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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
March/April 2022 5
Murray unhurried
Judge Brian Murray was in legal finishing
school with the editor, though he says it was all
compromised by an alcoholic fog except that
the general view was that Murray (it was 1987)
was a shoe-in for Chief Justice 2027. Murray
and his quite good brain will now grace a very
strong Supreme Court after his elevation to
replace former Chief Justice Frank Clarke, who
was keeping the seat warm for Murray and
current Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell (who
the editor claims tutored him in UCD where
he was an irritatingly big hit with the ladies
in the Dark Ages Constitutional Law tutorial).
Clarke has the law library aflutter with reports
that he will return to practice as a barrister.
Unfortunately he will not be allowed to appear
before newly smug Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe
or indeed any of the Irish courts since it would
be so weird for the system of deference that it
is prohibited by law. He intends to focus on
arbitration and mediation though he could, if
he wanted, argue cases before the European
Court of Justice.
Nominative Determinism
In Westminster Chris Heaton is the new Tory
chief whip. Clearly he’ll apply the heat to
recalcitrant MPs.
Christopher Pincher has become deputy
chief whip and MPs are quaking. Mr Pincher
resigned temporarily in 2017 after he was
accused of making an unwanted advance
at former Olympic rower and Conservative
activist Alex Story before he was an MP, in
2001. The story appeared in the FT but it
turned out it was only a Lex Story.
Thomas Fowler is director of sustainability at
dirtbags Ryanair.
It seems daring to have appointed Adaire
Fox-Martin to replace the more obvious Nick
Leeder as head of Google’s Irish operations.
Gloria Allred, a US attorney who has
represented a number of Jerey Epstein’s
victims, analysed the recent Virginia Giure/
Prince Andrew joint statement, committing
him to burgle his mummy’s purse to pay o his
alleged paedophilia. Allred told the Guardian
the wording was “vague” and would have been
“carefully negotiated”. All read, certainly.
News Miscellany
Villager
Citizen Murray
Five years ago, as a barrister, Murray gave
a talk to the Citizens Assembly on abortion
establishing nine legal options. An issue of
the complexity of abortion is ideal for such
intense attention though Murray would find
nine options in almost any situation.
Diverse assemblies
Everyone in Village loves the environment so
Villager was pleased to see biodiversity being
referred to a Citizens’ Assembly as promised
in the Programme for government. Being
obscure, neglected, misunderstood, fractious,
and existential it too is ideally placed for
the process. Under the Programme for
Government, the coalition aims to establish
citizens’ assemblies to consider the type of
directly elected mayor and local government
structures best suited for Dublin; biodiversity;
matters relating to drugs use; and the future
of education.
Far-out Farrell
However, David Farrell, UCD’s professor of
politics, is not impressed with the Citizens’
Assemblies. “First, the agenda is too tightly
controlled by government, which can lead
to rather daft issues being discussed, such
Murray: Supreme Court and Citizens’ Assembly
...garbage out from Assembly
all read....
6 March/April 2022
as the length of the Irish president’s term of
oce, the Taoiseach’s power to determine
the date of Dáil elections, or the manner
in which referenda are held…Following the
mantra garbage-in-garbage-out, it is perhaps
not surprising that none of the assemblies’
recommendations in these areas were
accepted, or even listened to, by government”.
Fine but the issues agreed for discussion
during the term of this government are far from
daft and that subverts Farrell’s argument.
Farrell considers the “Irish model” is sub-
optimal. Writing in the Irish Times he was
critical: “the organisation tends to be very
top-down and managerial, tightly controlled
by senior civil servants and a government-
appointed chair, supported by a small advisory
group whose remit is focused largely on the
substance of the topic rather than on latest
developments in the management of citizens’
assemblies. No use is made of the expert
services of professional agencies”. Finally
he complains “Path-dependency has set in,
with the senior civil servant of one assembly
passing on the baton and the lessons they’ve
learned to the civil servant leading on the next
one”. If that’s the case it would be interesting
to know how Citizens’ Assemblies come up
with such thoughtful recommendations.
