“New Labour” are a Disaster and a Disgrace. The greatest Gombeen Man of all being Proisias De Rossa, Frank Ross, a right mercenary.

Thanks for all your personal compliments - Patrick Pearse has been described similarly, so I take your outburst and all your name-calling as an honour.

We can go right back to the Free State when your Fine Gael predecessors , the Cummann na nGael Free State Government drove defeated Republics mercilessly into penury and exile in deliberate, brutal and repressive revenge, driving whole Republican familes, men , women and children into hunger and despair, what an evil way for any Government to treat its own citizens !

Patrick Pearse’s mother and his sister Margaret were Fianna Fail TDs and Senator, and Mrs. Pearse always said publicly that, had they lived, her two martyred sons, Patrick and Willie, would have been in Fianna Fail !

We all remember old Cosgrave, the Fine Gael Minister for Hardship, and the Hairshirt, and Richie Ruin and Crew.

BTW I’m a lifelong Everton supporter, so your Liverpool jersey cuts no ice with me, it might come in handy for washing the floor.

Cheers, Michael.

Back to Civil War politics now, eh Dave…

Briseann and Duchas tri suile an chait !!!

But, Dave, we are not talking about Fianna Fail here, we are talking about a free and prosperous Ireland and our relationship with Europe, in particular the EU.

And I agree that Fianna Fail has a lot of faults, a Big One called Biffo right now, a fabulous fellow but lost in the Taoiseach’s office.

But bad and all as they are , they are a hundred times better than your Fine Gael option - remember the quid a year rise the old folk got last time you lot were in, you were a disaster, remember the VAT on childrens’ clothes , do I have to go on…

Why is it that Fine Gael in all its time never got the support of the plain people of Ireland -

Of course your bloody roots, the slaughter of the 77 for instance are still well remembered, and people like me make sure that your dark deeds of your past will always be remembered.

You’re just a Tweedle Dee to Fianna Fail, they are and will always be your masters, so I don’t blame you in your posting above about being so nasty and so bitter about it.

In the meantime the Associate Membership that I propose would be a winning policy for Fine Gael, for any partybecause it is an absolutely winning policy for Ireland.

Don’t just knee jerk attack it, look at all the options. That’s what the best politicians do.

I have met Enda Kenny, together with Avril Doyle, I liked them, I like Enda Kenny, but Enda would be an even worse Taoiseach than Brian Cowan.

BTW I am not viciously anti Fine Gael, I have many friends including local councillors here in Kilkenny such as Paul Cuddihy and Betty Manning, former councillors like Carmel Boyd - and above all I’m a great friend of your Phil Hogan TD.

It’s not my fault that they’re in Fine Gael, It is certainly not my fault that you are in it either, so don’t blame me for your woes ! I didn’t push you into joining.

As I say, happy elections Dave, but you would really want to drop the nastiness if you want to get elected - and you are as much entitled as I am to write in the Kilkenny People and contradict me - if you can !!!

There’s the Letters to the Editor feature, just email your letter into editor@kilkennypeople.ie and it will be published next Wednesday.

BTW we fought the Brits just to get them out of here, but I don’t see anything wrong with them now, nor with any of their political parties at Westminister either.

Pearse and Connolly didn’t see anything wrong with the British peoples either. I think the English are a grand people, and that we should and could do a lot more in co-operation with them, why not ? The Scottish and the Welsh are fabulous. And so are the English, come to think of it.

See how British PM Gordon Brown sprang to Ireland’s aid, protesting us from the malicious bastards in Brussels who threaten us -

And as long as we allow people like Barroso and the French foreign minister to threaten us and have a huge say in Ireland’s affairs, we are not free.

BTW, there is no need to call me Mr. McGrath, Michael is my name, OK, Dave ? Thanks.

Cheers, Michael.

What a load of crap… First of all we’ve never been so free! Freedom comes from being able to do what you want with your life and more Irish people can do that now here at home than ever before… Dev and co raped the country with their misguided isolationist policies and now his followers in the soldiers of destiny have started the ball rolling in that direction again.

