The long journey

Yep I am the slowest blogger in the world. Since my birthday things have not stopped at all. Being in the bicycle industry made me think I would have some quiet months when the Irish weather would settle in. Nope! We had a proper Christmas rush and had to move to bigger premises only 9 months after the first shop opened. Meanwhile I met a wonderful bike mechanic who has been working with me since then, and for me since this morning (yes I am a ruthless capitalist now, I am the boss!) of course this is very scary, what if my business doesn't work as well in the future? What if I have to let my guy go? When will I be able to pay myself a decent salary? All these questions can be head wrecking at times (especially when I meet my accountant, who stresses so much on how to be a good manager with money), but most of the time it is motivating, thrilling, rewarding, and yes, very tiring. Not counting the hours, being the one everyone is counting on for anything, getting to learn new things in 10 minutes to be able to convince funders, all this can be a bit draining.

But I do compare my life now to what it was a year ago and I have to say I am so happy the way things turned out. I am not shouting victory yet, but it seems my business is going sustainable and that I'll be able to pay myself properly in a few months, and that my personal life is getting better too. Love is in the air!

Taking risks is the lesson of this past year. Not being afraid of making clear cuts and moving forward is also an important lesson. I shall keep you posted on all this, but I have to say 2010 started damn well!

30

Here I am! I am crossing the line. Because the past year has been quite difficult and eventful and that it coincides with me reaching the 30 number, I have been thinking quite a lot about the past 10 years. I have to say, I am pleased.

10 years ago, I was celebrating my 20th birthday around a frozen lake in Sweden. Two dear friends of mine had bought food and booze and we got drunk in the cold, in a very enchanting forest that was surrounding the campus of Vaxjo University. I was in the middle of a degree in political science and was about to meet the first love of my life. I had already met my very close friends in college, and those ones are still around, 10/12 years on. The following years were about graduating and trying to figure out what the f**** I wanted to do with my life. After that, it was mostly about collecting a number of very lousy jobs: data collection about Viagra, factory working, sales by telephone, receptionist in a shitty shop (for the ones in France), apple picking (Sweden), customer service, administrative assistant, accounts assistant, PA, data entry (Ireland).

Travels were so important during this decade. I went back and forth to Sweden, visited most of Europe, discovered Japan, Mexico, discovered the midnight sun, ate grasshoppers (Mexico), rotten fish (Sweden), contracted the turista, cycled during weeks in France, got sunburned, got blisters, got lost (a lot), met beautiful people.

I did quite a lot of silly things: organised a (fake) sex group on a football field, spent hours in a computer room trying to figure out how the Internet was working (yes people, at this stage, modems with telephone lines were the rule), lost my apartment keys in 2 metres of snow and had to wait for spring to get them back, lost an unbelievable amount of phones, got sick in taxis, vomited in public places and on my school director's shoes, kissed an unbelievable amount of guys, got drunk a lot, tried drugs, walked home unconscious in the middle of the night (well I still do that though), got drunk because of guys (still do it too), quit jobs and found myself penniless, had to get invited to friends places because I was too broke to buy food, disappointed a couple of people (mostly friends I was not very frank with)...

I learnt a lot: languages, bike repair, accountancy software, how to use a mobile phone (same stuff as for the Internet, the first phone was the size of my hand and the screen was black and white) and also lessons of life. The good people are worth a little bit of sacrifice, the ones not worth it are just to be left on the side, boys are stupid (I sense Julien's comment there), relationships complicated, psychotherapy works, my family is wonderful and religions are definitely not something I am attracted to.

In ten years, I had two important boyfriends, met amazing people (charity workers, my volunteers...), got disappointed, hurt, felt love as never before, I confirmed my feminism, got very militant and then less, my political opinions got softer and more reasonable.

In brief, it was good!

Painful history

I didn't sleep well last night. I am a bit sick and cannot stop coughing. But there was something on my mind too. I saw a beautiful film: Hunger



This film is crude, terribly blunt in the way it shows the process of hunger strike (this is mostly about Bobby Sands, who died after 66 days of hunger strike in a confrontation with the British Government at the beginning of the eighties). This hunger strike was preceded by the Blanket Protest and the Dirty Protest, where IRA and INLA prisoners refused to wear uniforms and stopped washing because they were treated like ordinary convicts and not political prisoners. You can find more here. The prisoners were covering their prison walls with excrement and piss, and then decided to go on hunger strike. 9 men died during this protest, the first one being Bobby Sands, who is a symbol of the Northern Ireland so-called "Troubles" and whose face is painted on a lot of Belfast walls.

