BANKSTERS REILLY HEALTHCARE

Yesterday after the Department of Health announced it was scrapping disabled mobility allowances, Minister for Health, James Reilly experienced some mobility issues himself, when inspecting a brand new, private, state-of-the-art mental health facility, situated on the old Grangegorman site in Dublin, which used to serve over 2,000 patients. 

Dr Reilly with his Minister of State Kathleen Lynch, were trapped when their lift jammed. The media in the lobby filmed hospital officials busily trying to open the doors and free Reilly who was on a propaganda stunt,  with a couple of cultivated, chosen, journalists. Other photographers who tried the stairs, hoping to film the flustered Reilly exiting, were quickly  forced back by one of Reilly's heavies forcing them back. After about half an hour the two Government lunatics, were released despite the objections of most ordinary Dubliners who wanted the keys thrown away.

 HSE official Anne O’Connor described Reilly's detention, as a “brief involuntary detention,” while Minister for Health Reilly wanted to know “who is responsible for the lift?." Someone said, that like the Irish State, the lunatics are running the asylum, while another quipped that all these buffoon, fat bastard, Irish Ministers, Reilly, Cowan, Harney, Gilmore, etc. etc.are just City of London bankster floozies and fall guys.

Britain is to challenge an EU agreement to slash bankers' bonuses at a meeting of European finance ministers next week after Boris Johnson condemned the proposal as a "deluded measure".

Amid fears that the EU agreement could deal a hammer blow to the City of London, David Cameron said EU regulations needed to be flexible enough to allow international banks to operate in Britain and the rest of the European Union.

George Osborne or the Treasury minister Greg Clark will represent Britain at the meeting next week to relay what No 10 described as real concerns about the proposal.

The agreement in Brussels came as the Royal Bank of Scotland posted losses of more than £5bn after paying out more than £600m in bonuses. No 10 said it had imposed cash limits of £2,000 on bonuses at RBS and Lloyds and was giving a greater say to shareholders in all banks.

The prime minister's spokesman said: "Bonuses are very significantly down on where they were in 2010. So you are seeing real responsibility and restraint."

Johnson highlighted deep British unease about the bonus agreement hammered out in Brussels on Wednesday night between officials from the EU's 27 member states, MEPs and the European commission by dismissing it as the most preposterous idea in Europe in two millennia. Under the agreement, bankers' bonuses would be capped broadly at a year's salary, although they could be doubled if a majority of shareholders agreed.

The London mayor said: "People will wonder why we stay in the EU if it persists in such transparently self-defeating policies. Brussels cannot control the global market for banking talent. Brussels cannot set pay for bankers around the world.

"The most this measure can hope to achieve is a boost for Zurich and Singapore and New York at the expense of a struggling EU. This is possibly the most deluded measure to come from Europe since Diocletian tried to fix the price of groceries across the Roman empire."

Diocletian, the 51st Roman emperor, introduced the edict on maximum prices in AD 301.

The prime minister made clear the government's unease at a meeting of Nordic leaders in the Latvian capital of Riga. "We do have in the UK – and not every other European country has this – we have major international banks that are based in the UK but have branches and activities all over the world, and we need to make sure that regulation put in place in Brussels is flexible enough to allow those banks to continue competing and succeeding while being located in the UK. So we'll look carefully at what the outcome of the negotiations was before working out the approach we'll take at Ecofin [the meeting of EU finance ministers] next week."

Downing Street made clear Britain was prepared to water down the proposal at the meeting, though any final decision will be made by qualified majority voting in which no member state has a national veto.

Cameron's spokesman said Britain had taken important steps to rein in remuneration, such as deferred payments, which has seen £300m clawed back from Barclays bonuses and 3,000 RBS employees also experiencing "clawback" as a result of the Libor investigations.

He said: "The UK believes it has some of the toughest remuneration requirements in the world. They are incentivising long-term behaviour – the idea of deferred payments, with a significant proportion in shares that can be clawed back over a period of time. At the heart of this is aligning the incentives with long-term performance and stability.

