublin city centre shows that there is a willingness to work such initiatives if there is sufficient benefit and adequate explanation and consultation. Local government also requires more opportunities to introduce appropriate local taxation, subject of course to the law and the right of the people to comment on same through local election campaigns and possibly local referenda.
At present, Dublin City Council is losing out on millions of euro every year (€30 million for 2022 alone) from commercial rates which Government has abdicated its responsibility to pay. While applicable across the entire country, this has hit Dublin more than anywhere else and is a further example of the cost involved in being the capital city.
Since the expedient abolition of domestic rates in 1977 every local authority has lost significant income. The promise to allocate a sum equal to the amount that would have been raised has been consistently broken. I have calculated that the loss to Dublin City Council since that decision was imposed has been in the order of E8billion. Other decisions imposed such as National Wage Agreements increased that with local government denied any opportunity to participate at the negotiating table. The concept and practice of ‘social partnership’, it would appear, included everyone except the democratically elected arm of local government. Once again, as in so many instances, it was a case of National Government decides but Local Government pays. A proposal some years ago by members of Dublin City Council to introduce a €1 per night hotel/bed tax for all visitors would have, on average, delivered approximately €28million additional resources to the city. Despite the fact that, at the time, some hotels were charging rates of up to €500 per night, the proposal met with outright hostility from the trade and, as ever, a compliant, not to say hostile Department and Government, refused to introduce the necessary legislation. This money could, and would, have been invested directly into providing better experiences and facilities for all, residents and visitors alike, and would, over a four-year period and spread across the Dublin county, have delivered approximately €180million to make Dublin a better place at relatively little cost or inconvenience.
A reduction in the number of agencies and quangos, with their roles and responsibilities transferred to local councils would enable swifter and more ‘on the ground’ decision making. It would ensure a better integration and delivery of services and would also save money.
National Forum on the Financing of Local government
I have previously proposed that a National Forum on the Financing of local government should be established as a matter of urgency. The Forum would draw its membership from the main political parties, the two councillor representative bodies and the social partners. It would be given six months to a year, to agree an approach that would provide sufficient funding, on a nationally agreed basis, and one that would allow some degree in local flexibility as to appropriate local fund raising.
Introducing the direct election of longer- term Mayors is not the panacea for all our problems but it would be a major starting point. Quite simply, the people whom we are meant to serve deserve better. The current mess suits no one except the mandarins in the Custom House and their temporary ministerial masters. This cannot be allowed to prevail. We need to create something better. We need to dream of a better future and to turn those dreams into realities. We need to create and drive forward a Dublin that is all the things we want it to be.
But let us do more than just imagine – let us truly create it. We have an opportunity to put behind us the mistakes and the errors of the past and to learn from them. As a society we need not be bound by old agreements, old alliances or old commitments. Indeed we must not be bound by them. We have the opportunity and duty to fight back and to stand up for real local decision making and to build a truly inclusive, progressive and sustainable city and county. We can and must build a better future for Dublin and Dubliners. In short this Assembly has an opportunity to stand up for Dublin. Let us truly make it “One Dublin for many Dubliners”. In doing so, we are also standing up for Ireland. If we don’t, no one else will.
This is a personal submission from Councillor Dermot Lacey.
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Five takeaways from my experience at Sattva Yoga Academy in india:
Have an experience without using words to describe the experience at least once a day.
I am much more than my mind.
My ego is not the center of me, my heart is.
Miracles and mystical experiences happen all the time – be open to them and life will become richer,and more abundant.
There are no avocados in India. People ask: was there anything you missed while you were there? Yes, I did.
Questioning
One of the most influential lessons I learned from my parents was the value of the question. Always ask why. I clearly remember learning this in school as well: who, what, when, where, why (and sometimes how). These are the basics of problem solving. When a problem presents itself, ask the questions,answer them and you have your solution.
This thinking was so influential for me that over time these questions became automatic in every interaction I had with others and myself. I didn’t have to consciously ask these questions, my mind just did it. They became a habit, a reaction to every event, stimulus, interaction and emotion.
Asking questions has helped me greatly. This mindset helped me succeed in areas we might consider beneficial and desirable: I got a good education; I have a great job; I have a house of my own; I am healthy; I have many loved ones in my life. Much of that is due to how I frame the world and see people in it. If I lived my entire life without anything else, many, including my parents, would say I did a good job (and I would say they did a good job raising me-thank you mom and dad. I love you.)
And yet, I have questions. Constantly. Because of my conditioning, I feel I don’t have a choice. These questions encompass most of my thoughts during any given day. So much so that when someone starts talking I immediately start thinking: why? when? who? what? when? As if the only reason people talk to each other is when there is a problem. Even if there isn’t one, I create one to solve in every situation I find myself in.
So I am a seeker.
But I am also a skeptic. I want answers but am only willing to accept them if I am satisfied they meet the criteria of logic, reason, and experience in the database of my mind. Every question, from the mundane to the existential must be answered before I can rest and let it go. Rest easy, knowing that the question is answered for all eternity. And I never have to ask the question again.
And yet I don’t. I keep asking questions. I keep being skeptical of my answers. I must ask questions or I get bored, distracted or worse, become self-destructive.
And so while I have all the things one would want in life, my day to day experience is one of relative suffering. I can’t answer all the questions no matter how much I think. But I must try continually because my conditioned existence demands answers with the end goal that one day I will know them all.
And so I began the practice of yoga. Not to find all the answers, but to stop asking the questions.
I’ve been practicing yoga for ten years now,asana mostly (or the practice of postures or poses). I liked it so much I became a yoga teacher. I always knew that asana was only a small fraction of the tradition of yoga and wanted to learn more. So I went to India to Sattva Yoga Academy, a small yoga center outside of Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas.
In one of our last lectures Anand Ji (the lead teacher at Sattva Yoga Academy) suggested we keep a Wisdom Journal instead of an Emotional Journal because Emotional Journals are just ways to help us believe the lies we tell ourselves. I agree. What is wisdom and what is emotion are not always easy to separate though. So I wrote it all in the moment and left the parceling of Wisdom and Emotion for later
Below is my Wisdom journal from the trip as I see it now. With a little emotion.
Note on the use of “I” and “you” in the Journal entries – we occasionally use these terms as a way to separate ourselves from each other as distinct forms of being when we speak to each other. In written, journal form this changes. Sometimes when I use “you” in a sentence, “you” is really my mind I am addressing and “I” is my intuitive experience or my Self. Sometimes when I use “I” in a sentence I may mean my mind and “you” as my Self. Keep that dynamic in mind when you read these words and let the thoughts you have about “I” and “you” be fluid.
The mind likes to see and then make the world around it static and finite but experience is dynamic and infinite. Consciousness exists within and beyond the boundaries of thought, sense, memory and reason. So, if it helps, let the distance between our distinct forms of being dissolve and let “you” and “I” be One.
April 9th 2022
Plane flight to India. Departure 9:30pm and landed 9pm April 10th
Ate paneer on the plane. Super tasty. I am now a vegetarian
Business class is awesome.
