Secret of Kells-Téigh agus féach air

Tonight was one of those great mixtures of supporting a great local business success, the arts, a great cause and finally having a family night out in great company. It was the Kilkenny launch of The Secret of Kells, a truly ambitious project by an equally ambitious bunch of young men and women who make up Cartoon Saloon, an animation company quickly garnering a huge international reputation for itself.
The night was also a fundraiser for the company that in many ways spawned Cartoon Saloon, the wonderful Young Irish Film Makers, founded by local man, Mike Kelly in the early nineties. It is a film school, teaching young people a phenomenal range of skills which they would find impossible to access in most other towns or indeed in major cities. The lads in the Saloon started their careers with YIFM, and are now on the verge of major stardom. They were effusive in their praise of Mike tonight though and well deserved too.

To all those involved, Paul Young, Ross Stewart, Ross Murray and Tomm Moore, best of luck at the box office this weekend. This magical movie of a story based on the wrting of the Book of Kells shouldn't be missed by anybody, young or old. Each scene looks like a Ross Stewart painting, full of magical Celtic imagery, and the action is rollercoaster as well as beautiful.

Ag an deireadh mile maith agat do Tomm, a bhean iontach Liselott agus a mhac briomhar, Ben, as ucht a dtacaiocht i nGaelscoil Osrai thar na blianta. Táimid an-bhródúil as ucht an méid atá bainte amach agaibh go dti seo, agus go n-eiri libh as seo amach.

100,000 voices speak-let's make them 100,000 votes for change

Today the workers of Ireland spoke in a way they haven't for almost thirty years. Workers from North and South, public sector and private united in telling our Government to take a hike. I joined Trade Union colleagues and fellow Labour members from Kilkenny and all over the country in what was an unprecedented show of unity. To a person every worker I met had no problem playing their part in the recovery of our economy but fairness was the word on everybody's lips. In David Begg's words it's time for those who made the mess to pay. Now it's time to make this Governent pay. Public sector workers can't continue to vote for Fianna Fail and the Greens and expect anything to change. We have the alternative and workers need to realise that without changing your vote, you change nothing.

Quote of the day-on the fiddle

Having a day out in the big smoke today and quote of the day goes to an employee of an establishment near the National Concert Hall. Having enquired about the music on offer tonight, he smiled. It's the National Symphony Orchestra sponsored by Anglo Irish Bank says he." Probably a FIDDLE concert". Having listened to Ulick MacAvaddey's bullshit on
Pat Kenny, a bit of common sense was a welcome relief.

Support the National Demonstration-Show the Fat Cats

This video says it all. Let's join the ICTU national demonstration on Saturday and show the fat cats and their buddies in Government, particularly our own Junior Minister John McGuinness, that we will not sit idly by while the Anglo Ten, Seán Fitzpatrick, Quinn, Dunne or whoever get off scot-free while we as workers pick up the tab for the mess they've landed us in.

Cill Chainnigh Beo-Welcome to Kilkenny Alive

A very warm welcome to a new online newspaper, Kilkenny Alive which hit cyberspace today. Already thousands of people have clicked into this new service. Two very experienced journalists, former Kilkenny People editor, Seán Hurley, and former Kilkenny Voice editor, Jimmy Rhatigan are behind this vneture and I wish them well.

I missed their launch last week as I had slightly more romantic things to do on the 14th of February, but I have decided to support the venture by taking the main ad space on the home page. If you're coming to this site from the ad, you're very welcome. If you log on to the new e-zine facility on my main website, I'll keep you up to date on my campaign. Meanwhile happy reading of Kilkenny Alive. The more diverse our local media is, the better for all of us.

Straight Talking-Eamon calls it on the pension levy while civil servants decide to take action

Here is Eamon Gilmore's speech last night proposing the Labour Party's motion calling for the rejection of the Government's proposed levy on public servants. Our case has never been that public servants shouldn't contribute to the recovery of our economy, despite the fact that they had precious little to do with the mess we now find ourselves in. It is the total unfairness of the Government's remedy that Eamon highlights here.

This unfairness is why I will join the thousands of other civil servants, gárdai, nurses, prison officers and others on Saturday at the national demonstration in Dublin. We hope that many private sector workers will join us on the basis that they will be next. We must not allow this rotten Government to row back on the working conditions that our trade unions have fought for for generations.

Something different-giving the dates to the GAA fans

Great fun today outside Nowlan Park, the home of Kilkenny hurling and named after a great Kilkenny patriot. I had just received a good leaflet with all the Kilkenny fixtures for the year in hurling and football (I know, I saw the result against Waterford today!) for 2009. Thanks to Alan for the idea by the way!!

I must say they went down really well and there was great craic and comment on the poll during the week. There's a real confidence amongst our own supporters but also a real sense that others are rallying to us-and some of them very unexpected!

