High numbers working, high numbers Australian bound

At present there are 2.8 million people working in Ireland. This is a 50 per cent increase on the low point of the financial crisis.

Last year 6,100 people left Ireland to live in Australia; it’s the highest number since 2013.

Trauma leaves an indelible mark on our psyche

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper

Michael Commane

It must be 40 years since I first heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly known as PTSD. It became something of a ruse as people were using it as a way of claiming recompense from their insurance company as a result of an accident, it was usually an injury that caused whiplash. If all else failed, try the PTSD trick and you just might get compensation from your insurance company.

No doubt there were and are tricksters who try it, but don’t fraudsters and tricksters try every method possible to steal and cheat.

That’s not to say that PTSD is not real. My eyes were opened having attended a day-long seminar on trauma. Okay, I can hear you say; after a day’s course he’s now pontificating on the subject. That’s fine, but the day set me thinking of how events in our lives influence what we do and say. 

I’m forever asking, who am I, what do I believe, why do I behave in such a manner, do I know who I am? Do any of us know who we are or why we act and speak as we do? 

After 75 years on this planet I’m coming around to the idea of so much of what I do began to take shape in my mother’s womb. If our parents are kind and loving people, surely that rubs off on us and in turn we behave in a like manner. 

I have learned over the years how fragile we are.

If I had been born a Muslim in 1949 it’s almost certain I would not now be a Dominican priest.

I remember a violent incident that happened me in school. I am sure it had a profound effect on my life. 

Any events that harm us impact on our lives; they play a significant role in deciding  who we are and how we behave.

No two people are the same; every situation is different.

Just think of the damage that all forms of violence cause on people.

Shakespeare in one of his sonnets hints at the terror and loneliness that can befall us: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,/When I've fallen out of favour with fortune and men,/I all alone beweep my outcast state.’ (Sonnet 29)

I’m a strong believer in the work counsellors and psychotherapists do; they have the skills and empathy to help us on our own individual road to discovery. 

Life is a journey with many twists and turns, all of us are in process. Somehow or someway most of us have been wounded along the journey. It’s how we handle or maybe interpret the trauma we have experienced that matters. 

And then in our dealing with other people every individual has to be recognised for who they are. If we see a physically vulnerable person on the street we might help them cross the road. What about the person suffering trauma?

If I had a magic wand it would be my wish that everyone had the opportunity to avail of benefiting from a counsellor or therapist. We regularly go to the doctor and dentist; why not give the same care to our mental health?    

Is it possible for the centre to hold for much longer

French philosopher, playwright, novelist  and a key figure in existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) wrote about existentialism:

“The word is now so loosely applied to so many things that it no longer means anything at all.”

If you inserted the letter l in word, how would it look?

“The world is now so loosely applied to so many things that it no longer means anything at all.”

Does it say something about the times in which we are living.

What does anything mean in our world today?

An example; last week US bishops Robert Barron said that the school/church shooting  in the US was an anti-Catholic attack. Why did the bishop say that?

Did the bishop ask might it be possible that the shooter had mental problems. The bishop's rush to social media says something about the bishop and indeed about social media too.

Is it possible with all that is happening  that the centre can manage to hold

Day of prayer of the care of creation

Pope Leo renews his invitation for Christians to join together today to celebrate the World of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which draws inspiration from the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and the theme: “Seeds of Peace and Hope.”

The quote below is from Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948).

"Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed."

The beginning of a war that claimed 53 million people

On this day, September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, 17 days later the Red Army invaded Poland from the east.

World War II had begun, a war that claimed approximately 53 million people, of whom 27 million were citizens of the Soviet Union.

No water for more than two billion people worldwide

According to the latest UN figures 2.1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean dinking water.

Rheinmetall investors doing well on Ukraine war

Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms manufacturers, situated in the town of Unterluss in Lower Saxony has opened a new production facility in the town.

The Unterluss factory is 125 years in business; it supplied weapons to Germany in the two World Wars and during World War II used approximately 3,700 forced labourers.

Since the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine Rheinmetall shares have jumped 17 times in value.

An RTE interview impossible to understand

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland yesterday there was an item on Ryanair paying an extra bonus to staff who ‘catch’ passengers attempting to carry on oversized bags/backpacks.

Travel expert Sarah Slattery was interviewed on the subject. She rattled off the permitted sizes; on two occasions she corrected herself. It was impossible to understand what the woman was saying; she gave many figures, height, weight, depth.

