At twenty-seven years of age, Seán was a broken man. The trauma of what he witnessed and the effects of his near drowning caused him a severe emotional and psychic collapse, the ripples of which washed up against him – sometimes pulling him back under – for the rest of his life. His bi-polar disorder produced a curious older man; someone who would laugh with all the joy of life and sink into the bleakest recesses of the valley of the shadow of death – sometimes in the same day.
Dublin Bus Tour with Confused Class Warriors
When my card was declined and I had to step off the bus he remarked: “You people are all the same.” In one sense he was right, and I agreed with him. All people are the same, and that is why I freely give my time to even the score of social inequality in this city. This, of course, isn’t what he meant.
What Some People Need is to Suffer Less
Follow @UrFhasaidh Since about 2007, with the failure of the Irish banking and financial sector, and the impact of the international credit crisis, the government of Ireland has followed various economic austerity policies with a view to rescuing the state from its present difficulties. In a nutshell these policies have sought to pay off the … Continue reading What Some People Need is to Suffer Less
Probability Tends to Zero
Teenagers are brilliant. I am glad that I don’t own any of my own, but, still, I think that teenagers are great. They have developed into that awkward liminal space between innocence and good craic. By about sixteen most of them have developed little proto-adult personalities infused still with a lovable childish quality. Quite surprisingly … Continue reading Probability Tends to Zero
Where Has All The Money Gone?
Joan Burton and the ruling class of Ireland so eagerly want us to believe their story that the country is getting better. Now we are hearing about Ireland’s economic springtime where prepubescents are being hired straight out of college and young people are getting the opportunity to work without actual pay as interns in a … Continue reading Where Has All The Money Gone?
An Unexpected Windfall
A few years ago I found myself, after graduation, at a bit of a loose end. Once a week a few friends from university would meet for coffee at a rather swish little café on Dawson Street to read over one another’s post-graduate research. We were all, in one way or another, working on related … Continue reading An Unexpected Windfall