So onwards we go. I'll be back at the same venue in two weeks time for the Tipp game doing the same thing-come along and help if you can. In the meantime, the last of the calendars will be gome tomorrow and with them some of the new campaign/recruitment leaflets.

Of course equally importantly Kilkenny squeezed out a tight one-point win against the Treaty men. Tús maith go dti seo.

Reflections on a crazy week- Let's fight to make it different

Tonight I watched Brian Lenihan who's supposed to know what's going on in our country and economy and Eamon Gilmore on the Week in Politics programme and I saw why the people I've met on the street are really connecting with the Labour Party and its leader. Putting it simply, Eamon wiped the floor with Lenihan in a calm, rational and yet really passionate way. In that he has been joined by Joan Burton, who's now coming across as the only really knowledgeable voice on the economic front. It took her questioning to discover during the week that the pension levy would be tax deductible and therefore would bring in far less than the Government pretended.

Put simply this has been a week which typifies all that is rotten about this Government. The politics of the soft touch has seen people like myself and others on far lower rates of pay than mine scapegoated by this Government.

Of course our local Junior Minister John McGuinness started the softening up process months ago with his mean-spirited attack on public servants. The media has fallen for this spin hook, line and sinker, making it so easy to attack us this week. The unfairness of it all was brilliantly described by SIPTU's Jack O' Connor on Wednesday when he said that a public servant on €40,000 would now pay an extra 7% of their salary effectively in tax, while a self-employed hospital consultant in a private hospital would pay an extra 2% on a salary of €250,000 a year. Worse still the property developers and the bankers who brought us to this mess get off scot-free.

I for one hope that my colleagues across the public service now revolt. We don't mind paying our share in a difficult situation but let's see others bear the pain also.

For now it's time for us to organise to get this shower out. This month Labour are asking you to get involved. If you're in Kilkenny please contact me to join the Labour Party and get involved. If you're anywhere else click here to sign up. The time for talking and criticising is over-the time for action is now and you can play your part.

Bí linn agus is féidir linn

Nationalising the banks comrades- Sure tis a great thing altogether now!

In the bad old days the biggest insult you could throw at the Labour Party was that they wanted to 'Nationalise the Banks'. The implication was that the horrible old socialists would rob all your money and take it out of your life savings account and throw it all away on nasty things like school classrooms and hospital beds.

Now take a look at the smiling man here and reflect! The face of 'Ireland Inc.', the epitome of all that was great in Irish life in the Celtic Tiger period was Mr. Fitzpatrick, when all of us who warned that our ten-year party was based on what David McWilliams called the greatest pyramid selling scheme in the history of capitalism were dismissed as pessimists who were 'talking down the economy'. And what was he up to all along-why feathering his own nest of course, along with a whole lot of other chancers. And what must we do now? Well Cowen and Lenihan first ask us to shell out a fortune to bail out the nice lads at Anglo, and then, sure we might as well buy it altogether sure!

Ten years ago you'd have been sent off to the Celtic Tiger gulag for unsound and unpatriotic people for suggesting nationalising anything-'give it to Michael O' leary-he'll show you how to do it' was the refrain. Remember now when Labour opposed the sell-off of Trustee Savings Bank from the state: 'Sure what would the state be doing running a bank?!!', the sneering fatcats chortled. Well how's about to put manners on a few people and to have a bit of financial ethics around the place as an answer?

Now is the time for this Government to get off its complacent backside and to engage in a real public debate about where we go next. I believe that what my party is proposing is the way to go. Let's stimulate the economy just as Obama and Brown are doing. Let's get building and creating, and if we have to borrow to give people hope and dignity back, let's do so. Staying stuck in the same old Thatcherite slash and burn policies of the 80's will plunge us deeper into darkness and will set our recovery back year.

Who do you trust more on this choice- Obama, Brown and Gilmore or Cowen, Lenihan and indeed Kenny?

Tony Gregory- a decent man but tough opponent

The death of Tony Gregory this week was not unexpected to those of us in political circles but has taken most people by surprise. The last time I met him was at the launch of the book dedicated to Seamus Pattison's life in politics in Dail Eireann back in October. Tony looked visibly ill at the time but still had that twinkle in his eye.
I began my political life in Dublin Central. I knew Tony's core team members like Mick Rafferty, Seanie Lambe and of course my union colleague and now TD Finian McGrath. They were a hugely committed group of people who worked their socks off for what was then and still is the most deprived part of the country.

They were joined in that work by a series of Labour Party figures, most notably Joe Costello TD, his wife Emir and many others. In fact Dublin Central Labour has produced two other TD's who moved to neighbouring constituencies in Roisin Shortall and Joan Burton and the writer as a Councillor in Carlow/Kilkenny.
Tony was buried today in Dublin and as usual had the last word. The tribute speech at his final mass castigated those politicians who praised him loudly in the past week but had done so little to support those he represented during his lifetime in politics.