April 10th 2022
Mysticism. The words we use to describe a thing say more about us than the thing. It’s impossible to describe a thing in it’s entirety. The more we try the more we reveal our thoughts about a thing rather than the thing we wish to describe.
No one wears shorts at the airport in India. Except me. I might have packed the wrong clothes. All I packed were shorts.
The experience speaks for itself in the moment. Everything else is your reaction from that instant pulled through time.
Lots of cows here.
Lots of Indian tourists white water rafting on the Ganga. It’s sort of like Northern Virginia but with huge shrines and statues of deities at major intersections instead of fast food restaurants. More like Maine. In fact, this is definitely Maine. Only its 99 degrees here.
No one wears black. I may have packed the wrong clothes, all the clothes I own are black
Anand Ji welcomed us during an opening ceremony where we all shared whatever we wanted to share. That was cool. The recovering lawyer phrase I usually use when people ask me to describe myself got laughs. Told them I was a fitness professional and had been leading teacher trainings. Some people are wandering and left their lives wherever they were to go on a journey. I guess I am too. From a variety of countries: Romania, Australia, Philippines, India, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Kuwait, India. The United States has a lot of folks here.
The food is great. Very nourishing and light. I am definitely not going to get enough to eat to sustain my current physical shape. And I’m okay with that.
April 11th
Got 3 hours of hardcore sleep the first night and woke at 2am. Tried reading the Economist and Wikipedia but stopped since it wasn’t helping my mind.
Pretty sure I heard monkeys screaming last night. Better than the fucking crows we have in the States, although I’ll probably want to shoot them after a week or two as well.
I must remember that I came here of my own volition to learn what is offered. It is a much different world here than the one I am used to. I feel like an outsider, a visitor. Hopefully in a week or two I will feel more in tune.
Morning Puja: offering of flowers, food, water and fire. Mantra.
Morning mediation. I hate meditating but I’m pretty sure that’s the main thing that will make my meditation practice awesome.
Everyone talking at morning fruit and juice despite the rule that we must be silent until after breakfast. I wonder if they are making spiritual progress even though they are not following the rules. Then I wonder why I care what they are doing and I stop the judgement. I’m not as hungry after puja and meditation. My mind does seem less cluttered and I am not pressed for time or thought.
I smell like the donkey that hangs out down by the river. I am gonna stink bad after 26 days.
First yoga practice- pranayama. Lots of pranayama. Kundalini yoga with lots of Kriya work. Pranayama, then kundalini with a few vinyasas. Repeat.
Donkeys wear bells. Unclear what the donkeys do besides drink from the river. I wish I was a donkey sometimes. I probably am most of the time
Breakfast was good. They serve hard boiled eggs. All is not lost. Lots of Chai too- will help me stay alert.
Morning wisdom session, origins of Yoga lecture was amazing. Spent the month prior to this training reading the Tao of Physics. Its main theme is that you can’t reduce mysticism to a single thing just like atoms/quanta and then we spent two hours categorizing yoga in this lecture. Lol.
So much breathing today. I’m utterly exhausted. Can’t remember the last time I had so little sleep.
Evening Asana practice, slow vinyasa class. So many kriyas. So much pranayama. Thought my hips were gonna fall off. They still might. This was only day one.
April 12th
Went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 4am. Dead asleep. I feel much better. My third eye is throbbing. That could also be my prefrontal cortex just not knowing what to do with all this new information. Or jetlag. Probably all of those things.
I have no idea how I am going to use what I am learning here in my classes back home. The practices here are so much different than the usual vinyasa class in DC.
April 13th
Yesterday I felt 100% better. The energy was there and I felt more at ease with the Kriyas and meditation. Especially the Kriyas, I am starting to get it. They induce a type of euphoria that is pleasant for me. The instructors say we are forming new neural pathways (samskaras) with this work and as we tread the path it gets deeper and deeper into our consciousness. This makes sense to m: by forming new habits, we drop old ones. A new habit must contain an element of pleasure for us to pursue it and if not pleasure then a faith in the principles set forth that will lead to a result we seek once the habit is formed as related by those who have tread the path before. This is no different than telling a person new to physical fitness that they need to workout for six weeks to see results: sometimes the workouts will produce endorphins that make us want to return. Other times this won’t happen. The key is to stay on the path.
Some may say It is better to have bees circle around your body than flies. Bees are attracted to honey and flies are attracted to shit. The flower is only one manifestation of the plant. 90% of the plant is needed to produce that beauty. Beauty which is very fleeting for most plants. Flies are attracted to the shit in the soil. Soil that feeds the roots. Roots that feed the plant that make the flower possible. So don’t be worried if you attract flies. Without the shit there is no flower. Start to worry if you never feel like a flower. Or you only attract bees.
April 14th
Skipped Puja today. It now starts at 6:15am. I’m like, 6:30am I can be there. But 6:15am? No way. That’s too early.
Meditation sucked less worse than it usually does. I didn’t look at my watch once. I’m very proud of myself but, strangely, there wasn’t a trophy waiting for me at breakfast.
Then the hippie stuff started. Morning Journey was 45 mins of seated kriya and pranayama. Then 30 mins of dancing with our eyes closed. Then staring into people’s eyes. Then hugging. Then face holding. Lots of crying. More hugging. More crying. Then singing. Giving up all ego, giving fully to others, creating an energy that is quite literally beyond words and left me speechless. A mystical experience. Which is what I came here for. It was truly lovely. I am a hippie.
I think to myself, the same class probably wouldn’t fly in Washington DC. There’s just too many personal and legal boundaries. But, what the hell, I’ll give it a try anyway.
Morning talk entitled “what is the Self” was a good one. Most of it was stuff I was aware of and had read elsewhere.I it is good to have that validation. I feel a little less like a fraud or at least if felt good hearing it from someone other than a yoga teacher in DC or Bryan Kest or the 30 guests I had on my podcast or a book I read whose author I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t feel like a fraud after all.
Memory is linked to time in a linear way. And so life can seem linear but it isn’t. That’s just memory. And time is both a way for the ego to distract us and a thing for us to use because without time there is no growth.
April 15th
One week down. Three to go. Time flows differently here, especially in classes. Our morning journey seems to last longer than a 90 min class. Meditation has become a little more enjoyable. I don’t look at my watch every 5 mins anymore.
April 16th
Received a mantra yesterday based on my energy, date of birth, place of birth and time of birth. I may not have gotten the time right. I wonder if that will make a difference? Probably not – it was a good faith effort on my part though
Downward facing dog is also upward facing Donkey. Think about it for a second.
Drum circle and fire pit tonight with the full moon out. Dancing and singing mantras. A little taste of home. There was a time when I would have felt pretty awkward dancing and singing but after doing Zumba auditions for the last 8 years nothing is embarrassing.
The people here are super kind, supportive, and loving. I fucking love them.
April 17th
You’ll never find the right answers if you keep asking questions. Sit with the experience and you will gain wisdom. “Learn to be wise instead of right.” – Anand Ji
Chasing the right answer is an intellectual addiction. Like any zealous addiction, it feeds itself and not your Self.
