Imagine a politician released research proving their arguments on a point of public controversy. Imagine every journalist in Ireland knew the research was faulty. Let’s go further. Imagine the paper looked like a work of fiction, and it appeared the academics who carried out the research did not exist. There’d be uproar, right? Pat Kenny […]
Brian Lenihan said the bank guarantee scheme was “a necessary first step” and “the cheapest bailout in the world so far” compared with bank rescues where “billions and billions of taxpayers’ money are being poured into financial institutions”. “It allows us to move on and examine other questions which may have to be addressed to […]
Discworld is a strange place, Lord of the Rings meets Monty Python. Even so, some things look familiar: “The press waited. It looked, now, like a great big beast. Soon he’d throw a lot of words into it. And in a few hours it would be hungry again, as if those words had never happened. […]
Gardai question artist under caution: The Irish Times. Police quiz man over naked images of Irish PM in national gallery: The Belfast Telegraph. Cowen artist ‘could be charged’: BBC News. Artist Conor Casby faces jail after Brian Cowen made unwitting model for toilet humour: Times Online (Entertainment section). Irish PM bogged down by nude painting […]
‘The visit by a Garda detective today to the offices of Today FM radio station, demanding that staff from the Ray Darcy Show hand over information they might have had about the artist of these pieces was astounding,’ Labour party Senator Alan Kelly said. ‘Does this investigation really represent the best use of scarce Garda […]
FG Justice Spokesperson Charlie Flanagan criticised the decision by Gardaí to demand emails relating to the artist who painted nude portraits of Brian Cowen hung in two Dublin galleries. ‘At a time when the majority of gangland murders remain unsolved, to have Gardaí spending their time investigating what amounted to a practical joke that offended […]
Yesterday, I wrote about RTÉ removing a film report on caricatures of Brian Cowen smuggled into two Dublin galleries. [Kudos at this point to Maman Poulet, who’s blog tipped me off to the story.] Since them, things have grown more serious. The images on the RTÉ website were removed, copy has been edited, and the […]
You can tell a lot about the powerful by how they react to satire. In Ireland, the powerful tend to react badly. Older politicians still smart at the memory of Hall’s Pictorial Weekly, and can barely bring themselves to smile through gritted teeth when Scrap Saturday is mentioned. The result is a pale imitation of […]
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t forget if I lodged £13,000 in cash sterling to my personal bank account, including the result of a successful bet on the gee-gees. It’s the kind of thing that would stick in my mind. And it would particularly stick if I’d been in dire financial straits at […]