A real tribute to Tony Gregory would be the ending of the endemic poverty of the North and South Inner cities in Dublin, in Southill and Moyross in Limerick and in countless other ghettoes of local authority housing in our cities and towns, including here in Kilkenny.

The hypocrisy of a right-wing media which canonises Gregory, idolises Joe Higgins, but continues to attack real radical and left-wing policy aternatives to our current outdated Thatcherite economic model is also breathtaking. The attitude seems to be that a few colourful socialists in the Dail are OK but not if the things they believe in come close to be implemented.

Let's remember that the aim of Connolly and Larkin whose starry plough flag draped Tony Gregory's coffin today was the transformation of Irish society to win equality for all.

Ar dheis De go raibh anam Tony ach go dtiocfadh a chuid aidhmeanna i bhfeidhm chomh luath agus gur feidir.

Sense at last on Valentia Station

It's rarely I blog about South Kerry, 'm'áit dúchais' but tonight is genuinely an occasion for celebration for an embattled community. As a local election candidate in the area almost ten years ago I was one of those campaigning against the closure of Valentia coastguard station and the downgrading of Valentia weather station, which is of course based in Cahersiveen and was where my Dad worked for many years.

While we didn't succeed in retaining all the services in Cahersiveen, the coastguard station survived until Minister Noel Dempsey, yes him the Minister who tried to take away Kilkenny's city status and to reintroduce college fees, tried to close the scenic but extremely effective station. Here's what he said in 2007.

"I have confirmed that locating one on the east coast and one on the west coast is the preferred option and that the east coast centre should be co-located with the HQ."

The station has provided a superb service to seafarers for generations and provides invaluable employment to a small fishing community which has been ravaged by emigration and the decline of fishing.

Radio communication has a historic place in the life of Valentia, putting it at the heart of the telecommunications history of the world. It was from just down the road in Knightstown that the first trans-atlantic cable was laid in 1866, sending the first electronic message from Europe to America.

Now the doughty fighters of 'The Island' and their allies all over the Iveragh penninsula have succeeded in defeating yet another Minister. The fact that they had to campaign nationally for ten years will give the lie to claims from both John O' Donoghue and the Healy Rae clan that they were responsible for victory. Instead the people of Oileán Dairbhre should take a bow at having stood up for themselves. Well done also to Tommy Broughan TD who as our communications spokesperson has consistently stood up for the people pf the area. Like us in Kilkenny and Carlow, the people of South Kerry badly need the return of a Labour voice to represent them in Dáil Éireann.

To appreciate the history of seafaring in the area, one only needs to recall the words of that great local poet Tomás Rua Ó Súilleabháin in his famous poem and song over 150 years ago:

'Amhrán na Leabhar'

Go Cuan Bhéil Inse casadh mé,

Cois Góilín aoibhinn Dairbhre,

Mar a seoltar flít na farraige,

Thar sáile i gcéin.

I Portmagee do stadas seal,

Faoi thuairim intinn maitheasa,

D'fhonn bheith sealad eatarthu,

Mar mháistir léinn.

Is gearr gur chuala an eachtara,

Ag cách mo léan!

Gur i mBord Eoghain Fhinn do chailleathas,

An t-árthach tréan.

Do phreab mo chroí le hatuirse,

I dtaobh loinge an taoisigh chalma,

Go mb'fhearrde an tír í 'sheasamh seal,

Do ráib an tséin.

Is Féidir Linn

Sin na focail a d'úsáid ceannaire mo pháirtí, Eamon Gilmore ag deireadh a aitheasc i gCill Chainnigh an Satharn seo chaite. Las sé tine faoi bhaill an pháirtí agus más aon comhartha an méid atáim ag clos ó cháirde agus an pobal, faoin dtír ar fad chomh maith.

We've just finished the historic first ever national conference of the Labour Party in Kilkenny and whar a weekend it was. For me, the most memorable conference speech was that of our last hugely successful leader Dick Spring at the famour 'Bread and Roses' caonference in Tralee in 1989. That was pure theatre with its opera and poetry and its sheer novelty. Saturday's sppech was all about content however, right from the start. The first sentence was 'I want to talk to you about solutions', and that was what he did. You can watch the speech below or read it here.

For my own part, I got to speak in the live RTÉ television debate on Saturday morning and you can see the speech here from the party's very forward looking presence on UStream. I also made the main RTÉ news for my comments regarding Fine Gael's attacks on the public service, and was also delighted to make it onto Saturday View, my favourite RTÉ radio programme, and had the privilege of being interviewed by John Bowman. The soundbite was small for all of us but we were there regardless. The coverage continued today as my comments were covered in two pieces in the Irish Times, one on FG and one on class sizes. and the Irish Daily Mail. More importantly of course on a local level I got to do a good piece with Tom Dowling on the afternoon news show on KCLR FM, our local radio station.

