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Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Jul 23, 2018 • 12 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo

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Tuam now. #tuambabies

Katherine Zappone says she is in Tuam for “one more chance to hear your views”.

“It’s my hope that you accept that I come here tonight in good faith.

“No matter what decision is taken, I know it will not please everyone.

“Dr Geoffrey Shannon (advises) we have a duty from a human rights obligation to act.

“I am well aware that Tuam is more than this history. The former mother and baby home is part of that history but it is not all.”

Katherine Zappone says what happened in Tuam was “gender injustice”, says it was a crime against women.

Quotes Proust: “Love produces real geological upheavals of thought.”

Zappone: “The wounds and the hurt are in the present, not just in the past.”

Zappone says the wishes of local residents and those of the families are mutually exclusive.

Says there is a choice to be made between partial and full excavation.

Zappone: “I am well aware of the criticism of the consultative process that took place here.”

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More from @Donal_OKeeffe

Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Oct 4, 2018

It's Woody Guthrie's anniversary.

In 1950, Woody moved into the Beach Haven Apartment complex in Brooklyn, becoming a tenant of one Fred Trump.

Trump had availed of federal grants to build that complex, grants which were contingent upon his accommodating Black veterans of WWII

Trump took the Government's money and then refused to allow any Black tenants in Beach Haven.

When Woody discovered this, he was incensed.

In a white heat of rage, he wrote:

"I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
he stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
That color line
Here at his
Eighteen hundred family project."

Read 4 tweets

Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Oct 3, 2018

On the morning of the 7th of June 1996 in the Co Limerick village of Adare, heroic Irish soldiers, acting under the authority of the legitimate Government of Ireland, attempted to liberate vital funding and – in the course of their duties –

were forced to open fire upon cowardly agents of the traitorous Free State government, killing one.

If you don’t recall it quite like that, there’s a good chance you’re an establishment stooge or – like me – an FF/FG/Labour lackey. It may even be possible you’re Endangering The Peace Process.

Read 4 tweets

Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Aug 20, 2018

My friend Dave "Rookie" Roche, who’s in his mid-nineties, tells a great story about the famous Fermoy poet and full-time alcoholic Jack Devine standing outside Tommy Baker's barber shop one Sunday morning long ago as the car with the loudhailer on the roof drove past.

“COME TO FERMOY SHOW. THIS SUNDAY. FERMOY SHOW. THE CREAM OF THE COUNTRY WILL BE THERE."

"The cream of the country?" says Jack. "More like the cunts from the creamery."

Another time Jack was sinking pints above in the Forge one night when Doctor Hanley started rubbing Jack's considerable belly.

"Tell us, Jack,” he said, “when is it due?"

"Oh, any day now, any day."

"And tell us, Jack, what will you call it?"

Read 4 tweets

Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Jul 29, 2018

Heard a story about a friend of mine, a Garda now retired. Almost universally liked, he was a notorious soft touch. Under pressure from the Super, he was sent out to the main road with the speed gun. Sure enough, everyone he caught turned out to be a friend with a sob story.

Coming to the end of his shift, he had let off half the parish with cautions and still had no tickets issued. Around the bend came a D-reg car, absolutely bombing it.

“Well, said my friend once the car had stopped, “Amn’t I glad to see you. I’m waiting all day to catch you.”

“Sorry about that, Guard,” replied the Dub, “”but I got here as fast as I could.”

Read 4 tweets

Donal O’Keeffe

@Donal_OKeeffe

Jul 27, 2018

I attended secondary school in the 1980s. In my first week, standing against a wall on the peripheries of a school concert, a boy said something to me and I replied to him. A teacher ran at me and punched me in the stomach. #liveline

I remember sliding down the wall, the back of my head hitting off a radiator as I blacked out. That was my introduction to a place infected completely by a culture of bullying, a place where violence seemed to seep from the walls.

Corporal punishment was outlawed in Ireland in 1982, but nobody told some of our teachers. One ancient relic, an algebra teacher, offered an amnesty to boys who had failed to complete his daily tests. Three wallops of his cane to the hand if you owned up, six if you didn't.

Read 6 tweets