Tallyman

It’s been quite a while since I last blogged. A number of reasons but mostly because my research and lecturing has essentially taken over my life. At the weekend I was encouraged to take up blogging so here’s my re-entrance onto the online stage…

Yesterday I received a suggested link on Facebook:

I found it strange that I would be receiving this as I haven’t mentioned the word abortion in quite a while…but then I realised my current Facebook status said this:

That’s some major word referencing done in that Facebook advert to make the link to abortion and display the Family & Life suggestion. Which got me thinking, who in Ireland would have the technical know-how to do such a thing? Well very few, and for sure nobody on the pro-life side who is indigenous to these shores. So I went hunting…

I ran the domain name http://www.familyandlife.org/ through your standard domain name look up  and I got some very interesting info. The site was established by a gentleman by the name of Peter Scully of Sunnyvale, California.

This group a registered charity apparently and has its offices as:

Family & Life,
26 Mountjoy Square,
Dublin 1,
Ireland

It was incorporated in 1996 and has listed as its directors the following individuals:

David Manly (former YD and HLI)
Killiney
Co. Dublin

(The above gentleman is also responsible for http://opinionviewer.com – a site that runs auto-petitions for Family and Life)

Eamon O Scolaidhe
Dublin 12

Raymond Donnellan
Galway

Anna Maguire
Raheny

David O’Hanlon
Navan

Angela Keaveney
Portmarnock

So what has this Mr. Scully got to do with this organisation? Well I haven’t a clue, so I tried to ring him at:

TEL: 00 1 5105952002

It’s a mailbox. Not a live phone line.

He has registered this website specifically on the Irish abortion question. The main meta tags used are:

family and life, life in family, family and life expert group, patricia casey irish times abortion, expert group on abortion, anthony clare patricia casey abortion

Now hang on. Isn’t there a Peter Scully married to Úna Bean Uí Scolaí, of Youth Defence fame? And wasn’t a Peter Scully a former director of Youth Defence?

And didn’t a Peter Scully leave YD in November 1996 claiming the organisation was being overly influenced by the Americans?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Also this organisation has charity status, for what reason I cannot imagine.

So then I had a look at another website, the one stop shop for all your dogmatic needs http://www.irishcatholicbooks.com – a ‘subsidiary’ of Family and Life, with registered offices in, wait for it, Sunnyvale, CA as well. Same PO Box, with same postal conditions. Same telephone number as well.

They ask you to donate on this site too, quite a lot actually, and you get a Novena in Knock for your troubles, and immortal soul. They tell you what you they will spend your money on too:

€10,000 would pay for the printing of Life Day Novenas to be distributed every year for Life Day and storm heaven with a prayer to end abortion.

€50,000 would pay for the development of a new pro-life commercial for cinemas. A new commercial would build on the successful commercials of the previous ten years and reach millions of young people throughout the island of Ireland.

€150,000 would pay for three nationwide pro-life advertising campaigns at crucial moments when pro-abortion campaigners are attempting to sway public opinion. This would include billboards, bust stop and train advertising.

€500,000 would pay for two new school visitation teams to visit schools every day for five years. It would also enable us to set up a dedicated website to keep in contact with those students we encounter and to communicate the pro-life message to them while they are in college and/or when they eventually join the workforce.

€1,000,000 would help to develop an avalanche of new and exciting life saving projects for the next ten years which would include opening a dedicate pro-life pregnancy advice centre with the latest foetal ultrasound equipment.

More than anything, your gift helps ‘futureproof’ Family & Life’s work to protect innocent babies. This means the daily financial pressures are relieved, thus enabling us to plan further ahead and spend more time devising new and innovative ways of saving babies, helping mothers and creating a Culture of Life.

But this is my favourite bit:

Your legacy to Family & Life could begin a new chapter in our campaign to defend the innocent. A chapter where, for the first time, we could begin to match our opponents in terms of financial strength and long term project planning.

Someone should tell SIPO, so I did.

So here it is, loads of people have been asking for it and I have finally got round to it. This is the Defence Trail Brief filed June 2, 2008 in the case of HEART BEAT RECORDS, INC., Plaintiff v. DS MUSIC PRODUCTIONS, LLC, ROSEMARY SCALLON A/K/A DANA,AND DAMIEN SCALLON, (Defendants).

Read the full script here.

The Representing Women Research Project at Dublin City University is hosting a one-day seminar on Representing Women: Images, Discourses and Realities in Irish Political Life, which will bring together researchers, politicians and other stakeholders to exchange ideas and share experiences on the gender dynamics operating within Irish parliamentary democracy with a particular focus on the representation, role(s) and performance of women politicians in Dail Eireann. This will be the first multi-disciplinary academic conference to investigate the factors contributing to the significant gender imbalance in Irish parliamentary democracy. The aim of the conference is to make a contribution to the discussion about developing strategies for political change in this area of the Irish public domain. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal to introduce a dress code for Dáil Eireann (Irish parliament, lower house) has now, according to The Irish Times, been shelved.

According to the article the spectacle of Irish parliamentarians being hauled out kicking and screaming in protest, clad in their finest denim jeans and pink shirts, would become a media circus and detract from the work of the Dáil.

These ‘representatives’ should be ashamed of themselves. What dignity is left in politics is subverted by their lack or respect of the democratic institution that is Leinster House.

What’s worse the Government has caved into their childish tantrums. Back when I was younger my parents didn’t put much effort into accommodating any drama or ‘hissyfit‘ I begun. My punishment was simple, removal of privileges. Maybe instead of dragging these Deputies out by their uggs we should be looking at removing their privileges that are not protected by legislation, and eventually get around to legislating for appropriate parliamentary behavior through the SIPO.

Shame on Richard Boyd-Barrett, shame on Mick Wallace, shame on Luke Flanagan et al.