Gavan Reilly

It seems the Cork hurling dispute is rolling to an ignominious conclusion tonight.

Word has it that Gerald McCarthy, the Cork hurling coach with whom last year’s hurling panel are at loggerheads, is to announce his resignation at the County Board meeting tonight in Mallow. His resignation will probably result in the 2008 squad calling off their strike and making themselves available to train for the new coach, whomever that may be, and bringing yet another ignominious chapter in Cork GAA to a bitter and divisive end.

I can’t say I’m too shocked a the news – when any sporting team encounters success, it’s inevitably the players who win the matches that will garner the bulk of the public’s support, while the perceivably intangible effect that backroom teams can have means that they’ll only be a certain few who can appreciate their input. Thus when the county team wins two All-Irelands in 2004 and 2005, and makes the last four in each Championship since, it would inevitably be the playing squad that the public would come to support. It’s already manifested itself in the football code; in 2007 Billy Morgan brought the footballers to their first All-Ireland final since 1999, but when the players started to become irked with his style, the public were firmly on one side. This time around, over thirty thousand redshirts showed up to a public demo in favour of the beleagured players. One might ask the question of how one is meant to display support to a status quo – are we to expect a series of “We like things as they are!” rallies? – but that’s for another post some other time.

It’s difficult not to feel that Gerald McCarthy has been very hardly done by, in being coaxed into this difficult decision. The man was reappointed at the correct levels only last winter, by a committee that included representatives of the players who then immediately sought to overthrow him. Certain people – no need to name them, it’s fairly obvious who they are – decided retrospectively they’d rather have their own man in the job, and proceed to mount a public offensive making sure they got their way.

The distinctly Corkonian machiovellian way of doing things doesn’t fix anything. The flagrant disregard for due process is, largely, the problem with what Ireland has become of late; we don’t do things the right way, decisions are made with their consequences as an afterthought, and not – as they should be – with their consequences as the driving factor. Gerald McCarthy has done nothing wrong here. He was approached asking if he’d like to be considered for the job again, he assented, had his name put to the committee, who assented to his return. The committee featured players’ reps, who had been put there as a resolution to the striking footballers that had gone the year before him.

But alas, McCarthy seems to have decided his own sanity should take preference over his public perception, and very understandably so. What should not be overlooked in this matter, though, is that McCarthy is far from the only wronged party here. Read the rest of this entry »

Champions’ League tonight, and the return fixture of the Real Madrid-Liverpool match that punctuated the Rospars debacle two weeks ago (thus reminding me of my need to start blogging on a far more regular basis). As UCD dissolves for its fortnight mid-term, the on-campus eateries face a difficult few weeks trying to overcome two hurdles: retaining a reasonable cashflow from the depleted student body in their midst, and trying to create a sense of much-vaunted community on campus.

UCD has long needed a late-hours eatery; in 2006 when Cafe Kylemore won the tender for the restaurant in Science, we plebbians thought we finally had a place to congregate after hours, someone that might provide a focal point for student activity after 6pm, and valuably, somewhere with all-day hot food and the potential of an on-campus delivery service, whisking hot food to the campus residences when nowhere else within a couple of miles would do so.

While it’s taken a long time for the café – Elements as it’s been branded – to fully integrate a late night food service, in the middle of last year a branch of Apache Pizza made it in, and with the granting of an alcohol licence (allowing a new version of that awful Route 66 beer from Eddie Rockets’ to be sold alongside a major meal), it looked like it might finally have happened.

For tonight’s Champions’ League football, finally, they’ve started to make an effort to provide a focal point. Elements has an array of plasma screens all around the premises, blaring Sky News on some while servicing an Argos-style food ordering system with the others. Tonight, football on the screens, and a 16″ pizza with four bottles of beer for €20. Not an awful deal, you’d have to admit. Maybe, just maybe, UCD will have a hangout that people will want to go to.

Only one problem in this whole idea. The match advertised as being shown in this young venture in UCD is the undoubtedly titanic struggle of Villarreal versus Panathinaikos.

Well, we can live in hope, can’t we? Can’t we?