I liked this film a lot: it is a hard film, a non compromising one, but I think what I liked the most was the non militant side of it. Victims are everywhere in this film, communities suffer, fathers die, children are brought up in violence, the two sides are broken by silence and ressentment, there is no winner. This is a relief, as the themes around the Northern Ireland conflict are generally debatted with passion and anger (not in the Republic though, which will be another subject of this blog). It is so intelligent from the director to show (in a beautiful photography and with wonderful actors) the human cost and not to take sides (even when McQueen uses Thatcher's speeches and declarations, he doesn't add anything to it. Those are extraordinary to my mind, she showed such a contempt for human life and for the Irish fighters in particular).


In other words, if you want to see a very nice and very honest piece of work, I recommend this film.

One interesting article about the reaction after this film was shown in Belfast. There is hope, let's hang to it.

Fuck recession!

Yeah! Fuck it! The Irish government has just announced the new budget for 2009. Gloomy gloomy. In short, VAT is going to increase, taxation on salaries (1% levy on wages up to €100,100, 2% afterwards), job seeking allowance is on the decrease, all social payments are cut, hospitals bills are going to be higher AND last but not least, some of the state agencies are going to close, and all of them are going to cut in the staff. Who works in a state agency huh? Yeah, that's meeee! I'll know more next week.

So, fuck it all. Don't be depressed, don't get scared at the crash that the stock exchange places around the world are experiencing, don't put tons of rice in your cupboards because you don't know if you will be able to eat anything else in the coming year, don't go to cheap labour places to buy cheap clothes, because, at the end, there is someone who made those clothes who would like to have your wage.

Instead, come and participate to my "Fuck recession!" party! We'll drink champagne, wear expensive clothes, talk about our (imaginary) sports cars, pretend we are traders in 1998 and finish the evening with some first class cocaine (not the street one of course, soooo vulgar).

Well, I am half joking. I am launching a "Fuck recession" party, just to lift spirits up. No cocaine please, but something much more expensive and dear: being with people I like, having fun, and remembering we are anyway the most privileged people amongst all.

About the good stuff and the bad stuff of going out with a mechanic

Yep, I think all trades have their drawbacks. I always wondered what it was like to go out with a cook for example: does he / she even let you go into the kitchen? Don't you feel ashamed about presenting him / her the macaroni with cheese when it is your turn to cook and that he /she did a Roasted Langoustine with apple purée, glazed pork belly, jabugo ham, warm apple jelly and purple Nasturtium the day before?

On a microscopic point of view, I can make a list of things that are nice and other things that are less when you go out with a wonderful person with a wonderful job, I name The Mechanic. Everything is in masculine here because you have guessed I am talking about my dear and near, and not because I think that jobs have a gender.

Handy:

- He changes a wheel on a car in less than 7 minutes

- He doesn't pretend to look into the engine when the car / campervan you brought for a music festival breaks down, he actually makes it work

- He is generally strong enough to put shelves / lift the sofa / get the washing machine by himself when you move out

Less handy:

- NEVER ask the mechanic to do a massage on you. He will think you are a car to dismantle and you will end up with a very sore back

- NEVER ask a mechanic to fix the zip on a dress that is a bit stuck. You will have to buy another one (dress or zip, depending how resistant they both are)

Typical:

- The mechanic thinks engines / oil / petrol, he IS engines, oil, petrol. He doesn't understand generally that you don't give a shit about an (yes, even) Aston Martin or a Facel Vega (yeah that's a real car)

- The mechanic smells what he calls perfume (see point above) The equivalent of Chanel number 5 for him is the sweet asphalte odour.

If you have other examples let me know. I am curious about how professions influence people in their daily life..

TCLIF

And it is Friday again! I am quite sure it is similar in a lot of your offices, but in here, Friday has a special taste. And a special je ne sais quoi that really pisses me off. What is it? This bloody expression! Thank God It's Friday (aka TGIF)

- "Why is it annoying you Anne? Don't you think you are doing your ranting Frenchie never happy about anything crisis right now?"