Sometimes the temptation is to “figure it out” and then make a conscious choice to believe or not believe “it.” “figuring it out” may only be building an intellectual outcome you are comfortable with based on your own superimposed structure, your learned behavior. “It” then becomes a product of your mind instead of the observance of reality. And your memory is then one of you instead of the experience.
April 18th
Day off from training. Morning Meditation and Journey and then taxi into Rishikesh.
Lots of shopping. Got scarves for people back home and for myself. Got white clothes for the closing ceremony.
Lunch at a cafe overlooking the Ganga. Then more shopping.
Aarti in the evening at the Ganga. There’s a elephant that bathes on the other side of the river.
Took off my shirt and went in the Ganga. It was really cold but not so cold that I went numb. Growing up at the New Jersey shore where the water is so cold it makes your testicles crawl up into you stomach comes in handy sometimes.
April 19th
Went back to Puja this morning. 6:15am isn’t so bad after all.
We get angry at ourselves for making mistakes as if we shouldn’t. Without mistakes there is no growth. It is arrogance to think the last mistake will be your last. You’ll come face to face with this arrogance the next time you get angry at yourself for making a mistake.
There are limits to what you can know if you are only using your mind.
April 20th
Meditation continues to be a challenge. There is much resistance from my mind which is not surprising- I have spent a lot of time making my mind fit a certain pattern that sustains me. Unfortunately that pattern hasn’t brought me peace. So meditation it is!
A group of cows came down the path this morning by the river. One of them ate the apple core out of my hand. When I went into the river to clear trash out of the small dam, another cow drank my Chai.
During class today I rolled my eyes further than I ever have in Agni Mudra. Felt like I was looking into my brain. How can the brain look at the brain through the eyes? Like placing a mirror in front of another mirror?
When you ask a question are you inviting an opinion or an experience? If an opinion, can you let that pass and accept or do you feel the need to argue? If you argue what is your goal? If you want an experience can you let that pass without judgement? If so, you’ll finally be listening.
April 21st
Started the day off with a hike to a waterfall. We walked up a mountain and I never felt out of breath. Sat under the waterfall and after someone said it looked like I was being baptized. It was an apt observation.
I asked Anand Ji a question during our session on the Koshas.
“How do we know the difference between reaction from learned behavior and insight? How do we know we aren’t manifesting deep learned behavior?”
Answer: “insight comes from stillness and conditioned activity comes from a place of disturbance.”
Word.
My follow up question was “how does this relate to Dharma?”
Answer: “Dharma is to live a life of spontaneous right action”
Which fits nicely: if you have stillness Dharma will flow because insight will always lead to right action.
April 22nd
A Pundit is a learned person or keeper of knowledge and they are usually advisors to leaders in India. Ironic that we call experts on television who yell at each other Pundits. I haven’t seen a Pundit do that here.
April 23rd
Meditation isn’t getting any easier to do. My mantra brings up certain images that are repetitive. My mind goes elsewhere to avoid the images and when I bring my mind back to my mantra, I see the images again. I will try to see past the images until they no longer arise in my mind.
“I think, therefore I am” is taking on new meaning for me. I have always understood the phrase to mean, to think is to exist as a human. It has been interpreted that rational thought derived from the mind makes us human and separates us from other life forms. And Descartes may have indeed meant the saying as meaning: we have rational thought, therefore we are human. It has been acted on frequently as a rejection of any action that isn’t logical or rational. But I can recognize the mind and so as an observer of that intuition, I must be more. I think therefore I am becomes the whole of the human, not just the mind, I experience, therefore I am.
What they teach here is- when you have an experience you can’t explain, don’t try just because your mind needs to put the experience into words Wait until you have more insight/knowledge. Know that you don’t know and let that be okay until you do KNOW instead of rejecting the experience or putting the experience in a box limited by your current knowledge. Grow from the experience – evolve.
It’s quite liberating actually. We always want to know the answer Now. And if we don’t have the answer now, we just go with reacting with what we know. We put words to experience that frame the experience with our accumulated knowledge. We put the experience in a box before letting the experience settle. When we do that we stagnate. To grow and understand we sometimes need to let experience settle.
Growth (and understanding) take time to happen. A tree doesn’t grow in a day. I always knew that, now I know that.
At least that’s what I’m experiencing. Try this: if you want to teach a baby language, you need to show them meaning. You can’t explain English by using baby language. The baby has to accept that arm means arm. You have to accept the new learning on its own terms, not on the reference points you have in your current conditioning. If you never do that, then there is a limit to what you can know because language is a crude (and artificial) way to describe experience. For example: how do you describe subatomic particles like electrons? As a wave? As a particle? It’s both actually. But if you only accept waves and particles, then you’ll never know what an electron actually is.
Of course, you don’t have to accept that subatomic Quanta are waves and particles. That’s your choice.
And a baby can go through life just babbling. But it doesn’t. So why are you?
April 25th
There are some who walk up the stairs and trip on the first step because they aren’t looking directly ahead of them. There are some who put the first foot down successfully but trip as they place the second foot on the first step because they are only looking ahead and don’t know what is behind. There are some who look ahead AND know what’s behind and realize that you need to do both without tripping. That is being present.
Sadhviji (Sahvi Bhagawati Saraswati) from Parmarth Niketan came to speak to us yesterday at Sattva. She gave the speech about Earth Day at Arti last week. She has a grace and vibration about her that I could feel very strongly. I asked her: why do toxic people seem to be rewarded for their behavior and do not suffer. A topic I wrote a little about in my Article- Compassion for Trump. Her answer was that they may be rewarded financially but not spiritually. They are not happy: “when you feel joy you make others happy. When you feel toxic you make others around you toxic.” I feel the truth of that statement. I’ve been there
April 26th
I realize now I can only help others if they ask. It isn’t up to me to decide that someone needs help. I can no longer assume that everyone I see with a problem wants my help in solving it. And I can no longer accept responsibility for the solution. I can give advice and support but I can’t make someone else’s problem go away with the force of my will. Will has limits
May 3rd
200 hour YTTs graduated today. Was delightful to see everyone so happy and full of wonder. The spiritual path is a river, always there in the Self. Every once in a while, no matter who you are, your mind becomes aware that it is swimming against the current of Self. When your mind awakens to the spiritual path your mind struggles even more to stop the struggle because it does not know how to stop and doesn’t have the courage to learn how. As You become fully aware that the mind struggles and not the Self there is an even greater awakening. The struggle with the mind ceases and you feel the flow of the river. You let it take you downstream. Flowing downstream, you make adjustments to your Self so that the river doesn’t overwhelm you. The mind is now your ally. You make ever more refined movements with the mind that lead to stillness without effort as you float. Every once in a while you will need to readjust and regain the flow. But you never feel the need to turn around and start struggling again. That is yoga.
May 5th
Pointing out that someone is a hypocrite is like going to a baseball game and filling out the scorecard and then bringing that scorecard to the next game and getting pissed off when the teams don’t play the same exact game as they did the day before. The teams have the same names, the players have the same names, the rules are the same but everything else has changed from the day before:the weather, the line up of the teams, the individuals who make up the teams, and most importantly, you have changed (whether you admit it or not). All those changes result in a totally different game that is played by others and perceived by you. It’s the reason we go to games, to see the unexpected, to be an active participant in the unexpected. Not to be an observer from afar who judges every action. If we go expecting the same game as the day before we are deluding ourselves and playing the role of an all-knowing God, which we are not.