It’s a fact that’s rarely disputed in Ireland – and rightly so, given how futile most arguments would be – that political parties in Ireland are rarely the consultative, ideological entities they ideally ought to be. The Big Two, as you might have ascertained from some of my other writing, are pretty much the same thing (I will have a lengthy post soon on my arguments for how that particular problem should be dealt with). Sinn Féin might as well only have one policy for all the contributions they seem to make to public debate, Labour do their best but really ought to look beyond their blueshirted Dáil neighbours, and everyone else… well, since the PDs went their own seperate ways, they really isn’t an “everyone else” to speak of. Bring back Joe Higgins and we’ll talk.

That leaves the Lovely Girls – those oh so lovely girls of the Lovely Greens. Aren’t they lovely? Who needs an economic rescue when we can ban regular light bulbs? (Oh wait, we can’t.) Who wants to hear us talk about security in Northern Ireland when we can casually sidestep bigger issues like third-level fees, or the fact that all of our high-profile people are bailing from the party?

There’s something distinctly Irish, then, about the fact that Paul Gogarty has decided to up sticks as the Greens’ education spokesman. The decision, according to RTÉ, comes on the back of the Greens’ Árd Fheis party conference at the weekend, where the members voted to set up a group devising the party’s educational policies.

Hmm. When you’re the junior partner in coalition, do you think it’s particularly right for one of your most prominent members to throw a hissy fit and quit his job, merely because in the light of near unanimous government disapproval, the plebbians bothered him with such menial requests as asking to have a hand in policymaking? How very Irish indeed. Not quitting as Chair of the Education Committee, not quitting as a TD – just basically deciding that unless you can be the one who gets to decide on the Big Ideas, you don’t want to be the vehicle trying to get them in power. Which would Paul Gogarty rather do, implement the Green Party’s policies on education – or anything else, for that matter – or implement Paul Gogarty’s policies?

How very Irish indeed. I remember when I read Stephen Collins’ account of the formation of the Progressive Democrats in Breaking The Mould over Christmas, and how genuinely surprised I was to see that the new members of the party got such giddy thrills from actually being involved in policymaking! For Christ sake, why shouldn’t the members be involved in deciding what their association believes in? What’s the point in being part of a political party unless you have a chance to sway its opinions?

As anyone who was familiar with last week’s UCD Students’ Union elections will now no doubt be aware, there are apparently only two parts to politics: having a name people know, and pressing the flesh. It, apparently, has precious little to do with what you actually think about things. What the point, thus, of politics really is, I don’t know.

It’s the tribalism of party politics that has stopped Ireland from ever having true ideology in its politics. Apparently more than 50% of the population would now be in favour of a grand coalition. Maybe it’s about time – teaching the politicians of Ireland that they have far more in common with their “opponents” than that which seperates them mightn’t be a bad idea. If one of our Government parties – not even the big one, for crying out loud! – could breed leaders who didn’t get pissed off when Joe Soap wants his opinion counted too, then it might be start.

Toby Ziegler, as he often would, probably said it best:

Kill them all. Yeah. […] I mean everyone. You’re all bothering me. I want to be left alone. Clearly, the only way that’s gonna happen is to be alone. So I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to let you all go. [pause] Except the Yankees and the Knicks… and the Yankees and the Knicks are gonna need someone to play, so keep the Red Sox and the Lakers… and the Laker girls, and The Palm, and we’ll need to keep the people who work at The Palm. That’s it though. The Yankees, the Red Sox, the Knicks, the Lakers, the Laker girls, and anyone who works at The Palm. Sports, Laker girls, and a well-prepared steak. That’s all I need… Sometimes, I like to mix it up with Italian… and Chinese. All right, you can all stay, but don’t bug me. You’re on probation. Don’t forget. I was this close to banishing you.

PS – I do mean towing the line, and not toeing it. Tow in the AA Roadwatch sense, you see.

I’m sat at home watching Liverpool play Real Madrid in the Champions League right now, where Liverpool are doing a commendable job – as Man United did before them in Milan last night – of taking the game by its horns and rather than simply hoping not to lose, they are actively chasing victory. Liverpool know the score. Away goals count double and even if they lose tonight, a small loss coupled with a priceless away goal will go a long, long way towards advancing and overcoming a major obstacle.

