Serious questions about the conviction of Lucy Letby

Former British Conservative government minister Sir David Davis MP is campaigning  for justice in the case of Lucy Letby. Yesterday he said that since the 1970s there have been 500 miscarriages of justice in the English courts.

Below is from the RTÉ website:

Bad medical care and natural causes led to the deaths of babies said to have been harmed by British nurse Lucy Letby, a panel of international medical experts has concluded.

The team of 14 neonatologists and paediatric specialists said it "did not find any murders" after presenting its "impartial evidence-based report".

Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life sentences after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.

Chairman Dr Shoo Lee told reporters at a two-hour news conference in London that the panel had detected a number of medical problems at the Countess of Chester Hospital during the relevant period.

These included, he said, poor skills in resuscitation and inserting breathing tubes, a lack of understanding of some basic procedures, along with misdiagnoses and unsafe delays in treatment of acutely poorly babies.

‘He has sent me to bring good news to the poor’

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Patrick, not his real name, was standing on top of a shed when I shouted up at him not to fall. He jokingly replied he was thinking of jumping.  I suggested it would be a bad idea as he would probably break a leg or arm and feel and look like a right eejit.

It was lunchtime, he come down the ladder and we got talking. He was upset about something. Earlier that morning he had found a man lying in bushes and he simply did not know what to do about it. He asked me what I did, I told him and also said I was a priest. He took off his right glove, shook hands with me and said that it was seldom one meets a priest these days. I was embarrassed. We chatted and parted. 

The following day we met again and he brought me to where the man had been the previous day. There he was, in dire conditions, lying on an old skimpy sheet, his left hand shaking. He was well concealed from public view. It was the day before Storm Éowyn landed. Patrick was very concerned about the man. 

The three of us had a chat. It was clear something had to be done for James (not his real name). Patrick and I exchanged phone numbers. The day after the storm Patrick called to tell me that he had managed to get James into hospital and that he had surgery the same day. I was delighted with the news.

I have since visited James in hospital. He has had a second procedure and is on the mend. At least right now he is in out of the cold and rain. And he certainly looks a different man than the person I saw cowering under those bushes in miserable weather.

He told me his life story and we have kept in touch over the phone. 

Of course I’ve been thinking of Patrick and what he did for James. He told me he had a sleepless night over it. The next morning he went out and bought James a mobile phone and also brought him some food, which James didn’t eat.

The morning I met Patrick, whom I imagine, is in his early-to-mid 50s, was working away at his job but he had something on his mind, genuine concern about a fellow human being.

Was it telepathy, a coincidence, whatever it was, but reading the Gospel the following Sunday a line from St Luke jumped out at me: ‘He has sent me to bring good news to the poor.’

It’s so easy to read and talk about the mission statement of the Gospel but when you see someone living it in their skin it throws a whole new light on it.

And something else about the incident has crossed my mind. The accidental way how I met Patrick. I suppose we were both acting the clown and actually enjoying the moment. And just look how it all worked out.

I keep saying it, what’s it all about. Patrick’s goodness is surely part of the answer, indeed, a large part of the answer.

There is no such thing as 'inherited guilt'

The column below was sent by Francis Hunt as a comment on today’s blogpost. It is a powerful reply to the extreme right and AfD saying: "It's time for Germany to stop feeling guilty”.  Thank you Francis for the clarity, insight and accuracy.

It's a popular argument from the extreme right in Germany. The concept of inherited guilt is a good straw horse argument; It puts forward a false premise, demolishes it, and then claims that the demolition proves its case.

The Christian concept of Original Sin notwithstanding, there is no such thing as "inherited guilt". What there is, is a collective responsibility for Germans - and for the Federal Republic of Germany, as the legal successor state of the Nazi one - to remember the lessons of that appalling period of German history, and to bear witness to it so that those lessons will not be forgotten.

One way of looking at the history of Germany since the war is to see it as the long and difficult journey to understand and express the consequences of this responsibility. Part of this process involved a decided refutation of any concept of "blood guilt", given the presence of such ideas in the foul mess of the origins of antisemitism.

The ideas of "inherited" or "blood" guilt are illogical and absolutely toxic. Are my children (half-German and half-Irish) only half as guilty as their contemporaries? Or is one "drop" of German blood enough to damn them completely to guilt?

