Quiet Men, Mouthy Men And Men Who Should Speak Up

"Here's a good stick to beat the lovely lady."
- is that a quote from "The Quiet Man" or a proclamation from our Muslim friends?

By Charley Brady

Well, you can't say that I don't try. Every time I sit down to write this column I hope in my heart that it will be a happy one.

And then I am parachuted once again into the open-air mental hospital that is called Ireland. You know, the one where little Willie O'Dea is whining that he got a raw a deal; the one where an Irish university invites an extremist Muslim (who has said that the highest form of pure belief in your faith is to become a suicide bomber) is to give a talk; where Gerry Adams tells us about his deep religious beliefs.

That kind of thing.

Still, we'll try to start with something positive, at least.

At first I thought that I was hearing things: a remake of "The Quiet Man"? Or even worse, a sequel? Surely even Hollywood couldn't be that mad. Thankfully they weren't and it was wrong information. However Roger Moore, who, aside from voice-overs was last in a film in 2002, is starring in a new production to be shot once again in the village of Cong in County Mayo.

It is a romantic comedy set to the background of John Ford's arrival in the west of Ireland, where he would make his well-loved and enduringly popular film. I wonder if he could have possibly guessed that his film would still captivate decades later.

"Connemara Days" is to star the brilliant and popular Irish- American actor Aidan Quinn alongside Sarah Bolger. It's a comedy centred on the character of Heather O'Dea who falls in love with one of the crew of "The Quiet Man."

Kevin Connor will direct and Roger Moore is also acting as executive producer.

A few days ago I spoke to Paula Carroll of Ashford Castle, situated just outside of the village of Cong. No trip to Mayo could be complete without seeing this stunningly beautiful and legendary castle hotel. Paula, the ever-exuberant ball of energy who has been Director of Sales and Marketing there for 22 years, said: "Considering that we are still reaping the benefits of 'The Quiet Man' 50 years later, the economic benefits to the whole area can not be underestimated."

One man who could never be accused of being quiet is Minister for Defence, Limerick's yappy little Willie O'Dea. Well, ex-Minister after he was forced to resign a few days ago. Still, the shameless Little Willie managed to make it sound like a noble and heroic act of patriotism.

He began digging his own political grave back in March of 2009 when he gave an interview to Limerick Leader journalist Mike Dwane in which he claimed that the Sinn Fein local election candidate Maurice Quinlivan owned a property that was being used as a brothel.

Several weeks later he swore out an affidavit to the effect that he never said any such thing. The Limerick Leader questioned the discrepancies between the transcript and the sworn affidavit and finally in December, by which time Little Willie's solicitors had admitted that he did indeed make the totally untrue claim, he paid damages to the SF councillor but insisted that the "mistake" was the fault of the reporter who had conducted the interview.

But Senator Eugene Regan wanted to know if Brain Cowen had taken the Limerick T.D. to task for "lying" under oath, but it was still the fault of that damned reporter.

So with the collusion of the weakling Greens, Fianna Fail's tamed lapdogs, he survived the vote on a motion of no confidence last Wednesday.

But that damned reporter had kept the tape and when we got to hear it on the lunchtime news it became obvious from Willie's slimy tone what an underhanded smear it had been. So within 24 hours it was back to the table for another patented FF/Greens U-turn and Willie's resignation.

But really, as he put it last week, he's a victim as well! He also said: "People know me, they know I don't commit perjury [although I'm not sure what he DOES call lying to a High Court Judge]. They know I admitted I made a mistake in passing on groundless gossip, which everyone does but I was caught doing it and fair enough."

Think about that: I was caught doing it and fair enough. Makes you wonder about all the stuff that the liars aren't caught doing.

This from one of the guys who are always telling us to trust them!

Chancers, the whole shagging lot of them.

He nearly had me in tears when he added: "They also reckon that the penalty outweighs the crime. I have paid a very heavy price financially. It's a big, big sum for a fella of my means and now I have lost my job as well."

Ah, bless his little heart.

In actual fact he gets a kiss off (doesn't every white collar criminal in this country?) of €100,000 and his annual wage is dropped - dropped, mind you -down to around €92,000 as a backbencher. I certainly could struggle by on that amount, for sure.

In Britain politicians Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken served years for perjury. At the moment we are not even allowed to use the word "perjury" as O'Dea has denied he has committed it.

You haven't seen the last of him. The next time he runs he will be swept through by the people of Limerick in a repeat of Michael Lowry and his shenanigans of a few year back. It's the same old story in the country and one of the reasons that we always end up stuck with the gougers: "Sure, we won't have that shower above in Dublin telling us what we can do!"

It's a small country, lads; if we threw out the tribal mentality that keeps us down, we might run a chance of getting rid of these guys too.

From men who think that they are Gods to men who simply follow in their paths. Dear oh dear. Last week we had the Chancer Supreme Bertie Ahern telling us in that holier-than-though put on stutter of how he lived by the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes of Christ.

Ye wha? Ye never heard of the 'oul Beatitudes? Get away ourra that, ye bunch of bloody heathens.

This week we have no other than that well-known follower of Christ, Mister Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein and never a member of the I.R.A. That was just propaganda, so it was. Even though one of the Provos' ex-bombers said again this week that he was her Commanding Officer.