The attitude is summed up very well by Eamon Dunphy at half time, who casually remarks (as Dunphy does) that “many teams go to the Bernabéu having already lost”, a very succinct remark indeed: many teams are so fazed by having to take on the Spanish giants in front of 80,000 of their own fans that they’re already writing off the chance of success.

While I was listening to the half-time commentary I happened to log into Twitter where the hubbub over the launch of Fianna Fáil’s new website was beginning to hit full swing. They’d invited Joe Rospars, who was in charge of New Media on the Barack Obama Presidential campaign. The press release that was circulated publically, asking bloggers to come along – and to bring friends – was as follows:

Strawberry Media are pleased to organise an open seminar with Joe Rospars, founding partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign.

Joe will be discussing the lessons of the Obama campaign, how it can be applied in other fields, and will take a Q&A on his talk. Attendance at the seminar is free.

This event is open to all, and would be particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics. Numbers are limited, so please register your interest below if you are able to attend.

The event takes place at the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin City Centre at 6pm on Wednesday, February 25th. Click here for a Google Map to the venue.

You’ll notice, unfortunately, that there’s no mention of Fianna Fáil. Nor is there a mention that Strawberry Media, the “communications powerhouse” handling the event, is run by Cllr Damien Blake, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Letterkenny (a decision I still can’t really absorb – even with the FF connections, why have a Donegal-based company operate a Dublin event? Surely FF have better connections or abilities than farming out an event to a councillor who, although having the expertise to run it, is based hundreds of miles away?).

The following, meanwhile, was the substance of the Fianna Fáil release to party members plugging the event:

Fianna Fáil invites you to an audience with Mr. Joe Rospars, Founding Partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In that capacity he oversaw all online aspects for the unprecedented communications and grassroots mobilisation effort undertaken by the Obama campaign.  Mr. Rospars has also helped lead Governor Howard Dean’s hugely successful new media campaign for the 2004 presidential election and worked with Governor Dean at the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Rospars is in Dublin to announce the formation of an agreement between Fianna Fáil and strategy and technology firm Blue State Digital to work on the development of the new Fianna Fáil website.  The new website will be launched tomorrow and will develop further in the weeks and months ahead.

To mark the occasion Fianna Fáil will be hosting a presentation by Mr. Rospars on his work with President Obama in the Camden Court Hotel on Wednesday 25th February 2009 at 6pm.  We would be delighted if you could join us for this event.

A very different tone, mentioning the words ‘Fianna Fáil’ four times. Clearly one that lets on that it has nothing to hide.

The question arises, why would Fianna Fáil want to give such mixed messages? Surely Fianna Fáil must be aware of the negative public sentiment out there for them; the opinion polls putting them into third place behind Labour surely ring testament to that. Surely, also, they must be aware of the demi-deity that any association with Barack Obama carries.

Why, then, if Fianna Fáil are making the concerted effort (which, I have to say, I do applaud; it’s not perfect but Christ, it’s a start, and from the party’s perspective they’re better off making political hay while they need the boost, and not while plateauing at the top) to seem like they’re changing their ways, starting up an official Facebook group, YouTube channel, Twitter feed and Flickr account, not want to associate themselves with the fact that Joe Rospars was in town, and speaking? Why not pitch the event as an interactive Q&A with bloggers themselves, answering questions on online policy aswell as taking suggestions from bloggers and Twitterers on what they’d most like to see on the site?

It nearly seemed like it was an impossible thing to do, but somehow Fianna Fáil have managed to come out of this whole event – the culmination of what I’m sure is a lengthy build and co-ordinative process in launching a new site and social media network – in lesser standing than they entered. How couldn’t they think that by mentioning their own name and that of Barack Obama in the same breath, that they would surely be seen in better light?

Damien Blake, to his credit, is currently trying to tackle the online hullaballoo head-on over at his own blog. He does, however, state that

“This wasn’t the launch of the Fianna Fáil website.”

But…

“The new website will be launched tomorrow [the message being sent on the previous day] and will develop further in the weeks and months ahead.”

