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Posts from the ‘Ireland’ Category

17
Dec

The Supreme Court Ireland

 

Author: Who is Mac Cormaic?

  1. Ruadhan Mac Cormaic is the
  2. former Legal Affairs Correspondent and
  3. Paris Correspondent of the Irish Times.
  4. He is now the paper’s Foreign Affairs Correspondent.

What were the main struggles between 1950 – 2017 ?

  1. The duty of the Supreme Court judiciary is:
  2. Not rewrite the Constitution of Ireland
  3. …but make sure it was applied
  4. …to breath life into it
  5. …to break with the traditional reliance
  6. …on English law and legal methods

 

What is the book about?

  1. The book traces many landmark decisions and gives the reader an
  2. inside look at the internal ‘give and take’ among the judges
  3. to produce an objective agreement or dissent decision.
  4. It reveals who the judges are
  5. These men and women who usually want to stay out of the  limelight.

How did Ireland change?

  1. Ireland moved from decisions about
  2. butter smugglers, disputes over greyhounds and a row about livestock licenses
  3. …to individual’s privacy rights (contraceptives),
  4. …referendum for European treaties,
  5. …decriminalization of homosexuality and
  6. …women’s rights to leave country to seek an abortion in England and much more.
  7. Ireland has made GIANT steps to become a
  8. modern, young, confident and economically strong country.

 

What impressed me about the book?

  1. It was fascinating to read each judges motivation to topics about
  2. the privacy of the individual (May McGee vs Attorney General; contraceptives)
  3. the need for more equality  to allow
  4. women  to serve jury duty and
  5. be fairly taxed
  6. a demand for referenda about European treaties
  7. secure the rights of people concerning
  8. the rules applied for extradition of
  9. …suspected criminal (IRA) offenders to England.

 

What is essential to know before reading the book?

  1. Political parties: this is all new for me!
  2. Fianna Fail     (center right)
  3. Fine Gael      (center right… liberal conservative)
  4. Oireachtas: = the legislature  (structure of the Irish government
  5. The President of Ireland
  6. The two houses of the Oireachtas
  7. Dáil Éireann (lower house)
  8. Seanad Éireann (upper house)

What was my reading strategy?

  1. Best tip: use wikipedia
  2. Put  a face on people mentioned in the book.
  3. Best tip: learn structure US courts vs Irish courts
  4. …just to put things into perspective.

 

Conclusion:

  1. Strong point:
  2. Ruadhán Mac Cormaic is a political journalist for the Irish Times.
  3. His writing style is NOT ACADEMIC…it is  accessible
  4. …not only for those interested in law but also for
  5. anyone wanting to learn more how these
  6. …Supreme Court justices shaped Ireland.
  7. Mac Cormaic gives us the gripping inside story of the Irish judiciary,
  8. the judges, decisions, the rifts and the rivalries.
  9. Ruádhan Mac Cormaic lifts the veil on
  10. the Irish Supreme Court’s hidden world.
  11. The book is well-written and highly entertaining and
  12. in my opinion…
  13. #InformativeRead

 

QUICKSCAN  Ireland:

  1. Ireland 1950’s:
  2. economy stagnant
  3. politics still haunted by civil war
  4. …ceaseless outward flow of people (emigration)

 

  1. 1960’s:
  2. broader shifts in society
  3. growing economy
  4. rising living standards

 

  1. 1970’s:
  2. emigration slows down
  3. women’s movement gaining strength
  4. population is young 50% under 26 yr

 

  1. 1980’s:
  2. High Court has its first female judge
  3. Mella Carroll

 

  1. 1990’s:
  2. First female and non-catholic…
  3. Supreme Court judge….Susan Denham.
  4. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 2011-2017.
  5. She was a shrewd diplomat and key player behind
  6. a series of major reforms.

