What They Don't See.......

As Ireland stepped into the new year, the entire country, as usual, made promises. Promises to lead better lives, to help those in need and to start on a path that would invoke change within themselves and hopefully lead them to help change things for those around them. A positive attitude and new perspective was placed highly on the list of resolutions, all the way from Malin Head to Mizen Head. After the gloom-heavy year that was 2012, Irish people are longing for a change. A change of attitude in government. A change in job opportunities. A change in personal health. A change in....well, just a change. I am entirely on board with that. But is it possible in today's Ireland?

I sat down with my wife after the dust of Christmas and New Year had settled and found myself watching the RTE News at Six. The first and biggest story of the evening was the 'United States Fiscal Cliff.' I still don't really know what that term refers to and I doubt the majority of people watching that same news broadcast did either. After being bombarded with finance jargon and political speak for more than ten minutes I turned to my wife and asked, 'How relevant do you think that news story is to the average family in this country?' She said, 'None.' That was that.

Everyday we watch as our politicians go through what seems like a cross between Yes Prime Minister and Fawlty Towers. There is no integrity left in Irish politics, none. It's become a pissing contest mixed with a shouting match topped off with a double dose of point scoring and personal grudges. But still the vast majority of Irish citizens wait in hope for the wax figures in Louis Copeland suits to provide answers to the financial tragedy that Ireland has become. A half finished game of Monoply that all players would gladly abandon if it weren't for the wily spectators who are waiting to pounce on a wrong move. But then again, why would they abandon it? Every one of them passes GO, collects €200 and not one of them will ever go to jail.

Phil Hogan has claimed that %70 of Irish homeowners have paid the ludicrous Household Charge. A charge for having a home. One wonders how much NAMA have forked out, given that they are in possession of the vast majority of the ghost estates that litter Ireland. I would hazard a guess and go with zero. As for the supposed %70 who have supposedly paid this charge? Yeah, right Mr Hogan. Sure while you're at it I'll take those magic beans off your hands and you can have my last cow.

I am of the opinion that our government is so far behind the rest of world that they still think they can feed us information and we will buy it. That the people of Ireland will follow whatever line they are fed. Sure didn't it work for Fianna Fáil.

We live under a government that is out of touch with what is happening in the streets. A government whose agenda is to appease the big bad money men of Europe in an attempt to be seen as some sort of financial matyr. 'We will force our people to suffer, just don't take away our expenses and we will give you all the gold fillings we can pull.'

What they want us to see and what is actually happening are becoming so extremely opposite that at times you would be forgiven for thinking we actually do live in The Matrix and someone forgot to install Norton Antivirus.

What they see and what you see are becoming night and day. They are blind, and they chose to be.


What they don't see are the unpaid bills and empty pockets of people who but 3 years ago were living comfortably.

What they don't see is the well kept young girl eating a cold stale hamburger for breakfast as there is no bread or cereal in the cupboards.

What they don't see is the man who works at the Social Welfare Office telling all who walk in that the start of this year has been worse than the end of last year.

What they don't see are families packing up any old clothes and weighing them to exchange for cash.

What they don't see is the average family rummaging through charity shops for Christmas presents and clothes.

What they don't see is the unemployed father struggling to pay for medication to stave off depression.

What they don't see our the 2 to 3 weeks of cold suffered by young families due to huge fuel costs.

What they don't see the break up of numerous marriages, brought on by the pressures of living just above the poverty. A line that falls lower everyday.

What they don't see is the St Vincent DePaul Christmas parcel that contains only three toys because the demand for help is so big.

What they don't see our the stressed parents deciding whether to eat or keep the lights on.

What they don't see is the banks sending threatening letters to households on the verge of collapse. Banks that were saved with public money. 

What they don't see are the scores of families bidding goodbye to their youngest at the airport, never knowing if they will meet again.

What they don't see is the lack of Youth Services in areas where young people have been forgotten.

What they don't see are those young people falling into drugs because they see no future for themselves and all they want to do is escape the dreary social landscape.

What they don't see is right in front of them.

What they don't see does not bother them.

What they don't see is Ireland, as it stands right now. Real Ireland, the one that's lost in a political maze.

What they do see is a big paycheck, no accountability and a nice pension.

What they see is what they want to see. And that's no use to anyone.

The Rebirth!

Okay, so I'll hold my hands up and admit that I haven't bee the most frequent blogger on the internet.  You've probably gathered that since I started this blog 3 years ago and have a minimum amount of posts. But all of that is set to change, I hope.

Originally this blog was place for me to keep my coursework while I worked my way through a journalism and fiction course. A course I passed with flying colours. Although I don't know what 'flying colours' is actually a reference to, I still did it. How's that for determination?

After completing my course I found myself working as a community journalist with NewsFour, a community newspaper based in Dublin 4. I had no idea what to expect, little experience and just my initiative to work from. Thankfully it turned out to be one of the best employment experiences I've had. The task of going into the community, sourcing stories, meeting people and researching was just the challenge I was looking for and I would like to think that I did myself proud and satisfied the expectations of the people I wrote about. But now that that is done I am cut adrift in the wilderness of freelance journalism. A lonesome voice upon a sea of ink, crashing headlong into the treacherous rocks of popular grammar.