Ms Slattery mentioned nothing about weight when talking about Ryanair allowance but did when she is talking about Aer Lingus allowance. Somewhere in the interview she mentioned a 10kg bag with Ryanair; lost in translation.

At the end of the clip the interviewer thanked Ms Slattery, adding: ‘that’s all clear to us now'

When something like that happens, the meaning of words breaks down. Did the interviewer really mean what she said? 

At least the interviewee said it was confusing. It sure was and Ms Slattery did not help the confusion. 

Poor radio.

Trump only bullies those who cannot fight back

Below is Michael McDowell’s column in The Irish Times yesterday. He deserves to be praised for his consistent criticism of Donald Trump.  What’s the longterm sense in world leaders bowing obsequiously to a man who lies, ridicules and talks nonsense. If Joe Smith spoke and behaved like Donald Trump the same world leaders would simply see him as a buffoon, and a nasty one. 

"Back in 2017, at this time of year, Donald Trump issued a warning to North Korean despot Kim Jong-un, whom he dubbed “little rocket man”. He reacted to Kim’s test-firing of a missile towards Japan with extensive joint US-South Korea military exercises and stated that talking to Pyongyang was “not the answer”. US forces were “locked and loaded”, he said. Kim’s threats to the US would be met with “fire and fury of a kind the world has never seen”.

One year into his first term, Trump was aiming to get Kim to drop his nuclear weapons programme and to abandon plans to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the continental US.

His U-turn to diplomacy, featuring summits with Kim at Panmunjom and Singapore the following year, surprised many and has disappointed everyone. He hoped to end US-led sanctions on North Korea as part of a phased dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme. But the Hanoi summit held in 2019 made clear that Trump’s carrot-and-stick deal making strategy was completely ineffectual.

This diplomacy had featured “beautiful letters” and “great” personal meetings with Kim. Like all of Trump’s much-vaunted deal making, it achieved absolutely nothing. Russia and China made US sanctions ineffective. And Kim has since proceeded with his ICBM development programme and is building up his arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons

Kim has established a new nuclear weapons base at Sinpung-dong, near the Chinese border. He is reported to be accessing Russian missile technology in exchange for his assistance in providing manpower and weapons for the war against Ukraine, according to security officials in Washington.

When South Korea’s newly elected president, Lee Jae-myung, entered the wretched Oval Office on Monday, it looked like Trump was preparing another mafia-type shakedown.

Trump’s Truth Social posts suggested that he still contests the impeachment of Lee’s predecessor for the venial (in Trump’s eyes) sin of illegally declaring martial law, invading Seoul’s legislature by force, and attempting to suspend constitutional democracy to counter a totally invented menace of left wing subversion in alliance with North Korea.

The Oval Office shakedown fizzled out when the canny Lee ignored the bombast and lies spewed out by Trump. He ignored Trump’s ridiculous demand that South Korea surrender Camp Humphreys as US territory. Camp Humphreys is an extensive military base furnished by South Korea to the US and recently expanded at a cost of $10.7 billion – of which South Korea paid 93 per cent. But Trump wants sovereignty – or another Guantánamo? Will Lee be described as “nasty” if he refuses?

Lee used humour to defuse a potential meltdown, referring to Trump’s peacemaking role and the prospect of his building another Trump Tower in Pyongyang and going golfing with dictator Kim Jong-un.

Trump’s grotesque dishonesty reached a new level with his statement about his relationship with Kim Jong-un: “I have a great relationship with him. I spend a lot of free time with him talking about things that we probably aren’t supposed to talk about.”

This drivel about a “great relationship” from the American idiot-king ignores the use of North Korean conscripts as cannon fodder in the murderous war on Ukraine. It ignores the large provision of ordinance by North Korea for use on innocent men, women and children in civilian centres in Ukraine. Are those the things that “we probably aren’t supposed to talk about”? Or are there other taboo subjects that Trump wants to keep secret?

What is it about Trump that he has “great relationships” with Vladimir Putin, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, Binyamin Netanyahu and Kim Jong-un – while accusing Volodymyr Zelenskiy of being a dictator who holds no cards but risks world nuclear war?

The truth is that Trump is a proven coward in international relationships. The acronym Taco (“Trump always chickens out”) is correctly applied to him. He stands up to weak parties in international affairs because he can do so without any risk – as the Iranians and Houthis have learned and the Maduro regime in Venezuela will probably find out.