 

  1. 2000’s
  2. Supreme Court was must
  3. Focus on:
  4. …ensuring rights in political, criminal
  5. …and legal processes of the State.
  6. Focus on
  7. ...fair procedures and access to the courts

 

  1. 2010’s:
  2. Change:   Fianna-Fail led governments
  3. …appointed a majority of lawyers who had
  4. …NO connections to the party!
  5. Susan Denham is appointed as the
  6. …first female Chief Supreme Court Justice! (2011)

 

30
Oct

Famine by Tom Murphy Irish Playwright

 

 

Introduction:

  1. Tom Murphy  grew up in Tuam, County Galway, a tough frontier town.
  2. The youngest of 10 children, he saw his family “wiped out” by emigration.
  3. He was religious as a child, but had faith beaten out of him by the Christian Brothers.
  4. “The repressiveness of the Catholic upbringing was extreme,” he shivers
  5. Murphy was inspired to write this play after
  6. ….reading The Great Hunger  by  C. Woodham-Smith.

 

What is Tom Murphy’s approach to writing a play with a historical background?

  1. Murphy  reads many books about the subject of his play.
  2. Sometimes is takes him 1-2 years to write the script.
  3. He read at least 6 non fiction books
  4. …researched the collections of the Irish Folklore Commission
  5. …and 3 novels about the famine in Ireland.
  6. Novels: all by William Carleton
    Valentine McClutchy: the Irish Agent
    The Emigrants of Ahadarra
    The Black Prophet.
    In each case noting passages of dialogue and colloquial phrases.

 

What was TM’s biggest challenge?

  1. How to represent the action of more than 100 years ago so as to
  2. …engage audiences in the present time of theater.

 

What was Murphy’s goal?

  1. Murphy  wanted to voice through the actors the
  2. general effect of famines on the poor.
  3. The neighborhood ties loosen of dissolve.
  4. Theft becomes endemic.
  5. Resistance changes into apathy.
  6. The feeling of a ‘group’ is shattered.

 

Famine 

  1. Style:   Brechtian history
  2. the Brechtian style that relies on the audience’s reflective detachment
  3. …rather than emotional involvement.
  4. Structure: 12 scenes  (not divided into acts)
  5. Main character: John Connor —- unofficial  leader of the village
  6. Minor characters: 3 women and 15 other male villagers
  7. Timeline: 1846 (Autumn) – 1847 (Spring)
  8. Setting: village of Glanconor – space is ‘charged’ with historical trauma.

 

What is the problem?

  1. John tells the villagers ‘We must do what is right’.
  2. — restrain violence
  3. — no attacks on convoy of corn-carts
  4. — providing hospitality to others…..even when his own family is starving.

 

What is the conflict?

  1. Doing ‘what’s right’ and placing  faith in the laws of God and man
  2. …get him and the villagers no where.
  3. Passive resistance; pragmatic idealism ( John Connor) VS.
  4. Desperate reality (John’s  wife) and
  5. Militant,  activist, a survivor who favors violent action (Malachy O’ Leary)

 

Conclusion:

  1. Tom Murphy writes with more force and less nostalgia.
  2. Famine is hard edged realism.
  3. Scenes 1-4 introduce the reader to the characters and village.
  4. Scene 5  is powerful.…
  5. …and the language indicates the higher-class officials  are speaking.
  6. Landlord, tenant John and the clergy Fr Horan and Fr Daley discuss the political
  7. …strategy that has been agreed upon by the government.
  8. The  policy is to offer “..a great number of people an alternative to death.”
  9. The farmers will be given a paid ticket to leave the country…to emigrate to Canada.
  10. Fr Daley explodes when he hears “It is cheaper it clear them away”
  11. Fr Daley  ask: “Who are we saving?”
  12. Scene 6-10   builds the tension…planned assassination, final interview for John Connor.
  13. He must choose to leave or stay in Glanconor
  14. “…I was born here, I’ll die here, I’ll rot here.”
  15. Scene 11 Tom Murphy brings the play to a close introducing unexpected  actions.
  16. John  Connor continues to be defiant, “..do what’s right”
  17. We see John as an isolated figure, perhaps he has lost his senses.
  18. Now the reader must decide:  was John a hero or a fool?

 

Last thoughts:

Tom Murphy does not seek the limelight
…but his plays are ‘beacons’ of insight into
the Irish psyche.
He is considered to be the greatest living Irish playwright.

 

 

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