I'm out of a job basically.

So I return to this blog with some experience under my belt and a gut hanging over my belt.

To read back over some of the early stuff I have written on here can make me cringe. Some of the grammar is off, some of the spelling is bad and some of the viewpoints make me come across as a hardline nut job. But in the end it's all down to experience and I'll be damned if I'm going to remove any of those articles, plus I don't know how. So that's that taken care of.

I would hope you see this a reintroduction to the blog and if I put as much effort into this as I put into my news articles then hopefully all will be fine.

I will vent, I will probably swear, I most likely make numerous mistakes and bang my head against the wall several times in frustration. But I will maintain at least one blog post a week, minimum. That I can promise.

So without further ado I would like to welcome one and all (probably more like one but when you say 'one and all' it sounds so grand, doesn't it?) to the return of 'Where Do I Start?'

Now, where do I start?

:)

2000 word Bio from my Fiction Course!

I’m almost certain my first clear memory is of my mother violently throwing me through the open front door of our old terraced house. It was a life saving measure that moved me away from the deadly fire fight that had engulfed Crocus Street, just off the Falls Road. The IRA had opened fire on the British Army barracks that was built in the middle of the street parallel to ours. They had both since taken up positions at either end of our street; it was carnage. I remember our neighbours diving under cars and in through doors to safety. Some people were not lucky enough and either perished or were maimed.

The memory that sticks out the most is my mother scampering up the hall with me in her grip. We made it to the kitchen at the back of the house where she sat on the floor, held me in her lap and cried uncontrollably. You can see why it’s a vivd memory, even for a three year old.

The houses on Violet Street had not seen sunshine since that barracks was built right in the middle of the road. The residents had endured over fifty years of darkness on Violet Street.

All the streets in our area were named after flowers or trees. We lived on Crocus Street, my mother was from Iris Drive and we had friends in Hawthorn Street. But it was far from a Rose Garden.

Growing up in West Belfast in the eighties was never going to be an easy thing to deal with. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be enjoyable. A fierce sense of community and a strong will to survive tough times are something that I will carry with me forever. Everyone was facing the same fight and all were willing to go down swinging.

I was raised around proud and strong people. My respect for women is born out of the strength shown by the women around me as a child. My unwillingness to be kept down is directly related to the men I saw struggle to find work while facing a never ending fight to protect their families. Many took up arms and perished. Others took to a more civilian approach, but perished non the less.

My childhood memories are of The Daisy nursery school. The Daisy was an old hut just off Cavendish Street. It was in an alley way behind some railings; I loved the place. They had one of those big rugs that have roads and roundabouts on them. I was besotted with it. I am 31 and now own one of those rugs.

From The Daisy I moved to St Finians Primary School on the lower Falls Road. Next door was Sinn Fein headquarters. The school was run by the Christian Brothers; the military wing of the Catholic Church. I never liked school but I always enjoyed the people I went there with.

My first real friend was Liam Morrison, son of Sinn Fein councillor and writer Danny Morrison. Liam was a wee bit wired, but we were great mates. Looking back I get the feeling that Liam was in some way different to anyone else at school. He was hyper and always in trouble. I am nearly sure his schooling would be different today.

I discovered reading when I was young. My mother is a big reader and at school we had book fairs. We could rarely afford for me to buy anything from the fair so I was thankful that the Falls Library was so close to my house. I am still a member of that library although I live over 100 miles away.

My mother would take me to Delaneys second hand book shop on the Springfield Road. Delaneys was pretty much a second everything shop. They sold everything from books to buttons and bows. It was in shops like this that I developed a love for Sherlock Holmes.

I became consumed by the description of the story on the back of Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. Here was a detective with incredible powers of perception and flaws that haunted him. Even though I was beyond my years with the language used in these books, I still managed to enjoy reading them cover to cover. I find it hard to pass any second hand book shop now. It’s the search and discovery of a good read that makes them so appealing. You can always win in a second hand book shop.

By the time I joined the Christian Brothers Secondary on the Glen Road we had been living in the Andersonstown area for two years. We’d bid farewell to our terraced house and we now had a semi detached in a tree lined estate. More importantly, we had a garden. Correction, we had two; front and back. I missed the old house and my friends but this area was a lot more peaceful. I was convinced nothing happened in this area only 2 miles from Crocus Street. This was a haven. That was until a series of grenades exploded behind our house and the surrounding area became even more dangerous than the Falls. The conflict escalated. There was no hiding from it; there never had been. It was easy to slip into a world of your own and that’s what I did.

In a time like the troubles things like art and entertainment took a back seat to survival. There was little music in my home growing up but I still developed a love of music, film and literature. The only way to block out a lot of the devastation that was so close at hand was to imagine you were somewhere else. Films made you aware of a life in places beyond West Belfast and the music would soundtrack your journey. I read books because I knew if I didn’t I’d be a boring person in my own company. I considered all the above a survival technique.