Acclaiming reclaiming
Imagine looking at an aerial photo of Dublin
or any other Irish city with their meagre green
spaces and concreted institutional lands with
their sawn-o sports pitches, and thinking
the solution is shovelling ten-storey blocks
into each of them. Villager has an open mind
about moving Dublin Port out but a good
context is the following: think how foolish the
city would feel if it covered every last green
patch in concrete and then discovered it could
fit half a million people in reclaimed land in
Docklands, the best place for them – because
of transportation and facilities; and leave its
institutional lands as pleasure grounds for the
citizenry to cavort, be sporty and edify itself.
Cyclincompetence
There is a lack of consultation in relation to new
cycling infrastructure in Dublin city, according
to local representatives at a recent City Council
meeting. They were talking about the Clontarf
cycleway. Many councillors said cycling
infrastructure was being delivered on an “ad hoc
basis” and there needed to be more external
input.
22,000 leaflets on the project were delivered to
local homes in January. However, Councillor Nial
Ring said many of his constituents never received
one. Meanwhile Councillors in Galway first
approved then disapproved a cycleway for car-
tickling Salthill: “It was done in response to Covid;
because of the public health issue and increased
numbers of people walking and cycling, we felt
we had to move quickly, so we couldn’t use the
traditional model of a long, drawn-out design
process”.
Meanwhile the Irish Times reported that Dun
Laoghaire Rathdown used a “dynamic design
model” for the cycleway there: “We designed it
80-90 per cent of the way, and then opened it
to engagement with stakeholders – residents,
community groups and emergency services…
Council sta visited homes along the route. We
went to people’s houses and talked through how
they would get in and out of driveways, made
tweaks to the location of bollards where it was
needed. Early talks with the emergency services
were vital”.
It’s all nonsense though. Leaflets, dynamic 80-
90% models, tweaks, going to houses, Gards.
Makey-uppy stu. Just provide the Environmental
Impact Assessments the law requires, with the
statutory consultation processes and timings,
show us the schemes in photomontages, so we
know what we’re getting show us the alternatives
and justify the choice so we’re not left with tacky
temporary (i.e. permanent) bollards etc; and
avoid legal actions. Or the whole national urban
cycle programme may collapse, with the Greens’,
who want to champion trial cycleways in probable
breach of EU law, inept fingers all over it.
Lied on and on; corrupt too
Villager pressed the wrong button and found
himself in Donal Lydon’s Facebook site.
Lydon (83), a conservative, and anti-abortion,
psychologist and disgraced former Fianna
Fáil Councillor, famously grabbed the Green
Party Councillor Trevor Sargent in a headlock
when Sargent waved a cheque, sent to him
by a builder and asked the rest of the County
Council if they had received similar.
Lydon received bribes for rezonings all over
County Dublin and in 2007 the Criminal Assets
Bureau secured a freezing order against him
based on its investigation of bribes paid to
Councillors by Frank Dunlop relating to the
rezoning of 107 acres owned by Jackson Way
Properties at Carrickmines. Lucky, the charges
were dropped after a medical condition
prevented dodge-meister Dunlop from giving
his full testimony.
Famously in the 1980s when he had annoyed
Charles Haughey and needed to make an
exit, Lydon couldn’t find the door, prompting
Haughey’s impatient injunction: “Try the
window”.
Anyway here (from his Facebook avatar) he
is at the Casino in Monte Carlo and in some
ritual in St Peter’s Cathedral Belfast. There
was never any end to the man.
Top, at the casino in Monaco.
Above, weirdly dressed up at St Peter’s
Cathedral, Belfast
ad hoc in Clontarf
March/April 2022 7
It’s been estimated that only 3% of the trac
using it would actually bypass the city. The
remaining 97% would come and go from it.
It is feared that all this will do is achieve greater
urban sprawl. It would tend to undermine
the 2: 1 balance in favour of public transport
agreed in the Programme for Government
but risks being forced through by the bigger
parties in government, though the Greens are
nominally against it.
Green Party Chairperson Senator Pauline
O’Reilly was prominently reported in the Irish
Times to be considering a judicial review of
the Ring Road on grounds it had failed to take
into account Government travel and climate
policies, particularly on assessment criteria
for road building and the emissions created by
such large roads. Never happened.
Meanwhile Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s
most eective anti-environmentalist, who’s
much more powerful, tweeted: “Fully support
this project. Will take the trac out of Galway
City and make it more liveable for residents and
visitors and safer for cyclists and pedestrians”.