"Alongside that we of course also want a successful financial sector in the UK. There are very successful UK-based firms that compete across the world. They are an asset to the UK. When we are looking at what further regulations may be appropriate we will want to consider the impact on competitiveness.

"This idea of a cap – one of the things we have been pointing out as a potential consequence of this type of approach, if you cap variable pay – bonuses – you can see big increases in basic pay. And of course basic pay is not subject to clawback because it is paid out straight away."

Cameron said Britain was taking a responsible approach because it was implementing the Vickers proposal to ringfence the retail side of banks away from the investment side.

"We are absolutely clear that we must be able to implement the Vickers plan in the UK, which in some ways is tougher than regulations that are being put in place in other European countries. We want to have this proper ringfence between retail banks and investment banks, and the rules must allow that to happen – I think that is very important."

The spokesman added: "We do continue to have real concerns about them [these proposals] and we will continue to be discussing them with EU partners in the coming days ahead of the Ecofin."

Irish Hospitals to Lose Wards and Staff in €721m HSE Cuts

Major changes to small hospital services and a massive reduction in staff numbers are outlined in a series of HSE plans aimed at reducing health spending by €721 million this year.PAUL CULLEN, Health Correspondent

The cuts include the closure of Mallow General Hospital’s emergency department, with emergency surgery being moved to Cork University Hospital. Also in Co Cork, the casualty unit at Bantry General Hospital will be replaced by a 12-hour urgent care centre operating seven days a week.

The plans confirm the HSE’s intention to shed almost 4,000 posts this year, although some regions warn this target may be difficult to achieve. Some 750 posts are to go in Dublin North-East and more than 1,300 in Dublin Mid-Leinster.

Plans to remove medical cards from 40,000 people are also confirmed; this will be achieved by changing eligibility limits in a way that has yet to be announced.

However, the HSE is providing for an overall increase of 60,000 in the number of medical cards issued because of high unemployment and demographic changes.

Minister for Health James Reilly said it was clear that the cost of services had to be cut in the current economic climate.

“I think you’ll find that the new regional budgets will have a lot of positive news in them for the regions,” he told reporters in Dublin yesterday. “I think the way that the new budget has been done has protected a lot of the services that we need to protect.”

Regional plans 

The proposals are outlined in four regional plans, three plans for hospital groups and a national operational plan published by the HSE yesterday. Politicians and other interests in each region were briefed before publication.

According to the national operational plan, the extension of free GP care to people with long-term illnesses, which was promised in the first year of Government, may not now happen until the end of the year. Some €383 million is to be cut from the budget for community schemes such as medical cards.

The document also says “alternative options” will be identified for dealing with low-urgency 999 ambulance calls. Cost savings of €2 million will be sought from the ambulance service through new rosters and the elimination of “cost-ineffective” work practices.

In mental health, 102 acute inpatient beds will be closed, although inpatient services for children and adolescents are being increased.

Capital projects 

Among the capital projects due to be completed this year are a 44-bed psychiatric unit at Beaumont Hospital and accommodation for 54 residents at Grangegorman.

Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD said “no amount of spin” from the HSE in the regional plans could hide the fact of €721 million in cuts.

In his own area, HSE Dublin North-East, staff numbers were being cut by 750 and nursing home beds by 55, he said.

The regional plans commit the HSE to implementing the small hospitals framework, which is expected to lead to further rationalisation of acute services in smaller hospitals.

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey to Stand ?

End Impunity! from Spartacus on Vimeo.

There is considerable speculation that Bernadette Devlin McAliskey will stand for the mid-Ulster constituency to challenge the British Government of DUP/PSF in Occupied Ireland. Below is a  C.V by Wikipedia of Ms. Devlin McAliskey.

"Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey
A mural by the Bogside Artists in Derry's Bogside, depicting Devlin
Member of Parliament for Mid Ulster
In office 1969–1974
Preceded by	George Forrest
Succeeded by	John Dunlop
Majority	18,213
Personal details
Born	23 April 1947 (age 65) Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Independent (1970-1974), (1976-1977), (1978-present)
Other political affiliations	Unity (1969-1970), Independent Socialist Party (1977-1978), Irish Republican Socialist Party(1974-1976)
Spouse(s)	Michael McAliskey
Children	Róisín Elizabeth McAliskey Deirdre McAliskey
Alma mater	Queens University of Belfast

Josephine Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (born 23 April 1947, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland), usually known as Bernadette Devlin or Bernadette McAliskey, is an Irish socialist and republican political activist and former militant. She served as a British Member of Parliament from 1969 to 1974 for the Mid Ulster constituency. She lost her seat to John Dunlop of the then-Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party, after coming third in a four-sided contest in the general election of February 1974.^[1]

Contents   [hide]  1 Political beginnings 2 The Troubles 2.1 The Battle of the Bogside 2.2 Bloody Sunday 2.3 IRSP 2.4 Support for hunger strike prisoners 2.5 Injured in loyalist shooting 3 Dáil Éireann elections 4 Denied entry into the US 5 Personal life 6 References 7 External links

[edit]Political beginnings

1970 newsreel film about the Ulster conflict featuring Bernadette Devlin

Devlin was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone and raised as a Roman Catholic. She attended St Patrick's Girls Academy inDungannon.^[2] She was studying Psychologyat Queen's University Belfast in 1968 when she took a prominent role in a student-ledcivil rights organisation, People's Democracy.^[3] Devlin was subsequently excluded from the university.^[3] She stood unsuccessfully against James Chichester-Clark in the Northern Ireland general election of 1969. When George Forrest, the MP for Mid Ulster, died, she fought the subsequent by-election on the "Unity" ticket, defeating a female Unionist candidate, Forrest's widow Anna, and was elected to the Westminster Parliament. At age 21, she was theyoungest MP at the time, and remains the youngest woman elected.^[3]

Devlin stood on the slogan "I will take my seat and fight for your rights" – signalling her rejection of the traditional Irish republican tactic of abstentionism (being absent from Westminster). She made her maiden speech on her 22nd birthday, within an hour of taking her seat.^[4]

[edit]The Troubles

[edit]The Battle of the Bogside

After engaging, on the side of the residents, in the Battle of the Bogside, she was convicted of incitement to riot in December 1969, for which she served a short jail term.^[5] After being re-elected in the 1970 general election, Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an independent socialist.^[6]

[edit]Bloody Sunday

Having witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday, Devlin was infuriated that she was later consistently denied the floor in Parliament, despite the fact that parliamentary convention decreed that any MP witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it therein.^[7]

Devlin slapped Reginald Maudling, the Home Secretary in the Conservative government, across the face when he stated in the House of Commons that the Paras had fired in self-defence on Bloody Sunday.^[3] She was suspended from Parliament for six months as a result of the incident.^[8]

[edit]IRSP

McAliskey helped to form the Irish Republican Socialist Party along with Seamus Costello in 1974.^{[citation needed]} This was a revolutionary socialist breakaway from Official Sinn Féin and paralleled the Irish National Liberation Army's split from the Official Irish Republican Army.^[9] She served on the party's national executive in 1975, but resigned when a proposal that the INLA become subordinate to the party executive was defeated.^{[10][dead link]} In 1977, she joined the Independent Socialist Party, but it disbanded the following year.^[11]

[edit]Support for hunger strike prisoners

She stood as an independent candidate in support of the prisoners on the blanket protest and dirty protest at Long Kesh prison in the1979 elections to the European Parliament in Northern Ireland, and won 5.9% of the vote.^[12] She was a leading spokesperson for the Smash H-Block Campaign, which supported the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in 1980 and 1981.

[edit]Injured in loyalist shooting

On 16 January 1981, she and her husband were shot by members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, who broke into their home inCoalisland, County Tyrone.^[13][14] The gunmen shot McAliskey a total of seven times in front of her children.^[15] British soldiers were watching the McAliskey home at the time, but failed to prevent the assassination attempt.^[3][16] An army patrol of the 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment heard the shots and rushed to McAliskey's house. The paramilitaries had torn out the telephone and while the wounded couple were being given first aid by the troops, a soldier ran to a neighbour's house, commandeered a car, and drove to the home of a councillor to telephone for help. The couple were taken by helicopter to hospital in nearby Dungannon for emergency treatment and then to the Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast under intensive care. Three attackers, including Ray Smallwoods, captured by the army patrol, were subsequently jailed.^[17][18]