I left secondary school unscathed and entered in to a media course. The Springvale College media skills course was the first of it’s kind. An NVQ in media training that would lead to university. No one told us that the college would not be able to give us the accreditation. After two years of study they let us in on that secret and we left with something that was not worth your while putting on a CV. This disaster lead to the dole queue.

My mother always tried put a good work ethic in me. I had my first job at 11 years old delivering the Andersonstown News. At 16 I worked in Curleys Supermarket Warehouse while going to college. After college fell apart I spent 6 months on the dole before getting a job in Shorts Brothers Aerospace where my father worked. The job was good, paid well and had good hours. Although the factory was situated next to the biggest loyalist housing estate in Belfast, I had few problems.

Three years later and at the end of a relationship that had long run it’s course I set off for America aged 21. New York would be the place I did a large part of my growing up. My memories of a place I called home for over 3 years still keep me entertained at night. I’ll always love New York different from the other places I have lived.

On a 4 week holiday from work and with my 2 weeks notice left with my father to submit, should I find work in America, I moved to Jackson Street in the Williamsburgh area of Brooklyn. Living with a friend of a friend I found work labouring on a building site in Manhattan. That, coupled with a party lifestyle, was my American dream. After the work dried up I moved to Florida.

I joined my sister in Fort Lauderdale, lapped up the sun, learned how to bar-tend, met some truly great people and found the woman that was to be my wife.

After 8 weeks together myself and my future spouse were living in a bungalow in the North East Bronx. In between, we had partied in Florida, lost contact as we both moved separately to New York and I had been stabbed by the room mate of a friend who’d given me a couch to crash on. Quite an eventful 8 weeks. From the minute we moved in together we had a feeling we would stick together; we were instant friends; it was a just a solid bond we seemed to naturally have.

Every Tuesday we would go for a drink in Arthur Daly’s pub and chat for hours. It was there that I told her about the songs I’d been writing. Being New York there were hundreds of places for songwriters to feature their stuff and it was she that persuaded me to seek out an open mic night and give it a go. I did and within 4 months I had signed with a small production company that would record my material and later have me showcase for the biggest record labels in the world. It all came too soon. Still, it was proof that I had some sort of spark that caught the imagination of people.

After an unsuccessful tour of the record labels, things leveled out. The production company was having difficulty and this played a big part in the failure to secure a deal. Things turned sour and we parted company. Not long after 9/11 happened all the residents of New York felt the after shock, especially the immigrants. It was time to leave.

With a plan in place to travel Europe we sold everything and headed to Ireland. We discovered pretty quickly that we were expecting a baby and the plans for travel had to be scrapped. We moved in with my partner’s father and celebrated the birth of our first daughter. A joyous time that was soon followed by some tough tests.

I have always wanted to express myself artistically and have always put pen to paper when the mood grabbed me. Since I was 12 I dreamed of a life developing ideas. But, at 24 and with a small family these dreams had to be put on the back burner. Again survival was to be my main focus. I’ve always prided myself on never shirking my responsibilities and this would be the ultimate test.

Taking on shift pattern industrial work while trying to maintain an artistic outlet became too much and I developed depression. With an amazing and truly supportive woman behind me I conquered the illness and climbed out of a dark hole. But for her and our family I would have sunk unnoticed.

The weekend party that was our wedding was the greatest time we have shared with our families. It was a victory celebration more than a wedding. Through all that we had endured - some of which I have not mentioned - we had held on to each other and never changed from the people we were the night we met.

This life fits, challenges and amazes me. With her encouragement I took on a writing course, though I have never considered myself a writer. Sitting here at my desk I now realise that the stack of filled note pads next to me say otherwise. I’ve been adding to those note pads since I was 19. Maybe I have always been a writer, and only now do I understand and truly believe in it.

Writing used to be cathartic for me, but then I got bored of myself. Now I want to expand what I write about. I now notice that any songs I write have stories built in to them and go on forever.

The idea that I could create something people will read and enjoy drives me to keep trying.

The Good Child Foundation

If you go on to YouTube and search for the Good Child Foundation, you will most likely unearth a number of Thai school children singing popular Irish ballads in perfect English with faultless diction. You’ll be as amused and entertained by these videos as the thousands of internet users that have shared them across the world wide web making them a phenomenon. Most people take YouTube videos with a pinch of salt and tend to forget them once they have discovered the next link that has caught their attention. But the story behind these particular videos is one that will warm the heart, alert your inner activist and could have you weeping at the immense level of good some people are capable of achieving.

