SAOIRSE32

Daily Ireland

Daily Ireland Editorial
Editor: Colin O’Carroll
18/07/2006

It is a telling indication of the essentially disfunctional nature of the Northern Ireland state that the arrival back in Belfast yesterday of a new ‘tourist attraction’ was an event which divided the community, instead of enthusing it.
The Belfast shipyard may be no more, but it remains to nationalists a powerful symbol of a black half-century of unionist hegemony and a baleful reminder of a dark and sorry past. The loyalist folk memory is replete with still-vivid images of cheery workers clanging their way to work on overloaded trams and legions of duncher-wearing tradesmen forging mighty ocean-going vessels to ply the sea lanes of the world.
The nationalist memory of the shipyard is an altogether different one. It is of brutalised Catholics, of men cast into the water with ‘Belfast confetti’ raining down on their heads. More recently, that memory is of a subsidised and bloated workforce which spent more time taking part in loyalist political demonstrations than it did on building ships.
The story of the Titanic is the story of the shipyard, and so recent attempts to cash in on the tourist potential of the world’s most famous ship have revived old passions. The decision of the British government to pay £170,000 of taxpayers’ money to buy the ancient rusting hulk of a tender which once served the Titanic was seen by nationalists as being as much of a sop to unionism as a genuine attempt to facilitate a tourist windfall. The connection of the Nomadic to the Titanic is tenuous, to say the least. Will people really pay good money to see a boat that carried passengers to a more famous boat? Certainly the claim on television yesterday – made by a member of the team tasked with raising the £7m needed to refurbish the boat – that it could well turn out to be one of the greatest tourist attractions in the world was illustrative of the cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best nature of the project.
Nobody knows how much it’s going to cost to refurbish the vessel – that £7m figure was plucked out of the air before a full assessment of the Nomadic. Nobody knows how long the work will take – if indeed it ever begins. Nobody knows where the boat is going to be on display, whether there will be an interpretive centre attached and if so how much more that will cost. No substantial research has been commissioned into just how much interest there’s going to be in this second-hand narration of the Titanic legend. Even at this early stage, there are those who believe that the project is as doomed as the Titanic herself.
Meanwhile, other ghosts float above the waters of the Belfast dock, more reminders of our disputed past. The prison boats that held innocent people captive deserve to be remembered too. The Argenta, the Al Rawdah and the Maidstone have been largely forgotten as the face of Belfast dock has changed over the years.
They deserve to be remembered in some way, and we’re reckoning that it won’t cost anything like £7m.

:::u.tv:::

19/07/2006 08:25:26

A sister of murdered Belfast father-of-two Robert McCartney will warn MPs that Government plans to fund neighbourhood justice schemes would legitimise paramilitaries’ control of their neighbourhoods.

By:Press Association

Catherine McCartney has been lined up to take part in a briefing today of MPs at Westminster organised by nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan.

Mr Durkan, the MP for Foyle, will today also raise his concerns about the schemes at a meeting with Conservative leader David Cameron.

Before she set off for London, Ms McCartney told PA: “We are going over to raise our concerns which lie primarily in the fact that last September there were people who picketed Robert`s home in the Short Strand area of Belfast for his partner Bridgeen and two sons to get out and to get the family of Jeff Commander to drop charges against people.

“There were people who took part in that picket who were also on the panel in the Short Strand to discuss at a public meeting plans for a restorative justice scheme.

“First of all, in my opinion I do not see why they have to be funded at all by Government. It just legitimises paramilitarism.”

Robert McCartney died when a gang of Republicans in a Belfast city bar attacked him and a friend while they were drinking in January last year.

Despite appeals from the family and nationalist politicians, people who were in the bar have not come forward to give evidence about the attack in which Mr McCartney was stabbed.

The McCartneys, who have taken their campaign to the White House, Capitol Hill, Downing Street, The Dail in Dublin and the European Parliament, have been highly critical of Sinn Fein`s and the IRA`s handling of their brother`s murder, claiming they have not done enough to force people to come forward with information.