Voting for or supporting Fianna Fail (the Me Fein Party as I like to call them, MFP for short) is the most un patriotic thing anyone can do! They (FF/MFP) have time and again throughout our short history as an Free State set us back and prevented us from fulfilling our true destiny as a free and independent republic with their short sighted and narrow minded, self serving agendas.

The MFP (FF) are the cause and reason behind all of our problems. Gombeenism and parish pump politics have held back our development time and again… The MFP have always put themselves first as we have seen with the “building boom” of the last few years. They drove up house prices for the ordinary citizen giving tax breaks to the mega rich and their builder friends!

You Sir are not a patriot, you are an ill informed, narrow minded, isolationist, backward thinking, opinionated crank and nothing more.

Pierce and the other fallen of 1916 along with those many thousands who went to France to fight that all small nations might be free, would be sick to their back teeth to see the mess your friends have made of the prosperity the you and your like have squandered over the last few years. Prosperity earned and fought for by today’s patriots the hard working PAYE workers and businessmen of our great nation.

Out there working morning, noon and night to provide for their families and pay their taxes to ensure a quality of life for those who can’t look after themselves… Working to give their kids what they never had, a foreign holiday, a college education… the new Liverpool jersey! And you want to strip them of that for some imaginary “freedom”…

Their hard work pays for the services we need to run this country and if the MFP would stop wasting it we’d be a lot better off… Your imaginary “freedom” based on your idiotic logic could only do one thing… Bring back Dev’s Ireland, of mass emigration, unemployment, poverty, enslavement to the English economy and anything but freedom for the average Irish citizen!!!!

If you had the common sense to join the dots of your muddled thinking you would see that all your suggestions lead to being a province of the UK again, follow their soon to be torry government out of the EU and then realise “holy shit this didn’t work 30 years ago and it doesn’t work now!”

So in conclusion Mr. McGrath, you can write all the rubbish you like here and in the Kilkenny People… anyone with half a brain cell can see that your idea’s are flawed in the extreme. Run off back to the MFP to your cumman meeting and tell them that change is a coming and although it’s wearing a blue shirt it’s heart and soul are green white and gold!!!

Yes, I agree, with the refusal of Polish president Lech Kaczynski to sign the Treaty, it’s now dead to all intents and purposes.

The Czechs Republic will now in all probability follow the wisdom of the Irish and the decisiveness of the Polish President and blow it straight out of the water.

For the past three weeks we are witnessing a growing national crisis as the will of the people is being scorned in practice and paid lip service in public.

It is unthinkable that they would try to put a hugely rejected Treaty to the Irish People again, it would be foolhardy of them, I can’t figure out their thinking at all.

At the very best they could possibly sway a few thousand over, providing they keep the Yes voters, no matter what we would still certainly see a 100,000 No margin. And then it could be the other way and No could easily win again, this time by 200,000.

Then they would be really blamed, and for running a totally unnecessary and costly referendum - a few months before the Local and Euro Elections - that would spell disaster for them as people would vote for the small, even tiny parties and Independents then.

I think they are off their heads to even think of running it again, and if I was one of their professionally paid advisors this is what I would be telling them.

Their only hope would be to have their rerun along with the Locals and Euros, but, no, that still wouldn’t get it through for them - and might even negatively impact their candidates right across the country…

It’s their problem, hehehe

Maybe they could get at the people subliminally over the telly, now that’s what I’d suggest as a handler, certain little unnoticeable flashes during Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale, Fair City…

Better shut up before they read this , the No Lobby is getting so big and clever on BifSniff they might be scanning !

Sheeeesh

Human conciousness is all to easy to mould, the older I become the more I realise this. The values propounded today in general are pernicious and unsustainable. At best no-one today is looking after the interests of the coming generations; at worst every degradation of integrity at an individual or national level has been carefully thought out and executed with the express aim of ruining civilisation.

Why can’t people just tell the truth about themselves and life? I don’t know, but as I said it isn’t a new story. There’s always been prophets, patriots and poets proclaiming their own versions on the same theme. The thing is today it seems everyone has been as you say either bought off or intimidated. Well not quite everyone, eh?

And I’m with you on the Associate Membership thing. I saw yesterday the Polish president saying there was no validity in the Lisbon Treaty any more in light of the Irish vote. The more time that passes, the more convinced I am that the No vote was not only right but necessary. We were dead right to say No.