[edit]Dáil Éireann elections

In 1982, she twice failed in an attempt to be elected to the Dublin North–Central constituency of Dáil Éireann.^[19]

[edit]Denied entry into the US

In 2003, she was barred from entering the United States and deported on the grounds that the State Department had declared that she "poses a serious threat to the security of the United States"^[20], — apparently referring to her conviction for incitement to riot in 1969 — although she protested that she had no terrorist involvement and had frequently been permitted to travel to the United States in the past.^[20][21][22]

[edit]Personal life

In 1971, while still unmarried, she gave birth to a daughter Róisín.^[3] This cost her a great deal of support in Roman Catholic areas.^[23]She married Michael McAliskey on 23 April 1973, which was her 26th birthday.^{[citation needed]}

On 12 May 2007, she was guest speaker at éirígí's first Annual James Connolly commemoration in Arbour Hill, Dublin.^[24] She currently coordinates a not-for-profit community development organisation based in Dungannon, the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme,^[25]and works with migrant workers to improve their treatment in Northern Ireland.^[3]

In 1969 director and producer John Goldschmidt made the documentary film Bernadette Devlin for ATV, which was shown on ITV and on CBS's 60 Minutes and included footage of Devlin during the Battle of the Bogside. Another documentary, Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, directed by Leila Doolan, was released in 2011.^[26] At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival a biopic of Devlin was announced,^[3] but Devlin stated that "[t]he whole concept is abhorrent to me" and the film was not made."

THE PENSIVE IRISH ICE PICKER

Trotsky had been forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1929. It is now 1940 and he is living in Mexico. He has been censored by Stalin, who sends out an assassin named Frank Jackson to censor Trotsky permanently. The killer decides with the help of western counter revolutionaries to infiltrate Trotsky's house by befriending one of the young socialists in Trotsky's circle.

