Tag: teampanti

The saddest thing about watching the David Norris interview released by RTÉ Archives this week is that while it was broadcast before I was born, it took until I became an adult for what he was campaigning for to become a reality. The simple acknowledgement that two people may love and live with each other, regardless of gender was a criminal act until 1993. I look to those generations before me and wonder how and why they were so complicit. Why did no-one say stop? Of course even Norris acknowedged in that interview that the actual punishments for homosexual activity…

When Ireland first started to tackle the issue of immigration two decades ago, there were regular letters to the editor of the Irish Times from “The Immigration Control Platform”, which were an advocacy group against immigration. Their message was simple: you can be whatever race you want, just not in Ireland. It was never clear who or what ICP was beyond Áine Ni Chonaill, its public relations officer, and to be honest, you couldn’t help feel that it was a fairly small platform that probably fitted easily into a corner of Áine’s front room. But she was from “somewhere”. Irish…

It wasn’t meant to be this way. When the National School system was formed in 1831, the rules stated that while the bible could be read in class, no comment was allowed in class time. Any comment from Protestant or Roman Catholic doctrine was to be conducted out of formal class time, in Sunday classes, or at Mass each Sunday. The system itself inherited the principles of the Kildare Place Society, formed in 1811, which advocated secular education, with comment on the bible the job of the clergyman, not the school master. Henry Grattan wrote in 1811: I should recommend…

I have written to the BAI and urge you to do so too.   To the members of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, I wish to lodge a complaint over the recent apology provided by RTÉ and subsequent compensation paid to Iona Institute and other named individuals, broadcast on The Saturday Night Show this month. The context of the apology is well documented. However, the ramifications are unclear. In the coming year, RTÉ will be required to provide an important public service as it broadcasts discussions from all sides in the forthcoming referendum on gay marriage. RTÉ has a duty…