Healy-Rae away with the fairies?

salmocab

TheDoc wrote: »

A golden example for me at the moment is Shane Ross. Giving it all the big talk down the years, all the credit, support and exposure he received for his books and his columns and then eventually running as an independent people assuming he would be a good shout. Circumstance lands him in government and a ministry, where he has flailed around and floundered, and kept his position simply due to the setup of this coalition, as he has been a bumbling mess from month one. Completely out of his depth

I was a fan of Ross in opposition, I felt he was capable of making some good arguments and pushing generally countrywide issues, thankfully with the redrawn boundaries Im no longer his constituent as I would be very annoyed if Id wasted a vote on him at the last election.
He has managed to turn himself into the worst of Irish politics in a nutshell.

As an aside lots of politicians are great at pushing an us/them urban/rural Dublin/country divide which is often the reason for nobody getting anything.

A Little Pony

Keeps them in the headlines, gets radio talking about them, forums posting threads about them, TV talking about them, win win for them.

ChikiChiki

Our land are so steeped in ancient folklore, mythology and ruins. Its phenomenal really. Some of the stories I heard about people who interfered with ancient ruins beggar belief. Is there something to it?? I don't know to be honest, but I definitely wouldn't take the chance and interfere with one of these forts.

DHR is still bonkers though! Some of the stuff he comes out with is ridiculous.

Jawgap

Shaungoater wrote: »

I agree with you, however I have found that many times local councillors have very little power and local TDs once they have gotten your vote you never see them again until. The next election. There needs to be some balance. There isn't in many constituencies at the moment. While I disagree with alot with MHR and feel we need to Look collectively at things from a broader point, I do admire some of the things he gets done at a local level.

No and no......councillors, TDs and elected reps of any kind have no role in getting potholes fixed or any operational matter......that's what we pay engineers etc to sort out......to set and manage budgets, prioritise needs and execute work.

Allowing gombeens to skew that work for political ends is both wrong and wasteful and as long as people keep electing reps on this basis it will continue to be wasteful. There's also no incentive to drive efficiencies in the system (that would mean the gombeens conceding power) which means public spending will remain artificially high while we suffer crap services and high taxes.......and for some that's fine as long as the gombeens continue to get holes filled and waste Dail and ministerial time asking questions about medical cards!

Jeju

I think the problem here may be that whatever contractor was employed to build the road didn't survey the area well enough. What's needed to fix this dangerous dip, is a local contractor who is equipped both mechanically and mythological sound, someone who has access to a great deal of alcohol which can be used when entertaining the King of the Fairies and tricking him into fixing the road for them.

fancy pigeon

Senor Fancy Pants wrote: »

Anyone as obviously mentally unstable should not be representing anyone in politics, local or otherwise.

This man needs professional help.

If that's the best Kerry has to offer, I'd hate to see their worst :eek:

salmocab

Jeju wrote: »

someone who has access to a great deal of alcohol which can be used when entertaining the King of the Fairies and tricking him into fixing the road for them.

A big meal would do too I hear

Barry Badrinath

Hold yer whist people.

It could be the fairies!

They could be driving all those heavy veh-icles that Healy-Rae owns.....sure the weight of them would wreck the roads.

OMFG, maybe Healy-Rae IS a Fairy!

/thread

JupiterKid

This story came up on a UK roads forum that Im a member of yesterday. The mortification! I opined that the man is a gombeen and an embarrassment to Irish politics.

Blazer

EICVD wrote: »

Cute hoorism

Exactly, this crowd are absolutely milking the Irish electorate and a few mad outbursts from them helps keep people focused on this rather than the money they’re taking in.

Don't Chute!

That utter clown was on Newstalk yesterday and kept saying that the County Council gave a very technical explanation for why the road is bad which he completely ignored. In other words they gave a perfectly good explanation which Healy-Ray doesn't understand therefore fairies. He is an absolute fool and should not be anywhere near the Dail. The two issues he constantly brings up are drink driving-he owns a pub and the state of the roads-he owns a plant hire company. Enough said.

Elmo

Anyone else notice the irony that he's happy to rent machinery to the council for road works and at the same time would starve if he was ask to disturb a fairy fort.

The_Captain

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Do people really believe that he believes in fairies? The Healy-Raes are a very intelligent bunch wh know exactly how to play the public and those who think they aren't are the real fools.

There's some angle to this which will become clearer as time goes by.

One of the businesses his family is linked with was contracted to carry out work on the foundations of the road, and there were some cost cutting measures taken.

kylith

JupiterKid wrote: »

This story came up on a UK roads forum that Im a member of yesterday. The mortification! I opined that the man is a gombeen and an embarrassment to Irish politics.

I've seen it on a English and US facebook pages too, the embarrassment!

RDM_83 again

kylith wrote: »

I've seen it on a English and US facebook pages too, the embarrassment!

Whatever about the English, the Yanks if they are on the social left can **** of if they are making fun of this.

This is an aboriginal person expressing their cultural beliefs and interpreting events in the living landscape through the lens of a system of tradition, folklore and taboo that draws on 1000's/100's of years of history which has been suppressed, dismissed and marginalized by colonial, class, capitalist and neo-colonial structures.