- "Well, maybe, but what is the fuckin' point of getting happy about a day when you will have to come back to the job you don't like in two days?"

- "Yes Anne, it is quite true, but it makes people happy isn't it the more important?"

- "But what is the point with bloody God? What does God have to do with that?"

- "I don't know, it is just an expression"

- "Yeah, but if God was deciding upon our working days, we would be working 6 days a week, wouldn't we?"

- "What's your point?"

- "My point is that people thank an imaginary friend that has nothing to do with the fact that they work 5 days a week!"

- "Who should we thank then?"

- "That is a stupid question! The people who fought for our rights, who died under repression, the unions, the Popular Front!"

- "Isn't it a bit archaic?"

- "Archaic? When the EU wants to fix the limit at 65 working hours a week?"

- "Let's come back to TGIF. Do you want people to stop saying it?"

- "I would just like them to think about their luck of having Friday as their last day of the week. I think we should replace the expression. Let's say TCLIF"

- "What does that stand for?"

- "Thanks Comrades and Leon it's Friday!"

Return of the living dead

Helloooo! I am sorry to have abandonned you for so long, times have been hard. But I am back! and in a good form.

I know that we are supposed to make resolutions at the beginning of the year, but fuck it, I decided to do so at the end of July. I pretty much decided to give up everything that is useless, that costs me more than it brings me, things that bother me to embrace a new life. Here is the list of what I decided to give up:

- smoking (already started, 3 weeks tobacco free)
- flatmate (10 years of living with people is enough, I think I need my own space now)
- job
- worrying
- people I don't really care about

All those things are draining me, and I therefore don't to do any of this anymore. This is what I am going to do then (give me a good year to achieve all this):

- starting educations in bike mechanic, rider's lessons and web design. They are all very straightforward and practical, fed up with theoretical stuff, I want action!
- repairing the bikes and selling them for Rothar
- look for a smaller flat that is not going to cost me more than the current one but which will have central heating and a real shower
- going on with my psychoanalysis as it seems it is working on me so well! Those decisions wouldn't have been taken without counselling

In brief, I put words on stuff I've known for a long time. It is very soothing not to hesitate anymore, and I have learnt patience and I know that good things comes when one knows how to wait. More news soon!

Ca chie!

Libe a fait le resume en francais! http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/331420.FR.php

As you know, or maybe you don't, Ireland is the only country in Europe which will hold a referendum for the ratification of the Lisbon treaty. It will be held on June 12th, and the campaign started. The arguments are very low levelled to my mind. The big parties (Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour) are threatening the voters with the possible stigma that a no vote would bring to Ireland. This is the only thing that sticks out of the Yes Side (YS). The No Side (NS) is more imaginative, check it out:

The first one is advising a wonderful convincing stuff: doing like other people. I have to mention that France has a kind of revolutionary image in here, much appreciated by lefty people who are desperate about the passivity of their fellow citizens.

On the second one, the YS is saying "in our interest". When you read the leaflets, the treaty is very poorly explained, not sure what kind of clear idea the voters can get from this. Sinn Fein (the poster below) is obviously against it, as they say it will threaten workers' rights and more so they argue that Ireland is such a small country that it would lose its weight in the negotiations. You can have a look here. The young lady is Gerry Adam's new icon, Mary Lou McDonald. She is extremely popular and gives a new face to this party which is struggling with the past and the relationship it had with the IRA.


Here is a version in the Irish language of the campaign for the Yes organised by the Fianna Fail, the largest political party in Ireland, still in power. The funny thing about this Irish version is that it is grammatically incorrect, as answering yes (Ta) to a question doesn't exist in this language. I wonder what the ballot will look like. The poster says "Better for Ireland, better for Europe, vote yes". I don't speak Irish, I asked :)

Then there is a very strong opposition to the Lisbon Treaty in here because a lot of people think it would end the corporate tax rate (tax applied to companies) which is 12.5% and which enabled Ireland to attract so many foreign investments. That is this fear that the poster below exploits:

Here is a "classical" argument against the liberal European Union, represented by the Socialist Party (tiny tiny party)

Another fundamental point when it comes to the opposition to this Treaty is the military aspect. Ireland is a neutral country and has a tiny army (having said that, it has been the basis for an American military base in Shannon for the past thirty years, planes landing here go afterwards directly to Iraq). The treaty plans to have a common defence system and because the text is so vague and does not mention the practicalities of this, a lot of opposition parties are afraid that this will mean Ireland will have to spend much more on military and abandon its neutrality.