To Leon Trotsky 11 December 1938 New York City Leon Trotsky Coyoacan Mexico DF My Dear Leon Trotsky: We were both very pleased to receive your note. Hortense, jokingly, says that it must all be a Stalinist plot. While she is not disinterested in politics, she is, in no sense, a political person. However, she is no bitter foe. And in her own profession, the theatre, she must pay a price for her attitudes and the stand that she has taken. Stalinist influence is permeating the American theatre, and Hortense is automatically excluded from even being considered for roles in plays by certain managements because of this fact. Concerning ‘the mysteries of my style', you may be amused to know that one Communist Party functionary described it, once in The Daily Worker, as ‘Trotskyite.’ And one of the most current criticisms of my writing in Stalinist sources is that ‘the rationale of Trotskyism’ has given a basis for his ‘despair,’ and through that means he is degenerating. This summer I was in Ireland, and I saw Jim Larkin. All men have weaknesses, but all men are not the victims of their weaknesses. Jim Larkin is a victim of his own weaknesses, and his own temperament. Now, he is embittered and envenomed. He feels that the Irish working class has sold him out. He was not returned in the last elections for the Dáil, and he ran in a working class district. He defended the trials, but thought that Bukharin could not be interested. But Larkin's formal attitudes do not have much meaning. He is untheoretical and unstable intellectually. He is always a direct actionist, and his direct actionism takes whatever turn that his impulses lead him toward, In the midst, for instance, of a severe fight, he might be walking down the street and see a sparrow trapped in some electric wires where it might die. He will become incensed, and will telephone important members of the government and demand that they have men sent down to release the sparrow immediately, and then this will loom more important than the fight in which he is engaged. He is very garrulous, human and humane, witty, vindictive, vituperative, and he is Irish. At times, he is almost like an embittered version of the stage Irishman. In Ireland, there has never been much theory, and in consequence, never been many men with a rounded view of the reasons why Ireland was struggling. Before the war, the Irish labor movement was very militant and well toward the forefront of the European labor movement. It was defeated in the great Dublin transport strike of 1913, and out of this crushing defeat, the Irish Citizen Army was formed. Larkin left for America, and Larkin says that one of the last things that he said to Connolly was not to go into the National movement, not to join the Irish Volunteers, which was the armed force of the nationalist movement. Connolly did go into the Easter Rebellion, and there is the disputed question as to whether or not he made a mistake. Sean O'Casey, the Irish playwright, in a pamphlet he wrote on the Irish Citizen Army, declares baldly that James Connolly died not for Irish socialism but for Irish nationalism. Others maintain that Connolly could not have remained out of the rising. At all events, the Irish Citizen Army was decimated, and crushed by the Easter Rebellion. There were no leaders left to carry on the social side of Connolly's doctrines. The entire movement was swept along in a frenzied rise of Irish patriotism and Irish nationalism. Sinn Féin was in complete control of the movement. The leaders of Sinn Féin had only the most vague notions of what they wanted – an Irish Ireland speaking Gaelic, developing its own Irish culture, free of the British crown, and some were not even fighting them for freedom from the crown. In 1921, when the treaty was negotiated in England, there was this same unclarity. Following the treaty, there was the split in the Irish ranks. The record of that split is most saddening to read. It was not a split on real issues. There were two or three documents with different wordings, and they all meant much the same thing. Instead of discussing social programs, they discussed Ireland, and they insulted one another. Out of this split the bitter civil war developed, and the comrades in arms of yesterday assassinated one another. The treatment which the Free State government meted out to its former comrades matches almost that which Stalin has meted out. The bravest fighters of the Irish Republican Army were taken out and placed up against a wall and butchered without any formality. And now, after all the trouble, the Irish people have changed masters, and a new Irish bourgeoisie is developing and coagulating, and the politicians of Sinn Féin are aligned with them and the Church, with reaction rampant, poverty to match even that of Mexico, progressive ideas almost completely shut out, a wall of silence keeping out the best Irish tradition – that of Fintan Lalor, Davitt, and Connolly, and poor Ireland is in a hell of a state. Larkin returned in the early twenties. After defeat, the Irish labor movement needed someone to lead it who could remould a defeated class. Larkin was a great and courageous agitator, but not a leader of a defeated army, and he could not work with any one. Gradually, he lost influence, and now he is old and embittered. Of course, Catholicism plays a strong role in Ireland, and Larkin is a Catholic and talks of the virtues of the Christian home. And suddenly out of his garrulous talk, a flash of his old fire comes through. Perhaps you are riding through the Dublin slums with him, and suddenly, seeing the poor in their filth, standing in front of the filthy buildings in which they are forced to live like animals, and a strong denunciation comes, and there is something of the Jim Larkin who defied the British Army, and at whose words the poor of Dublin came out into the streets in thou-sands, and flung themselves against the might of Britain and that of the Irish bourgeoisie. Human