If a person says they believe or act in one way on Saturday and then don’t act the same way on Monday, from your point of view, they are a hypocrite but from their point of view they may be acting or believing based on a new set of circumstances that you are unaware of. Who are you to keep score of their lives? Are they just part of a game in your mind for your entertainment? If they did care that you are keeping score then don’t you become the master of their future actions? To approve what they do based on your scorecard? Why would a person want that? Why would you want that? That’s an awful lot to keep track of. And who keeps your scorecard? You? If so, maybe you should pay more attention to yourself and keep score. If someone else, then be prepared to give up your own agency to that person. If that is God then great. But who are you to be God for someone else? They didnt authorize you to be that for them so you have no right to take on that role from their point of view.
You could spend your entire day keeping the scorecard for other people and then making sure they aren’t hypocrites tomorrow. But you would only be an observer and never a true participant. Going to the game but never being a part of it. Where’s the joy in that?
May 6th
I can here not knowing what to expect but trusting in every way. I wouldn’t have believed a future me who came back in time and tried to tell me what would happen. I guess that’s what a Journey is: an experience beyond what you could have predicted then when you look back. Evolution is the Journey in the present moment. Flight home. A little over half way through the 15 hour flight dawn started. And for the next seven hours it stayed dawn until we landed. The most amazing thing. I’ve never seen dawn last that long.
After flying for 14 hours at 30,000 feet The most comforting thing in the world is seeing the ocean at 1000 feet. a grey, early morning where the Sea is tinted dark green, blue and white- the lights on the container ships, the fishing boats, the white caps framed by low lying clouds complete the tapestry entitled “Welcome Home.”
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Rushing down the lane to the beach, I race in the direction of clarity; the compliment of sand and sea. We have all been there, a tractor to our right, sheep to the left and the walk, the walk to a fantasized destination. On occasion, the way is filled with hope. Other times there isn’t an absence of hope, but an emptiness overrides any enthusiasm. Conflicted in the inner space… of a Sunday.
Often, my mind has already arrived at the beach, tuned out from the hedging hawthorn, resilient nettles, and therapeutic dock leaves. Distant from the morning sunlight, that gurgle of machinery, and waft of sillage. There’s a battle of brambles, and satisfying chop of secateurs. My march renews me at the altar. I’m rushing towards a release only provided by sanctuary.
Sometimes, on the way down the lane, I think to myself… Walk slower…, and then I don’t. In a hurry, I scale to the top of a dune. Sand, stones, and sticks intermingled, create a perch. My eyes follow a seal slumping into the waves, a limp stillness in the ebb and flow. A carefulness not to exert himself in the grey torrents. Not at all fazed by that unceasing nature found in the mother of all beasts. Blindly following this seal’s faith in his safe return to the shore, I entirely miss the fox scoot up behind me, in arm’s reach from my shoulders. Sensing a shift nearer a natural haven, I then lock eyes with its wildness. Silent footprints, black tips at the ears, and that marvelous tail.
Looking for scraps, he probably came to the right place.
Historically speaking, humour wasn’t welcome at a sanctuary, shrine or holy place. The joke might undermine meaning or take away from teachings. In writing, it can be seen as using a security blanket, as always relying on a joke when navigating near feelings, to lessen the seriousness, in case the subject is too raw. To act as an airbag on impact. Humour is a powerful coping mechanism, a tool for thinking and expression. It doesn’t have to take anything away from anything. It can actually provide perspective and contribute to the spirit of the place. There is a time to be serious, and a time to have a laugh. I might misread the appropriate response, so to be safe, I bring both. In truth, sometimes I don’t know which one is which.
Feature Image: Common Seal (Phoca vitulina vitulina)
A month on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states, including Ireland, are faced with some of the most significant challenges in decades. How should the West react? With humanitarian aid? With issuing a welcome to refugees? With weapons? With direct military interventions such as imposing a ‘no fly zone’ and therefore potentially extending the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders?
It’s a pity that the European Union has in effect forfeited a potential diplomatic role, due to the decision of some member states to supply arms to one of the belligerents (albeit the victim of aggression), to the extent that diplomatic efforts at securing a settlement are being hosted by Turkey under Erdogan, which is not exactly a country renowned for protecting civil liberties or democratic values.
It’s also a pity that the popular uproar greeting Putin’s invasion has not been seen in the past few years in response to other conflicts, including the war in Yemen which has raged, without an end in sight, since 2014.
The pictures shown here are of a protest organized by theIrish Anti-War Movementin an effort to raise awareness of the tragedy Yemenis are still experiencing, as well as a call for Ireland’s neutrality or non-alignment to be maintained. They hope instead that the State can play a major role in leading necessary diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts around the world, including the war in Ukraine.
There now seems to be a concerted efforts on the part of the political establishment to push to formally abandon the country’s neutral status, already strained by past and current use of Shannon Airport by NATO forces.
The Irish Anti War Movement @IrishAntiWarMvt are holding a protest at 6PM at the Dáil in solidarity with Ukraine for peaceful solutions to the war and to defend Ireland's neutrality.
Patricia McKenna addressing the crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the GPO, Dublin.Crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the GPO, Dublin.Ibrahim Hashem addressing the crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the GPO, Dublin.Crowd marching at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in towards the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.
Crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 marching towards the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.Crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the Dáil Éireann, Dublin.
crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.Richard Boyd Barrett TD addressing the crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.Abdulaziz Almoayyad addressing the crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.Ivana Bacik TD addressing the crowd at the Irish anti-war movement on the 26/03/22 in front of the Saudi Embassy, Dublin.
Environmentalist Erik Stokstad once remarked that ‘H2O – is there any other molecule so vital, and so problematic, for people?
The UN estimates that around 1.2 billion people, or 20 per cent of the world’s population, live in areas where the limits of sustainable water use have already either been reached, or breached. It is high time the issue sits as a priority on the global agenda. There may still be enough for us all, if only we can keep it clean and share it.
In 2017, 5.3 billion people used a safely managed drinking-water service (i.e., one located on-premises and free from contamination)
6.8 billion people used at least a basic service. Basic service is an improved drinking-water source, within a round trip of 30 minutes, to collect water.
785 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service, including 144 million people who are dependent on surface water.
About 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces.
Contaminated water can transmit diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio. Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrheal deaths each year.
By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.
In the least developed countries, 22% of health care facilities have no water service, 21% no sanitation service, and 22% no waste management service.
Water use has been increasing globally by about 1% every year since the 1980s. This is due to population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns. Global water demand is set to rise at a similar pace until 2050, accounting for an increase of 20-30% above the current level of use with increased demand from both industrial and domestic sectors.
About two billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress, and four billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least a month every year.
Water stress is defined as the ratio between water withdrawals (i.e., domestic, agricultural, and industrial water uses) and available renewable water supplies.