And finally there is this one I don't really get. Are they talking about sovereignty, taxation, nation? It is a very risque shortcut to my mind. But this is a very very common one:


I have a very mixed feeling about the whole thing myself. Living in a country that developed mostly thanks to Europe and being able to work and live here the way I do make me feel extremely European, and I voted yes to the Constitution. There is however something extremely nasty about the whole thing: France for example was to my mind so afraid that its people would vote against it that the treaty is ratified by the Parliament. The text itself is absolutely unreadable to anyone who doesn't have a master in European Law. I am not sure this will convince voters that Europe is transparent and democratic. Also, I have to say that if Ireland votes no (and I think it will, surveys are very bad for the yes, and the people not extremely interested about it will not go to vote) we can hope the European leaders will think again about the way they consider their citizens., i.e. as people who can decide for themselves.

Cork city

We went to Cork this weekend. I had gone to Cork four years ago with my ex and a couple of friends, and that was a painful experience. Probably because my relationship at this time was already disastrous, probably also because we had taken the wrong route with the car and that it had taken hours to reach the city, probably also we didn't know where to look and we ended up playing some silly game in the hotel room. In other words, I remembered Cork as a boring, not that interesting nor lively city, with nothing to do and no great opportunity to have fun. I must confess that I had this very capital city despising attitude about it and I refused to go back there for a while.

But then, because of Rothar!, the project Stephen and I are putting in place, we had to go back. We met with two extremely motivated guys who have the same kind of project down there. Instructive and encouraging.

And then, Cork. Well, I must say that I was impressed this time. It is tidy, pretty, lively, and there is a je ne sais quoi of latin atmosphere coming from the small cafes, the tiny wine bars, the colourful houses and (that is the least you can say) the colourful accent. In other words, whoever wants to go there with me is welcome! I wouldn't live in Cork, it is too small for the city girl that I became, but it is definitely worth days of discovery, walking, drinking and tasting their local stout, the Murphy's.

Publicite gratuite pour moi-meme

Hi everyone, just a little bit of free ad for myself. Stephen and I are setting-uo a charity. The aime is to recycle bicycles and sell a part and donate a part to other charities. The ultimate goal is to develop local employment, self empowerement of certain communities, with a feminist insight (I think women should cycle more, it is good for the head, the self confidence and the ass!) and hopefully a lot of fun. I put on line a blog yesterday until we have a website (i.e. when our name is registered, with a legal status etc.)

This is the place you can find the small explanation of the project: http://rotharbikesforthecommunity.blogspot.com/. If you have suggestions, remarks etc please let me know. I keep my fingers crossed as this is going to take time!

Vroooom without licence

Yep! I am a biker.. Well, not quite yet. I know how to drive this bike (the picture, it is the bike I use), but I am not quite well assured yet. "Get your licence" you will tell me. Well, I have it! This is an originality of this country. I am legally authorised to drive this motorbike without having received any practical training before (I just have a "provisional licence" which I got by passing a theory test). So I have to chance that people are tolerant enough, that I am not making too many mistakes, and that I will not get killed before I know how to drive properly. Anyway the nice weather has arrived, it should be more feasible soon to get onto the roads after the kids have left school. Wish me good luck!

Commuter in Dublin

This is a video taken from my bike (camera on handle bars) on my way to work. As you can see there is no cycle track and buses are big. I am lucky enough to be able to avoid rush hour thanks to my flexible working hours. So this was taken at around 9.15 on a sunny day. Hope you enjoy it. Bisous!

Les dublinois pris en otage, la ville est a sec / Booze held hostage. Dubliners dry out.