beings are social products, and Larkin is a product of the Irish movement. The principal instrument of the Irish revolutionaries was always terrorism and direct action, and when Larkin was unable to function with these methods on the wave of a rising and militant movement, he was lost, and the labor bureaucrats outmaneuvered and outsmarted him. When he returned to Ireland from an American jail, he got his following together, and marched on the quarters of the union he had formerly led. He took the building, but later lost it in the law courts, and he is no longer the leader of the transport workers. He has union following, and among his strongest support is that of the butchers and hospital workers. He showed me something in Ireland that few people in Dublin know about. In the Parnell days, a terrorist organization, composed almost exclusively of Dublin workingmen was formed and named the Invincibles. The Invincibles committed the famous Phoenix Park murders in front of the vice-regal lodge, and were denounced by the Church, by Parnell, and by almost the entire Irish nation. There are no monuments in Ireland to the Invincibles. They died in isolation, some of them defiant to the end in their utter isolation. At the spot across from the vice-regal lodge in Phoenix Park, where the murders were committed, there is a patch of earth alongside of the park walk. No matter how often grass is planted over this spot the grass is torn up by the roots, and this spot of earth is left, and always, there is a cross marked into the dirt in commemoration of the Invincibles. Every week, someone – principally, I believe, one of Larkin's boys – goes there and marks that cross. This has been going on for a long time. In Larkin, there is something of that characteristic of defiant defeat that runs through so much of Irish history, and with it, never any real investigation of causes. But even up to today, he remains the only figure of commanding proportions in the Irish labor movement. The rest is pretty nearly all bureaucracy, tied to the tail of nationalism, enfolded in the cassock robes of the priestcraft, seeing the problems of Irish labor as an Irish question. Ireland is having something of an industrial boom. Certain sections of the Irish working class, the most advanced trade unions – which have been in existence some time – these are better paid than corresponding trade unions in England. But the country is partitioned between an industrial north and an agricultural south. In the south, de Valera is engaged in a program of industrialization. The Irish market is small, and that means that monopolies must be parcelled out to various groups or persons. When these monopolies get going, there will be resultant crises, because they will be able to supply the Irish market with a few months work and production. Also, the new factories are being spread over the country – a program of decentralization – and in many instances, factories are being set up in agricultural areas where there is no trade union strength. It is necessary to further industrialization in Ireland to have, as a consequence, sweat shop conditions. There is a small labor aristocracy and even this lives badly. And below it, poverty that reduces thousands upon thousands to live like animals in the most dire, miserable, and inhuman poverty. I saw some of this poverty. One family of eleven living in one room. The family has lived in this same room for twenty-four years. The building is crumbling, walls falling, ceiling caving in, roof decaying. The oldest in the family is nineteen, the youngest is an undernourished infant of eight months. Six sleep in one bed, three in another, two on the floor. The infant was born last Christmas eve in the bed where six sleep. The role of the Church is important. The Church tells the Irish that they are going to live for ever and be happier in heaven, and this engenders patience. There is a mystic fascination with death in Ireland. In all the homes of the poor, the walls are lined with holy pictures, those of the Sacred Heart predominating. The poor live in utter patience. They have lived in this patience ever since the heyday of Jim Larkin. In those days, at his word, they thronged the streets and threatened the power of England, and of the Irish and Anglo-Irish bourgeoisie. But no more. How-ever, with the industrialization program, there is likely to be some enlargement of the Irish working class, and the economic factors of proletarianization, plus the resulting effects of factory work and familiarity with machines is likely to cause some changes in the conscious-ness of Irishmen. Familiarity with machines is likely to rub off some of the superstition, and the economic conditions will pose their problems to the Irish workers. There is possibly going to be a change in Ireland because of these factors, and some of the eternal sleep and mud-crusted ignorance is likely to go. But being an agricultural country, a poor country, a country ridden by superstition, it now sleeps, and there is a lot of talk about Ireland, and little is done about Ireland, and a characteristic attitude is sure and what is the bother. Ireland is no longer merely a victim of England, but of world economy now. Irish nationalism correspondingly has altered from being a progressive movement to a reactionary movement. Fascism could easily triumph in Ireland were fascism vitally necessary to the new rulers of Holy Ireland. The Irish Republican Army is split into factions, some demanding emphasis on a social program, others on a national program. Stalinists are in the former group, but Stalinism is very weak in Ireland, practically inconsequential. It amounts to a few pensionaries. Ireland does not need Stalinism. It has Rome. Rome handles these problems with the necessary efficiency. Rome confuses the struggles, poses the false questions, sidetracks protests as Stalinism now does in advanced countries. As a kind of compensation, Ireland