To suggest that the event wasn’t supposed to be a plug for the new website, or to showcase what was there, is a fallacy – and I don’t need to have been there to state that. It’s pure, unadulterated hypocracy. The event wasn’t a FF website launch, but they launch the website the same day as they have an event to announce that the Obama Web Guy is working with them? Such semantics don’t have a place when a hugely valuable outlet is coming out of incubation at a time when FF so badly need a boost.

Liverpool played the game, and won 1-0. Rafa Benitez’s type of football isn’t pretty, but it gets the job done. Maybe that’s the biggest lesson Fianna Fáil need to take from this shocking, shocking waste.

Edit: the Irish Blogs cluster will be appearing soon – keep an eye on this and have a read of the thoughts of Damien, Suzy, Green Ink, and Slugger O’Toole.

So – this isn’t quite the standard obligatory post-Irish Blog Awards entry, but it is heavily fuelled and inspired by the awards last weekend. Like most of the First World (or at least it seems like that many by now, but deservedly so), a hat-tip to Damien Mulley for his constant, tireless and infinite enthusiasm and energy he puts into the awards every year, and it’s my deep hope that he appreciates the shot in the arm that the gig offers the Irish blogosphere every year.

The big winner on the night was Suzy Byrne of Maman Poulet, picking up the category prize for Best News and Current Affairs Blog as well as the overall Grand Prix for Best Blog. None deserved it more: few put as much vigour, dedication, and professionalism into what is essentially an amateur pursuit as Suzy does. While the blogs of professional journalists naturally carry the self-assured, but not self-righteous, swagger of someone who can happily make a living from doing what they do, Suzy is one of those who would easily be mistaken for one of their class: the notion that she doesn’t make her living from her blog (and I use ‘doesn’t’ because I’m positive she could, should she choose to) is a strange one indeed.

Suzy’s acceptance speech for the Grand Prix was generally on the theme of why she blogs. Her blog later recounted the same idea.

I blog for fun, for anger, for stress relief from my day job, as a source of pain relief […] and simply I blog becuase I can.

It was the last phrase that rang most sincerely at the awards: I blog because I can. At a basic level, it’s a privilege that too many of us would easily take for granted: a quick look at Amnesty International’s Irrepressible.info is a sobering reminder of how little some of our fellow man can get away with, aside from the fact that not alone do less than 20% of the world have an internet connection, but a substantial chunk of the world doesn’t even have phone lines.

Suzy’s lines were put back to mind today as I read that UnaRocks has decided to hang up her keyboard for a bit:

I’ve never been really comfortable with the persona that has grown out of how I blog. It’s my own fault, of course, this whole ‘UnaRocks’ thing. When I was talking to Lili about it last night, she understood, she said that she could see how people misread me and mistake the personality that emerges from this blog as my actual self. I’m not at ease with that, and I never have been. But then again, that’s my own fault, because I suppose that’s how I’ve put myself across.

Una’s blog is one I’ll miss. Before I blogged, even on incarnations that barely exist any more, I knew about UnaRocks and how it was always an indirect measure of the wellbeing of Dublin’s nouveau pulse. I hope that Una finds the relief in not blogging that she’s hoping for; as someone who’s never managed a conversationwith her but who’s nonetheless been on the receiving end of some wonderful, provocative and insightful advice from her, I know how people so obviously genuine can find it difficult to cut out a part of their lives that they don’t necessarily do for themselves.

Which leads me to the question really, why do we blog? Why do I blog? Well, the honest truth is that I’m not totally sure. I write because there’s an egotist in me that likes seeing my own words before me; I write because I harbour resentments at some things in the world that are simply wrong, I write because it’s made me some good friends, I write because… well, it’s really like Suzy said. I write because I am; because I think, I have thoughts, and like a pushy parent – and because I can – I push those thoughts out onto their own platform, making them dance and sing for the supposed delight of others, but really just for the vicarious life of the author.

So congrats to Suzy, good luck to Una, and fair play to the other winners at IBA09 and to Mulley and Rick for keeping the show on the road so brilliantly. For the rest of us mere mortals, the show doesn’t merely choose not to end, but just as our own being, snowballs softly onwards.