They’ve wasted a perfectly good controversy The Irish police are investigating Stephen Fry for blasphemy. Well, not really. A few years ago, Fry gave one of those “If you’re so great, why is everything crap?” answers to Gay Byrne on a lightweight Irish religious programme when asked what he’d say if he ever met God.… Continue reading Fry Up
Tag: Dermot Ahern
Are speed camera zones about safety or revenue?
I spent Tuesday at Hacks & Hackers Hack. Organised by Scraperwiki, and sponsored by the Guardian Open Platform, NUJ Dublin Freelance Branch and Innovation Dublin, HH&H was a one day exercise uniting Hacks (journalists) and Hackers (computer coders) to extract data from public databases. Since the introduction of safety camera zones has been in the… Continue reading Are speed camera zones about safety or revenue?
Hairetikos
So I’ve got some unleavened bread here. To some people, it’s just a piece of flour, mixed with water and heated. And to some people, it’s the body of a god, sacred beyond imagining. Plain unraised bread, made without yeast or other raising agent, is ‘unleavened’. A few years ago, a Florida student called Webster… Continue reading Hairetikos
26 months later
In May 2008, retired High Court president Freddie Morris recommended that a Committee be set up to “formulate and recommend the policy to be implemented in respect of investigative interviewing by the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána on an ongoing basis in all its respects, and make such recommendations from time to time in relation… Continue reading 26 months later
Cash Call
Sixteen months ago, I wrote a story. It was a nice little story, with some good quotes from the main player. I sold it to a provincial paper. I posted the story on my website. Thanks to the vagaries of thesub editing process, what appeared on the website was different to what appeared in print.… Continue reading Cash Call
WTF?
Following contact earlier today from the Slovakian authorities with the Airport Police at Dublin Airport, members of the Garda Síochána recovered a small quantity of explosive material from the luggage of a passenger who had flown into Dublin from that country on Saturday. It has since been established that this material was concealed without his… Continue reading WTF?
Section 35
‘The common law offences of defamatory libel, seditious libel and obscene libel are abolished.’ That’s the entirety of section 35 of the Defamation Act 2009, signed into law by the president, Mary McAleese, last Thursday. The next two sections are devoted to blasphemy. Blasphemy, you may remember, was included in the bill at the last… Continue reading Section 35
Tús Maith
A nascent campaign to repeal the constitutional provision on blasphemy has received support from an unexpected source: the Anglican Bishop of Cork. Atheist Ireland, a group established ‘to build a rational, ethical and secular society free from superstition and supernaturalism’ has decided it will oppose the new law, signed by President McAleese today. And the… Continue reading Tús Maith
Crackers
This week, watching as the Dáil debates on the Criminal Justice and Defamation bills were guillotined, I found myself considering what to do. Writing to my TDs didn’t help. Only one of them replied, and he voted for the bill anyway. So how should I protest? A year ago, a student in Florida received death… Continue reading Crackers
Any Other Business
It’s going to be an interesting week in Dáil Éireann. Desperate not to cut back on their holiday time,the government has opted instead to cut debating time, and plans to guillotine several bills into law by Friday. Among the highlights: The blasphemy clause in the Defamation bill, making it illegal to say naughty things if… Continue reading Any Other Business