a defeated nation has developed a fine modern literature, just as Germany, defeated and still un-unified at an earlier period, developed German philosophy. But the moral terrorism in the name of the Church and the Nation, and the parochial character of the life and of intellect in Ireland might choke the literature now. So backward is Ireland that even the American motion pictures have a progressive influence in the sense that they make the youth restless, that they produce freer and less strained relationships between the sexes, and that they give a sense of a social life of more advanced countries that is not permitted because of the state of economy in Ireland. Ireland impresses me as being somewhat parallel to Mexico, except that in Mexico there are progressive strains in the country, and in Ireland these are weak and morally terrorized. In part, this is undoubtedly because of Ireland's lack of mineral resources and wealth, the backwardness and sleep of its labor movement, and the role of the Church. In Ireland, the Church was not the feudal landholder. Behind the scenes, the Church always fought against the Irish people, and spoke for law and order. But at one time, the Church itself was oppressed. The Church and the people became entangled in the consciousness of the Irish, and the religion question befogged the social and economic one. In Mexico, Spain, France, and Russia, the Church was more openly a part of a feudal or pseudo-feudal system. The peasants became anti-clerical because they wanted land. This did not happen in Ireland. In consequence, anti-clericalism did not take the same form. Anti-clericalism amounts to jokes at the priesthood, dislike of the arch-bishops, and so forth. In earlier days, it was stronger, particularly among the Fenians. But it never took the real form it took in France, Spain, etc. And so the Church has great power in Ireland today. In the most real, vivid, and immediate sense it gives opium to the people. Poor Ireland! She is one of the costs demanded by history in the growth of what we familiarly call our civilization. There is an old poem with the lines – They went forth to battle And they always fell. And today, after having fallen so many times, Ireland is a poor island on the outpost of European civilization, with all its heroic struggles leaving it, after partial victory, poverty-stricken, backward, wallowing in superstition and ignorance. My favorite Irish anecdote is the following. The last castle in Ireland to fall to Cromwell's army was Castleross on the lakes of Killarney. At that time, the castle was held by the O'Donoghue. For several months, the British could not take the castle. The Irish infantry was more lightly clad than the British, and would always lead the better armored and more heavily clad British down into the bogs where their armed superiority became a handicap, and then the Irish would cut them to pieces. There was an old Gaelic prophecy that Castleross would never fall to a foreign foe until it was attacked by water. There was a proviso in this prophecy. For the lakes of Killarney empty into Dingle Bay, where the water is so shallow that foreign men of war from the sea cannot enter it. The British general heard of this prophecy. He went to Dingle Bay and built flat-bottomed boats and floated them up the lakes of Killarney. He fired one cannon shot at Castleross. And the O'Donoghue, thinking that the prophecy had been fulfilled, surrendered without firing a shot in return. I took the liberty of writing in such detail about Ireland because I thought you might be interested in modern Ireland. They call it the ‘new Ireland’ these days. Hortense joins me in sending our warmest greetings to you and Natalia. Yours, Farrell This summer I saw Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer a number of times, and they were very well. Madame Rosmer talked very often of you and Mrs Trotsky.1 In earlier correspondence, Trotsky had used this phrase referring to baseball terminology used in A World I Never Made, a copy of which Farrell had sent him. Farrell had first met Trotsky in Mexico at the inquiry of the Dewey Commission into the Moscow trials. See ‘Dewey in Mexico,’ in Reflections at Fifty and Other Essays(New York: Vanguard Press, 1954), pp.97-123; and ‘A Memoir of Trotsky,’ University of Kansas City Review 23(1957): 293-98. In his reply to this letter of 11 December, Trotsky encouraged Farrell to publish his views on Ireland. BATES AND WILKES CENTRAL WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013  AM  8 COMMENTS Occasionally The Pensive Quill, like most other blogs and websites probably, gets visits from racists, Nazis, cranks, crackpots, fetishists, trolls, sockpuppets, hate merchants, obituary defacers, obsessive stalkers and a sundry of others whom we generally ignore, just hitting the delete button the minute a comment from them appears without even reading the content. TPQ hosts a wide range of discussion which is sometimes heated as perspectives and opinions clash. It is not a gable wall where the parade of the pariahs is asked to assemble with a licence to spray hate grafitti. We already have a page, In the Sewer With Der Stürmer, to where we re-direct the racists and Nazis. There, visitors can observe them thrashing around in their own muck. Now we have decided to create a new page, a sort of Crank's Corner where the rest who, whatever their hatreds, don't necessarily fit into the Der Stürmer category. We have named it Bates and Wilkes Central. Norman Bates and Annie Wilkes were two obsessive stalkers created by Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King respecively. The older film buffs amongst us should have little difficulty in recalling the films Psycho and Misery. All comments from the Cranks Contingent will be re-directed to this page. A word of advice to our normal readers who might come along for the fun: treat it like a visit to the zoo - look but feed at your own risk.