Former Lord Mayor Councillor Noel Larkin (Ind)
had his finger on the unreconstructed local
pulse when he said that “the vast majority
of cars will be electric or hydrogen-powered
within a decade, so mass transport such as
light rail is not only unnecessary but totally
unfeasible. The city’s transport future should
be the construction of an ‘outer bypass’”.
In the end as usual it was left to the
underfunded and often vilified NGO Friends
of the Irish Environment to whom the Greens
provide so little meaningful support to
pursue a judicial review. Friends of the Irish
Environment have a better understanding
of environmental problems, and are much
more eective than the Green Rhetoric Party
which is pathologically unable to distinguish
between goodwill and action and between
making rules and enforcing them, or to assess
the necessity sometimes to say No.
NI Criticism bombed
Northern novelist Rosemary Jenkinson is in
trouble for a piece she wrote in Fortnight
Magazine asking “Why is Northern Irish literature
feasting on the dead corpse of the Troubles more
than ever?”. And claiming: “we writers seem
to have no more ability than our politicians to
move on from the past. From novels like Jenny
McCartney’s ‘The Ghost Factory’ to the raft
of new Troubles-based memoir and TV crime
shows, Troubles-mania is rampant…We are
also subject to the Anna Burns eect where the
success of ‘Milkman’ has engendered imitators…
Lisa McGee’s sitcom Derry Girls has had its own
cultural impact through humorous nostalgia for
kidnappings, sectarianism and bombs”.
Dire Doire
Galway-based Doire Press cancelled
Jenkinson’s publishing contract with it, and
in a slanted Irish Times article oered the
excuse of “significant financial risk” and loss
of audience/sales. Villager believes this a
craven attempt to cover up their silencing of a
writer. They are one of the most heavily funded
publishers with c.€100k from the Arts Councils
North and South for six books annually.
Jenkinson’s new publisher, Arlen House,
revealed on Twitter that they have already sold
300% more of her books in two months than
Doire, a worthy outfit specialising in feminist
poetry, sold in two years. The reason: Doire
have poor distribution and minimal sales
income. Public funding covers everything. Time
for the Arts Council to introduce procedures to
safeguard artists and free speech.
Same old formula
The government launched a food reformulation
plan in December, trying to compel the junk
food industry to decrease sugar and fat in its
products. Ireland has the second highest level of
obesity and overweight
in Europe, aecting 60%
of adults and over one in
five children. The food
industry, determined to
pre-empt regulation and
legally binding targets,
has lobbied government
for voluntary targets and
self-regulation. It seems
to have prevailed: the lead is Nuala Collins
on the back of a stellar career in Nestlé, SMA
powdered-infant formula, and the National Dairy
Council to name a few. The food health of the
nation is in great hands. Still.
Don’t say fat unless you want
to leave your husband
Meanwhile despite endless pieces decrying
fat-shaming and noting you don’t have to be
lose weight to be healthy the Irish Times is
still publishing politically incorrect articles in
its tacky ‘Ask Roe’ column: “My husband has
put on so much weight that I’m not attracted
to him anymore”: “You don’t have to stay in a
relationship when you’re no longer attracted to
your partner and you don’t enjoy the sex. That’s
the reality”.
Gas
The Programme for Government commits to
7% annual reductions in Greenhouse Gas
emissions. Despite the promise that it was
introducing legislation mandating this the
government recently announced that it was
backloading it so this year’s target would be
only 4.8%. Now the EPA is saying this year
we’re actually likely to increase emissions
this year. In six or seven years, long after the
Greens are pensioned, we’ll be facing 9%
annual reductions to meet their targets for the
end of the decade, and we’ll miss those too.
Bypassing reality
A new N6 Bypass for Galway, first proposed
in 1999 and estimated to cost €1bn, was
approved by An Bord Pleanála in early
December. The 18-km, €650 million route
would run from the existing M6 motorway east
of Galway city to Barna in the west, replacing
plans for the Galway outer bypass, which
was approved by the board in 2008 but was
eectively struck down by the European Court
of Justice five years later.
Green Party Chairperson : didn’t take legal action
8 March/April 2022
EU Director is Direct
18 January was the first day of the 2022
Environment Ireland conference, chaired by the
Irish Times’ Kevin O’Sullivan. Laura Burke of the
EPA was speaking; he conference was opened
by Green Minister Ossian Smyth.
