Comments on: Myers causes a storm

By: Colm

Colm — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:55:10 +0000

I’ve always found Meyers to be thought -provoking and have a core of common sense. Regarding the replies above, John Morrison has provided the best collection of “right on” semi-literate nearly-but-not-quite english words (writing is too strong a discription for it) I have tried to read in a long time. All I can understand from it is he is anti war (who is not?). However, it is nice to see that he is not letting his total inability to use the english language to try and inflict his views on everyone else. It is a classic example of why one should not hit the “submit” button before reading back (or getting someone a little more literate to read the submission).

By: John Morrison

John Morrison — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:03:27 +0000

Kevin Myers doesnt like the fact that I use SinnFein as my email address.Too bloody bad. I agree with his iconoclasm on many issues.Too bad that hei s apavlovian ,kneejerking ,party liner on the stupid ,inept ,neo Con Trotskyite Iraq war. Bush cant break wind and chew gum at the same time.Perle and company wag him. He attacked Iraq becaue liike Mussolini and Ethiopia they were a soft touch. From Bush I and Clinton the US bombed Iraq for 12 years No planes shot down.Bush wanted the Iraq oil off the market to keepthe price up.He has devalued the fiat nixon dollar , refused to defend our borders, over extended our troops while doing nothing about the Israeli and chinese espionage.Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.. See Andrew J.Bacevitch New American Militarism..The Truth shallmake us free.John Morrison

By: Moriarty

Moriarty — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:48:04 +0000

Having read both Myers’ apology and the equally apologetic editorial in today’s Irish Times, I was disgusted by the holier-than-thou sermonising tone of the letters to the editor sandwiched in between. Myers, whose journalism is best represented by the image of a small man poking a sleeping bear with a pointy stick, made an amateurish mistake in using the term bastard. He acknowledges the fact in his apology, but he also reiterates his comments, and rightly so. What if he had written about the issue without using the offending term (as he has done before)? Some mutterings of assent, nothing more. At least the issue has been highlighted now.
Unfortunatley for Myers, by going one step too far he has now started a debate about himself and the Irish Times, rather than the issue at hand.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 06:28:22 +0000

Kevin Myers raises an issue that Brenda Power covered in The Sunday Times on 30 January 2005. Irish policy affords single mothers a comfortable career option. Those are the facts of life as I see spelled out in shopping queues and on street corners in five different Irish cities where I’ve lived. My tax money is supporting this social policy and I am glad that Kevin Myers is pointing out the fallacies in blindly supporting single parenthood over respect for the family or child care for working mothers. For three years, many of my early weekday mornings in a terraced house in Bray were puntuated with gaggles of teenaged moms returning from a Benefits Day piss-up to crash out in a council flat on the other side of my bedroom wall. Their behaviour was state-supported. The neighbour on the other side of their flat called them “spongers” and that was the first time I heard the term uttered in Ireland. No matter matter where I’ve lived–Inchicore, Thurles, or Kilkenny–it’s easy to find the scene repeated.

How does the single mother career option fit in the content of the 21st century Ireland of knowledge workers that we’ve heard about? Before we blay at Kevin Myers, we should explore the issue he spotlighted. His techniques, though consistent, should not allow us to avoid confronting the issue.

By: John

John — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:03:54 +0000

I think Myers wanted to cause a big fuss and that’s what he’s done. He raises a point, more delicately and more helpfully raised by Ed Walsh, which is, do these benefits act as an incentive for some (mostly) young women to become lone parents?

I haven’t got a clue, but I know I’ve heard that said a few times and mostly from people who would be described as “working class”. Hard-working, tax-paying people who live in big public housing estates in Tallaght or the flats of Inchicore (and, obviously, other such places) are often the most damning when discussing those whom they perceive to be “spongers”.

I have no experience of this particular phenomenon, but I know one woman (married) in particular who lives in such a neighborhood and she will tell you that some of these girls are doing exactly as Myers claims. Only, some are not so single as Myers fears. Just that they get more money if the boyfriend is officially living elsewhere. She also says that there are a number of young women who have children and they all live in close proximity to one another and there’s a real doubt about who’s related to whom, which strikes me as a serious problem in the making.