Une atmosphere bizarre regne a Dublin aujourd'hui. Il semble que la ville est assiegee: les bars sont vides / A strange atmosphere has invaded Dublin today. It seems the city is besieged. Bars are empty:

Ils sont meme totalement fermes. They are even totally shut down:

Cependant, quand on y regarde de plus pres, on s'apercoit que l'alcool est emprisone dans les supermarches / If you look closer, you realise that booze is held prisoner in supermarkets

Et en y regardant encore plus pres, on lit la raison de cette soudaine abstinence / if you look even closer, you can read the reason for this sudden abstinence:

Et oui! Aujourd'hui est vendredi saint, nous bons chretiens ne sommes censes ni manger de viande ni boire d'alcool. TOUS les alcools sont interdits a la vente, pas moyen d'obtenir un verre de rouge avec un steak dans un resto, c'est la loi / Yep, today is Good Friday, and good Christians as ourselves are not supposed to eat meat or drink alcohol. It is forbidden to sell ANY kind of booze, no way you can get a glass of red with your steak. It is the law

Mais la resistance s'organise /But resistance is getting in shape

Ce soir, mes amis,mon amoureux et moi nous reunissons pour un hachis parmentier avec vin et punch / Tonight my friends, my love and myself are getting together around a shepherd's pie, some wine and some punch.

Donc, a la votre! So, slainte!

Irish food

Today is Saint Patrick's day. Happily drinking (heavily) in town, people wear the national colours in every way. Shorts made of the national flag, painted shamrocks on the cheeks, and having a bit of craic (Irish expression you can translate by having fun with everything, especially nonsensical conversations in pubs during hours).

So because today is supposed to celebrate everything that is Irish, let's talk about another feature that defines a country: its cuisine. I was inspired by this article of the Guardian (here) and was a bit at loss myself when the question asked is "what do Irish people eat traditionally?". While I am writing this, my (Irish) flatmate is frying carrots and bacon and is putting this on pasta and cheese. Surely there is something more Irish than this improbable combination of ingredients.

If you go to Temple Bar (the most touristic place in Dublin) you will find "traditional Irish restaurants" where you can eat seafood chowder, oysters with a Guinness and everything with soda bread (a kind of very light and friable bread made with chemical yeast) and butter. There are as well black pudding and the element imported from the enemy country (i.e. England), bacon. Soup is a very traditional Irish meal, you can still eat it at every meal in every eatery, sandwich place or even chic and pretentious places. Potatoes (spuds) are to be included with everything. And this food is good, tasty and unpretentious.

But this is not what Irish people eat in their everyday life. First reason: a lot of them do not know how to cook and have no idea how vegetables grow. Second reason: this country is so Americanised that the traditional meal in here is composed of a hamburger or BLT sandwich (or crisp sandwich: take two slices of white bread, put a ton of mayo in it, half a packet of crisps, crush the whole and eat with delight). Chips can be served with everything too, including lasagna. Third reason: the immigration factor. Ireland has welcomed so many different nationalities for the past 15 years that it seems natural to everyone to go out and have some Indian / French / Italian / Polish food instead of the traditional Irish stew. So it is pretty much a happy combination of everything that defines the way Irish people eat now. They integrated other cultures, other ingredients and thanks to the wealth created since the 1990s they can afford other things than cabbage.

It is a bit of a pity though, because I discovered myself a whole side of the Irish food that I had no idea about until very recently. Products that are still made in small farms, using raw milk for the cheese, breeding lamb in the fields etc. A lot of the food you can buy on markets and coming from the country are absolutely fabulously tasty and nice. Surely a bit of work on how to get back to the land and a lot of cooking lessons would make people even more aware of the beautiful stuff they have at hand and bring a lot of national pride.

Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin

We did it! I have to say I was extremely pessimistic about this stuff, especially about the number of people who would turn up. We were 120, 150 even more according to the persons in the group. The event, the booklet, the band afterwards (fantastic, check here ), everything was a success. The women's history in Dublin is no longer a secret for me, and I discovered so many things that I would never have guessed.

If you want a good summary of what happened during this day by somebody who was there, click here.

if you want to have a look at the booklet (it says a lot of interesting things about women, Ireland and Dublin, please let me know I can send a Pdf version to you.

And just for the beauty of it, I am going to quote Pat Robertson, US tele evangelist (I think it is worth it just for the enormity of the stuff he says)

"Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. " Yeah!

Gay revolution?

This country is, you have guessed, quite conservative on social subjects. There are numerous examples in the very recent past that would reflect reality in the 1960's in Scandinavia. For example, until 1966 female civil servants had to quit their job when they were getting married. Condoms were banned up to 1973 (there are several testimonies about how the Irish customs were searching people's bags when they were coming from abroad), homosexuality was prosecutable until 1993, divorce was legalised in 1996, and abortion is still forbidden.