It is horribly fascinating to see how the AfD is able to paradoxically use the racist concept of "blood" to relativise the whole question of remembering the lessons of the Holocaust. Combining the idea of German "Volk" and German Nation, and commingling it with a simplistic view of history extending over millenia, the AfD politician, Alexander Gauland, described the history of the Nazi period as a "bird dropping" [Vogelschiss] in the whole sweep of history. Commingled with this relativism is the usual right wing argument that Germany has more than adequately accepted its guilt and done sufficient atonement for it. And so, absolution is self-declared.

Except that present-day Germany is not "guilty" of the Nazi abomination. It needs no absolution. But the responsibility to remember, to bear witness, remains. Is that an ongoing cultural "burden"? Some may see it that way. But I see the ongoing challenge to bear witness to the terrible lessons of the past as a marvelously creative opportunity for German culture. Often imperfect, frequently with a large serving of hypocrisy as a side dish. But over the decades, always moving forward. When you visit the Holocaust Memorial in front of the Bundestag in Berlin, you get a real sense of what this German responsibility means. Yes, the burden can sometimes feel heavy, but there is also profound honour to be found in taking it up. 

AfD leader cleverly sneers during Caren Miosga programme

Much is happening in Germany these days. There is a general election on Sunday, February 23. There was an interesting vote in the Bundestag last week where the AfD voted with the Christian Democrats.

Last evening on the Caren Miosga programme on the ARD station the leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel was interviewed. Also on the programme was a representative from German industry and a political commentator.

It was a fascinating hour-long programme. Weidel is a sophisticated European version of Trump. 

At one stage Miosga played a clip of a rally where Weidel roared that the AfD would tear down every wind turbine in Germany. When challenged on the issue she said she did not mean it literally and it was words spoken in the poetry of an election.

Weidel is in favour of returning to the German Mark, is critical of the EU and wants Germany to return to being a sovereign state. She wants a return to nuclear energy.

While it was in a different format to the Trump Harris debate there were aspects to it that reminded on of that debate. Weidel had many one liners easy to remember.

She believes it’s time for Germans to stop looking to its past, instead to look to the future. It’s time for Germany to stop feeling guilty.

The ghost of Hitler’s Germany hovers over the heads

of the AfD.

On one occasion Caren Miosga asked Alice Weidel why she was moving her eyes as if she were sneering.

It was a programme where one could place much emphasis on body language. And Weidel, right through the programme, cleverly used the cameras to her best advantage.

It would have been impossible for Sunday evening’s programme to have been aired on German television 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. It would have been beyond taboo.

An interesting moment in the run-up to the election and no doubt the commentators will have much to say about it in the coming days. 

Hitler and Goebbels used the media to the very best of their advantage. No one was better than they at using the then new medium. 

Zhukov’s prescient words on nuclear weapons in 1955

On February 7, 1955 Georgy Zhukov was appointed the USSR’s minister of defence.

In a lengthy interview he gave that day to a group of  American journalists he said:

"The very existence of nuclear weapons harbours the possibility of their employment, and certain madmen might go to the length of using them in spite of everything.

"It is our duty to do our utmost to have these weapons banned ..... It should be remembered that atomic weapons are double-edged. Atomic war is just as dangerous to the attacker as to the attacked.”

Wise words indeed. Are these ‘madmen’ in positions of power today?

US Episcopal Church replies to President Donald Trump

Below is the response from the United States Episcopal Church to President Donald Trump’s apology demand from the bishop on X.  It's quite the masterpiece.

President Trump,

1.⁠ ⁠Much like those who do not want you to be president, you do not get to decide whether a bishop’s office is legitimate.   She was chosen by the people of her diocese to be their bishop. Then, she was granted consent to be a bishop by other bishops and standing committees of our church’s dioceses. 

Beginning by calling her a “so-called” bishop is an obvious low blow to discredit her as a person, rather than what she actually said that you disagree with.  

The Episcopal Church was legitimate enough to hold your third wedding, the funeral of Melania’s mother, and the baptism of your son, Barron.  Barron also attended an Episcopal day school.  Now you have an issue with how we do things when it doesn’t go your way? 

2.⁠ ⁠You didn’t have an issue with politics being brought into the church by the ministers who spoke at your inauguration, or by yourself for that matter. 