They have also voiced concerns about people from the Short Strand who forced the family to leave their homes after their high-profile campaign against Robert`s killers and about those who were involved in the cover-up operation in the bar being allowed to take part in state-funded community restorative justice schemes.

Sinn Fein, which supports the schemes, argue they are a viable alternative to paramilitary punishment attacks and expulsions, enabling communities to bring the perpetrators of low-level crime face to face with the victims to create appropriate penalties.

However, critics of the schemes claim they are encroaching into areas of law and order where they should not be involved, have sometimes hindered police investigations and, at worst, are intimidatory because of the involvement of ex-republican and loyalist paramilitaries.

Until recently, schemes operating in loyalist and republican neighbourhoods have been privately funded.

However, last December the Government proposed state-funded schemes.

The SDLP and unionists voiced concerns that the original proposal appeared to place police involvement with the schemes in republican neighbourhoods at an arms length in a bid to placate Sinn Fein, which has yet to endorse the police reforms that have taken place in Northern Ireland.

Mr Durkan has highlighted comments by Sinn Fein Assembly member Caitriona Ruane which suggested the state-backed schemes would serve as an alternative police service in areas where republicans would not welcome the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

The Belfast Rape Crisis Centre and the Foyle Women`s Aid have also expressed concerns about the Government`s proposals ahead of revised plans which are due to be released later this month.

Ms McCartney said she found it arrogant that people who have been involved in intimidation of communities were being put forward as suitable candidates to operate restorative justice schemes.

“I do not think local people should be allowed to control local communities by the authorities,” she said.

“It would seem to me that state-backed schemes would be open to all forms of abuse.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Kathryn Torney
19 July 2006

The Government needs to do more to facilitate the growth of integrated education in Northern Ireland, the House of Lords has been told.

Baroness May Blood, who is campaign chair of the Integrated Education Fund, called for greater support for mixed religion schools during a debate in the Lords on Monday night.

She told peers little had changed since the first integrated school - Lagan College - opened in 1981.

“Back then, pioneering and risk-taking parents brought that school into existence and today the same pioneering and risk-taking parents are taking forward initiatives to establish integrated schooling for their children,” she said.

“Despite the positive results shown by integrated education, it is disappointing that the Government have remained largely neutral on the subject.

“Life has been made very difficult for parents seeking the right to educate their children together.

“Unsurprisingly, the Government continue to put the vast majority of funding into the existing segregated system,” she added.

The Shankill Road community worker said there has been “a clear lack of strategic planning” from the Department of Education.

She said: “The recently announced independent review of education, to be led by Sir George Bain, provides an excellent opportunity for the Government finally to get to grips with the issue.

“As the Government, through their shared future policy, start to encourage all schools to consider creative ways of sharing educational resources, transformation (to integrated status) should be prioritised.

“I recognise that all transforming schools to date have come from the mainly Protestant controlled sector, with none from the Catholic maintained sector.

“However, transformation should threaten no one, and a transformed integrated school should respect and provide for the religious instruction of all children, and the pro-active support of all churches would be welcome.

“While I welcome any steps that could be taken to bring schools closer together in any form, I hope that shared campuses do not become the easy thing for the Government to do - the soft option.”

“There is greater potential here than sharing sports halls.”

Commenting on the debate, Tina Merron, Director of the Integrated Education Fund, said: “In Northern Ireland there is a real need to extend the choice of integrated education and this debate in the House of Lords will send a message to those involved in shaping education policy that maintaining the status quo means that Northern Ireland has a heavy economic and educational price to pay for its children’s future.”

Indymedia.ie

Posted by Ciaran Long - Alliance For Animal Rights
Tuesday July 18, 2006 23:08
pagan_animal_liberation_front at hotmail dot com

Sunday Mirror
Jul 16 2006

THE IRISH SUNDAY MIRROR INVESTIGATION

Isn’t about time we gave these animals back their dignity?