Two highlights of the weekend were the long service awards to Carlow/Kilkenny party members. Two of my favourite Labour women got recognition they deserved. Sadie Kelly was my predecessor on the party's National Executive and played a major part in bringing this conference to Kilkenny, work which I was delighted to continue, while the ever youthful Peggy Kerwick was unfortunately absent but her award was collected by my neighbour and great community activist, Seán. The others were Graiguenamanagh man John Bolger, Borris man Willie Hayes, and the unbelieveably fresh looking Paddy Dowd of Coon in North Kilkenny a 93 year old lifelong activist. All got their awards from one of my heroes, party President Michael D. Higgins TD.

He had previously presented the Jim Larkin justice award to Conor MacLiam, husband of the late Susie Long who inspired us so much in her life and her passing. Conor reminded us that Susie was a great socialist and a huge admirer of Larkin, and of course challenged us to keep alive the issues which tragically led to her death.

Support the Education Cuts Petition

Well done to Maria Parodi, new Labour Party local election candidate in Dublin for starting a comrehensive petition to the Minister for Education Batt O' Thief (sorry O' Keeffe!!) regarding the atrocious education cuts annouced in the budget and unfolding every day.
I'll be proposing the Carlow/Kilkenny motion condemning these cuts at our party conference being held for the first time in Kilkenny this weekend and this debate will be carried live on RTÉ One TV on Saturday morning from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm.
Please sign the petition here
Please also support the National demonstration against the cuts on Sat. 6th. December at 12.00 noon from Parnell Square, Dublin. Let's increase on the 25,000 parents, children and teachers who sent such a strong signal to the Government in Cork last Saturday.

Here comes Barack-the speech of a lifetime

Watching and wishing I was in Chicago-just listened to Martin Luther King's daughter saying that tonight proves that her father's death was not in vain-Oh what a night

Here somes the concession

At last a gracious speech from McCain. How right he is about it being inspirational and how appropriate to reflect on the historical change for African Americans.

Oregon for Obama and the Republicans have got their 40 seats. Interesting to see the crowd booing and cheering Palin-will we see her back in 4 years?

Uachtarán Obama

A big hour ahead the lads say on CNN. Aren't they right that it would be magic if Hawaii put him over the top to win particularly after his Gran's death yesterday. And how right this latest comment about how amazing a path it is over 5 years to go from hardly known senate candidate to President of the US. Finally Gloria is honest enough to say that age was a factor and the mad choice of Sarah Palin. Maybe the Irish media including Myers and George Hook will admit that she's a head-case.

Yahoo-Virginia goes Democrat after 44 years. That's a real breakthrough.

Yeeees-CNN call it for Obama-he's the New President of the most powerful country of the world. 44 years after the murder of Martin Luther King it has happened. All the racist naysayers and cynics have got their answer and our faith in humanity is restored. Here's to the US reclaiming its place in decency and humanity. Tears in my eyes but feck it. The opnly day that compares with this night was Mandela's release. Well done to great people like Samantha Power who knew how great this man is.

A Úachtaráin Obama, fáilte romhat agus go n-eiri leat!

207 votes in-getting there

63 votes to go in electoral college. This could be over by 4 all things going well. 67% of Latino vote going to Obama according to exit polls after all the nonsense about Latinos not coming ftrom Clinton to Obama. Even in Florida, he's getting 57% of Latinos including the Cuban immigrants-that's some going.
Come on let's be having Florida and put us out of our misery.
Texas called for McCain-would have been nice to bring it back blue but not tonight.

Now we're motoring-Ohio in

Looks like it's President elect Barack Obama. The great folks of Ohio came through for Obama and CNN are talking about McCain needing a miracle. They've switched off the telly at McCain campaign HQ and the lovely people at Fox TV are looking very glum indeed. Happy Days-so far!! Poor old Hank Williams Jr. gets to entertain at the Repuublican wake-give me the Bosss any day.

Senate Majority-Will they make it magic 60?

52 Senate seats called now. First Democratic majority for a while. If they get 60 life will be a lot easier for Obama. Hopefully they'll get there.

Pennsylvania In-Time to start the celebrations!!??

Can we start to breathe easily at last? Obama is predicted to take Penn State the first of the biggies and is leading in a few of the other crunch states. It looks like all my hopes of the last few years are coming true and that we will have Change at last. It also look like the Senate will come solidly blue at last too. Obama Abú. Here with Gary and Fionn and a big jug of coffee-burgers and bud have been consumed and Mar and Mark chickened out and hit the bed. Come on now give us Florida and Ohio. Still I'm not going to bed till McCain concedes-I remember 2000!!