Water scarcity means scarce availability (i.e., physical shortage) due to the failure of institutions to ensure a regular supply or due to a lack of adequate infrastructure. Safe drinking water and sanitation are basic human rights, indispensable to sustaining healthy livelihoods and fundamental to maintaining the dignity of all human beings.
International Human Rights law obliges states to work towards achieving universal access to water and sanitation for all, without discrimination, while prioritizing those most in need. Fulfilment requires that services be safely available, physically accessible, equitably affordable. Water availability depends upon the amount of water physically available, and also how it is stored, managed and allocated to various users.
It, therefore, relates to surface water and groundwater management, alongside water recycling and reuse. Water management for smallholder family farmers needs to consider both rainfed and irrigated agriculture. Approximately 80% of global cropland is rainfed, and 60% of the world’s food is produced on rainfed land.
The 2019 UN-Water initiative called ‘Leaving No One Behind’ suggested how improvements in water resources management and access to water supply and sanitation services are essential to addressing various social and economic inequities. Water scarcity is entwined with environmental protection, poverty alleviation and promoting development; globally more than 2.5 billion people live in the most abysmal standards of hygiene and sanitation.
Wastage of water and absence of regular clean water supply is evident not only in burgeoning metropolises but also in huge rural regions. The mighty Colorado river, North America, seldom meets the sea. One-third of the US and one-fifth of Spain still suffer from water stress. Central Africa’s Lake Chad, supporting thirty million-plus people has already shrunk to one-tenth of its former size, the negative contributory factors include inter alia climate change, drought, poor management and overuse.
South Asian woman carrying water on her head, 2016.
India
In India accessibility to drinking water has increased considerably over the last decade in particular. However, around 10 per cent of the rural and urban populations still don’t have access to regular safe drinking water.
The available annual utilizable water in the country (surface as well as ground) stands at 1100b cubic meters.
World Bank data shows that the total cost of environmental damage in India amounts to 4.5 per cent of GDP and of this 59 per cent results from the health impact of water pollution!
Another cause of anxiety is that unsatisfactory availability of safe drinking water. Though water contains organic and inorganic impurities, the main source of diseases are the organic impurities that enter into the water through the soil from cesspools, through manure, or through sewers emptying their contents into the rivers – from which many cities, in particular, get their drinking water supply.
Additionally, inadequate home piping systems including unclean water tanks, improper drainage, and waste disposal systems, also contribute to impure or contaminated water. Again, the presence of excessive inorganic matters (iron, lead salts, etc.) leads to diseases like constipation, dyspepsia, colic, paralysis, and kidney disease, sometimes resulting in death. Dangerous bacteria produce deadly diseases of jaundice, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, kidney problems, nervous system problems and even lead to an increased risk of cancer.
Contrary to popular perception, the hardness of water is not a risk to health so long it does not contain disease-causing pathogens and bacteria. Especially, during summer and rainy seasons, the position goes from bad to worse, as water-borne diseases become rampant. The extreme heat and humid environments are favourable to bacteria. The immediate need is thus to invest in timely, reliable, proven and advanced water purification systems[xiv] that guarantees the public safe and pure drinking water at all times.
Efforts to enhance drinking water supply must move at a greater speed so as to cover all of the villages in the developing bloc with adequate potable water connection and supply.
Technology plays a vital role in terms of meeting people’s basic needs in a sustained manner. Naturally, protecting freshwater reserves, watershed development, chemical treatments following the safety norms, tackling the arsenic and fluoride contamination, among others, could offer rich dividends.
Strategies for Managing Water
The former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon once said:
we need to begin thinking about better strategies for managing water – for using it efficiently and sharing it fairly. This means partnerships involving not just governments but civil society groups, individuals and businesses.
This is a realistic approach, which is not achieved by hiding in conference rooms and observing world water day.
Responsibility lies with both government and the private sector, and involves: checking the unrestricted exploitation of groundwater; encouraging planned urbanization; optimisation of use; restricting the flow of effluents from industrial units to the rivers, with stricter governance.
We must nurture new scientific knowledge in order to understand the evolution of water systems that involve the relationship between man and nature. But also integrate local knowledge into scientific research to address user needs, and put in place more effective mechanisms to translate scientific knowledge into societal action.
The challenges of addressing the water-food-climate-change-nexus could be mitigated if collaborative approaches are taken up, which depend on political will, market mechanisms and innovative technology.
For example, market forces could work well under a cap-and-trade approach similar to those applied to carbon dioxide. Creating mechanisms for market forces to play a role in the management of scarce water could be a major leap forward.
Developing an inclusive institutional structure to establish multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation is essential to ensuring equitable access to sustainable water supply and sanitation services.
When governments’ roles are geared towards policy setting and regulation, the actual provision of services is carried out by non-state actors or independent departments. Well-functioning accountability mechanisms help institutions with sufficient capacity fulfil their mandates to monitor and enforce the obligations of the service providers.[xvi]
Girls of squatter settlement in Dharan collect water from river.
Towards a Sustainable and Efficient Water Resource Strategy
Every year, several millions of people die from drinking contaminated water. To help address these challenges related to freshwater, scientists in many disciplines are applying new tools and techniques. One way has been to understand the impact of climate change on water quantity and quality and predict future needs and threats. Another way has been to explore making use of water—for drinking or industrial purposes—from sources that are otherwise considered unusable.
An emerging area is the ecological impact of activities related to the energy industry such as fracking or carbon sequestration. Other researchers are trying to increase the efficiency of farms and factories – the biggest consumers. Water scarcity already poses a great threat to economic growth, human rights and national security.
Deforestation of the Madagascar Highland Plateau has led to extensive siltation and unstable flows.
A Global Phenomenon requiring Local action – a ‘Glocal’ focus for the road ahead!
Water recycling and finding better ways to remove salt from seawater could be of key importance. Population growth could cause global demand for water to outpace supply by mid-century if current levels of consumption continue, according to a recent study.
Periods of increased demand for water – often coinciding with population growth or other major demographic and social changes – were followed by periods of rapid innovation of new water technologies that helped end or ease any shortages.
Using a delayed-feedback mathematical model that analyses historic data to help project future trends, some studies have identified a regularly recurring pattern of global water use in recent centuries. Based on this recurring pattern, researchers from Duke University predict a similar period of innovation could occur in the coming decades.
There is thus an immediate need to invest in a reliable, proven and advanced water purification system that guarantees the public – in both rural and urban areas – safe and pure drinking water at all times.
State of the art technology must be extensively made use of in a time-bound manner to protect the triple bottom (planet, people, profit)[i] from threats emanating from various forms of pollution.
PROACTIVE over REACTIVE use of water technologies
It is worth noting that companies are proactively taking initiatives and are stepping up steadily. One company called Ecolab intends to further leverage lot and machine learning to enhance its proactive services to ensure water is conserved and available to both businesses and the communities they operate in.
They have provided their service to about 40,000 customers in more than 170 countries around the world to maximize available resources. There is a positive impact on process efficiency too.