They were blatantly partisan, crediting God for your political success: “Mr. President, the last four years there were times I'm sure you thought it was pretty dark, but look what God has done," Graham said.  

3.⁠ ⁠She wasn’t nasty in tone, plain and simple.  I can’t remember ever hearing a homily given in such a gracious manner and calm tone.  If you disagree, listen to her speak.  You may disagree with what she said, but her tone was in no way “nasty.” 

Additionally, insulting her intelligence, rather than quoting what you disagreed with, is a very typical play coming from a narcissist. 

4.⁠ ⁠The vast majority of people who have committed crimes in the U.S. are U.S. citizens.  Defending yourself about being asked to have mercy on immigrants by saying a “large number of illegal migrants came into our country and killed people” is a gross misrepresentation and does not make sense.   

By that logic, we should be locking up or deporting all Americans because the majority of crimes were committed by citizens.  We do need to improve our immigration system, but scripture commands us as Christians to have mercy. Mercy is a central tenet of our faith.   Matthew 5:7 says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Leviticus 19: 33-34 says, “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” If you have a take issue with this, take it up with God.  

5.⁠ ⁠Saying the service was boring and uninspiring is a move to discredit the event, rather than what specifically was said.  However, it’s worth mentioning that the purpose of a service is not to be “exciting”. There are several purposes for our services, such as honoring God, bringing us closer to God, and being in community with one another.  Being “exciting” is not one of them.  As far as inspiration goes, that is in the eye of the beholder.   You get as much out of it as you put into it.  

6.⁠ ⁠The bishop does not owe you an apology.  Our church does not owe you an apology.  All you were asked to do is what scripture directly asks us to do.  If you could quote one thing she asked of you that isn’t asked of us in scripture, we would apologize. 

Someone recently reminded me of something I often heard growing up in church. If you are offended by a minister’s sermon or feel that it was a personal attack, look to see if you can find anything they said that was out of line with scripture and the teachings of Jesus.  If you can’t, that feeling is what we call, “being convicted of your sin”.  

The fact you are so offended by what was said shows you know there is truth in it.  To your supporters who also feel offended by it, the same goes.

The day on the Volga the history of the world changed

Apologies. There was a technical glitch with this post. Maybe it was taken down by anti-Russian supporters, half joking, half serious. Anything is possible these days.

The post was remembering January 31, 1943, the day that Feld Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to Marshal Georgy Zhukov on the banks of the Volga at Stalingrad. 

It was probably the most significant day in World War II. From there the Soviet Army raced to Berlin and again it was Zhukov who arrived in the city, this time before his fellow marshal, Konev.

It was in Karlshorst, the eastern suburb of Berlin on May 8/9 that Zhukov signed the German capitulation document. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed on behalf of Germany.

Discovering a man living in heavy undergrowth and bushes.

Earlier this week I found a man living in a bush/cluster of trees. He was sleeping on a dirty old skimpy sleeping bag. His living conditions were horrific. In the first moment it was an incredible sight.

He is now in hospital where he has undergone surgery. It is expected he will be discharged from hospital next week and has been offered accommodation in a hostel. He does not want to go to a hostel because of past experiences he has had.

He has a history of alcoholism but is currently not drinking and is resolved to attend AA meetings and stay away from alcohol.

Is there any reader out there who could offer advice or help the man in anyway whatsoever? He is a gentle soul, well mannered and has simply come on hard times.

If you can help please send a comment to this blog. Everything will remain confidential. Thank you.

Jesuit James Martin corrects US vice present JD CVance

New US VP JD Vance and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops don’t seem to be off to harmonious start. Anyone surprised?

Link below worth a read.

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/51600

The anti-clerical coalition

Makes for interesting reading.

 https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-anti-clerical-coalition/

A telltale story about the Irish Rail logo

This Week’s column that appears in The Kerryman.

Michael Commane

In conversation with a friend from Northern Ireland, now living in Australia, he insisted we in the South have no idea what went on in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. 

He recalled how as a young boy he was mistreated by the security forces. I have no idea what went on. I learned about it through the media, never experienced it in my own flesh.

Last week I travelled by rail to Belfast. If you are a regular reader of this column you will know I am a train nerd. I noticed boarding the train in Dublin that the Irish Rail logo, which includes the colours green white and orange, the colours of the national flag, were missing on the logo of this train. 