He bullies those he can threaten with sanctions and economic costs. China has called his bluff – and he has chickened out in his trade war with it.

His military can be safely deployed on the streets of Democrat-controlled cities because there is no danger of fightback or body bags. He takes on US universities and students because they can’t fight back. He has his police rough up Democrat opponents who challenge him. He sanctions judges in the International Court of Justice for upholding elementary canons of humanity and international legal principles. He threatens to do the same to EU officials.

He shames America and Americans. The end of his presidency can’t come too soon."

Shakespeare’s second stage of our life’s journey

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

The Rose of Tralee is over; congratulations to the Laois Rose, Katelyn Cummins on winning this year’s title. 

The summer tourist season is drawing to a close and in its place school uniforms are appearing on the highways and byways across the county; school buses are on the roads again. It’s back to school time; I still remember those lines from Shakespeare’s As You Like it, which was the play on the curriculum the year I sat the Intermediate Certificate. Name change to Junior Certificate happened in 1992.

‘And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel/And shining morning face, creeping like snail/Unwillingly to school.’

No mention of the girls going to school or maybe it was that they were far more delighted about heading to school. I doubt it.

This time of year, always prompts me to think of the so-called ‘good old days’. They were anything but.

When I see children going and coming from school I’m flabbergasted to see how happy and jolly most of them are. We have come a long way on the educational road. 

My father, who was a quiet and gentle man, born in 1909, would on occasion speak about the cruelty he saw in his school days, though I never heard my mother talk negatively of her school days, indeed, over the years she kept in touch with some of her former teachers.

I remember having a teacher in sixth class rise on his toes so that when slapping us with the leather there would be more force when it landed on our hands. I saw and experienced horrendous violence and cruelty in my school years. And that went on until corporal punishment was stopped in 1982 but only became a criminal offence in 1997. I place that date with the introduction of free secondary education as one of the two great milestones in Irish education.

Shakespeare is giving us a hint of what must have gone on in English schools too.

It was pure barbarity. In later life I met that teacher, who practised the art of the tippy toes method to inflict as much pain as possible. That behaviour was meted out to little children of 10/11/12 years of age. 

When I mentioned it to him he looked profoundly sad and said; ‘please, don’t embarrass me’.

I remember a teacher putting a boy’s head in a wastepaper basket.

I imagine for the top stream pupils they enjoyed learning but for the majority of children they learned their lessons because if they did not know them the next day they would be subjected to violence. 

Imagine learning poetry out of fear; can there be a better example of an oxymoron.

I know from my own teaching days, the teachers who never had to revert to any form of violence were the best teachers. 

Teaching these days is not easy but the good teacher, the teacher who has prepared and done the homework will be appreciated and respected by the vast majority of pupils/students.

It takes many generations to undo such violence

It’s a miracle to see today’s children running me

No German in a school of the Jewish faith

Some years ago I called to a school of the Jewish faith asking if they might have some German hours available. At the time I was seeking part-time hours teaching German and/or English in a post primary school.

When I called to the school I was greeted by the person at reception; she asked me what my business was, I explained I was a German and English teacher and wondering  might the school have some hours in German available. The woman looked at me, expressing surprise before she said that it was a Jewish school and they did not teach German.

I recall at the time being shocked with her comment. I did not call back. I’m still wondering if it is school policy.

One would hope it was the person’s personal opinion and not school policy.

Pope Leo keeps stressing the importance of peace

Words, and not only weapons, can wound and even kill. 

                                 - Pope Leo XIV to ambassadors to the Holy See

Gorbachev resigned and Ukraine declared independence

On August 24, 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

On the same day, same month, same year Ukraine broke from the Soviet Union and declared independence.

Had the West given the loans that Gorbachev requested would the world be a different place today?

German contest to live in depopulated city proves a hit

Interesting article in the Guardian.

Have Irish authorities ever thought of building a new city. What about somewhere near Mullingar, Athlone or say Monasterevin? Somewhere close to a rail line or waterway and not too far from Dublin.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/21/german-contest-to-live-in-depopulated-soviet-era-city-proves-global-hit?CMP=share_btn_url

No stopping Vladimir Putin now

Putin and all in the Kremlin must surely be laughing out loud at Donald Trump as the Russian Army pounds Ukraine. And laughing too at the EU.

There will now be no stopping of the Russian advance in Ukraine.

An Irish Dominican post on Facebook

The link is from an Irish Dominicans post on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1481852802845984/?