Paul Lennon arrived in Thailand twenty years ago from Northampton in England and married his wife Pun in April 1991. They moved to England and lived there for eleven years before relocating to the Chanthaburi province in 2002 to start a family, Chanthaburi being the area where Pun grew up and also the area where they wed. In February 2003 when they discovered that their first born child suffered from Down Syndrome they, like any other parents, were frightened and worried about what the future would hold for him. Paul knew nothing of Down Syndrome, his wife Pun had seen a documentary on the condition, but neither could have imagined how having a child with Down’s could effect their lives. I spoke to Paul about his reaction when his son was born. “After Berni was born Pun was taken off to a room and because Berni wasn’t well he was taken off to a special room, the nurses invited me down to see him, and there were about a dozen babies lined up. As soon as I saw Berni I collapsed because he looked so poorly. He didn’t even look human, he was totally different to all the other babies and I just collapsed on the floor, they had to get smelling salts to bring me round.” It was only after medical testing that the staff in the hospital called the new parents back to inform them that Berni had Down Syndrome. “Pun sort of knew what Down Syndrome was and I was immediately on the internet. The health fears were the first thing. Berni had pneumonia five times and we were worried about Berni’s heart and his hearing, it was total devastation. When your first child is born you think about all the great things for them in the future, where they’ll go to university, will he be good at sports and a lot of that is destroyed in one go.” Paul is incredibly honest when talking about his mental state at that time. “When I first heard Berni had Down Syndrome I wished I’d never come to Thailand from England twenty years ago, I wished I’d never met my wife, I felt so sorry for my wife that we’d had a child like this, all completely ridiculous thoughts.” When speaking to Paul you can quickly sense this is a man that loves his family dearly and is passionate about the awareness of his sons condition. “I’d love to be an inspiration to parents that have just had a Down Syndrome child and tell them the absolutely ridiculous thoughts I had when Berni was born, because he’s the pride and joy of our lives. He’s a star; nothing in life compares to him. The problem was we were thinking in the future before he was born, I think our fear was more from expectation, but having a down syndrome child taught us to live in the present, we don’t think about the future now, we work on the present day everyday.” Seven years on and his son Berni is a happy school going little boy that stands for the Thai national anthem everyday with the rest of his class mates and enjoys playing with his younger brother Steve. Paul may well live in the present everyday, but his initiative and his actions have helped pave the way for a once unattainable future for Down Syndrome children in rural Thailand.

When Berni came to be of school going age Paul and his wife knew it would be a struggle to find a school that would take him. All the local government funded schools refused him due to his condition as did the local Catholic school ran by nuns. I asked Paul what options were then available to him? “How it is, is that if you have a Down Syndrome child in a city, then there’s special needs schools that the child can go to. But if you live a rural area like Chantiburi, we’re about fifty kilometers from the nearest town, there’s nothing. In Thailand Down Syndrome children don’t go to regular schools, regular schools won’t accept them mainly because of the extra work involved and the government don’t give any extra support. Apart from five hundred bhat (about £10) a month for severely disabled children, which you can apply for, there is no financial support. Parents with a Down’s child in the rural areas have two choices, either keep that child at home, then the child is not educated and won’t ever mix with other children, this can put enormous strain on the family. There is no welfare state in Thailand, if families don’t work they don’t eat and someone has to care for the child. The other option is that they can send their child off to the Rachanugoon residential school, which is basically a mental home 100 km away in Rayong City. That’s a very a difficult journey for poor farming families in this area. A lot of the time you will find children sent to the home will not be visited by their families because of the expense of getting there. Those were the only options available until now.”

In 2004 the Triamsuksa Nayai-am School was opened by Mr Praman Sarakoses, the former Police Superintendent of the province of Chanthaburi, and his wife Mrs Yuvaret Sarakoses. They had shared a life long ambition to improve the education for the less fortunate in the area. As a police officer all of his career, he had the vision to see that education was the best way to keep the youth away from crime and improve the opportunities of the whole community. In 2008 Mrs Sarakoses wanted to hand over the school to a foundation as a gift that would serve as her merit in reincarnation, as is her devout Buddhist belief. The Good Child Foundation was set up take over and the school was granted foundation status. Paul Lennon was determined not to send his son away and in the Good Child Foundation he found a school willing to take Berni in exchange for Paul teaching English for free. When the school came to Paul looking for help with raising funds, Paul cut his own deal.

“Last year the founder of the school sat down with me and asked me could I raise some money for the foundation. The funding we get from the Thai government only covers teachers salaries and electricity, so he asked me could I think of a way to raise more money. So I went away and thought about it for a couple of days and came back to him with a deal. I said I’ll fund raise for you, if you give me a free hand to find any Down Syndrome children I can find and bring them to the school, this school will have to advertise everywhere that we’ll take Down Syndrome children, and, you have to let me teach them any songs I want to teach them as part of my English lessons. He told me to go ahead.” Having been brought up by a father from Castle Blaney, County Monaghan and a mother from Lisselton, County Kerry, Paul was steeped in traditional Irish music. He set about using popular Irish ballads to improve the English skills of the children in the school. Having also grown up a massive supporter of Glasgow Celtic Football Club he used well known Celtic related songs as well. This is when the word on the internet began to spread. Celtic supporters across the globe found and shared the videos Paul had uploaded to the web and a frenzied interest in the school told hold. It took little time for the Celtic fans to voice their backing and financially lend their support. Celtic FC have recently approached Paul with a view to adding the foundation to the Celtic Charity Fund.