I discovered that all Irish Rail trains travelling across the border have had the colours removed. Sounds crazy to me. Before the introduction of the hourly Dublin Belfast service Northern Ireland Railways and Irish Rail operated a common Enterprise service with identical trains, which simply had the word Enterprise written on the coaches. 

With the new enhanced hourly service it was necessary to use more Irish Rail rolling stock in addition to the Enterprise trains.

Last October the all-new Belfast Grand Central Station was officially opened. It’s a fabulous combined rail bus station. Plenty of open space. I went to a machine to purchase a single rail ticket to Connolly Station to discover it was not possible to buy a ticket to Dublin. I was shocked, annoyed too. 

Here I was in a state-of-the-art €340 million new facility and the machine would not allow me purchase a ticket to Dublin. I was directed to a standard ticket desk. I asked a staff member of Northern Ireland Railways why the machine could not issue me a ticket. 

He explained that I was moving to another jurisdiction. I retorted I could buy a ticket in a machine in Berlin to Paris, to which he replied that Northern Ireland Railways is a separate company to Irish Rail. Of course I had an answer for him: German Rail is a separate company from French Rail. 

At that stage he looked up to the heavens. I got the impression he thought I was impossible. I pursued with my thinking. I think he began to wonder himself how crazy it all is.

My friend in Australia introduced me to a lifelong friend of his, whom I have met a few times over the years. I think I can honestly say that he is a great person. We can laugh and joke together, discuss too. I enjoy his company. Why should it be any other way? 

When we first met, I presumed from his name that he was Protestant. I was correct. But isn’t it obscenely outrageous how we create divisions between peoples. 

As a child  and a young man I always thought it was the other person who was the bigot. More nonsense. 

How dare we ever make our minds up about other people when we hardly even know ourselves. Just look at the state of the world and ask why it is in the state of chassis it is. 

A day we can never forget, a day to thank the Soviet Army

Eighty years ago today soldiers of 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army arrived at the gates of Auschwitz and liberated those living in hell.

Battle-hardened Soviet soldiers who were used to seeing death in battle were shocked by the German treatment of prisoners at Auschwitz. 

Red Army General Vasily Petrenko, commander of the 107th Infantry Division, remarked, "I who saw people dying every day was shocked by the Nazis' indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis' treatment of Jews in various leaflets, but there was nothing about the Nazis' treatment of women, children, and old men. It was in Auschwitz that I found out about the fate of the Jews.”

In February 1943 on the River Volga Marshal Georgy Zhukov assured Stalin that the German Army would be defeated at Stalingrad and after that they would chase the Germans all the way to Berlin. It was on that journey to Berlin they threw open the gates at Auschwitz.

How Elon Musk raised his hand in a Nazi-style salute last week was despicable. Mr Musk addressed the AfD rally in Halle on Saturday. The German people cannot and must not listen to this man.

The link below from the Guardian is worth reading: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/25/the-house-next-door-rudolf-hoss-villa-opens-to-honour-auschwitz-victims?CMP=share_btn_url

The morning after the night of the big wind

Christmas Day, at least in many 

St Stephen’s Green tram stop

places in the western world, is a day like no other. From the moment you get out of bed it feels and smells different(ly).

But even that is beginning to change. In the past it was unusual to see a car on the road but still today all public transport closes

In front of Trinity College

down for the day. In Ireland the trains are also off the tracks the following day, St Stephen’s Day.

It was somewhat like that on Thursday in Ireland, the occasion of the big storm. That morning I cycled into Dublin’s city centre, which was as quiet as a mouse, not a bus or tram (Luas) to be seen, few cars too. It all changed, at least most aspects of it, after midday, with the exception of the Luas, which was still sleeping at 3pm.

It was so easy to forget the day of the week that was in it on Thursday.

Both photos were taken on Thursday  close to 2pm. The top picture is the tram stop at St Stephen’s Green, and the bottom one is in front of Trinity College.

Arrogance and ignorance go hand-in-hand with GB News

GB News is a relatively new

‘Alturism or Activism?'

television station, which can be viewed via free-to-air or subscription.

It’s fair to consider it a far right station. Among its anchor people are Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It’s more or less non-stop opposition to anything and everything that hints of being liberal. The Reform Party are God’s gift to creation and the Labour Party will easily destroy British civilisation over the next five years, that is, if they are not removed beforehand.

