O’Conall Street

Here is one for you. According to Sluggerand the Irish Examiner today the World Economic Forum has ranked Ireland eighth in the world for political empowerment of women. This is the same country that comes 74th in terms of women’s participation in Parliament and 28th in Government. Apparently the key redeeming factor and which accounts for our spectacular jump into the top ten is An Uachtarain, Mary McAleese. Now I know women rule the roost on this small island but the political establishment has been less then welcoming and the number of senior female executives is also low.

Mary O’Rourke, the doyenne of FF, and comeback queen of the midlands was in fine form from Enniskillen on the BBC last night. Should we be adding an elder-stateswoman to the succeed Bertie brigade?

Mna na hEireann have a bit to go yet but the more you hammer at the glass ceiling the weaker it gets. The Davos crew might also want to revise their statistical standards, but then I suspect they were set by a man.

Busy week of politics on this island. Fianna Fail announced their intention to organise in NI, Jim Allister MEP (formerly of the DUP) met with the rest of the Moygashell Mafia to plot a new beginning for Unionism and the southern Labour Deputy Leadership contest stepped up a gear, on you tube.

Fianna Fail’s decision is not all together surprising. The soldiers of destiny have been circling over a wounded SDLP for some time now and in classic Ahern fashion their move is a cautious and preliminary one, designed to provoke debate rather than revolution. North of the border there have been rumblings from some SF activists about FF joining the ‘peace’ when they sat out the ‘war’. Very last century and ever so slightly disingenuous me thinks. What will present FF with problems going forward was their suggestion that they would never take their seats in the House of Commons. Although understandable from a traditional FF perspective it’s a mile away from how their Northern supporters would see things. The one thing that sets constitutional nationalists North of the border apart from their SF cousins is their belief that you take the argument wherever it needs to be taken and work with who ever you need to work with to achieve your goals. This means going to Westminster to fight the fight for a new police service or for a harmonised rate of corporation tax. Ordinary decent nationalists in the North, Bertie’s ‘breakfast role man’ in the south, are Irish but they may carry a British passport and do not have any issue working within the UK system until such time as the majority decide otherwise. It is ironic that the party which most embodies pragmatic ambition and aspiration in the south should be so dogmatic about the North. This would also be an issue should the SDLP and FF want to sit down about working together or even ultimately merge. I cannot see the SDLP agreeing to be part of a political entity that was unwilling to represent people everywhere they had the right to have their voice heard. There are interesting times ahead.

 Meanwhile in Moygashell the continuity DUP met to plot an anti-agreement future. With four recent by-election bounces in GB, Gordon Brown may be very tempted to call a snap election. This may give Dr Paisley an early opportunity to test support for his power-sharing politics.

I get the feeling Joan Burton is making her mark on the Labour membership south of the border. She has definitely outperformed Jan O’Sullian in the media and the word is she is doing well on the hustings. With polls closing in little over a week its all to play for.

Online social networking may not be as deep as people think according to an interesting article by Dick Alstrom in today’s Irish Times. Sites such as BeBo and FaceBook have made it possible to recruit a network of ‘millions’ of friends online but according to today’s article, don’t count on them if you need a hand!

Alstrom was reporting on research being carried out at Sheffield Hallan University by Dr Will Reader at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival in York.

Billy Bragg made a guest appearance on Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence today. I’m a big fan and thought I’d share a song of his which you don’t often hear on the radio. It’s out of his softer side! Have a lovely Sunday….

 If you’re lonely, I will call -
If you’re poorly, I will send poetry

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

If you’re sleeping, I will wait
If your bed is wet, I will dry your tears

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

Hold my hand for me I’m waking up
Hold my hand for me I’m waking up
Hold my hand for me I’m making up
Won’t you hold my hand - I’m making up

If you are falling, I’ll put out my hands
If you feel bitter, I will understand

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

I go on a bit about how little the border matters in Ireland these days and how the commercial and cultural  boundaries between Britain and Ireland are reducing.