Far from being a gimmick used to attract attention, Paul has employed music as a tool for the benefit of the children’s English. “The songs are fantastic, the songs are everything. I started on kiddies songs, there’s a thing called Potato Pals by an Irish guy called Patrick Jackson that’s an Oxford University teaching tool. I taught them to read and we moved on to the Irish songs because we needed to raise money, so I thought Irish songs and Celtic songs might help because it’s unusual and no one had ever done it before. I go through all the lyrics, play lots of vocabulary games and we don’t allow any Thai writing in the lyrics, so the children learn to read through the lyrics. They learn to read, they learn to spell and there’s a garage three miles away from the school where I drive the mini bus every afternoon with fifteen kids at a go and we spend ten minutes or so chatting with the tourists that are passing through on the way to Cambodia, so we get the conversation practice in as well. The songs gave them confidence, gave them pronunciation practice, spelling, grammar and the kids love it. Before, they were taught by other Thai teachers and everybody hated English. But because of the songs, the schools numbers are going up and soon our level of English will be as good as the fee paying schools where the children of doctors and lawyers go.” Paul says his fund raising plan was based on drawing the attention of the Irish and Celtic supporters. “Those were my main targets really. The Irish in North America, Irish around the world and Celtic supporters. I said to my wife that if I was in England and I heard about this charity, I would donate to it. I taught them The Town I Love So Well in English and in Thai cause I’ve been speaking Thai for twenty years now. I was hoping Phil Coulter would respond to us, but nothing ever came from it. I never go an e-mail back.”

The Chanthaburi province is known for it’s rubber plantations, and the majority of it’s inhabitants are farmers and construction workers. The understanding of Down Syndrome is poor in the area but Paul is desperate to raise the level of awareness and improve the quality of life for kids affected by Down Syndrome in Chanthaburi. The school can not afford any specialist teachers or help and with an average class of fifty being taught by one teacher, the school has developed a very unique way to school Down Syndrome children without any of the other children losing out. In fact the children have benefited greatly from this approach. “Thai people have the misconception that it’s incredibly hard to look after a Down Syndrome child, and it’s not. What I’ve been doing over the last four years, I’ve been observing through the window, when I get spare few minutes, how my son is getting on, because I teach there all the time. With a class of fifty the teacher has developed a technique were she teaches the four brightest children in the class exactly what Berni needs to learn. She explains it all, they get flash cards and they work on Berni. My son is not taught by the teacher, he’s essentially taught by his friends and the other kids have greatly benefitted from it as well. The teachers said the girls that teach him have really gained from this approach. The kids that are helping the down syndrome kids are doing better than most of the other kids in the school, I’ve never heard of it before, but we think children educating children is the way to go. Berni copies what everyone else does, he has his dinner at the same time and he’s well behaved, he won’t let me teach him now. The new Down Syndrome children we are taking in will be taught in the same way.”

It’s has become Paul’s mission to find as many down syndrome children as he can in the area. Last year the school welcomed the first child, aside from Berni, with Down Syndrome. Her life is now going to be completely different to what was planned for her before Paul found her. “ About six months ago we saved a little girl called Nuey. Her parents had filled in all the paper work to send her away to the mental Home in Rayong City, and we stopped that. We gave her a place in our school and she’s taught by the other children. When she first came she couldn’t sit down, and her behavior was quite bad, but after six months in the school she’s sitting down, coloring in, she’s singing the Irish songs. All with a group of friends around her to help.” Paul has now developed contacts at the local hospital that inform parents with a Down Syndrome child that the school will accept them. The children entering the school are between the age of 3 and 5. “ Sadly we can’t take Down Syndrome children that are around nine or ten. Because if they’ve never been to school I doubt we’d have the ability to adapt them to the school life. But if we get them between three and five, they can go through school with the same buddies and adapt that way.”

I couldn’t help but be amazed at how Paul referred to his welcoming a new child with Down Syndrome in to the school as having ‘saved’ them. The awareness of the condition in rural parts of Thailand is something that Paul has dedicated himself to. “I’m willing to give the rest of my working life to this. We’re very lucky in that we owned and ran a successful Thai restaurant in England when we lived there for eleven years. We now rent that out, so we receive a monthly wage from that and it gives us the freedom to do what we’re doing. We want to save as many children as we can and raise the awareness and understanding of this condition in Thailand. The Thai comedian Sai Yan is popular on television here and his condition is used as a joke in the show. When we take Berni to the market people tell me he looks like that character, but I believe it was like that in Britain years ago, it’s just a bit behind here. The little girl we saved recently, although she’s been going to our school for a few months now, she’s never been to the local market. It’s just home then school. Her parents don’t let her out of the car at the market. I told her father you can’t do this, you have to include her in everything now. Her father just said he’s so embarrassed. He told me he loves his daughter and when they are at home he plays and cuddles her, but if he went around with her in public people would question his manhood and he wouldn’t feel like a man. This is the thinking of the people here in the countryside.”