But this society is changing at an extremely fast pace. Since the country opened up and began developping economically, a dramatic evolution has taken place. For example, Ireland is becoming more secular. The Church, who had the power over all matters has been losing its influence for the past 15 years. Fewer and fewer people attend mass for example. The abuses on children stained the outrageous prestige that the Church had had for so many years, the priest is not seen as the pillar on any family gathering or main counsellor anymore. In short, Ireland is becoming more tolerant, more opened (I don't want to show off but I would like to think it is thanks to immigrants too ;-) and a revolution in such a traditional country is in gear: gay couples will soon be recognised by law.

The government announced at the end of last year that they would legislate in order to give rights (inheritance, taxes and all administrative matters) to same-sex couples (I don't know if they are thinking about introducing that for straight couples who don't want to get married but that is another story). There are a couple of (important) issues:

- The legislation will not be marriage. As the campaign MarriagEquality is pointing out, the government is actually going to legislate in favour of discrimination. Straight = marriage / Gay = civil partnership. The PACS in France did exactly the same though, but it doesn't make the whole thing right
- Children: there was no talk about this at all. Apparently the Irish way of ignoring an issue is actually.. ignoring it, until it becomes big enough for the media to talk about it.

For a country like Ireland, the step is absolutely huge. Some might say that gay people are never happy even when a law is passed to recognise their rights. But is a law supposed to create a category of second-class citizens and say basically "no, you're not good enough to get married"?. "Sorry man, you are not entitled to drive a car because you're blonde, but you are allowed to try the bicycle". This is (far-stretched I acknowledge) the kind of inequality the law is going to allow. This is preposterous.

To treat the subject a lighter way, I found this on this:

Ten reasons why Gay marriage in Un-American

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

The fallen women

I am currently working on a feminist walking tour of Dublin to celebrate the International Women's Day on March 8th. I am in charge of taking pictures of some monuments remembering Irish women's history. One of the saddest part of this history is the Magdalene laundries.
Maybe you know about it because you have seen Peter Mullan's film, The Magdalene sisters (if you haven't, try to have a look).

During 150 years (the last one closed in Ireland in 1996), around 30,000 "fallen women" were admitted in those homes. Those girls and women usually spent their whole life in the institution, paying for their "crimes". The laundries were given this name because of Mary Magdalene, a woman of "bad reputation" who confessed her sins and became a devout.

Those women were imprisoned for behaviours severely condemned by the extremely powerful Church: getting pregnant outside of marriage, leaving their abusive husband, being raped etc. You could even find yourself there if you were with a mental disability. Those women were then condemned to do all kinds of work like cleaning the clergy's laundry, cooking, cleaning and looking after ageing nuns. This work was not paid, and the conditions were appalling, the women often abused and badly treated. The women were sometimes losing their name too, the nuns giving them simili biblical repentant names (such as "Magdalene St Teresa"). They were usually admitted to the asylum (another name for those prisons) on one parent's request. A lot of them remained in those houses all their life and were buried in the convent's garden.

In 1993 (I do say again that the last laudry had not been closed at this time yet), remains of 133 bodies had to be removed from one of the laundries' garden because the nuns were selling the property. The permission to take the bodies was given by the Department of Environment. The undertakers discovered 22 additional bodies that had never been declared. The authorities, instead of opening an enquiry on the matter, gave permission to the nuns for the 22 additional bodies. Those 155 bodies were later cremated and reburied in a mass grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, on the North Side of Dublin. This triggered a public scandal and revelations about the conditions of work and detention began to appear. Relatives to women who had been in a laundry began asking for the truth, and a lot of documentaries and testimonies were produced. We still don't know though who the women buried now in Glasnevin were. Their cremation prevented any hope for identification.

The victims of those asylums are numerous and a lot of them are unknown. Their illegitimate children were stolen from them and given for adoption or sent to "indutrial schools" or orphanages, ruled as well by brothers and nuns, and there as well the children were badly treated (the sexual and physical abuses were common).
The buildings, the graves, the stories of those women are still standing. The only monument in Dublin commerating those women's memory is this plaque is the centre of St Stephen's Green. They would deserve so much more.