If they can make fun of this they should apply strict rationality to Native American cultural stuff too, they won't though even though if you strip it back your talking about the same thing.
One gets lots of likes as its safe to do, the latter would result in a social media storm.

osarusan

I've never been a big fan of the argument that takes what the Healy-Raes say, no matter how silly it appears to be, and deems it to actually be a really shrewd comment when positioned in some wider, carefully constructed, almost Machiavellian political cobweb.

It's possible that they're both very hard-working for their constituents and also capable of saying stuff that is just stupid.

andekwarhola

The Healy Raes are no fools. They no doubt prefer this cartoon stuff to be all over the news than any sustained discussion of possible conflicts of interest in their business dealings plus it winds up (what they no doubt clownishly see as) the 'D4 libertariat'.

kylith

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Whatever about the English, the Yanks if they are on the social left can **** of if they are making fun of this.

This is an aboriginal person expressing their cultural beliefs and interpreting events in the living landscape through the lens of a system of tradition, folklore and taboo that draws on 1000's/100's of years of history which has been suppressed, dismissed and marginalized by colonial, class, capitalist and neo-colonial structures.

If they can make fun of this they should apply strict rationality to Native American cultural stuff too, they won't though even though if you strip it back your talking about the same thing.
One gets lots of likes as its safe to do, the latter would result in a social media storm.

There's being part of a deep and mystical animist religion, and then there's being a feckin' gombeen, which is what Healy-Rae is. We have a storytelling history of the fairies, and a hundred years ago people may have believed they were real, but in this day and age? Blaming fairies for bad roads? G'way outta that.

RDM_83 again

kylith wrote: »

There's being part of a deep and mystical animist religion, and then there's being a feckin' gombeen, which is what Healy-Rae is. We have a storytelling history of the fairies, and a hundred years ago people may have believed they were real, but in this day and age? Blaming fairies for bad roads? G'way outta that.

Break it down whats the difference though, why is one thing "deep and mystical" and other not, one can't simply break it down as a Religion vs Storytelling because (A) Irish folk Religion has lots of elements that wouldn't fit neatly into doctrinal RC stuff (B) for the Native American stuff whats tradition vs religion and also so much knowledge has been lost as well as the fact that claims occur in terms of geographic areas and timescales where its very much dubious.
We have good evidence for this stuff being very long held beliefs from the writings of the Early Monks, folklore, and the simple survival of so much heritage because harming it was and is considered taboo by many.

I agree that there is motives for the way the Healy-Rae's are but you think that there isn't politics, power plays and financial concerns in the Native American stuff too.
If its not ok to make fun of one set of indigenous traditional beliefs applied to the modern era, its not ok to make fun of a different set of indigenous traditional beliefs.

I really don't have any issue with an Irish person calling this stuff out, Americans though need to examine their critical thinking on issues closer to home. The ethnicity of the indigenous people should not make a difference to how you approach their beliefs.

kylith

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Break it down whats the difference though, why is one thing "deep and mystical" and other not, one can't simply break it down as a Religion vs Storytelling because (A) Irish folk Religion has lots of elements that wouldn't fit neatly into doctrinal RC stuff (B) for the Native American stuff whats tradition vs religion and also so much knowledge has been lost as well as the fact that claims occur in terms of geographic areas and timescales where its very much dubious.
We have good evidence for this stuff being very long held beliefs from the writings of the Early Monks, folklore, and the simple survival of so much heritage because harming it was and is considered taboo by many.

I agree that there is motives for the way the Healy-Rae's are but you think that there isn't politics, power plays and financial concerns in the Native American stuff too.
If its not ok to make fun of one set of indigenous traditional beliefs applied to the modern era, its not ok to make fun of a different set of indigenous traditional beliefs.

I really don't have any issue with an Irish person calling this stuff out, Americans though need to examine their critical thinking on issues closer to home. The ethnicity of the indigenous people should not make a difference to how you approach their beliefs.

Well, I'm sure plenty of non-First Nation Americans would also consider blaming bad roads on the Great Spirit or Wendigos also laughable, as would I. Better?

RDM_83 again

kylith wrote: »

Well, I'm sure plenty of non-First Nation Americans would also consider blaming bad roads on the Great Spirit or Wendigos also laughable, as would I. Better?

They will think it, might say it in private conversation among friends, if they worked in certain areas they would be nuking their career if they posted or shared a similar thing publicly and thats a fact.

Those on the "right" might say it publicly but thats a different matter (and if they worked in certain areas they would keep it hidden too)

My issue isn't with Irish people laughing at this its to do with the double think that goes on in relation to liberals in the Americas about this sort of stuff.

Samaris

Think about a scenario in which Senator Jeanne Sheehan (D-NH), a member of the Powhaten people, stated that the major issue with a large road in the district was that a wendigo lived under it and kept tearing chunks out of it and there's no way she'd mess with a wendigo lair because it always ends badly. (Or some other specifically wendigo-like pastime.)


It wouldn't go any better for her in terms of the amount of snarking she got for it. You need to be ascribing your awkward problems to God's will or the Devil to get taken seriously at all. And mostly, that isn't taken seriously either (Didn't Healy-Rae recently try the same thing regarding climate?)

Da Boss

BillyBobBS wrote: »

As a Dub i always find it embarrassing that the people if Kerry see fit to vote this lad and his ilk into office time and again and then i remember it's the people of Dublin that gave us Bertie Ahern time and again

Well as a non-Dub I always find it embarrassing that the people of Dublin see fit to vote paul Murphy and the like into dail eireann