As for the economy, sure that’ll pick up too. This country has been through famine, occupation, revolution and war and now people are worried about their house prices! But we need statesmen and women; people with vision, integrity and a love of life and homeland. Alas, all have are career politicians it seems.

Modest means and independence rather than indebtedness and materialism, that’s what I say- that’s what de Valera said too. What is so strange about the notion of self-sufficiency and sovereignty, and comely maidens dancing at the crossroads?

EU Associate membership is all we need to get right back on track economically. Martin, thanks, I am well used to puerile jibes, but the situation that Ireland is in right this moment is far too serious a matter for tossing jibes about.

I hope Dave remembers that when he goes for election, as I think that’s what he’s doing and the very best of luck to him. Me, I think of selfless self-sacrificing martyrs like Patrick Pearse who fought for the freedom of Ireland, and I think of people who want to screw as much money out of Ireland and the EU as they can, and I wonder do both sorts of people belong to the same human race ? BTW the British Brigadier-General who sentenced Patrick Pearse to death by shooting, Brigadier General Blackader, afterwards remarked that he was sorry to have had to do it as Pearse was one of the nicest people he had ever met !

Tom Clarke turned to the wall and cried when Pearse announced his decision to surrender. Look, we all only have so long, basically we’re all just lined up in a queue for the graveyard or the burning unit, so I am absolutely puzzled about this massive greed for money and property. At the end all the property we’ll need is a box. It’s as simple as that. The one thing we can do while we’re here is to do all we can for our people and our country - I can see why Pearse and his men made their decision for martyrdom, it’s over in a jiffy too !

We can now seek Associate Membership and our Government can negotiate it at the October Meeting when they report back to the EU, and we can become Associate Members as soon as January 1st 2009. This recession will be over in 12 months if we do it, and the Tiger will be back on track in another 12 months.

BTW one soldier in the firing squad dropped his rifle in the Stonebreakers Yard in Kilmainham Jail as Patrick Pearse stood to attention there, against the wall, blindfolded, waiting for the shot to come, as the Officer commanded “Aim”., The order FIRE didn’t come and Pearse didn’t even flinch ! He just stood there statue-like without murmur. The soldier picked up his rifle, got back into firing position with the rest of the squad, and the Officer commanded AIM again, then FIRE !

Let’s keep that picture in mind before we sell out the country and the people he freed with his blood.

“They have bought half of us, and intimidated the rest ! “

Frank, how can I put a link up without all this cut and paste mess?

It could be the landscape that imparts this dreariness to the North European psyche, the vast flat, boring plain that stretches from Belgium all the way through Russia. Or it could be the climate, here we get variety of weather in every day, there things don’t change so quickly. Whatever the reasons the bottom line is that the cliches are true and they’re not much craic and we’d be much better off without the whole showering lot of them.

Let them off. If they want to play superstate politics, let them at it. We can stick to the things we’re good at like being decent, humorous, literary, sporting, freedom loving people who appreciate the ironies of human existence and don’t rush about through life with blinkered vision trying to out-bitch everyone else we meet, jostling and elbowing our ways through each dog-eat-dog day. Ok, maybe we can take on board some of the better things they do like French cooking but other than that, what have the Europeans ever done for us, eh?

Michael, nothing smoked here I’m afraid. Drugs is for mugs, but odd isn’t it that when you come up with an original idea Dave automatically assumes you’ve been taking drugs. Why? It’s called originality Dave and doesn’t necessarily have it’s source in mind altering substances. But that’s the point Dave, you don’t show any originality in anything you say, you follow the party line regardless. I could have a word with that friend in Maastricht for you, might be able to get you a start, you show all the necessary attributes….

Laws that are made in Brussels might fit well for the Germanic character and in other lands fit not at all. For Centralisation does not allow individuals to have their own quirks.

The danger to our national psychology, is that of mundane sameness; leading to the use of mass escape via illegal drugs to block out life’s blandness.

This eventual epidemic has already started, Prosac for some medical card holders and Cocaine for some salaried staff!

So we need to keep our wits about us and use well our creative imagination!