Their presenters are never neutral and always scream and shout at what is 'Right and Just'. They give the impression that they always know best.

Last evening there was a discussion about the work that charities do. The presenter referred to the NGOs as the ‘charity industry’. And he kept using that term throughout the interview with a journalist from the Daily Mail, who had written what he called an exposé on the ‘charity industry’.

Right across GB News one is given the strong impression that these are a very clever, educated, sophisticated and articulate bunch of people.

All during the segment on this topic the news ticker at the bottom of the screen showed this line: ‘ALTURISM or ACTIVISM?’

It’s always the small things that give us away.

There they were, the panel and the presenter, pontificating on a subject, not knowing actually what they were talking about. And did they sound so competent.

Isn’t that so often the story?

What’s happening in the air on Thursday?

I’m writing this at 18.00 on Thursday.

Across all media platforms we are being warned about the severe storm that is to hit Ireland at approximately 02.00 on Friday.

Public transport, including rail and bus, will not be operating before 11.00, all educational institutes are closed for the day. We are being warned not to go out, to shelter in place. 

No word from the DAA as to what the situation is going to be at Dublin Airport. If you call the number your receive an automated reply instructing you to contact you airline. Does the wind behave differently with different airlines?

I phoned five numbers this evening attempting to check what what was happening at Dublin Airport on Thursday. Automatic replies with no serious information.

We are told Air Coach services will not be operation but not a word about aircraft.

Not good enough.

It’s akin to playing for Kerry and Dublin in the same game

Dáil Éireann was a spectacle yesterday. It certainly gives great ammunition to those who think that politicians are doing nothing for us.

Is it another signal hinting at the demise of democracy?

How can a supporter of the government speak on the opposition bench? To the hoi polloi it makes no sense at all.

It is surprising that no comedian has jumped on the story, explaining that it is akin to Kerry playing Dublin, Dublin are winning and a Kerry player dons the Dublin jersey from time to time playing for both sides, with Michael Lowry as referee.

And all this on this tiny island as US president signs more and more Executive Orders.

‘Drill baby drill’.

What next?

 

A brave US bishop speaks truth to power

This is sensational and surprisingly, it does not seem to be on main stream media. Trump looks angry and in those few seconds JD Vance seems to tell the real story about himself.

A brave woman. What did Cardinal Dolan say?

This is on X.

https://x.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1881773984045531137

The past does not stop, it examines us in the present

This week’s column in The Kerryman.

Michael Commane

I’ve just finished reading Derek Scally’s book 'The Best Catholics in the World’. It is a work of genius. It tries to explain the story of where we are with the Catholic Church in Ireland today.

Scally is The Irish Times correspondent in Germany and has been living in Berlin for over 20 years. He is hanging on to his faith by his finger nails. 

Derek grew up in Edenmore parish on the north side of Dublin. He recalls some of the strange behaviour of Fr Paul McGennis, who was a priest in his parish. McGennis sexually assaulted Marie Collins when he was chaplain at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin in the 1960s.

Scally gives some space to the clerical sexual abuse saga in the Catholic Church but that is the launchpad for his story. 

Living in Berlin he has learned of the terror of the East German regime and before that what the Nazis did.

If we try to distance ourselves from those who did terrible evil we are dodging what happened and are trying to forget about it. As if to say, we had nothing to do with that.

When any organisation has control and has complete power, the majority of people are afraid to stand up and object.

I remember when Pope John Paul II came to Ireland. At first I did not want to go to the Phoenix Park to see him. I thought it was all a stage-managed show of some sort of strange power. I went because I did not want to be the odd man out. And then when I did go I was embarrassed walking up Chesterfield Avenue in my Dominican habit. There I was belonging to the ‘special people’. It seemed all wrong to me then and still seems all wrong to me today. 

Back that day in 1979 I was extremely uneasy with the hype that surrounded the event. I might have mumbled and groaned about it to friends but I was afraid to say anything too public.

It takes great courage to stand up against the prevailing wind whether it be in the church, at work or in the State. 

We live in a time when we think or believe we are all standing up for our rights. 

We need to think again. How many of us follow the crowd? Isn’t that exactly why influencers are making such extraordinary sums of money. 

If anyone does or says something that does not conform in the current climate we easily dismiss them as fanatics.