Hopefully, the next-generation 3D TRASAR technology reduces reuses and recycles water. The technology can not only monitor the water usage at a customer’s site and alert us should it get out of control, but it can also take remedial actions based on the stress levels on the systems, and induce chemicals or reduce water usage to maximize the life of the asset and minimize usage.
People collect clean drinking water from a tapstand in the town of Ghari Kharo, in western Sindh Province in Pakistan.
Population Growth
Population growth puts strain on the per capita availability of water. In the developing world, efforts to enhance drinking water supply must move at a greater speed so as to cover all of the villages with adequate potable water connection/supply.
New technology should play a bigger role in such a context to meet people’s basic needs in a sustainable manner. Naturally, protecting freshwater reserves, watershed development, chemical treatments following the safety norms, tackling the arsenic and fluoride contamination, among others, could also offer rich dividends for private companies.
Water limits are close to being breached in several countries, while food output has to increase by up to 100 per cent by 2050 to sustain a growing world population, according to the United Nations.
We must holistically manage water and energy usage. Further efforts must be intensified to maximize the use of technology in order to proactively conserve water and improve performance in water-intensive industries.
A progressive, realistic plan should therefore focus on:
(A) improving data collection on the location and types of water resources.
(B) promoting water-saving farming technologies.
(C) developing sewage treatment facilities alongside water projects.
(D) establishing a national monitoring body and a new legal framework for the sector.
As we can’t expand in a quantitative sense, we have to expand by using our water more carefully.
Feature Image: Abandoned ship near Aral, Kazakhstan.
It is coming up to one of the best times of the year; those early days of January following the sixth – a period I cheerfully refer to as ‘The Anti-Christmas’!
Alas December has first to be endured. It is a month dominated by two types of people: those who project that the time is fun for commercial purpose; and those who do so for social advantage. Although each was a monstrous individual, nonetheless Joe Stalin and Ollie Cromwell may have each separately been onto something – in so far as they both banned aspects of Christmas.
As if an orgy of collective consumerism can offset the unrelenting bleakness of the year’s dullest days? On a more serious note, it is sad that the ‘festive season’ correlates with an annual spike in altercations, hospital admissions, relationship break-ups, etc.
There is no other way to put it: December fills me with dread. Daylight dropping by a few minutes each day, and worse if cloudy when even the shadows refuse to come out to play amid grim gloom. The rain that fell yesterday does not seem dry on these grey days, as thermometers shiver with the temperatures in single digits. For certain, these must count as the bleakest weeks of the calendar.
All too often, people behave in a manner unacceptable at any other time of the year. One only has to cross a street during these weeks to witness the manic impatience – and occasional dangerous behaviour – by countless drivers.
Yet just a few weeks later, the streets are quieter, calmer, and indeed sometimes serene. The same individual who was driving crazily is often a character transformed, taking far more care on the road.
Maybe it is the guilt-trips associated with December that are most objectionable. These generally take two forms. There is the necessary attendance of social occasions – so as it is less likely to be perceived as an antisocial malcontent – and then there are those innumerable good causes seeking charitable donations. It can be a hard challenge to simply battle on, but it’s vital all the same.
The usual routes for psychological escape, however, tend to be stymied. Anything outdoors involves cold or damp. Try turning on a radio or TV and you are bombarded with advertising, promising either unbelievable joys after a purchase, or else soliciting charity for desperate heart-breaking catastrophes; a choice between strychnine smiles and poor unfortunates suffering dreadful distress. Possibly not a great recipe for people’s mental health, I suspect.
Fortunately, the crescendo of craziness usually peaks in the days leading up to Christmas Eve. By then, the sloppiness associated with the Christmas office party mobs has mostly dissipated. Nitwits likely to attempt to attend twelve pubs are also typically in retreat, having succeeded or failed in their valiant missions.
New Years’ Eve can pose a threat, but usually it just amounts to an Amateurs’ Night, where chaos is confined to those determined to participate. And unless one is unfortunate to live where Orthodox Christmas occurs, the future gets brighter – literally!
From around January seventh our world starts becoming more pleasant and civilised. It is by then nearly four weeks since earliest nightfall! Contrary to common perception, daylight in evening time begins to extend around the thirteenth of December – although mornings continue getting darker until the thirty-first, hence the twenty-first being the day with least daylight overall. Thus, a week into January, it is bright for nearly an hour longer than the depressing days of mid-December.
All the nonsense and excess of previous weeks is thankfully finished with for another year. Coca-cola put away their crappy red cloaked Santa Clauses until its annual marketing requirement ten months later –likewise the other big brands that have rendered bland any sense of occasion the time of year ever contained. With January’s arrival, the phrase ‘Sure, it’s Christmas’ becomes invalid, and can no longer be cited in defence of unsatisfactory actions, or lack thereof.
There is a defence made about Christmas having a ‘real’ meaning before it was commercially hijacked. Yet there again, it is worth noting it was an annual pagan festival before it was pilfered or ‘culturally appropriated’ by Christians. It used to help sell Rome; now it sells Coca-cola.
All too often, securing a restaurant table in December is a competitive heat, where the victors’ spoils consist of queues and confined spaces, served-up with a dollop of top-dollar prices by overworked staff at the end of their tether. Yet walk into the same establishment in January – at least in ‘normal times’ – and savour the personal attention you are likely to receive from staff glad of the custom. The January lunch or supper liberates the individual; company is by choice rather than obligation.
It is not that January is the winter tunnel’s end – but an unmistakable brightness is beginning to hove into view. There will be further dark days ahead, but none darker than those past; the dreariness is finally passing. Media continues to push commercial adverts, but those flogging insurance and holidays tend to use far less shrill ditties than those carried at Christmas time. In January, the hard sells are off, enforced engagement is over; and we can escape – we can get away from the maddening crowd.
It is understandable then why the period around January the sixth has long been known in Ireland as ‘Little Christmas’ or ‘Nollaig na mBan’, meaning ‘Women’s Christmas’.
I may call it ‘The Anti-Christmas’ – but perhaps the older title is better, luring buy-in from erstwhile festive fanatics. This is the moment when reasonable people breath a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge they are as far as possible on the calendar from the annual madness of the ‘holiday season’.
A light is there on the horizon, beckoning us forth, promising a beginning of better and brighter days: Hooray for Jolly January!
So where do we go from here? Better still how do we even begin to unravel the pain, sorrow and hardship, Afghans have endured over decades?
Do we start with the American invasion twenty years ago? Its objective was to end terrorism as part of the ‘War on Terror’ after the September 11 attacks.
"The US government is the guardian of the wealth and material comfort to which we have become accustomed, and most of us, including myself, are, in the final analysis, unwilling to countenance the alternative. That is what was scary about September 11."https://t.co/mK2fn8nZXE
Can we usefully employ a time line of American and NATO interference in the internal affairs of the Afghan people, and a prelude to the invasion of Iraq? Or should we look to events before 2001?
If we cannot ignore the transgressions of the Taliban while in power, surely we cannot ignore how they came to power in the first place? So let us assess the period prior to the rise of the Taliban.
Bloodless Coup
After three Anglo-Afghan Wars between 1839 and 1919, a monarchy continued to rule Afghanistan, until a bloodless coup was led by General and former Prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan on July 17, 1973.