By Donna Carton

THESE are the humiliating stunts elephants are forced to perform to entertain Irish circus audiences.
The captive wild animals - seen at a Circus Sydney performance in Tralee - are made to hobble around on three legs, swing their trunks 360 degrees in time to music, balance on tiny stools and act as a climbing frame for humans.
Between performances the elephants are chained to the floor or kept in an enclosure behind an electric fence.
During the half-time break, the animals are chained to allow members of the public to pose with them for photographs. Some circus-goers complained to Gardai and animal welfare groups about their concerns for the elephants. One distraught circus-goer told the Irish Sunday Mirror he witnessed the elephants being whipped during the performance - a claim the circus denied.
He said: “I thought their whole treatment and the way they are caged is appalling.”
A spokeswoman for Circus Sydney denied the use of whips and claimed the elephants are well looked after.
She said: “We don’t use whips, even in training. We only use bags of sugar. Our elephants are well looked after and are only chained to the ground when we have to wash them. Otherwise they have a decent space enclosed by an electric fence which doesn’t do them harm.
“The ISPCA know us well and are happy with how we treat our animals.”
Inspector Harry McDaid of Kerry SPCA said: “We did receive a complaint but having visited the circus prior to opening we were happy with the welfare of the animals.
“Some of our volunteers went to the first performance and saw nothing untoward.
“Whilst we don’t approve of animals in circues these animals seemed well looked after.
“I had one complaint about a whip but none our volunteers saw it. But generaly in circuses the whip is in the form of a stick used to direct the animal the way they do in India.”
However, the Captive Animals Protection Society said it has been worried about the two elephants, owned by a German family, for some time.
CAPS spokesman Craig Redmond said: “Any time we have gone to see these elephants they have been chained to the ground. These elephants are chained a lot. The pair have been in Ireland for a few years and I am very concerned about their welfare.”
Bernie Wright from the Alliance for Animal Rights called for a ban on captive wild animals in circuses.
She said: “The animals are generally kept in cramped conditions and spend a great deal of their time in trailers. And the training techniques of many circuses is questionable.
“Elephants made to swing their trunks round and round are being made to do something that doesn’t come easily to them and is painful to perform.”
Circus Sydney travelled last year under the name Circus Oz but changed its name after legal action from a circus in Australia which had the same name.
The Captive Animals Protection Society has long been campaigning against the use of animals in circuses.
Mr Redmond added: “Many circus animals display signs of stereotypical behaviour - this is a mindless, repetitive behaviour thought to be caused by stress and suffering, in an unnatural and unstimulating environment.
“The most important thing anyone can do to end circus animal suffering is simply to avoid any circus using animals. Instead, visit one of the many excellent circuses that rely totally on human skills - there are many more all-human circuses than ones using animals. Circus owners will soon get the message.
“In the UK only eight out of about 35 or 40 touring circuses still use animals.
“But in Ireland most still have animals. There are about seven touring in Ireland and they all have captive wild animals. There were two non-animal circuses but I don’t think they are still touring.”
Less than a month ago, the Irish Sunday Mirror highlighted the plight of two elephants belonging to Circus Vegas.
Between performances in Belfast, the animals were kept on a rubble-strewn concrete wasteland at the former Harland and Wolff shipyard.

BBC

Northern Ireland’s new domestic rates system could be scrapped by assembly members if devolution returns, Finance Minister David Hanson has said.

Northern Ireland’s houses have been valued for rating

Letters telling homeowners what their new rates bill will be are being sent, with some people facing big increases.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster Mr Hanson said he thought such decisions should be taken by local politicians.

“They can rescind it,” he said, but there would be a “tremendous upsurge” in the amount of work needed to do so.

“But any matter that I deal with now as a direct rule minister for assembly matters can be looked at again by the assembly in due course,” he said.

Under the reforms, about 30% of households are to face a rise of up to £150, with a small minority facing even larger increases.

Homeowners are being advised of their property’s capital value.

That figure will then be used to calculate next year’s domestic rates bill and the new water charges. Both of these are due in April 2007.

The capital values are set as of the start of January 2005.

Devolution in Northern Ireland was suspended in 2002, but the British and Irish governments recalled the assembly in May with the aim of restoring power-sharing by November.