There's more of it now: "Infamy, infamy"! They've all got it infamy!"

Britain's Channel 4 tonight (Sunday as I write) shows "The Bible: A History" in which good old Gerry tells us of "how sometimes I was in tune with Jesus's message and sometimes not". I think that I can guess the bits that he didn't like: you know, all that drivel about not killing each other and what have you.

I can only imagine that this was the Jesus of a parallel universe, existing in the crazed mind of Shinners everywhere, and in which he was the one doing the nailing up. I know that Gerry is sarcastically known as Archbishop Adams after the recent incest scandal in which he buried his head in the sand; but after tonight I guess that we'll have to change his moniker to "Saint Gerry the Wise and Good".

In the documentary he follows in the steps of Jesus through the Holy Land. What a guy. Meanwhile his brother Liam is still around somehwere and causing embarrassment over the allegations of abuse by his daughter and the Police Service of Northern Ireland have issued a European arrest warrant for him.

Solicitor Victor Barker said that he was "appalled" to hear of the programme. He lost his 12-year-old son James in the horrific Omagh bombing of 1998.

He said: "If he wanted to demonstrate a sense of Christian forgiveness, he could have stood by the Omagh families when they asked for his full co-operation in catching the killers as part of our campaign for justice."

I've said it before: given the amount of characters who are "finding Jesus", he's not hiding very well.

And still on religion, surely I couldn't have been the only one who felt the need to throw up at the images of 24 bishops, all in their most expensive and garish Sunday frocks, queuing to kiss the ring [I'm tempted to make a "crack" here but I won't] of Pope Benedict XVI this week. A truly revolting and craven image of a bunch of goofy old sods who should have been put out to pasture years ago.

And the nerve of the corrupt Vatican lackeys to drip feed us snippets of information instead of having an honest and open showing of what went on between them. What exactly was the bloody point of it?

We're no wiser since they didn't even have the damage limitation skills to invite some of the abuse survivors. Oh, no. You couldn't have that, especially as many of them are a bit too articulate for these academic numskulls.

The sickening sight of these aging yo-yo's tripping over each other in their keenness to kiss the ring and suck up to Pope Bennie, even though they knew that they were probably in for a ballocking was enough to make you want to burn your own eyeballs out.

Certainly the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin returned a changed man when he met up with the survivors on Friday. Formerly quite supportive of them I can only imagine that he got a right old ear-bashing from "his Holiness".

Andrew Martin said: "Diarmuid Martin certainly came across as a very different man to the man I met last Saturday in advance of his trip to Rome.

"I put it to him that he appeared to have had his wings clipped in Rome and that this might go some way to explaining why his fellow bishops seemed so happy on their return to Ireland. Diarmuid Martin preferred the view that it was more likely because they were delighted to have met Pope Benedict as most of them had never met him before."

Well, big swinging mickey! Are these grown men or star-struck teenage gobshites? It says a lot about their freaking priorities, doesn't it?

"Diarmuid Martin accepted the Vatican statement that all bishops should come back from Rome "to speak with one voice", despite saying last Saturday that the only thing worse than disunity among the bishops was unity among the bishops, so they would unite around the lowest common denominator."

There's typical Vatican logic for you.

Oh, they had been put back into their little boxes all right. As for an apology? Are you joking me or something? You weren't really expecting one from a pampered old man who is completely and utterly removed from that of the ordinary human.

I took offence to his ramblings about how spiritual decay in Europe and Godlessness had led to the rapes of children. Well, I'm Godless, Bennie - thankfully - and not in a million lifetimes could I commit the acts that your depraved degenerates committed, knowing that Father Church could always be counted on to cover up for them. Find another excuse because that one just doesn't wash with me.

And for those of you have emailed me to say that I don't show the proper respect to Bennie, you're dead right. Mainly because I don't have any respect for him. I'll save that for those who have courageously pursued this and kept it alive for years, if you don't mind.

Just time to update on an article that I did a couple of weeks ago, on the coming opening in Dublin of a major Islamic school. Thursday's Irish Daily Mail carried an excellent front pager by Catherine Fegan and Galen English. They wrote: "The plans for the college, [due to open in September] which is being established by the Saudi government, are shrouded in secrecy. The initial contract for two years is expected to bring in €100 million - €70 million in fees, and €30 million in student spending.

"The students will be 'royalty and princes' and they will import their own strict regime, with the bar in the [City West] Golf Hotel being transformed into a juice bar, their own private transport system - and chaperones for all the females."

As you may recall, I mentioned the fears that Irish people have concerning the nature of some of the classes to be taught (indeed, a recent poll showed that 83% share those concerns) and following Thursday's story and the launch on Saturday a damage limitation exercise swung into gear. Well, they can try to soften it if they like but there will be 600 males, 150 females and another 150 females to chaperone them. So we're talking "strict regime" here.

Will there be burkas? Who knows? Why tell us, we only live here.

Bottom line is that Saudi Arabia didn't even have the politeness to contact the Department of Education. In fact when Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe was in the kingdom in September they didn't even bother to mention it to him.

Well, why should they? They know by now how soft we are.

Hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net