Daoud Khan, c. 1974.
Born into the Royal family, he deposed the King and inaugurated a one-party political system, with himself as supreme leader and President of the Republic of Afghanistan.
Economic reforms were promised but failed to materialise as events on the ground became unstable. As President, Khan purged the Soviet-aligned Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan. One of its leaders was assassinated and several of its officials arrested.
Many went into hiding before a military coup on April 28, 1978 deposed Daoud Khan. He and his family were killed and a secular Communist government was established.
Cold War
With Afghanistan now led by a secular, pro-Soviet government at the height of a Cold War between U.S. capitalism and Soviet communist ideologies, the stage was set for a proxy war, financed by the United States to destabilise the country and trapping Soviet troops in a Vietnam-type quagmire of military entanglement.
U.S. President Reagan meeting with Afghan mujahideen at the White House in 1983.
Historians have claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency set out to recruit, arm, finance and train Islamic fundamentalists. These jihadists were adherents to the Wahabbi strain of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. This radicalised the indigenous population providing the impetus for an armed opposition against the government of Afghanistan. While opposition to the Communist government was already established, it was about to be financed by America, Saudi Arabia, and others. Pakistan was already a haven for the Afghan opposition.
Under Operation Cyclone the Central Intelligence Agency of America financed and armed the Afghan opposition between 1979 and 1989
The civil war that erupted was between the secular government of Afghanistan who had invited the Soviet Army into Afghanistan to help store order, and the so-called mujihadeen, led by among others, Ahmad Shah Massoud, and considered by Rober D. Kaplan to be one of the greatest guerrilla leaders of the twentieth century; joined later by Saudi Arabian, Osama Bin Laden, the so-called Arab-Afghanis what went on to form Al-Qaeda (the base).
Ahmad Shah Massoud
The protagonists were ready, the stage was set, and the actors employed, armed and financed, before the war began in earnest, culminating in the collapse of Mohammad NajiBullah’s Soviet-aligned regime in April 1992
The mujahideen trained and financed by the American government had succeeded in destroying the secular government, before a government led by the Taliban (meaning ‘students’ or ‘truth seekers’) eventually seized Kabul in 1996.
The Taliban emerged in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar around September 1994.
From that point on human rights were repressed and women especially were forced to conform to a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
America had won the proxy war. But their surrogate army repressed women and arguably de-evolved human rights by a hundred years. Yet the American administration remained full of self-congratulatory smugness in the wake of victory against a Cold War foe.
Then began the systemic misrule of Afghanistan by the reactionary forces of Islam, the Taliban, supported by Pakistan.
Within the mujahideen an internal struggle began between the so-called Northern Alliance forces and the Taliban. This struggle ended with the American-led invasion of 2001.
Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency ISI played a major role on behalf of America during the mujahideen revolt and harbored its leaders. Many of those who fought with the mujahideen were not Afghans but Islamic extremists, mostly from other Arab countries.
In the wake of September 11th, amidst claims of Al-Qaeda Islamic militants training in Afghanistan, and the country a hotbed for fundamentalist Islamists, America blamed Bin Laden and others for the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers.
Although nearly all those accused of perpetrating the atrocity were Saudi Arabian, and the only planes allowed to leave America in the immediate aftermath of the attacks contained Osama bin Laden’s wealthy family, America duly attacked Afghanistan. This occurred despite claims the Taliban had offered to help America hold those responsible to account.
The Taliban had been part of the mujahideen front which took control of Afghanistan. The Taliban now controlled 90% of the country, while various warlords and drugs gangs involved in the Northern Alliance controlled the countries northeast corner.
The former puppets of American imperialism the mujahideen, now the Taliban, went from Washington’s brave fighters for freedom to the terrorists who needed to be rooted out and destroyed, when America and its allies bombed parts of Afghanistan back to the stone age.
A twenty-year invasion and occupation, costing an estimated two trillion dollars alongside countless Allied and Afghan deaths has finally ended. Thus American troops withdrew in a humiliating retreat on August 31st, 2021.
What next?
I asked at the beginning of this piece, What next for Afghanistan? Well, I fear more violence destabilisation death, and destruction?=.
The Taliban now claim they want to pursue national reconciliation with the Northern Alliance, but who would benefit from the disruption of this initiative?
The new Sino-Soviet cooperation in rebuilding an economic supply line through a revitalised economic Eurasia – the Belt and Road Initiative – may become the real target of American, and European, sanctions.
There may be no U.S. or NATO boots on the ground any longer but the economic cooperation policies pursued by China and Russia to include vast investment in infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia, including Afghanistan, may yet give rise to a new proxy war aimed at destabilising the Taliban government. In reality it will be yet another war against Russian, and now Chinese economic cooperation in the region. A continuation of the age old Great Game.
Afghan tribesmen (in British service) in 1841
The War on Terror is nothing more than a capitalist-imperialist attack on democracy and the freedom of sovereign nations, led by those who claim to cherish democracy and freedom yet continually bomb, invade, sanction, murder, displace and maim millions in the name of humanitarian intervention.
I fear Afghanistan will not see peace and stability any time soon, and expect the Northern Alliance and even Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (or ISIS-K) to be used and directed by America to disrupt China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
An grá is an gráin, say these two words out loud, say them out loud to yourself, out loud to the listening others around, and feel in your mouth how subtle the shift is between them; how the open mouth of love — grá — gets slighted by the brush of your tongue’s curled tip shaping hate — gráin; feel the quick lick it gives the roof of your mouth. It’s that kind of sliver, isn’t it, the one we know to be true; the one that suddenly shifts the friend or the lover to the one we don’t know or want to know. In shape and in sound, there in your mouth, Irish gathers together a distinction of meaning in a unity of resonance. Where the mind of English fragments and scatters, (say them too out loud, say love, say hate), Irish holds in an elemental poetry we need to participate in to sense.
Sometimes what language teaches us can be that visceral.
I am digging words in the Burren when I hit upon this realisation —
tá go leor eile, more abound, Siobhán chirps; an saoirse is an daoirse, an solas is an dolas; seo é an fhilíocht nádur atá le fáil sa teanga! Siobhán is leading us in an archaeological word excavation, amuigh san aer i gciorcal Hedge School, uncovering from Irish some sense of a way of being in the world we have only just forgotten. If we lost it in a generation, we can reclaim it in a generation. Dictionaries are scattered all around, I hold one in my lap, but there is no discussion here of the tuiseal ginideach, we are not being questioned about the modh coinniollach and all mentions of Peig are with endearment and jest. We are just picking words at random and letting the connective threads be woven from there and we weave them without trying. It feels illicit to use a dictionary in this way, and I love it. Here a space is opened of pure play, without the plámás of getting anything right. Here the severed head of Irish we suffered in school is reunited with our bodies — the vibrations in Irish are cosúil le Sanskrit — tugann sí fuinneamh láidir duit. Just feel and the rest will follow; this seems to be the unspoken mantra of the Wild Irish Retreat weekend.