Times Online

Grayson Perry
19 July 2006

I understand that the Government is funding a scheme to “re-image” the paramilitary murals that are some of the most visible reminders of Ulster’s recent history. They want to overpaint them with images in which communities depict themselves in a more positive light to help to develop a shared future. One has already been replaced by an homage to George Best.

Criticism of this proposal has come from politicians who say people should not be paid to remove what was vandalism in the first place. More unexpected opposition has been voiced by representatives of the tourist industry. Tours of the murals have been an established part of the local economy for several years. The Rough Guide to Ireland spends five pages listing the best mural sites in Belfast.

I can understand the tour guides’ fears for I cannot imagine visitors paying to gawp at gable ends of council houses painted with the regulation images of peace and understanding, instead of the vicarious thrill of seeing living pieces of a violent history.

I have never been to Northern Ireland but I have seen media images of the murals, which seemed to crop up in every news report about the Troubles. The murals are powerfully dark examples of folk art, for me a welcome antidote to the well-meaning but inane iconography of politically correct togetherness that was the staple of community wall paintings of the 1970s and 1980s.

Murals have been part of the Unionist tradition for nearly a century. The first one recorded was of King Billy in Belfast in 1908, painted as part of the July 12 celebration of the Battle of the Boyne. In 1969 a mural declaring “You are now entering Free Derry” appeared at a Republican gathering spot that is now known as Free Derry Corner. Since then, both sides have used the mural to celebrate, intimidate, commemorate and propagate their side of the story.

After the Government banned the broadcasting of supporters’ voices the murals became mute spokesmen for the paramilitaries. Gerry Adams would be filmed in front of a mural showing hunger-strikers, using it like the logo boards that are the ubiquitous backdrop to any celebrity photo-op these days.

The power of the murals is perhaps that they reflect the trenchant views of the immediate locals. Many were paid for by door-to-door fundraising in the neighbourhoods. As well providing tangible evidence of the shadowy presence of the paramilitaries, the paintings also helped to bind communities together, to give them a rallying point, a place to mourn and to show their pride.

The big problem of any public art is a fear of offending anyone. One of the invigorating aspects of the Ulster murals was that, as well as asserting the territory, traditions, history and political messages of the conflict, they are not afraid of winding up the opposition. The more close-knit a group, the more intolerant of “the other” it tends to be. It may not be desirable, but nothing binds a community together like hatred of a common enemy. This acknowledgement of their dark side, I think, is very useful for the two communities — to suppress the lingering bitterness under a coating of paint could be counter-productive. Better another mural than more bullets.

Art is amoral. Artists are not obliged to have politically correct views or to support good causes. The murals appeal to me because they convey their sectarian passions fairly undiluted by aesthetic concerns. There are sophisticated painters working for both sides but I have to admit that the cruder angrier images, like prison tattoos, I find more resonant.

The Troubles are all too fresh and I can understand the desire to wipe away something that reminds people of recent traumas, but culture is littered with the legacy of violent divides. On November 5 do we not celebrate the foiling and execution of a Catholic terrorist?

Among my favourite possessions are Afghan war rugs that depict images of the Russian invasion in the 1980s and the present “war on terror”. These things stem from painful wounds from which the poison has drained to varying degrees.

There is a theory that feelings follow behaviour. If this is so, then let both sides paint over any celebrations of violence and declare an outbreak of mutual love and understanding. Hmmm. The artist in me thinks it would be good to let the communities continue to wear their feelings on their sleeve. Maybe one day the murals will be cherished pieces of history, old pictures of faded feelings.

Telegraph.co.uk

By Celia Hall, Medical Editor
(Filed: 19/07/2006)

A herb used by millions of women to relieve symptoms of the menopause may cause serious liver damage, health protection agencies warned yesterday.

Use of products containing black cohosh, a relative of the buttercup, has risen dramatically since the hormone replacement therapy scares three years ago, with an estimated nine million doses taken every day by women seeking to relieve hot flushes. It is thought that it helps to ease menopause symptoms because it may have a weak oestrogenic effect.

Now the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said that all black cohosh products should carry a warning label that says that in rare cases it can damage the liver. They say symptoms must be reported to doctors.

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