If you want to know more:
http://www.adoptionireland.com/magdalene/background.html
This is the detailed story around the graves discovered in Drumcondra, Dublin
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/08/sunday/main567365.shtml Another article by the American press
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/so-much-for-church-remorse-over-the-sex-abuse-scandal-1280595.html This is on the various sexual abuses scandals. The former arbishop of Dublin refuses to give away documents relating to those.

Abortion in Ireland

The title is a pure product of my imagination since it is forbidden to have an abortion in this country. Totally forbidden you'll ask? Well, here are the facts (I advise feminists to take a cigarette or a drink as this is extremely infuriating):

Like in a lot of countries at this time, laws were passed in Ireland in 1861 to outlaw the "procurement of a miscarriage", whether one oneself or somebody else. Similar laws were passed in France in the 1920's. All abortions are then liable to very severe sanctions (death penalty or life imprisonment).

In 1983 the Irish constitution was modified and included the 8th amendment, recognizing the "right to life of the unborn". This is the core of the legal issue in Ireland, as the legalisation of abortion will have to be done through another change in the Constitution.

Between 1986 and 1991 a legal battle opposed the SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) to counselling agencies and students' unions on the information disclosure. The latter were actually providing information on abortion, i.e. where and how to get it when women were confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. The SPUC won the case: it is since then forbidden by law to provide direct information on abortion if it is not requested. If the person wants to get this information it will have to be done during a 1 2 1 session, through generally a counselling agency (I will come back to that as there are loopholes in this law which don't prevent charlatans from giving false medical info). This is as well an extremely sensitive issue if you are a member of a feminist group wanting to advice women on abortion, as it is prosecutable to give this information over the phone, to distribute leaflets if not requested by the person in front of you and so on.

In 1992 the "X case" was brought into court. In brief the Irish authorities wanted to prevent a 14 year-old girl who had been raped from going to the UK to have an abortion. This was overturned by the Supreme Court which recognised that the high risk of suicide of this young girl was a sufficient reason for her to travel. However, when no such risk existed it was possible for the Irish authorities to prevent the women from travelling as it was for them contradictory with the 8th amendment.

At the end of the 1990's a series of cases (generally under aged girls pregnant as a result of a rape such as the "C case") reiterated the ban on abortion, and put the X case legislation at stake. It basically put at stake the right to travel even in case of suicide risks. The public opinion being supportive of the girl the risk of suicide is still a "sufficient" reason for the Irish authorities to allow women to travel abroad.

In 2001 the government held a referendum to try to reverse the 1992 X case, which enables women to travel if they have suicidal tendencies. The referendum's results were appalling: 49.58% voted yes (to restrict this right to travel) while 50.42% voted no.

In 2007 we are still living in a state where 17 Irish women travel to Great Britain each day to have an abortion, and this doesn't include the Irish women not giving Irish addresses and the ones travelling to other countries. We live in a country where it is forbidden to give out information on abortion but where the counselling agencies are not regulated if they don't fall under a certain category, which means they can advertise as counselling agencies and give false medical information to women in distress (I will write about it another time, meanwhile go to http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81414), a country where a young woman with a non viable foetus had to go to Court to be able to travel and abort and it is impossible to know the extent of distress, desperation and frustration of all the women not authorised to have a choice in their own country.

A list of websites if you want to know more:

http://choiceireland.blogspot.com/ (the pro choice group I belong to)
http://www.ifpa.ie/

http://www.safeandlegalinireland.ie/

Winter in the middle of two oceans

The cold and damp, damp weather has come in here. We will not see any kind of bright days until March or April, if we're lucky. It is quite strange, I do remember loving winter in Scandinavia, the 6 months of snow and darkness had not been that hard to bear. It is my fourth winter in here, I have to say I am not a fan. Although the autumn can be beautiful and warm and colourful (the picture was taken in October), winter is grey, grey, grey. Sad like Hell, the skies are falling onto your shoulders, everything seems heavier and difficult.


Luckily I had the good idea to buy an extremely hip accessory: a hot water bottle! It is coooooooool! I have to precise that central heating is still a luxury in a very high number of apartments in Dublin, the only thing lots of people have are those horrible electric radiators.. It costs your ass, it is ineffective and environmentally bad bad bad.. I therefore bought this thingy to warm me and my feet when I am watching a film or reading and put it a bit before going to bed under the blankets. It is marvellous! I do recommend it to everyone!

Happy Monday!