A staggering €66.7 million crushed to smithereens

Do you return your drink cans and plastic bottles? If so you are one of many who are losing out on collecting the money due to you.

So far a staggering €66.7 million worth of empties has not been collected by the Irish public.

One way that might make it easier for people to avail of the Deposit Return Scheme would be to cash in receipts in any outlet and not have it restricted to the shop where one returned the empties.

So, who is getting the €66.7 million?

Something seriously amiss with road policing

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

The media has given much publicity over the last few days to the Crowe report, which is an independent review of the Roads Policing Unit to assess its effectiveness and integrity.

It’s a damning statement on how our roads are policed; some gardaí simply are not interested in their job and had no problem telling those carrying out the review of their feelings. The report includes many examples of unprofessional behaviour at all levels. We didn’t need the Crowe report to tell us that there is something seriously amiss with policing on our roads.

Since June 9 I have been cycling across Dublin city centre five days a week; to be exact from Dublin 14 to Dublin 1. I leave home every morning at approximately 7.30, arrive at work about 8am and leave in the evening close to 6pm. I’m cycling eight kilometres through the city centre and parts of the suburbs at busy commuting times.

What’s going on on our roads, streets and footpaths has to be seen to be believed.

Last Friday, August 15 at 6.30pm I saw a young man on an electric scooter speeding down George’s Street, alongside him a horse on a rein, which he was controlling. It meant he was getting power from both horse and scooter. Not a garda in sight and if there had been, I presume scooter and horse would have continued on their merry way.

I don’t care what any cycling group will say, I have no problem stating that the majority of cyclists are now breaking traffic lights. If they see pedestrian lights are green and it’s red for them, they’ll proceed with speed. Unfortunately, there are many places where the traffic light system does not make sense. 

There is certainly the herd mentality about it all. If one or two cyclists break red, then others in the queue are likely to follow. I have seen cyclists jaycycle at junctions.

Why are the gardaí not stopping cyclists on electric bicycles and scooters, who are travelling at speeds above 25 km/h? It’s an every day occurrence to see scooters and bicycles on footpaths and traversing the wrong direction on one-way streets.

Large numbers of cyclists wear earphones, surely that should be made illegal.

Cycling up O’Connell Street one morning I stopped to ask two gardaí why the current situation was being tolerated. They both clearly explained they can do nothing about it and gave me a number of reasons why they are unable to stop law-breaking cyclists and scooters.

Why has government not put road tax and insurance on some categories of these bicycles that travel at speeds far in excess of 25 km/h?

And to make it all even more confusing; it’s against the law to travel above 25 km/h on an electric bicycle but it is not against the law for a cyclist to travel above 25 km/h on a conventional bicycle powered exclusively by her/his own power/skill/strength.

It’s dangerous on our roads. How long will it be before there is a serious incident for the State to stop this chaos? 

Hopefully new Garda Commissioner, Justin Kelly, who takes up his post on September 1, will place road safety high of his to-do list.

Is this a misleading headline?

 A headline in The Irish Times today. 

 Is the funeral taking place in New York? No, in Carlow, Ireland.

Funeral of Irish woman found dead in New York tomorrow

US President Donald Trump continues to spout nonsense

Listening to US President

Ilyushin II-96-300

Donald Trump speak after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage it would be difficult not to think the US President was saying nothing.

In his joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House yesterday Mr Trump mainly talked about what he was doing for the US. It would be an insult to children to say he was spouting childish nonsense. Every time he referred to President Biden he called him corrupt. 

Observing Trump one is forced to get the impression he has little or no idea about what’s going on.

An unconfirmed report yesterday evening showed a Russian military vehicle flying two flags, one that of the Russian Federation, the other the US flag.

During the Putin Trump meeting in Alaska we in the West were constantly shown images of Air Force 1, we never saw the Ilyushin II-96-300, the aircraft Vladimir Putin travelled on from Moscow to Anchorage. 

What to be a fly on the wall at Putin’s meetings with his advisers in Moscow as they listen to Trump speak nonsense.

Senator Joe Conway’s first few months in Seanad Éireann

An engaging piece of writing in the Sunday Independent

Like any village, Leinster House has its eccentrics: what I've learned after six months in the Seanad

After 44 years in trade unions and local government, Independent Joe Conway was elected to the Seanad in January as part of the cultural and education panel. Here, he looks back on an eye-opening first few months

In the early hours of January 31, I got across the line and was elected to the 27th Seanad. Or so I thought. My joy was disturbingly short-lived when the defeated candidate's team called for a recount, which was allowed and scheduled for the following morning.