Paul appears to be up against something of a misinformed stigma attached to Down Syndrome in his work and the more he can do for the foundation, the more he will be able to start changing the thinking of the families he comes in to contact with. The fund raising so far has helped Paul set up two separate Celtic themed classrooms in the school that will have a large television, a dvd player and extra English learning aids. It will aid Paul in supporting people like Chris Joyce, a law graduate from Galway who is currently doing volunteer work for a year at the school on the strength of the YouTube videos. The money donated up to now has provided transport for some of the Down Syndrome children that live further away. Paul stated that the school does not need massive amounts of money to be maintained, but the extra assistance has made it easier for him to help Down Syndrome children in this and the surrounding areas.

Just before completing this piece, Paul contacted me to tell me about a young boy named Net that he had found and saved. Net lives 50km away from the school and the funds raised are helping transport him. Aside from Down Syndrome, Net suffers from a condition known as Anorectal Anomaly or Imperforate Anus, meaning he can only excrete through tubes in his side, he also has heart complications and requires weekly hospital visits. “Net has never played with any other children. His mother told me she was afraid other children would catch down syndrome from him, those are the words she used. I'll work on getting Net accepted by a local school in the future. I reckon if we offer a small monthly bonus and I teach an English summer camp every year for free, some school might accept him if we've had a couple of years teaching him first. The fund raising will help with this. We took Berni with us when we went to visit so they could play together. His mother is looking for work, so we’re going to give her a job as a cleaner in our school. It gives me an unbelievable feeling to think of these kids at home in bed with their parents instead of in a line of beds in a dormitory of lost children.”

Paul Lennon is not asking for the world, him and his story are an incredible example of how important it is to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Let the children sing.

http://www.goodchildfoundation.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-y2F195e0

Anyone for Roullette?

Even Andrey Ternovskiy, the teenager behind the phenomenon that is www.chatroullette.com, must visit his site at times and wonder WTF? Or whatever the Russian equivalent is. But more than likely he’s too busy rubbing elbows with the high and mighty of Silicon Valley to ever bother video linking with a random stranger. It would seem Andrey is now the phenomenon, being toured around the U.S speaking to potential investors with the view to expanding his site and no doubt building his empire. If it’s cool with kids on the net, then it’s money in the cyber bank folks. Having turned down the offer of 1 million dollars for the site it’s clear Andrey is looking to get Facebook rich. Three days it took him to put the site together in his Moscow bedroom, and since late autumn 2009 Andrey has watched his website become a global addiction. Reported to be inspired by movie classic The Deer Hunter, chatroulette.com is the cyber version of Ronseal Quick Drying Wood Stain; it does exactly what it says on the tin. No sign up, no login and no details need be exchanged; just click start and hold on tight.

Try as I may, I can’t recall any one scene in The Deer Hunter involving Robert De Niro or Christopher Walken exposing themselves to the camera and saying, ‘Do you like it?’. There was that Russian Roulette scene; I guess that’s the inspiration? For those CR .com virgins out there, fear not. There is no mortal danger lurking within CR.com. There are however Nazis, masked weirdoes, Dutch fundamentalists (I don’t know what that is either, but they’re there), bored OAP’s that are making good use of that computer skills course their children sent them on, and last but not least, and by far the most popular, the fully naked, and most times faceless, masturbator. Like I said, hold on tight; they certainly are.

Not one to exclude my spouse from the finer things in life, and also to minimize the chances of being caught and grilled about the live penis on my computer screen, I decided we should both pour ourselves a drink and journey into the lives of strangers.

First up, a penis. Okay bad start, click next.....click next, woman! Searching...connecting...to....a penis?! Good god Andrey, what have you done? With my wife giggling like a school girl, and myself pouring a double, we ventured on to the next random stranger hoping they would at least be clothed. Take your seat Jens, the fully clothed German. Jens seems like a decent sort, but, for all we know Jens has 4 skinned corpses hanging on the wall just out of shot. ‘What should we do?’ my wife asks. ‘I suppose we should ask him’ I reply. So we strike up our first ever exchange on CR.com.

‘Jens, do you have 4 skinned corpses hanging on your wall that we can’t see?’

‘Ha, no, funny’

‘Cool; so what you up to?’

‘Just hanging out in my home’

‘You enjoying the site?’

‘Can I see her tits?’

Next!

Jens is followed by some guy wearing a hockey mask; think Jason from Friday the 13th, jackpot. Straight away my loving wife is unnerved and reaching for the mouse to skip us on. ‘No!’ I yelp, ‘These are the people you want to talk to.' She of course disagrees and counters with ‘Maybe these are the people you want to talk to; something you want to tell me?’. I’m of the opinion that weird people without their genitalia on show are genuinely good folk. Wearing a mask does not make you dangerous, just ask Batman. I manage to wrestle the keyboard from her and begin my chat with the masked weirdo.

‘Hey man, what’s up?’

‘I kill prostitutes!’

‘Really? How’d you get that gig?’

‘6 tonight, more tomorrow!’

Instantly my wife is disgusted and demanding I cut this guy loose, but I’m hooked. ‘He said he kills prostitutes; what if he’s a real killer?’. Looking at the video feed from his bedroom I notice he’s got a poster of The Script on the wall behind him. ‘This is a kid for gods sake, he’s no more killing prostitutes than the man on the moon.' I’ve always wondered why my father used the man on the moon to prove people aren’t doing something; the man on the moon must be a seriously boring guy. I move deeper into our chat with Jason.