Suis-je ici depuis trop longtemps?

Aujourd'hui je fais du plagiat, c'est decide.. Marre de creer des textes originaux, je pique! Alors j'ai trouve un truc tres rigolo sur le blog d'une copine, qui vit a Dublin aussi et qui ecrit ca (les sections en bleu sont mes rajouts a cette sympathique liste) L'adresse du blog d'Anne-Laure (j'adore la premiere partie de son prenom!!) si vous avez envie d'authenticite:

http://www.alblog.fr/index.php?Irish-stew

"Tu sais que tu vis en Irlande depuis plus de 6 mois quand :

- Tu considères qu’il a fait plutôt beau un jour où le soleil est apparu trois fois dix minutes et où il n’y a eu que quelques averses.

- Tu ne te lèves plus cinq fois dans la nuit après avoir bu trois pints de bière.

- Tu n’as même plus envie de poursuivre puis de battre à mort le propriétaire de l’énorme 4x4 Mercedes qui vient de t’arroser de la tête aux pieds en passant à 100 km/h dans l’énorme marre d’eau qui s’est formée juste devant le passage piéton.

- Tu trouves normal qu’aucun mec ne vienne jamais t’adresser la parole à moins qu’il ait 4 grammes dans le sang, ce qui arrive en général aux alentours de 2 heures du mat’. Là, si tu n’es pas toi aussi dans le même état, tu évacues le bar de toute urgence avant de devenir la proie d’une meute soudainement incontrôlable.

- Tu as compris que quand quelqu’un te dit au téléphone « Mais oui, pas de problème, je m’en occupe et je vous rappelle aussi vite que possible », il veut en fait dire « Va mourir connasse, j’en ai rien à foutre de ta gueule » et tu sais que tu n’entendras plus jamais parler de lui à moins de le harceler d’appels, d’emails et de fax.

- Tu n'as plus aucune réaction quand soudainement, alors que tu marches tranquillement dans la rue, tu te retrouves sous une tempête de pluie ou au milieu d'une mini tornade.

- Ça ne te choque pas de payer 2,85€ pour un café dégeulassissime. Au contraire t'es heureuse et même que tu le bois en marchant dans la rue.

-Aujourd’hui, t’as mis tes tongs et un top dos nus par ce que, waou, il fait 19°C, quelle chaleur !!!

- Tu n’as même pas pensé à envoyer une lettre de réclamation à la direction des transports en communs locaux pour leur demander d’arrêter d’envoyer systématiquement des contrôleurs dans le tramway aux heures de pointe, spécialement des contrôleurs obèses, s’il ne veulent pas avoir ta mort par étouffement sur la conscience et le procès qui va avec.

- Au restaurant, tu es heureuse de retrouver systématiquement, voire exclusivement, tes deux plats favoris : Burger ou Fish & Chips. Et si on ne t’apporte pas, dans les 5 minutes qui suivent, une assiette géante remplie à rabord de tonnes de trucs aussi gras les uns que les autres, tu cries à l’escroquerie puis à la famine !! "

- Tu ne regardes plus les horaires de bus et rigole devant les gens qui le font car tu sais tres bien que le chauffeur de ton bus est en train de prendre une pint dans le pub a cote du depot

- Tu pratiques l'automedication a fond parce que tu sais que le medecin va te prescrire la meme chose que ce truc qui sort de ton armoire a pharmacie et que ca te coutera 55€ la consultation

- Quand un ami irlandais te dit "je passe chez toi tel jour" tu restes avachie sur ton canape en chaussettes et culotte parce que tu sais qu'il ne viendra jamais

- Tu trouves bon un vin californien avec un bouchon devisseur

- Tu ne fais meme plus attention a l'absence de melangeur et passe sans broncher tes mains d'un robinet a l'autre quand tu veux les laver

- Tu ne fais plus attention aux grosses anglaises qui fetent leur enterrement de vie de jeune fille avec des pistolets en forme de bites et des hauts tellement serres qu'ils les font ressembler a des paupiettes (oui vous savez avec les ficelles qui entourent la chair..)

J'aimerais lire les commentaires des etrangers en France, genre "tu sais que tu es a Paris depuis plus de 6 mois quand tu envoies la porte du metro a la gueule de la personne derriere toi"

Enfin je me suis bien amusee, förlåt Jenny!