It was well after 2am when I left the count and trudged along Merrion Street, on the phone to my wife Sandra, trying as best I could to relate the events of the last few hours.

After about 20 minutes, I realised I was skirting around Trinity College and it dawned on me that I had been walking in the wrong direction, away from my lodgings. I was reasonably sure it would not be the last time I would err on my political peregrinations.

When my election was confirmed, I was summoned to attend and sign in on February 12. That opening day brought back memories of my first day in boarding school: a wealth of fresh faces, accents, shapes and makes of people I did not know, and some I did.

It was not long before veteran independent Victor Boyhan cupped my elbow in his avuncular fashion and suggested that we go meet Mich­ael McDowell.

Michael welcomed me quietly and did about 10pc of the chatting in our hour-long discussion. I probably did a little less, while 80pc-plus was Victor, machine-gunning and cleaving through a wide array of topics, much of it perceptive and informative, and often amusing.

Our inaugural Senate Independent Group (SIG) meeting a couple of days later was a much more robust affair. I will leave it at that.

​

Having grown up in the small yet beautiful village of Ardagh, Co Longford, it was not long at all before I began to detect many of the features and nuances of village life in the Leinster House milieu.

Ardagh punched well above its weight back then with its quantum of eccentrics, and so it is in Leinster House — though one person's eccentric is another's bore, it being rather subjective.

I noticed it very early during the moving-in process when we were all scurrying about looking for offices —of the physical rather than political variety.

I had heard horror stories of gaz­umping and evictions. However, with minimal fuss and in no small part due to the subtle negotiations of Sam­antha, our SIG capa, I moved into a smart first-floor unit just two minutes from the chamber.

The previous incumbent was Noel Grealish. It was not long before he materialised, the embodiment of the village welcome-wagon. Recently appointed a minister, he breezed in, but was soon taken aback with the changes afoot.

Slumping into one of my new good-enough-for-government armchairs, he declared in mock outrage "Jayz, when ye're gone, ye're really gone!”, lolling there awhile and shooting his politician's schtick before gathering up his things.

As in the Randy Edelman song, there wasn't much to pack, including a large mug of loose change from a filing cupboard. I met him again about a month later outside the chamber and he greeted me as warmly as you would an old friend.

Like all villages, Leinster House has its trusted places for eating, drinking and meeting. The most innocuous is the Coffee Dock, a modernistic, airy spot not likely to be found in many villages.

For serious engagement, it's the bars or restaurants. These are jovial and respectful spots (with rare exceptions) with good porridge and boiled eggs for breakfast and better-than- average gossip, where members and staff and ministers rub shoulders and park trays.

The Visitors' Bar is for the craic, while the Members' Bar is more sed­ate, though admittedly I have only visited once in the past six months.

Like the select bars of yesteryear, it had a hushed ambience with seanadóirí and teachtaí in grave discussions over their lattes and sambos. Honest to God, I did not spy a single pint or short anywhere — but it was lunchtime.

​

Most villages have a degree of social stratification, and early on I was alerted to this by some hoary veterans of the Oireachtas. Two parties were mentioned particularly in these dispatches: the first for a sort of snobbish aloofness, the other for the omerta of the arriviste.

Most local politicians counter this nonsense with their studied, sunny dispositions and by firing chirpy greetings indiscriminately at allcomers, sometimes with unexpected results. During the spring hot spell, I hollered at Danny Healy-Rae a favourite phrase of my late father's when the weather was too warm to be stuck inside: "You're on the wrong side of the house today, Danny!”

From his response, Danny clearly construed that I was speaking politically rather than meteorologically.

"What d'ya mean?” be barked back, and I was reduced to explaining myself awkwardly.

I still burn a little at the memory.

He shuffled off unconvinced, and I resolved to work assiduously on him. Now, I am happy to report, we are reasonably good mates.

I think, anyway.

Of course, no village would be complete without some sort of sports club, so we have a modest gym next door, and close by are the gardaí from Pearse Street to keep us safe from any predations.

Unlike at Westminster, we have no chapel such as St Stephen's and no clergy in situ. For those of us who need a little spirituality in the midst of a busy week, there is a quiet holy communion down the street in St Anne's at quarter to one every Tuesday.

I have always had a fond affinity with village life and I feel very privileged indeed to have been given the chance to discover this one.