And then came the EU Commission’s Aurel
Ciobanu-Dordea – director of governance,
enforcement action and compliance on EU
environmental legislation, with a talk entitled
‘EU environment policy post-covid-19’. The
audience was ready to nod o.
But the Director soon turned
his guns on Ireland.
“I would like to share with you elements
which are not confidential and which we
have discussed with the Irish authorities in
the structured dialogue we had at the end of
last year”, he said, breaking the traditional
confidentiality that cloaks the annual
‘structural dialogue’.
He declared the Water Framework Directive
was neither fully implemented nor addressing
the growing pressure “particularly from
agricultural sources. I very much hope that the
competent Irish authorities will continue to
reflect on this and act in 2022 more decisively
than in the past in this area. Urgent action is
needed for birds. Only 2.5% of your marine
water is protected – one of the poorest records
across the Natura 2000 network in Europe.
Forestry and peat had not been subject to EIA,
even though – or maybe because - particularly
they are very important economic activities”.
Warming to his subject, the Director went
for Ireland over its failures to provide access
to justice where “Many have accumulated
significant costs simply litigating the question
of cost clarity itself. We are not drawing the
attention of the Irish authorities to this for the
first time. It has important consequences. And
the commission will act on this”.
But it was the final paragraph that drew
gasps. Of particular concern he said was the
“increasingly aggressive stance being taken
against environmental campaigners in Ireland.
Not only are SLAPP suits appearing but we
are seeing aggressive and negative reporting
in the mainstream media, threats to cut o
funding, and negative reporting on actions by
Friends of the Irish Environment”.
Funny all that: Leo Varadkar believes
judicial review needs to be reformed to root
out vexatious actions that threaten vital
infrastructure and “really important road
projects”. The EU demurs.
Varadkarrogant
Village has lodged a complaint with the
Broadcasting Authority of Ireland about
the questioning of Leo Varadkar on RTÉ
programmes. When dealing with an ongoing
criminal investigation it is madness to allow
the person into whom the investigation
is being carried out to ventilate about the
substance of the case and to make false, and
unchecked, allegations about the motivations
of the people who have made the complaints
about him.
Biding until re-coming of
Trump
President Joe Biden is in political trouble
at home and abroad with his social and
environmental programmes withering, and the
unimaginative but jingoistic yanks reeling from
retreat from Afghanistan and military paralysis
over Ukraine. The Democrats seem set to lose
control of both Houses in Congress in the
forthcoming mid-term elections, barring some
political miracle. Meanwhile despite facing
nine sets of legal proceedings his predecessor
Donald Trump, the worst President of all time,
is well on the way to seizing outright control
of the Republican party with the support of
its National Committee. He has committed to
pardoning the Capitol insurrectionists if re-
elected. Senator Mitch McConnell is mounting
last-ditch resistance to a Trump takeover of the
GOP but there are good reasons to doubt his
political and financial capacity to succeed.
In these circumstances Villager is always
surprised that Biden doesn’t hit the airwaves
every day decrying the dangers of another
round of Trump destroying America. A bit of
sustained rhetoric and above all anger, would
change the dynamic.
Trump Truth
Trump’s behind a new Twitter-type app. Truth.
Or Truthiness, better.
A young hawk
Nobody cares about your Wordle score, nobody
cares it’s gone to the NYT (you can get it on
Word Master anyway) and Soare is logically
the best word to put down first, always.
Sometimes too Frank
Frank McBrearty Jr is a former Labour and Fine
Gael, now Independent Councillor in Donegal,
who became known nationally as a result of
the Morris Tribunal’s ruling that police had
Replacement Presidents
March/April 2022 9
and all the international media interest. Not
really: “I’ve been saying the same thing for
thirty years. The dierence is that people are
now listening”.
Of course it was only after his Village interview
that his celebratedness really took o: 2012
TV3 Tonight Show Journalist of the Year; 2013
Irish Book Awards (Best Irish Published Book of
the Year), ‘A History of Ireland in 100 Object’s;
2014 Honorary Doctorate in Letters for services
to broadcasting by Queen’s University Belfast;
(now it’s getting meaty: 2017 European Press
Prize; 2017 Orwell Prize for Journalism; 2017
Honorary Doctorate in Laws from NUI Galway;
2019 Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Letters
by Trinity College Dublin.