Scally is saying that we in Ireland went to church not knowing why, and have stopped going to church not knowing why. He wonders what actually did we know about our faith.

The clerical child sex abuse horror has been a great excuse to walk away from the church. It’s easy to get angry about it. 

Clerical power merchants took control and most of us followed like sheep. We were afraid to speak out or criticise the priest. And if someone did they were marked for life.

A line in Scally’s book keeps ringing in my ears: ‘What if you saw something but chose not to see?’

It’s something we all do, and do far too often.

The importance of listening to other views and opinions

 "The greatest gifts will come from those with whom we disagree, if we dare to listen to them.”

- Timothy Radcliffe, Listening Together (page 10)

Lowry knows the kingmaker has more power than the king

Below is Justine McCarthy’s opinion piece in the Friday edition of The Irish Times. I was impressed with it and thought Justine’s argument was spot on. Later talking to someone about it he felt she was over the top. It’s striking how the opinions of other people can influence our own views and thought patterns. Good or not so good?

---

Justine McCarthy:

My nightmares no longer happen in my sleep. They come in daylight while I’m reading a newspaper or listening to a broadcast report tracking the moral disintegration of public life in the globalised world. A most terrifying nightmare is due next week when two new regimes will be ensconced on either side of the Atlantic. The one taking control of the world’s superpower in Washington has a convicted felon at its apex and luxuriates in its own amorality.

The one on this side of the ocean, in this little country that fancies itself as an international referee of political integrity, has shamelessly thrown away its moral compass. At the exact moment when sovereign states need to stand up to Donald Trump’s drill-baby-drill and I’ll-take-Greenland contempt for humankind, the incoming Irish Government is perceptibly hobbled at birth by its involvement with Michael Lowry.

The Tipperary North TD is to Government Buildings what Elon Musk will be to the White House come Sunday, though that may be unfair to the sinister and mendacious X owner, who has not been accused of abusing public office nor been convicted on tax charges. Lowry has, along with being accused of a “profoundly corrupt” attempt to jack up a semi-state company’s rent bill, deceiving Dáil Éireann, “securing the winning” of a lucrative State licence for a businessman who showered him with money, getting his house extended courtesy of another businessman, and keeping schtum about his offshore bank stash when he availed of a tax amnesty. While Musk is a recidivist liar and Lowry denies he did anything wrong, what makes them twin figures is that they are both kingmakers.

Musk spent $250m (€243m) getting Trump elected in November and has described himself as the incoming president’s “first buddy”. Lowry got Verona Murphy elected Ceann Comhairle and has negotiated a disproportionately generous share of Government portfolios for his allies in the Regional Independents Group (RIG). Apparently, neither Musk nor Lowry sought a cabinet position for himself. Both are too savvy.

In Ireland, all involved knew it would have stretched public tolerance beyond endurance had the Tipperary deputy been repatriated to cabinet. Instead, he has manoeuvred his associates into the room and has a hot line to the Taoiseach. Lowry knows how power works. Micheál Martin and Simon Harris may be the kings, but he is the kingmaker.

Not true, protest Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, implausibly. Who do they think they’re kidding? Not the 63 per cent of respondents to a Sunday Independent/ Ireland Thinks poll who believe the two parties should not be dealing with him. Pretexts about Lowry’s democratic mandate from his constituency are not just pathetic, considering he had a mandate too when the Dáil passed a unanimous motion for him to resign his seat in 2011. They are an insult to the people’s intelligence. They are an insult to everyone who values standards in office. And they are an insult to two senior judges, Brian McCracken and Michael Moriarty, whose tribunals spent 14 years investigating money lavished on Lowry by businessmen Denis O’Brien and Ben Dunne.

Abuse of office

In his 1997 report, concluding that the former minister got payments and benefits worth more than £650,000, McCracken warned that if such behaviour were to go unsanctioned, it would be difficult to condemn those who flouted the law. Moriarty, who found that Lowry had engaged in “cynical and venal abuse of office”, suffered vilification for his efforts. Indeed, he “faced active hostility from some individuals before the tribunal”, Martin remarked during the Dáil debate on the Moriarty Report. “He has done his work with integrity, commitment and skill and he has produced a very comprehensive report. I believe the Dáil and the public should thank him for his efforts,” the then opposition leader declared.