Now the dog fighting fraternity are in on the ‘New Ireland’ too. They are, according to an important piece of investigative journalism by the  BBC’s Mandy McCauley on Panorama and Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programmes,  running a vibrant ‘ sport’  with a considerable following. She has uncovered a complex network stretching from the arctic circle to the streets of Britain and Ireland and HQed here in Northern Ireland. Dog fighting was banned in Britain in 1835 and I suspect this has been so in the Republic of Ireland since independence.

I can’t get my head around this macabre spectacle nor can I understand why people would want to own an animal bred to kill. When Dublin city council banned a long list of potentially dangerous dogs from all council property it was dead right in my mind, although this may lead to legal challenges. It’s a pity that the Irish government has not moved to outlaw ‘dangerous dogs’ as the British government did with the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991. As Ms McCauley has proved the South is the preferred import route for dangerous dogs into the UK and an easy place to host a not so pleasant dog show or two.

A little liverpudlean girl was killed this year by a pit bull and according to the RSPCA/USPCA it is only a matter of time before this happens again, all to satisfy the sick minds of a few sad people with a no moral compass and little respect for life, human or animal.

This story takes a bizarre turn next. One of Ireland’s well known Gaelic footballers, himself an all Ireland medal holder, is according to the BBC centrally involved in the organisation of illegal dog fighting along with an associate who has loyalist connections. Sad or what!

There are no clean hands in the world of dog fighting. The RSPCA is using public relations and public affairs to provoke public debate. It has certainly worked on me. The issues now is whether the British and Irish governments sit down together to tackle the trafficking, whether the Irish government will move to introduce legislation to outlaw these dogs and whether ordinary people everywhere in Britain and Ireland will demand these animals be removed from their communities. Last week a famous American football start, Michael Vick, was convicted and faces jail for his involvement in dog fighting.  Time will tell whether an Irish football star follows him.
 

It is a pain getting a job and even worse when the competition for the job you want is so tough. If you are just out of college and reading this then you might be thinking of a career in PR. Take your first step now and visit the passion for PR website. You won’t regret it!

PR people are often asked by clients whether they should reply to something published by a news outlet. If so we go talk to the journalist and possibly agree a ‘right of reply’ or draft a letter to their editor. It all involves interaction with the ‘offending’ author or his/her bosses.

This may be about to change. Google announced earlier this month that organisations or individuals who are “participants” in a story carried on Google News can now post their comments on that story.  David Brain broke this news to me via his excellent Blog. Brain points out there are still questions about what Google means, most importantly the definition of participant. He suggests and I agree that participant is most likely anyone mentioned.

This could mark an evolution in news further merging the boundaries between publication and conversation.

On another matter its raining on the emerald isle again this morning so I am trawling some interesting Irish journalism blogs. Am adding the following intrepids to the blog roll with the help of my amazingly gorgeous princess Clara (more about her some other time).

Kevin Rafter (a fellow Dubs fan and match colleague also)

Harry Magee

Richard Delevan

Sarah Carey (who calls her blog GUBU!) 

David McWilliams

All have been writing Aer Lingus Shannon - Belfast stories. Southern journos being able to write about the northern economy. Now that’s progress! Looking for good northern equivalents and so far have hit on Slugger O’Toole, Will and Testament and the Devenport Diaries. If there is anyone else out there please let me know.

On a sad note for anyone interested in good journalism on these small windswept islands, (Lord) Bill Deedes died yesterday. Lovely piece in today’s London Times and a great column by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian. May he rest in peace and may his words live on forever. 

It’s definitely silly season when the ladies are out and the photographers are chasing them looking for the happy snap to make us all smile. Today’s choice pic is the Rose of Tralee contestants.

But as the BBC’s Mark Devenport points out in his Devenport Diaries yesterday, even Northern Ireland’s most serious elder statesman, David Trimble, has the seized the summer by the horns and brought a bit of Elvis back into our lives to provide some much needed relief from the monsoon. Check our the Devenport Diaries for more.

On a serious note the Aer Lingus PR situation has now reached absolute crisis point. It is very evident the company did not plan an integrated all island approach nor are they managing it as such. But as my good friend Michael McKernan points out in his article in yesterday’s Irish News. The All Island economy is a reality and where the economy goes, the media follow.

Off to buy a new brolly and maybe an Elvis CD!