‘What’s your quota for the month then?’

‘No quota, I kill at will!’

‘Ah, so your freelance?’

‘How are you?’

‘We’re good, just chilling out; gonna watch Phantom of the Opera, I take it you’ve seen it?’

‘No, I hate opera, it’s stupid!’

‘Yeah, a guy like you has to maintain a reputation; can’t have people laughing at you’

‘Do you want to check out my youtube channel?’

Next!

A naked woman is now flashing her breasts at us; I’m assuming it’s for my benefit. Naturally my darling wife is outraged and demands we skip her, but I don’t hear what she’s saying. ‘Click next now!’. I enquire as to why we should suddenly brush this woman aside when we have given several naked men a decent run of time. ‘That’s different; click next!’. The argument is bullet proof as usual, so with my best understanding husband impression, I storm off and leave the woman I love to trawl the site on the look out for decent people. Surely that’s her plan; a plan she’s taken to implementing everyday it would appear.

Andrey Ternovskiy has stated he is trying to keep the site clean, and there is a report button you can choose if you feel any of the random strangers you meet are a bit too much, and after 3 strikes you’re out. But to be honest, I can’t see how you would, or why you would, eradicate the freaks and geeks from this site. I mean, it’s half the fun; it could be the sole reason the site is so popular with almost 4 million visitors each month, and typically 20,000 visitors in a night. Could Andrey be the first person to make his fortune from letting people watch other naked people outside of the porn industry? It would seem he’s on target to and my hat goes off to him, but that’s all I’m taking off.

For those of you too disgusted by the thought of what might greet you each time you search on CR.com or if for personal reasons you don’t want nutters looking at you from the comfort of another continent, give it a miss. But, if like me, you’ve squeezed every ounce of enjoyment out of Facebook that you possibly can and now want to torch your best friends Farmville barn and execute their live stock? It’s time to move onto the hard stuff! If anything you’ll be contributing to the future of a very smart teenager who has had internet entrepreneurs slapping their heads in frustration, shouting ‘I could have done that!’. You’ll be amused, you’ll be repulsed and you may even be a bit freaked out. But just imagine what they’re thinking.

Has the Catholic Church changed the faith and religion of our children?

In approximately 2 years my eldest daughter will make her first holy communion. A huge day in the life of any young Irish Catholic. It’s become something that she and many of her friends are beginning to understand. They haven’t discovered a respect for God or a true understanding of Christianity; how could they be expected to; they are 5 years old. To them the sacrament of holy communion is simply a day out in a very pretty dress, with all the attention being lavished upon them for the entire day; a party in their honor, and a coming of age. It’s a day every catholic parent looks forward to, and can probably remember their own experience of holy communion well enough, that they can fully relate to the excitement of their child. From communion the child will move on to confirmation and hopefully on to marriage. Like every proud father I look forward to the day I walk either of my daughters down the aisle and deliver them into the arms of a man I know I can trust, in the church where they were baptized. But, do I want them to be catholics any more?

Father Oliver O’Grady molested, raped and abused over 25 children, across five different parishes in Northern California, between 1973 and 1993. In 1976 he wrote a letter of confession to the parents of the children he had molested in the previous three years; a copy of this letter was given to the Bishop of Stockton, California, under whom Father O’Grady served. Despite the existence of this letter, Father O’Grady was allowed to sexually abuse children for the next 17 years, after the Catholic hierarchy continually moved him; at one point promoting him. Oliver O’Grady himself approached the church and asked for help, admitting he had a serious problem that he could not control. The church arranged for the priest to be given counseling. They also relocated him to avoid any trouble. The night before Father O’Grady was due to give testimony regarding Cardinal Roger Michael Mahony’s awareness of his history as a child molester, Cardinal Mahony’s attorneys visited his cell and arranged to provide Oliver O’Grady with a regular financial payment once he reached 65; for this, he would agree to remain silent. Oliver O’Grady has one year left before he can start to collect this money. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, having been convicted on only four counts of ‘lewd and lascivious acts’; he served 7 years. Today Oliver O’Grady is a free man in Ireland.

So why be a Catholic? Why dress up your children and instill in them a respect for God and the church, when someone like Oliver O’Grady has had their unimaginable crimes covered up, by the very men preaching purity from the pulpit? Is it custom? Is it habit? Is it the fear they won’t have their day in the sun wearing a pretty dress?

If you read the first few chapters of ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins, you will find he has outlined several different types of religious beliefs. The one that stood out for me, was the idea of Pantheism. A brief description from wikipedia.org reads-’Pantheism is the view that the Universe (Nature) and God are identical, or that the Universe (including Nature on Earth) is the only thing deserving the deepest kind of reverence. As such Pantheism promotes the idea that God is better understood as a way of relating to nature and the Universe as a whole - all that was, is and shall be - rather than as a transcendent, mental, personal or creator entity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god.’ Not too bad eh? I like it already. It’s a bit new age, but when has that ever been bad?