2020 (and several other years) NewsBrands
Ireland Journalism Awards Broadsheet
Columnist of the Year; 2020 Member of the
Royal Irish Academy; 2021 Irish Book Awards
(An Post Irish Book of the Year 2021) for ‘We
Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of
Ireland Since 1958’.
O’Toole spends at least a semester a year
teaching in Princeton where he is lecturer in
Irish letters. He’s got several big salaries, a
serious reputation, awards and the best Twitter
bio: and there’s just a suspicion he has lost his
anger, lost his edge. You won’t know this from
his awards or from his ego. You might suspect
it from his proud unwillingness to address or
even read the under-the-line comments under
his pieces. You might guess at it from the
reduction in his output in the Irish Times and
the number of formulaic ‘Five Point’ analyses.
But you’d be close to confirmed in your view
if you noted the reduction in his focus on
the controversies of the day in Ireland, the
aggrandisement of his often predictable views
on Brexit and Donald Trump (easy targets) and
his view that “maybe” there has been a “shift
in Irish political culture” away from corruption.
The problem is this all leaves nobody in the
Irish Times who is angry, articulate, persuasive
and leftist. Unless you count Una Mullally
Clearly, there is no less reason intrinsically to
be angry now than there was in the past. The
planet is after all in a death spiral the quality
of life is shocking, especially for the young,
and community is on the precipice.
Yet Ireland’s leading polemicist has gone all
unedgy.
What of his latest book then? The clumsily
named ‘We don’t know Ourselves is oensively
expensive at €30. Villager wanted to hate
it but couldn’t quite. It’s a ‘Personal History
of Ireland since 1958” full of the events that
determined O’Toole. Wide-ranging.
Mullally doolally
Mullally wrote an entire one of her weekly
columns recently under the heading ‘Planning
system conspires to paint out murals’. In fact
murals don’t really matter that much, unless
you paint them or know people who paint
them. Planning has bigger failures than that.
Podcast
Village is launching a Podcast in March. It’s
also going to have a do for its loyal subscribers
before the summer and will revert to coming
out eight times a year, from July. And we are
composing a Village song. Next edition, May/
June. Details to follow.
And, finally, the poem
How Civilised You Are
It’s partly she can’t be sure
you aren’t the half wild animal
who stalks the plains,
and she the antelope
you could bring down in a blink.
But more that to her, and her
and her, in the three quarter light
your swagger
is that of a Chicago Police Department captain
with the power to, in the moment,
do anything you want,
the pullable billy club and gun
she can’t be certain you won’t use.
KEVIN HIGGINS
tried to frame him for the 1996 murder of
Richie Barron.
On 4 Feb 2022 he complained in a long
letter to Ministers Darragh O’Brien and Helen
McEntee about Donegal County Council (DCC)
from which he has now been suspended by a
High Court Judge until 27 February for alleged
disorderly conduct in trying to air issues of
alleged corruption or at least impropriety.
McBrearty claims he had less than 48 hours to
file a defence in Dublin to the action seeking
to suspend him, that he ran out of time and
that it is all a tactic to stop him ventilating
important allegations. He believes his fellow
Councillors, 33 out of 37 of whom voted for
his suspension, have had it in for him since
the Morris Tribunal and a few other things.
Anyway obviously all the media are too scared
to report his allegations but Villager can reveal
that they concern purchase by Donegal County
Council of properties with Mica, at market
prices rather than prices that reflect the Mica
remediation cost – often more than the value
of the property. In passing, after noting that
there was no reason to impute corruption,
Villager took a minute out to wonder by how
much Mica devalues a property if owners can
get 100% compensation for their losses.
Village alleged corruption at the highest level
in Donegal a decade ago when the County
was under dierent management. A review
of the matter by senior counsel Rory Mulcahy
has never been published by the recalcitrant
Department of Planning, now led by Darragh
O’Briens [see Moore St story p17].
No Fool, O’Toole
Villager is envious of Fintan O’Toole. He’s
more talented than him. O’Toole is in the top
100 Irish public intellectuals and that’s just
the start of it. In a 2011 Village interview, he
was asked if his life had changed as a result
of the new-found celebrity, the topical books