Some thanks he is getting now. Martin and Harris are gambling that Lowry’s influence on their Government will be behind the scenes during their tenure and that, in time, public disgust at his involvement will abate. We, the public, should not allow that to happen. Government at any cost is a cheap and tawdry thing.

Since the revelation in this newspaper last week that the DPP has received the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) file arising from the Moriarty tribunal’s findings, a new excuse has been trotted out by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that, were they to shun Lowry, they would somehow be interfering in the legal process.

Cardinal Richelieu, one of history’s most famous king-whisperers as chief minister to France’s Louis XIII, would have been unimpressed with such cretinous dissembling. He summarised his philosophy when he posited that “to know how to dissimulate is the knowledge of kings”.

Ethical backbone

The re-election of a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Government was acclaimed after November’s general election as evidence of centrism triumphing here, while the rest of the world was perilously dashing to the far right. Not content with helping to install as US president a man who would otherwise have gone on trial for inciting a riot, Musk now wants to oust Keir Starmer as Britain’s prime minister and is promoting the reactionary AfD party to run Germany.

With the French and German governments squaring up to Trump over his threat to grab Greenland from Denmark, Europe badly needs ethical backbone. Ditto the world. Cynics deride the notion that little Ireland could hold any sway, despite hosting the European headquarters of X and Meta in Dublin 2 and Dublin 4, the multinationals in the vanguard of our age of untruths. Ireland will be sorely tested by both in its obligation to impose EU regulations countering lies and dangerous content on their social media platforms. Can it be trusted to do that?

Not if the formation of the new Government tells us anything. Double standards are already its leitmotif. On the one hand, it righteously – and rightly – stands before the International Criminal Court supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, craving the rule of law. On the other hand, it dismisses two esteemed judges’ shocking findings about Lowry in the interests of hatching its coalition. What this Government is telling us is that its principles are for sale.

European Court found UK guilty of mistreatment

On this date, January 18, 1978 the European Court of Human Rights found the government of the United Kingdom guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.

Pope Francis’ insightful words on the Latin Mass

This is  about comments made by Pope Francis in his newly published autobiography ‘Hope’.

The man is spot on, though he could have said more, maybe he does.

The real story needs to be told about the phenomenon 'liturgical lap dancing’.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dpzw69-4W34?si=I12jKPRzmI6KUJce

‘What the f*** drives our love of profanity

The Irish Independent published

this opinion piece by John Daly on Monday.

Our use of bad language seems to have moved into a new stratosphere. In conversation with a stranger on the street these days one will hear all sorts of swear and vulgar words being used.

Yesterday a bus driver was over heard criticising rudeness, in doing so his words were peppered with the F-word.

It now seems completely acceptable for people on television and on radio to use the F-word ad lib.

Mrs Brown and her boys seem incapable of putting a sentence together without using the F-word. It certainly isn’t funny.

‘The wicked practice of profane cursing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.”

- George Washington.

Clearly the next occupant of the White House disagrees with a previous occupant of the building.

Former Dominicans, Seamus Dunne and Jimmy Hanlon RIP

It has been brought to the

Seamus Dunne

attention of this blog of the death of two former Dominicans.

Seamus Dunne died at Tallaght University Hospital on Sunday, January 12.

Seamus, who was a member of a well known Tallaght family, was born on September 18, 1936, joined the Dominicans in 1955 and ordained a priest in 1962.

He spent most of his years as a priest in Trinidad.

On retiring from priesthood he returned to Ireland and lived in Virginia, Co Cavan, where he reared his family.

He taught at Virginia Vocational School and is a former national president of Down Syndrome Ireland.

Seamus rowed to work every morning as the school was on the other side of the lake to where he lived

Reposing today at 'The Village Chapel Of Rest' Mullagh from 5pm to 8pm. Requiem Mass on Thursday at midday in St Bartholomew's Church, Knocktemple, with interment in the adjoining cemetery.

Another Tallaght man, Jimmy Aengus Hanlon died in December in Australia.  Jimmy and Seamus were next door neighbours growing up in Newtown Park. 

Jimmy was born on January 26, 1945, joined the Irish Dominicans in September 1963 and ordained a priest in July 1970.

Jimmy spent all of his priestly ministry in Australia, with a short spell at the Dominican priory in Dundalk.

He was an accomplished guitarist.

May Jimmy and Seamus rest in peace.