From what I can gather Pantheism has no history of sexual abuse cover ups. In fact, Pantheists don’t even go to church from what I can see. Should we direct our children towards this type of religious belief, or should we stay the old road and hope no more monsters are lurking in the closet? As a Catholic nation and as a Christian people we are told we should not bare false gods before our own. As parents we are compelled and obligated to protect our children from harm at all costs. So, give me Pantheism, or give me death. Would you whole heartedly trust the church with your children, knowing full well that further up the ladder sits somewhere, someone willing to put theirs ,and the church’s, interests ahead of the sexual innocence of a child.

I am still a Catholic. It’s been my identity since I was a boy and I doubt I will ever change it. I have been lucky enough, like thousands of others, to have never suffered sexual abuse either inside or outside of the Catholic church. But having seen the video footage of Bob Jyono, who’s daughter Ann was repeatedly raped by Oliver O’Grady in their home while they slept, I can’t help but defy my own faith, just like Bob, who raged, “There is no God!”. Bob Jyono’s life has been ruined by what happened. He was the protector, and he allowed a monster in to his home and put his daughter at risk. He has the look of a man that can never forgive himself.

There is a saying, ‘if you don’t buy a ticket you won’t win the lottery.’ Enough to make you want to go out and play the numbers, wouldn’t you say? But the only thing that will race around my mind if I decide that my children are safe in the care and guidance of the Catholic church, will be the global lottery slogan; It could be you!

Who do you have to kill to get some justice?

On March 21, 2007 the National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR) held a seminar entitled ‘Combatting Racially Motivated Violence: Is our legislation adequate?’. Connected with that, researchers issued ‘Combating Racism through the Criminal Law’ which looked at the introduction of racially aggravated offenses to the Criminal Code. They decided against it, and here is why.

‘Due to the social stigma attached to being convicted of a "hate crime" or a "race crime," defendants are unlikely to plead guilty to such an offense, thus leading to lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Proving that an offense was committed with a racist motivation or on the grounds of hostility to a standard satisfactory to the criminal law can also prove problematic. While it is important for the legislature to make it clear through the law that racism will not be tolerated, that message will lose much of its impact if there are very few convictions under the Act.’

Toyosi Shittabey is dead at the age of 15 and his families lives have been ripped apart. The two men arrested, and charged, with stabbing him to death using a kitchen knife have been granted bail and are being brought up on charges of manslaughter. You read correctly; manslaughter!

By all reports Paul Barry, 38 and Michael Barry, 23, pulled along side Toyosi Shittabey, while he was walking home from a visit to the National Aquatic Centre in Blanchardstown, West Dublin, with some of his friends on Friday April 2nd, 2010. They slowed their car and began to racially abuse them. Being wise enough, and most likely through experience, the friends decided to ignore the men. This lead to one of the men leaping out of the car and taking one of Toyosi’s friends by the throat. This caused the friends to run, but seeing his friend in a lot of danger, Toyosi ran back to help. That is when he suffered the stab wound to the chest that ultimately killed him. He’s dead because he was black; dead because of a despicable rage festering inside these men that made them see a skin color instead of a child. These men will soon be back on the streets; they have been granted bail; they are child killers and they will, for all intents and purposes, be free.

Ireland does not collect hate crime data. In a country with such a high population of immigrants, many being of African origin, I would expect the government to protect the rights of the people they are welcoming in to the country. This can not be covered with the brand new excuse of ‘cutbacks.’ This is a failure to act in the interests of justice.

When a hate crime as hideous as this is carried out it smashes at the core of society, and destroys the lives of the victims family. There is no doubt that this will cause grave concern for the Gardai in the coming weeks. Community relations will be strained and racial tensions will rise. The two men responsible for killing Toyosi Shittabey are racists, and they have done what racists the world over want to do. Strike fear, stoke hate and eliminate the life of one person because of a color they don’t like.

When Paul and Michael Barry go before the court there will be no chance for the judge to make an example of them. Their decision to murder a school boy because he was black, will be treated the same as any other murder in this country and they will likely do less jail time than we think. If they are convicted of manslaughter, they will be free in a few short years.

This is because Ireland has not introduced racially aggravated offenses to the Criminal Code. This is something the country needs now more than ever. The morale of the country is at an all time low and people are in despair. If we let grown men walk the streets killing with racist intent, then we should all think about leaving. Now is the time to show your intention Ireland.

The murder of any child is disgusting and if I were in charge, I’d hang child killers. But this killing strikes deeper. It’s seen as a threat to the African community. Psychologically, and socially this killing will leave a deep scar, not only on the area of West Dublin where it took place, but also on the face of the country as a whole. Action must be taken now to make sure we as a nation are united in our disgust at this awful killing. Ireland now needs to introduce legislation to deal with hate crimes. We risk too much by standing by and shaking our heads.

The son of my wife’s best friend played in the same under 15 soccer team with Toyosi at Shelbourne FC. One day they could have both possibly played for Ireland, side by side singing Amhrán na bhFiann, before trying to do their best for the country. Toyosi will now never get to do his best for Ireland. But will Ireland do it’s best for him and the members of his community? It has to, they are also at risk.

May he rest in peace.