Earlier that morning, the sun rising from behind Slieve Elva, Cearbhuil leads the women down to the hazel wood chun macnamih a dheanamh, to meditate, and we follow, trusting this woman who is keeper of this land; and we go down to the hazel wood, and there’s a stillness in our hearts. We’ve been invited to observe a noble silence and so our passage through the curly tendrils is punctuated only by snaps of twigs, the brush of branches newly leafing and birdsong from birds I have no name for, not in either tongue. And we pause then as Cearbhuil stops and simply says — éist — just listen. No crossed legs, no chanting, nothing specific to learn, we are simply tuning in to what is here, all around us; we are simply letting our civilised bodies contact the coill, and letting the coill touch deep into us. And later, when Cearbhuil leads us again, now through a forage walk on the land chun lón a sholáthar, we listen then too, not just to the names that fall like small prayers to all the invisible Gods, slanlóg, nóinín, neantóg, casairbháin, but to all the reverence is an méad meas atá ann in this woman’s gestures; we’re listening to all the wisdom in her fingers that know when to pluck, what to leave and how to reap without plundering. It is simple, even obvious, and so all the more unbelievable that we need to be shown how to see what is in front of us and all around us; an leigheas is an maitheas ag fás go fiáin. As if nothing has happened, all the goodness and plenitude of the land is still offered— here, the seamsóg extends itself —here, the seamair dhearg —had we but sense and right vision to see. Tá gach rud fós ann, I hear whispered in my head.
I spoke of these Iseas in Croke Park recently, ideas that have been forming around me and inside of me that were inspired by John Moriarty and my experience of hurling. He gave me leave to understand the world for myself, deferring to no one.https://t.co/b5U0XPU5FD
And then on the beach with Diarmuid, the same principles we have absorbed from Siobhán and Cearbhuil without any direct tutelage apply now to the game of hurling; listen, play, be here in your body. There are real players on the trá, none more so than Diarmuid who seems to skip through the sand goat-like, whilst my legs are heavy pillars that have to be heaved and hefted to keep up with the ball. But this game is not about cé mhéad blianta atá ar do dhroim; it’s not about how many times you’ve kitted out in any coloured jersey. Here, now, with the crashing waves of Fanore in our ears, we return to the pleasure of simply pucking a ball. We léim go hard, we scuttle for the liathróid, we roar anseo to each other, and when we scramble too fast ahead of ourselves, get too caught up in a race to get, Diarmuid beckons us to stop and asks us to check in with ourselves; éistigí cad atá ar siúl i do chorp. Stay with the place of ease, cé comh éasca can you make it lads, don’t strain. And while there may be taithí go leor leis an cluiche ar cuid daoine, none of us have much experience in that. Play till you’re played out; win at whatever cost. Something in us knew that wasn’t the way it had to be, but we had no guidance in respecting the rhythm of our nádur; how to join effort with ease, doing with non-doing. And then, as if in an ancient ritual of bowing to our human limitation, when the hurls are finally cast aside, we throw ourselves into an Atlantach fiáin herself; engulfed in the white and the rush of her embrace; tógtha.
Of course, there is much more that could be shared here about cad atá ar siúl leis an Wild Irish Retreats. I could tell you about the food, not just cé comh blásta is atá sé, but how it is prepared with such care and attention; slow cooking at its finest. And even more, how it is served to you, with grace and kind eyes; accompaniments you didn’t know you needed and that nourish far into the depths of you. And the music, and the fire, and the joy of being together at last. But I am not offering an advertisement here. If this sounds like a sale’s pitch, it isn’t. If you think I’m trying to convince you of something, I’m not. The arguments for Irish are many; many more those for how to rescue ourselves from our current catastrophe and our abominable alienation from the land. This is not a proof, nor is it a plea, this is simply a love song; a song of praise. This is just a need to acknowledge my luck of having returned home, after many years away, to find myself among mo mhuintir arís, ag caint as gaeilge, le mo dhá chosa ar an talamh. This is just to sing that it feels like a dream I am still not waking from; to sing because it is hard to say what it has all opened in me, because I feel it to be opening still. I offer these words as a return song then, a homecoming tune for the other way; what these wild Irish legends are demonstrating. There’s nothing you need to know, nothing to do, nothing to fix, there’s just letting go; there’s just peeling back the thick layers of our resistance, our wilful control, so that other dimension of our being can re-surface; the one who did not get us into this mess; the one whose skin trembles and dances with the sheer delight of being here; the one who is fós fiáin. Go down to Clare, go down to Kerry, and be with the Wild Irish Retreat folk if it calls you, if it be within your means. If it doesn’t, if you can’t, find your own way back. But claim it —claim the part of you that can’t be claimed; the place in you no worldly concern, no worry or slight of ill-will can reach; the place in you that is open, playful, fluid flúirseach. You don’t need anything special. Open your mouth, lig amach í; slip back i ngrá
Dublin Bay South by-election candidate Peter Dooley has an impressive track record of fighting for a just society, especially through the Dublin Renters’ Union, and unlike many on the left in Ireland, has drawn attention to the devastation to ordinary people’s lives caused by the longest lockdown in Europe.
This by-election in Dublin Bay South allows voters to say enough is enough with the FG, FF and Green coalition government’s inadequate approach to the housing, health and climate emergencies. But some lifetime left-wing voters are now feeling politically homeless due to the adoption by the established left-wing parties of a ZeroCovid policy, which apart from being hopelessly Utopian, would hand draconian powers to corrupt State institutions and impede the free movement of people in and out of the country, including the Irish diaspora living abroad.
Throughout Ireland’s never-ending lockdown, Peter has openly questioned the wisdom of handing extraordinary powers to the Minister for Health, which infringe basic constitutional rights such as freedom of assembly. Not only do lockdowns come with a huge human cost – in particular to school children denied an education for months and small- and medium- sized businesses prevented from trading – with little impact on the virus itself, but it has also created a political vacuum, where people affected don’t know where to turn for representation.
Observing the colossal transfer of wealth to the billionaire class, while small businesses go bust and workers see their jobs disappear, Peter asks whether the Irish government’s response has been proportionate.
Peter Dooley stands for an equal opportunity Ireland. He walks the talk through his daily activism, galvanising grassroots movements around housing and tenant rights.
As a co-founder of the Dublin Renters’ Union in 2017, he has helped prevent evictions and supported renters. Peter’s ideas on housing involve resistance to the vulture funds, and ensuring that the rentier class pays a fair share in taxes. Although Dublin Bay South is the most affluent constituency in Ireland it also has the highest number of homeless people living in tents in Ireland.
Peter has also called for a full public inquiry into the unprecedented scale of nursing home deaths at the beginning of the pandemic in Ireland, when the elderly seemed to have been sacrificed due to a flawed epidemiological assessment, and for the utility of antigen testing and drugs such as Ivermectin to be adequately examined.
Unlike the other main opposition candidates in the area he has expressed deep opposition to divisive and exclusionary vaccine passports.
He calls for the end to a two-tier healthcare system, and for a proper cost-benefit analysis to be undertaken if any lockdown is ever contemplated again.
You can reach Peter Dooley and his campaign policies here:
