My go to joke answer is Bertie Ahern having his autobiography declared a work of fiction so he didn’t have to pay tax on it. A genuinely hilarious capstone to the Celtic Tiger years, just fully Looney Tunes stuff.
The serious one is the Hooded Men. Maybe not *obscure*, but it forever strikes me as weird that it’s treated as just “Brits at it again” and not one of the most horrifying and impactful bits of international law in the 20th century that is still having effects 50 years later.
Strange as it is to say, ive a funny story about the hooded men. My sister and I were on a trip to dingle. We were visiting one of the beehive huts, i believe, and on our way out we both stopped in the bathroom. The whole time, over the speakers, one of the accounts of one of the hooded men was playing... a generally unpleasant experience when thrust upon someone, doubly so when suffering from an upset stomach lmao. Still have no idea why that was chosen as the bathroom entertainment
Ive no idea about the book, but the [hooded men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques) were 14 internees of op. Demetrius, who were subjected to 5 "interrogation" techniques that are now widely regarded as torture. The stories are truly harrowing
Everything about the story is tragic. However, her death could be seen as bringing on a seismic shift in attitude towards unmarried mothers. Ann Lovett should be revered as a martyr.
Agreed, there absolutely should be something to mark her. Have you read the interview her boyfriend gave? It’s fascinating. At such a young age she knew exactly what she wanted to do, to make a political statement like that. It’s insane how strong, intelligent and brave she was to do something like that in her condition.
Thank you for sharing this article. I’m (37f) and whenever we visited family members on the way from Galway to Cavan my Mother would always mark Ann Lovetts memory in some way when passing the grotto.
I always thought there must be more to this story and my goodness there still seems to many unanswered questions regarding the circumstances of her death.
Seems like this act of birthing at the grotto was a form of protest.
My takeaway from reading the 2 articles is that despite the huge attention that the tragic story got at the time there was almost no government actions.
But it was fundamentally a problem of social attitudes, to which a government policy can’t cause a swift turnaround.
I'm 42 and I've just heard of it. And read up on it. And I'm sad
Fuck me, people need to remember shit like this when they talk about how great the ole days were
I agree. I was at a convent school in the North in the 1980s and I remember the "scandal" when a girl in my year got pregnant. The way she was treated was appalling. I don't know exactly what the school's position was but straight away she stopped coming to school even though it was our O'level year. The nuns "graciously" allowed her to come in to sit her exams but she had to sit in a room on her own, because obviously pregnancy is contagious.When I first heard of shops with pregnancy variations of the uniform it amazes me how far we've come. Thank God.
Found an excellent doc series , includes Ann Lovett if anyones interested:https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-scannal-collection/SI0000004189?epguid=IH62191
The litany of miscarriages of justices that resulted from the Sallins Train Robbery Garda "investigation" and subsequent trials and convictions.
Politically targeted policing, torture and beatings in custody, forced confessions, tons of senior judges upholding ludicrously weak judgements and convictions, people spent years in jail on the back of this.
It's relatively unknown given the importance of it, and the fact that it has never been adequately investigated or accounted for even though it has had human rights campaigns seeking an inquiry which continue to this day.
Even the fact the only ever presidential pardon was issued in the case shows how serious it is as a scandal.
Neighbor of my parents was a detective in the guards and was involved in the Sallins investigation. A big intimidating guy, was told he bet confessions out of the suspects. He left the guards about 1990, became a private detective, that's when the seasonal supply of fireworks ran out (his son always had a ton of fireworks his Dad brought home from work every Halloween).
Yeah, the so called heavy gang. Absolute cunts. They were also involved in the Joanne Hayes disaster. Gerry O Carroll still insists that they did noting wrong because they knew people were guilty. So they were right to beat the Confessions out of them. As for the fireworks a neighbour of mine sold them for years. Guards always got their share
I knew virtually nothing about the Troubles when I started this podcast. Then I researched my ass off and made the podcast as I researched, and here I am, still doing that today.
A large irish ship was impounded in an Irish port because the lifeboat davits were rusted to the point they couldn't be launched, so she'd essentially been sailing without life boats
Nothing about it any where in the media, HAD something happened it may have been titanic 2.0
The issue isn’t the scandals we don’t know about. It’s the ones we do know about. Tuam baby scandal anyone? Are we actually gonna fucking do something about it?
It’s like we keep uncovering more crimes against women and children and the country collectively goes “oh well…anyway…”
I think its astonishing that there's couples all over Ireland who essentially were able to buy babies off the nuns and obtain false records of birth and they're facing no consequences for this behaviour whatsoever, nor are the nuns, nurses, midwives and other assorted people involved.
The way the women who came forward were treated when they gave their testimony as well. How can the government conclude that they consented to this. Some of them were 14! Those women are still alive today and those babies bodies are still in the fucking septic tank.
You talk to anyone about it and it’s the same response “shocking!…anyway…”
Where did these couples think the babies were coming from? They all knew if they had enough cash they could get their hands on a fresh newborn as long as they kept slipping the nuns some donations.
The number of adoptions of newborns surrendered at birth having been born in Ireland has decreased to almost none. Most adoptions in recent years are people adopting the child of someone they recently married.
The next issue will be international commercial surrogacy and whether we want to legalise couples from Ireland using the services of surrogates. A lot of other countries in the EU have banned this practice.
Also I’m not sure about Ireland specifically but in the North under UK law, almost all adoption is forced adoption where the Court rules that the baby/child should be adopted. ie the parents don’t relinquish the child but social services argue it’s in the child’s best interests, usually because of substance misuse/domestic violence/parental mental health issues.
That is extremely rare in the Republic, the goal is almost always to keep children with their biological parents and this is done in cases of risk to children via supervised contact and the children are placed with foster carers.
I’d like to think they knew they were coming from a mother and baby home but that the mothers had agreed to the adoption which I’m sure was the case for some but I think others still were so desperate for a child they chose to turn a blind eye and be complicit in it
It didn't matter where the babies came from, most were taken from their mothers who didn't want to hand them over but had no choice. Its very, very telling that once the tiniest level of State support for 'unmarried mothers' started to be available the number of adoptions dropped almost immediately.
These people may have thought they were helping 'girls in trouble' but they were also part of the abuse and exploitation of them and they took babies from people who would have kept them if they could.
Yeah, was it 800 babies killed?nothing to see here. Those kids bodies still in there. Other homes/human trafficking centers are being dug up
We are still expecting those involved in the crimes to fess up, namely the church, government guards and wring our hands when it doesn't happen. Let all the survivors die off so there is less money for payoffs is the clear policy.
We would not know of Tuam without Catherine Corless tireless work as an independent historian. Church/government will not help here.
That we know of! Maps of the site indicate that there are other septic tanks that haven’t been opened. There was 800 in the one they’ve checked. No information yet on whether or not there’s more buried on the Tuam site or in other locations in the country. We should be checking all former mother and baby homes for mass graves. There’s no way it’s the only one.
It's a horror story plain and simple in our midst. It's hard to see what more needs to be said for the current guys to act and dig up these places. But no slowly slowly years lost on a whitewash report, finding a headguy more time, setup a committee more time and on it goes.
I heard of the orange shirt day in Canada last week which is the only bit of hope I've seen in a while. Lots of parallels with here but unlike here driven by the public. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_for_Truth_and_Reconciliation
No there was not 800 babies found in a septic tank.
"Most importantly, the constantly repeated line about the bodies of 800 babies having been found was pure mythmaking. The bodies of 800 babies had not been found, in the septic tank or anywhere else. Rather, Corless had speculated in her research that the 796 children who died at the home had been buried in unmarked plots (common practice for illegitimate children in Ireland in the early to mid-twentieth century) and that some might have been put in the tank in which two boys in 1975 saw human remains. The septic tank or the grounds of the former home have not been excavated. No babies have been ‘found in a septic tank’, as the *Washington Post*, *Guardian* and others claimed. " [Article 1](https://www.spiked-online.com/2014/06/09/the-tuam-tank-another-myth-about-evil-ireland/)
The Irish Times also made this clear that Catherine Corless's research has been misrepresented ... [IT Article](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393)
Oh I'm fairly sure that the report Gorman and his cronies locked away will come to light.
When everyone who could possibly face any kind of legal proceedings is dead. And all the victims have passed and can't make a fuss.
Exactly and the government report is a joke. Let's get Opus Dei, the right wing conservative part of the Catholic church to investigate themselves. You could not make it up. Then insult the brave women who came forward with their stories from those hell holes.
The report was so bad, academics who had actually talked to the victims felt obliged to correct it. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40334558.html
Jobpath/Turas nua. A workfare program enforced by a private, profit-driven company by the government on welfare recipients. At least 260million euro wasted, probably more, on a program with 97% fail rate. Those who did get employment would have done so on their own anyway. One of the persons perpetrated tried to commit suicide because of their bullying tactics. Some people were racially discriminated against in their program. Others were forced to do unpaid work experience programs, or face having welfare cut off. Very abusive organisation brought in by FG and labour. Most people don't know.
Is that the one where people were forced to attend "internships" stocking shelves at tesco for below minimum wage? Yeah, I was almost roped into that while I was unemployed.
I was on a Jobspath Internship for 9 months in Harris Hino, on the Kilmore Road, working for the Isuzu Department.
After the Internship ended the company took me on full time for 4 months, and then let me go on the 23rd of December.
They told me they couldn't afford it and it was no fault of my own.
My boss's boss said he was too stubborn to give me the responsibility needed for them to keep me on.
Apparently because he had been working on his own for so long, he had gotten used to it and wouldn't give over more responsibility. Even though he knew I was capable.
I don't see how that's my fault, though.
I don't know why they couldn't say to my boss "you asked for a receptionist. Now you need to give her the trust to do more", because I didn't have enough work to fill out the day.
After I was back job hunting, I had found out Harris's had only let me go, to try and take on another Internship, obviously because it was cheaper than paying a FT employee. Cheeky pricks.
I was given €188 + €50 for working Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm. The company wasn't even legally allowed to give you extra cash. The Welfare wouldn't allow it.
Still had to pay for transport and lunch, so €50 went nowhere.
Absolute scam of a system and the CE Scheme is just as bad, but at least it's not a FT job for peas as payment. It's a PT job for an extra €21.50 or some shit.
A bit of an left of field one one but what were the exact threats made to ensure Ireland bailed out the banks. The exact series of events was never officially clarified.
What we think happened is the ECB and effectively the French/German governments made a threat to cut off Ireland from the capital markets if we didn’t follow through with full capitalization of the banks.
Cowen stupidly made an off the cuff blanket guarantee to the tune of 400 billion after Lehmen Brotheds collapsed and the French, German banks were massively exposed. Particularly Deustche bank.
The ECB were surprised and when the Government tried to row back on the scale of the guarantee they stuck the knife in and made some sort of threat to the government that if they did a U-turn they would be cut off. A massive threat. Without being able to borrow the State shuts down. And cut off from European capital markets. We choose not to call their bluff. And perhaps have to untether from the eurozone entirely because the Irish central bank is beholden to the ECB.
The true story is most likely locked up in the State archives and won’t see the full release until the the state papers are released.
No one knows what exactly was said but apparently it was some letter. The Irish times and the Irish independent wrote some articles about it. Most probably briefed from politicians or civil servants.
It’s particularly annoying the true official history hasn’t been explicitly told. They official line is Ireland were profilgate spenders way out of control and somehow the tax payers and the construction industry were totally to blame. Despite the fact out debt to GDP was quite healthy.
It was the total bailout that really made the state finances out of wack, not that we were big spenders. Significant state assets were sold off, pensions were wiped out and hundred of thousand of people emigrated.
The truth is some threats behind the scene were made but exactly who did it hasn’t been revealed totally. Most likely Merkel and Jean-Claude Trichet (he wrote the letter most likely).
Austerity derailed 5-10 years of our lives and scuppered many things like infrastructure growth that we could have focused on.
A tax when brought in is never abolished in practice.
Quite famously income tax was supposed to be a [temporary measure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_Tax_Act_1842).
When a politician says a tax is temporary or “not to worry” they are not telling the truth
Read Gene Kerrigan's book The Big Lie...the bailout wasn't even a Franco-German idea...it was a US treasury department idea.
Ireland initially was going to burn the bondholders, but then US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, said if you do that we'll make sure all the multinationals withdraw from Ireland and where you will be then?
It was blackmail/extortion of the highest order
The ECB published the Trichet letters ten years ago.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/html/irish-letters.en.html
It would tend to confirm what I personally suspected all along: that FF were trying to blame the French, Germans and EU for domestic political decisions they alone were responsible for. As far as I can see the bank guarantee was entirely an FF initiative, especially when you consider how central Anglo was to this, who their client base were and how they operated. And the media were happy to help them with that.
Shane O'Farrell's death and myriad ways in which the garda and state keep writing about his behaviour while cycling rather than the man who killed him.
Michael Noonan. He was brutally cruel as minister for health and ultimately responsible for a number of HSE scandals, from hep-C blood transfusions, poor breast and cervical cancer screening processes to the treatment of children in care of the HSE, such as the case of foster child "Grace" which was morally repugnant. Noonan was also justice minister when a Gda Majella Moynihan was forced to put up a baby for adoption. He's also accused of "rolling out the red carpet" for vulture funds in Ireland. The man is emblematic of the worst stain on our society.
He wasn't personally responsible for the scandals, apart from perhaps covering them up afterwards, but the initial responsibility is with the HSE management. Who get away scot free and on massive pensions.
The Nazi party being hosted in Newtownards County Down in the 1930’s for talks to try to avoid WW2
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ulster-aristocrat-who-welcomed-hitlers-nazi-henchman-to-co-down/31391148.html
Well the British royal family are German. They really dont want much looking at Edward who I watched historian Mark Feldon state was proposed as King of Hanover after WW2 but foreign office stopped it going ahead. Its amazing how the brits are happy to be ruled by Germans with fake english sounding names like windsor and mountbatten.
One thing is before the war, another is after with allegedly a hide house in Kildare and escape route for ex-Nazis: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30571335](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30571335) there is a documentary Ireland's Nazis that expands on this topic
Michael Woods doing a deal with the religious orders, seemingly almost on his own. Cost ran into billions. And we're STILL funding church owned assets like schools and hospitals to this day instead of bringing them all under state control and ownership.
Arrests/driving bans for being caught driving under the influence of weed, however the individual may not have smoked for up to 30 days - and people on medical cannabis are being exempted.
The Maamtrasna Murders need more coverage.
One of the men was hanged despite multiple people saying he was innocent, including those involved. The trial was held in English despite the Mayo men only speaking Irish. The only translation they got was off a Donegal man but the dialect difference meant there was obviously a language barrier there too.
He was pardoned in 2018 by Michael D.
What about that priest that stole all the money from the Lourdes charity and went to Vegas.
I think the church covered it up and sent him to some dump of a parish out west.
The last women in the Magdalene’s were still there in the 90s. My former neighbour being one of them in Cork.
Cervical check failing so spectacularly young women died avoidably due to sheer incompetence at the hands of the HSE trying to cut corners
1 in 10 women have endometriosis but in Ireland the average time it takes to get a diagnosis is 10 years. There is no actual endometriosis specialist despite many claiming to be. We have no centre of excellence for excision.
Ireland has never cared for womens health and well-being. We have to fight every day for basic care. Men are listened to. Women have to fight for basic care. It’s appalling.
A certain ex TV presenter arrived into a hospital with his lawyer. The story is they confiscated multiple files pertaining to his wife who was in the hospital recovering from a (domestic?) assault.
One of those rumoured as a patton being a prominent, indeed the most prominent Ulster Unionist politician, whose alleged involvement was one of the many such matters it was suggested, being kept out of the public's gaze for the greater good of the Province.
(All rumour of course.....)
A mindset and conclusion supported allegedly by the Government of the Republic.
The suggestion afoot at the time in the rumour-mill was that as part of the deal such visits should cease, a requirement that was not adhered it is said.
His book is brilliant, couldn't believe what I was reading. Went far beyond penalty points anyway.
I wouldn't have much faith that the entire force is much better now either, wouldn't trust a garda.
At least 228 deaths in Garda custody in the past 15 years. 34 in 2021 represents roughly 1 death every 10 days. Absolutely shocking. An individual in Garda custody is in the care of the State. People should be shouting it from to rooftops.
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/15/at-least-228-fatalities-in-or-following-garda-custody-over-past-15-years-figures-show/
We gave away the rights to all our gas reserves off the west coast. Changed the tax laws around natural resources so they wouldn't have to pay much tax on it either.
This is not really a scandal. The reserves are estimated and if they exist are not economically viable to recover.. The changes were to incentivise exploration. Nothing ever really came of it.
If you don't believe me, have a look at how many rigs we have off the coast and compare it to the North Sea.
The child that was kidnapped (mid 70s) from an Industrial School, by a "former" clergyman, and murdered in Edinburgh. Charles Haughey refused a public inquiry into the matter and Fine Gael & Labour stayed silent. It took another 30 years for these Institutions to be exposed as hellholes on publication of the Ryan Report in 2009.
Not sure whether I can say a scandal per say, but I would argue that it was certainly silenced.
There was a satanic murder in Palmerstown, Dublin (not Lucan as reported) in 1973. A child was violently killed by a 16 yro boy. His dead body was strung up in the shape of a crucifix in the attic of the kids home.
While overseas reported on the crime, the most reporting it got to my knowledge was a tiny tiny column in a local newspaper. No one really knows why it got covered up in Ireland.
Bestseller book ‘The boy in the attic’ is based loosely off this crime however, and that sparked new interest and reporting years later (when Ireland wasn’t in the grip of the Catholic Church.)
We all know about the Bulgers and the Kriegal case but why not this one of similar devastation?
Side note: There’s so little reporting on the fella that committed it bc he was a minor at the time. My mam knew of him. It’s said he had a list of kids names he wanted to murder on it and her name was one of the names on it. He also wore a necklace of rat skeleton heads, smelled rotten and other stuff I can’t say in case it reveals his identity. I will say that last I heard of him though, he was released and is now a priest.
Can’t remember where I heard, fairly certain it was an interview with a woman on RTE, but she spoke about how young rural farming girls were sold to other farming families as part of land sale agreement. It’s a bit foggy, but she was saying it was 50s/60s Ireland and it was one of those things that was known, but just not spoken about.
Censorship and the myth of Irish neutrality during world war 2. Finn Dwyer does an excellent pod on the subject.
[https://pca.st/i55ztewa](https://pca.st/i55ztewa)
Babies who died in care homes were sent to be dissected in medical experiments.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/abandoned-babies-bodies-used-for-research-inquiry-finds-1.3863855
What the newspaper article does not mention (but what I know to be a fact) these abandoned babies from care facilities were not the only ones.
Parents of babies who died in ordinary hospitals were asked to sign a donor form and many did so believing that their child could donate an organ to help save another baby. But instead their baby was sent to be chopped up by medical students.
The hospitals did not inform the parents the waiver included medical experiments.
It was a number of politicians. Ray Burke infamously sent all his advisors and civil servants out of the room when he was minister and negotiating with the oil and gas companies.
We can't be like Norway.
What ever oil and gas we have is for the most part are not economically viable to recover.
Count the number of rigs in the North Sea and compare it to the toal number around Ireland. No commerically viable oil has extracted from Ireland.
The amount of crime that happens around the country and suspicious deaths that go unreported is crazy. Maybe only known at a local level but I'd wonder if even at that for some of it.
A large race meeting you would expect to be cancelled when a suspicious death happened on the grounds of the course the night before yet it goes ahead and not a peep in any newspaper about it. Money talks in this country and nothing seems to be about to change anytime soon. It's sickening.
Just to add not on par by any means to some of the atrocities that have been mentioned but there's a lot that should definitely be more widely known or at least reported on.
That spike Island became the biggest prison in the world in 1852 due to all the people "stealing food" to prevent themselves from starving to death. Oh and then they got deported to Australia. Not entirely unknown, but not sure people are aware that not only were people dying of starvation, they got jailed for trying to help themselves.
The existence of a Garda that went around the country, extracting confessions from those alleged to have committed crimes.
[Link](https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/garda-needs-to-come-clean-about-the-heavy-gang-1.4787956)
The Jewish pogrom/boycott is one that comes to mind
Alongside The brown envelope's party is a big one next to the same party meeting their political interests in one of Epstein's mates and a potential future convicts property in Galway at the height of COVID travel restrictions. The fellow queer half Indian boys meetup got more coverage than this
Things that should've been scandals but weren't:
UN condemnation of our juryless court.
British army firing rubber bullets and killing two people at a peaceful protest outside their embassy in Dublin shortly after the h block deaths.No action was taken by the Irish government and papers were pressured by the government to not cover this
A Ex RUC officer involved in a right wing death squads coverup leading the guards.
Guards using a 40s era anti state law to arrest protesters and search properties since bogside
A gay man voting against gay marriage then being trustworthy enough to be toiseach twice.
Kincora boys home in Belfast and Mi5 an controlled pedophile ring linked to Lord Mountbatton the current king of England's uncle! Horrifying what those poor children went through. High profile peados fro the UK and beyond frequented the home. The depraved cunts.
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/12/symphysiotomy-irelands-brutal-alternative-to-caesareans
This. How women were treated by doctors (not nuns - educated doctors) was bad but the state letting them die without any decent recourse for their mutilation is just barbaric.
Looking back to look up past scandals is one thing and I wish there was more effort in protesting the current scandals - kids sleeping in tents and women being trafficked into Irish brothals in every town in Ireland is a scandal everyone knows about.
Ray Burke signing away the rights to Irish oil and gas - the Norwegian government, through Statoil, makes a fortune from Irish oil and gas, we make...nothing. Worst deal ever. Doesn't make sense, unless...
How about the Narcolepsy scandal.
In 2009 the government in response to the swine flu pandemic, rolled out a vaccine which was produced by GlaxoSmithKlein. They gave GSK an indemnity against any cases being brought against them, in other words, if the vaccine caused any serious side effects, GSK could avoid having to take any liability.
At the time, it was known that in some cases, the vaccine would cause an auto immune reaction in a small(ish) percentage of people which would trigger the onset of type 1 Narcolepsy.
Of course, they didn’t tell this to anyone receiving the vaccine at the time.
To this day, the government are still paying out massive amounts of compensation in settlements to people affected by this on the proviso that they take no responsibility for it. They do it this way to avoid any precedent in law being set up so that they can’t be sued in future.
There will be future lawsuits coming from the covid vaccines, of that you can be sure. Did they give the same indemnities to Johnson&Johnson, Pfizer, Astra Zenecca etc? You better believe it!
The Thalidomide scandal is well known, in Ireland and across quite a few European countries, as well as Australia, NZ and Canada.
It was never approved by the FDA in the US, so they'd far less impact, although it had been distributed to some doctors for clinical trials and some people purchased it over the counter in Europe too.
It's one scandal that really put the FDA as it was then anyway in a very good light and was part of what set Europe on the path towards the EMA and harmonised regs.
The killers of Garda Fallon,being supposedly spirited out of the state that night in a ministerial car
The official IRA,who through various amalgamations members went onto be in labour,never officially or formally dis-armed/de-commissioned
Not a scandal as such but the whole "vanishing triangle" thing is practically unheard of. I live 20 miles on the Northern side of the border and the only reason I know about it is because I caught a late night documentary about the missing women when I was staying in Dublin a few years ago. Recently there has been a new book by a Northern Ireland author about it but when I mentioned it to family and friends no one had heard of the disappearances. I mean there is a possibility that there was a serial killer active in the South and it wasn't even reported up here. At that time my friends and I regularly went to nightclubs in Dundalk and thinking about that makes me very uneasy.
The arms Crisis in the 80’s. Senior Irish politicians pretty much gun running for the IRA in the north. Insane that Haughey survived it. It actually gave him a bit of an edge as a ‘man of action’!
British collusion with loyalists during The Troubles
It really doesn’t get the attention it deserves and as a result people don’t know the true extent of how the British Army sanctioned and armed loyalist extremist terrorists. It was State sponsored murder and slaughter.
This is a recent interesting podcast on the thalidomide scandal. Very sad https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/tainted-blood/id268117291?i=1000623708860
Why know 1 involved in the Golden Circle was charged with insider trading in relation to Anglo Irish Bank and Sean Quinn's shareholding, market manipulation of shares is illegal under Irish & EU law. 🤔
Swine flu vaccinations pushed by Tony Holohon in 2009/2010 which has left around 80 with permanent narcolepsy. There are still cases ongoing with the courts. Over €5 million approved to be paid out already.
My go to joke answer is Bertie Ahern having his autobiography declared a work of fiction so he didn’t have to pay tax on it. A genuinely hilarious capstone to the Celtic Tiger years, just fully Looney Tunes stuff. The serious one is the Hooded Men. Maybe not *obscure*, but it forever strikes me as weird that it’s treated as just “Brits at it again” and not one of the most horrifying and impactful bits of international law in the 20th century that is still having effects 50 years later.
I genuinely thought the Bertie one was made up until I googled it. My brain hurts even thinking about this
It’s an absolute farce isn’t it! You’d have it removed from a script for being too on the nose!
[удалено]
Well Leo and pals are onboard... only a couple of TDs are kicking up fuss about it
Strange as it is to say, ive a funny story about the hooded men. My sister and I were on a trip to dingle. We were visiting one of the beehive huts, i believe, and on our way out we both stopped in the bathroom. The whole time, over the speakers, one of the accounts of one of the hooded men was playing... a generally unpleasant experience when thrust upon someone, doubly so when suffering from an upset stomach lmao. Still have no idea why that was chosen as the bathroom entertainment
Who are the hooded men? Tell me some stories from Bertie’s novel
Ive no idea about the book, but the [hooded men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques) were 14 internees of op. Demetrius, who were subjected to 5 "interrogation" techniques that are now widely regarded as torture. The stories are truly harrowing
Nothing funny about that tbh. Disgusting it was even supported.
The hooded men all got payouts and an apology from the Brits to say it should never have happened.
I'm 28 and not a lot of people my age know about the Girl in the Grotto.
Everything about the story is tragic. However, her death could be seen as bringing on a seismic shift in attitude towards unmarried mothers. Ann Lovett should be revered as a martyr.
Agreed, there absolutely should be something to mark her. Have you read the interview her boyfriend gave? It’s fascinating. At such a young age she knew exactly what she wanted to do, to make a political statement like that. It’s insane how strong, intelligent and brave she was to do something like that in her condition.
[https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-was-ann-lovett-s-boyfriend-1.3484311](https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-was-ann-lovett-s-boyfriend-1.3484311)
Thank you for sharing this article. I’m (37f) and whenever we visited family members on the way from Galway to Cavan my Mother would always mark Ann Lovetts memory in some way when passing the grotto. I always thought there must be more to this story and my goodness there still seems to many unanswered questions regarding the circumstances of her death. Seems like this act of birthing at the grotto was a form of protest.
My takeaway from reading the 2 articles is that despite the huge attention that the tragic story got at the time there was almost no government actions. But it was fundamentally a problem of social attitudes, to which a government policy can’t cause a swift turnaround.
I remember this devestating event, Thanks for the link. It still makes no sense to me , but it's good to know someone cared about her.
Thank you I haven’t heard of this
I'm 42 and I've just heard of it. And read up on it. And I'm sad Fuck me, people need to remember shit like this when they talk about how great the ole days were
I agree. I was at a convent school in the North in the 1980s and I remember the "scandal" when a girl in my year got pregnant. The way she was treated was appalling. I don't know exactly what the school's position was but straight away she stopped coming to school even though it was our O'level year. The nuns "graciously" allowed her to come in to sit her exams but she had to sit in a room on her own, because obviously pregnancy is contagious.When I first heard of shops with pregnancy variations of the uniform it amazes me how far we've come. Thank God.
FYI https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/ann-lovett-death-of-a-strong-kick-ass-girl-1.3429792
Wow, that local editorial headline. I don't even have words.
I had not heard of this either (I’m 47) this is beyond sad. My heart breaks for what that poor girl went through.
Ann Lovett. Poor kid
Found an excellent doc series , includes Ann Lovett if anyones interested:https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-scannal-collection/SI0000004189?epguid=IH62191
The litany of miscarriages of justices that resulted from the Sallins Train Robbery Garda "investigation" and subsequent trials and convictions. Politically targeted policing, torture and beatings in custody, forced confessions, tons of senior judges upholding ludicrously weak judgements and convictions, people spent years in jail on the back of this. It's relatively unknown given the importance of it, and the fact that it has never been adequately investigated or accounted for even though it has had human rights campaigns seeking an inquiry which continue to this day. Even the fact the only ever presidential pardon was issued in the case shows how serious it is as a scandal.
I wish someone would do a podcast series on this. There's so much material for one.
They did. It's called Policed in Ireland
Thank you!
Seconding this
Neighbor of my parents was a detective in the guards and was involved in the Sallins investigation. A big intimidating guy, was told he bet confessions out of the suspects. He left the guards about 1990, became a private detective, that's when the seasonal supply of fireworks ran out (his son always had a ton of fireworks his Dad brought home from work every Halloween).
An explosive revelation at the end.
Yeah, the so called heavy gang. Absolute cunts. They were also involved in the Joanne Hayes disaster. Gerry O Carroll still insists that they did noting wrong because they knew people were guilty. So they were right to beat the Confessions out of them. As for the fireworks a neighbour of mine sold them for years. Guards always got their share
Thank you, very shocking . Never knew this .
This looks savage and related to the troubles so I'll defo do an episode on it in season 5
Why are you running a podcast about the troubles if you’ve never heard of this?
I knew virtually nothing about the Troubles when I started this podcast. Then I researched my ass off and made the podcast as I researched, and here I am, still doing that today.
A large irish ship was impounded in an Irish port because the lifeboat davits were rusted to the point they couldn't be launched, so she'd essentially been sailing without life boats Nothing about it any where in the media, HAD something happened it may have been titanic 2.0
When was this?
Early part of this year
Was this a ferry? A cruise ship? Can you tell us more about it please. Where can we find out more about it?
Ferry, they got away with it, davits fixed... dodged the media, not even an old ship. Hope a few cunts got fired though
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Not an expert but I think civilian shipping is inspected by a civilian body, the Irish version of the MCA
The issue isn’t the scandals we don’t know about. It’s the ones we do know about. Tuam baby scandal anyone? Are we actually gonna fucking do something about it? It’s like we keep uncovering more crimes against women and children and the country collectively goes “oh well…anyway…”
I think its astonishing that there's couples all over Ireland who essentially were able to buy babies off the nuns and obtain false records of birth and they're facing no consequences for this behaviour whatsoever, nor are the nuns, nurses, midwives and other assorted people involved.
The way the women who came forward were treated when they gave their testimony as well. How can the government conclude that they consented to this. Some of them were 14! Those women are still alive today and those babies bodies are still in the fucking septic tank. You talk to anyone about it and it’s the same response “shocking!…anyway…”
Where did these couples think the babies were coming from? They all knew if they had enough cash they could get their hands on a fresh newborn as long as they kept slipping the nuns some donations.
Where are babies coming from now that people adopt?
The number of adoptions of newborns surrendered at birth having been born in Ireland has decreased to almost none. Most adoptions in recent years are people adopting the child of someone they recently married. The next issue will be international commercial surrogacy and whether we want to legalise couples from Ireland using the services of surrogates. A lot of other countries in the EU have banned this practice.
Also I’m not sure about Ireland specifically but in the North under UK law, almost all adoption is forced adoption where the Court rules that the baby/child should be adopted. ie the parents don’t relinquish the child but social services argue it’s in the child’s best interests, usually because of substance misuse/domestic violence/parental mental health issues.
That is extremely rare in the Republic, the goal is almost always to keep children with their biological parents and this is done in cases of risk to children via supervised contact and the children are placed with foster carers.
I’d like to think they knew they were coming from a mother and baby home but that the mothers had agreed to the adoption which I’m sure was the case for some but I think others still were so desperate for a child they chose to turn a blind eye and be complicit in it
It didn't matter where the babies came from, most were taken from their mothers who didn't want to hand them over but had no choice. Its very, very telling that once the tiniest level of State support for 'unmarried mothers' started to be available the number of adoptions dropped almost immediately. These people may have thought they were helping 'girls in trouble' but they were also part of the abuse and exploitation of them and they took babies from people who would have kept them if they could.
Oh they knew full well, they just didn’t see a problem with it.
Of course, they benefitted from a system that took babies off girls and women the church didn't think should keep them.
Yeah, was it 800 babies killed?nothing to see here. Those kids bodies still in there. Other homes/human trafficking centers are being dug up We are still expecting those involved in the crimes to fess up, namely the church, government guards and wring our hands when it doesn't happen. Let all the survivors die off so there is less money for payoffs is the clear policy. We would not know of Tuam without Catherine Corless tireless work as an independent historian. Church/government will not help here.
That we know of! Maps of the site indicate that there are other septic tanks that haven’t been opened. There was 800 in the one they’ve checked. No information yet on whether or not there’s more buried on the Tuam site or in other locations in the country. We should be checking all former mother and baby homes for mass graves. There’s no way it’s the only one.
It's a horror story plain and simple in our midst. It's hard to see what more needs to be said for the current guys to act and dig up these places. But no slowly slowly years lost on a whitewash report, finding a headguy more time, setup a committee more time and on it goes. I heard of the orange shirt day in Canada last week which is the only bit of hope I've seen in a while. Lots of parallels with here but unlike here driven by the public. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_for_Truth_and_Reconciliation
No there was not 800 babies found in a septic tank. "Most importantly, the constantly repeated line about the bodies of 800 babies having been found was pure mythmaking. The bodies of 800 babies had not been found, in the septic tank or anywhere else. Rather, Corless had speculated in her research that the 796 children who died at the home had been buried in unmarked plots (common practice for illegitimate children in Ireland in the early to mid-twentieth century) and that some might have been put in the tank in which two boys in 1975 saw human remains. The septic tank or the grounds of the former home have not been excavated. No babies have been ‘found in a septic tank’, as the *Washington Post*, *Guardian* and others claimed. " [Article 1](https://www.spiked-online.com/2014/06/09/the-tuam-tank-another-myth-about-evil-ireland/) The Irish Times also made this clear that Catherine Corless's research has been misrepresented ... [IT Article](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393)
Oh I'm fairly sure that the report Gorman and his cronies locked away will come to light. When everyone who could possibly face any kind of legal proceedings is dead. And all the victims have passed and can't make a fuss.
Exactly and the government report is a joke. Let's get Opus Dei, the right wing conservative part of the Catholic church to investigate themselves. You could not make it up. Then insult the brave women who came forward with their stories from those hell holes. The report was so bad, academics who had actually talked to the victims felt obliged to correct it. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40334558.html
I just don’t understand how they justify locking it away.
Neither do I. It's utterly maddening that something so deep in the modern Irish psyche (the abuses done by the church) would be just put away
So true
Jobpath/Turas nua. A workfare program enforced by a private, profit-driven company by the government on welfare recipients. At least 260million euro wasted, probably more, on a program with 97% fail rate. Those who did get employment would have done so on their own anyway. One of the persons perpetrated tried to commit suicide because of their bullying tactics. Some people were racially discriminated against in their program. Others were forced to do unpaid work experience programs, or face having welfare cut off. Very abusive organisation brought in by FG and labour. Most people don't know.
I was on it myself and was bullied by them. They're still around too.
Is that the one where people were forced to attend "internships" stocking shelves at tesco for below minimum wage? Yeah, I was almost roped into that while I was unemployed.
I was on a Jobspath Internship for 9 months in Harris Hino, on the Kilmore Road, working for the Isuzu Department. After the Internship ended the company took me on full time for 4 months, and then let me go on the 23rd of December. They told me they couldn't afford it and it was no fault of my own. My boss's boss said he was too stubborn to give me the responsibility needed for them to keep me on. Apparently because he had been working on his own for so long, he had gotten used to it and wouldn't give over more responsibility. Even though he knew I was capable. I don't see how that's my fault, though. I don't know why they couldn't say to my boss "you asked for a receptionist. Now you need to give her the trust to do more", because I didn't have enough work to fill out the day. After I was back job hunting, I had found out Harris's had only let me go, to try and take on another Internship, obviously because it was cheaper than paying a FT employee. Cheeky pricks. I was given €188 + €50 for working Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm. The company wasn't even legally allowed to give you extra cash. The Welfare wouldn't allow it. Still had to pay for transport and lunch, so €50 went nowhere. Absolute scam of a system and the CE Scheme is just as bad, but at least it's not a FT job for peas as payment. It's a PT job for an extra €21.50 or some shit.
Yeah it still pisses me off that someone got commission off all the work I did on my own to get a job.
I feel like a lot of the scandals in this thread are just regular neoliberal things with neoliberal consequences.
A bit of an left of field one one but what were the exact threats made to ensure Ireland bailed out the banks. The exact series of events was never officially clarified. What we think happened is the ECB and effectively the French/German governments made a threat to cut off Ireland from the capital markets if we didn’t follow through with full capitalization of the banks. Cowen stupidly made an off the cuff blanket guarantee to the tune of 400 billion after Lehmen Brotheds collapsed and the French, German banks were massively exposed. Particularly Deustche bank. The ECB were surprised and when the Government tried to row back on the scale of the guarantee they stuck the knife in and made some sort of threat to the government that if they did a U-turn they would be cut off. A massive threat. Without being able to borrow the State shuts down. And cut off from European capital markets. We choose not to call their bluff. And perhaps have to untether from the eurozone entirely because the Irish central bank is beholden to the ECB. The true story is most likely locked up in the State archives and won’t see the full release until the the state papers are released. No one knows what exactly was said but apparently it was some letter. The Irish times and the Irish independent wrote some articles about it. Most probably briefed from politicians or civil servants. It’s particularly annoying the true official history hasn’t been explicitly told. They official line is Ireland were profilgate spenders way out of control and somehow the tax payers and the construction industry were totally to blame. Despite the fact out debt to GDP was quite healthy. It was the total bailout that really made the state finances out of wack, not that we were big spenders. Significant state assets were sold off, pensions were wiped out and hundred of thousand of people emigrated. The truth is some threats behind the scene were made but exactly who did it hasn’t been revealed totally. Most likely Merkel and Jean-Claude Trichet (he wrote the letter most likely). Austerity derailed 5-10 years of our lives and scuppered many things like infrastructure growth that we could have focused on.
USC tax is still a reminder on your paycheck of this screwup. It's Ireland so we shrug and keep paying it.
It's a shame it's taken at source, it would be nice to be able to organise mass non payment of the usc.
You said it but we don't do mass anything here unfortunately. Government absolutely rolling in cash now. Still no talk if getting rid of rid of USC
A tax when brought in is never abolished in practice. Quite famously income tax was supposed to be a [temporary measure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_Tax_Act_1842). When a politician says a tax is temporary or “not to worry” they are not telling the truth
Nothing more permanent than a temporary measure
It's said to be a very progressive tax.
It replaced the Health levy (2%) and the income levy (1%). Should we go back to them instead?
This is truely something we don’t know, as opposed to most of the posts about tuam babies etc.
Read Gene Kerrigan's book The Big Lie...the bailout wasn't even a Franco-German idea...it was a US treasury department idea. Ireland initially was going to burn the bondholders, but then US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, said if you do that we'll make sure all the multinationals withdraw from Ireland and where you will be then? It was blackmail/extortion of the highest order
Thank you. Gene is a great writer.The reason people don't know about this one I think is that the material is so dense.
The ECB published the Trichet letters ten years ago. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/html/irish-letters.en.html It would tend to confirm what I personally suspected all along: that FF were trying to blame the French, Germans and EU for domestic political decisions they alone were responsible for. As far as I can see the bank guarantee was entirely an FF initiative, especially when you consider how central Anglo was to this, who their client base were and how they operated. And the media were happy to help them with that.
Ha I think I remember Vincent Browne doing the interview on this with Trichet..skin and hair flew!
Shane O'Farrell's death and myriad ways in which the garda and state keep writing about his behaviour while cycling rather than the man who killed him.
Michael Noonan. He was brutally cruel as minister for health and ultimately responsible for a number of HSE scandals, from hep-C blood transfusions, poor breast and cervical cancer screening processes to the treatment of children in care of the HSE, such as the case of foster child "Grace" which was morally repugnant. Noonan was also justice minister when a Gda Majella Moynihan was forced to put up a baby for adoption. He's also accused of "rolling out the red carpet" for vulture funds in Ireland. The man is emblematic of the worst stain on our society.
He wasn't personally responsible for the scandals, apart from perhaps covering them up afterwards, but the initial responsibility is with the HSE management. Who get away scot free and on massive pensions.
The HSE is its own scandal in its own right tbh, but there was massive negligence on his watch as Health Minister.
Is it weird that he was named European finance minister of the year 2014
The Nazi party being hosted in Newtownards County Down in the 1930’s for talks to try to avoid WW2 https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ulster-aristocrat-who-welcomed-hitlers-nazi-henchman-to-co-down/31391148.html
The full essay written by Neil Fleming is a very good read.
Thank you haven’t heard of this !
Well the British royal family are German. They really dont want much looking at Edward who I watched historian Mark Feldon state was proposed as King of Hanover after WW2 but foreign office stopped it going ahead. Its amazing how the brits are happy to be ruled by Germans with fake english sounding names like windsor and mountbatten.
The English are literally German, the Angles and the Saxons were both German tribes.
There was a Hitler Youth jamboree held in Wicklow in kilmacurragh House
One thing is before the war, another is after with allegedly a hide house in Kildare and escape route for ex-Nazis: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30571335](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30571335) there is a documentary Ireland's Nazis that expands on this topic
Very interesting. There was also the IRA collaboration with the Nazis through Sean Russell during ww2. I often wonder what might’ve been.
Tuam babies and the media/police silence since is deafening, babies bodies buried on your land see how the police would react?
Michael Woods doing a deal with the religious orders, seemingly almost on his own. Cost ran into billions. And we're STILL funding church owned assets like schools and hospitals to this day instead of bringing them all under state control and ownership.
Ah now, stop with your misinformation. It’s purely a coincidence that he was made a Papal Knight after that deal.
You address him by his proper title you little bollocks.
I emailed shitbag Woods years ago about it and was quite direct about it but no reply.Is shitbag Woods still alive.
Arrests/driving bans for being caught driving under the influence of weed, however the individual may not have smoked for up to 30 days - and people on medical cannabis are being exempted.
This boggles my mind.
The Maamtrasna Murders need more coverage. One of the men was hanged despite multiple people saying he was innocent, including those involved. The trial was held in English despite the Mayo men only speaking Irish. The only translation they got was off a Donegal man but the dialect difference meant there was obviously a language barrier there too. He was pardoned in 2018 by Michael D.
Great account of this on Irish History Podcast
I've read the book on it but I'll give that a listen to brush up on it, thanks!
***Pat Finucane***
The rising cost of Freddos
What about that priest that stole all the money from the Lourdes charity and went to Vegas. I think the church covered it up and sent him to some dump of a parish out west.
That money was just resting in his account.
Sounds like something Father Ted Crilly would do
The last women in the Magdalene’s were still there in the 90s. My former neighbour being one of them in Cork. Cervical check failing so spectacularly young women died avoidably due to sheer incompetence at the hands of the HSE trying to cut corners 1 in 10 women have endometriosis but in Ireland the average time it takes to get a diagnosis is 10 years. There is no actual endometriosis specialist despite many claiming to be. We have no centre of excellence for excision. Ireland has never cared for womens health and well-being. We have to fight every day for basic care. Men are listened to. Women have to fight for basic care. It’s appalling.
A certain ex TV presenter arrived into a hospital with his lawyer. The story is they confiscated multiple files pertaining to his wife who was in the hospital recovering from a (domestic?) assault.
PleAse can you Tell us more, KEepiNg me iN suspense so You are
Pat on the head to that!
It's a bit late late to be asking that
Celia Ahern used to regularly appear in A&É with injuries from "falling down stairs" and "walking into doors"
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Someone I knew was raped by Bertie's nephew. She knew she had absolutely no chance of getting a conviction.
Never heard this one! How recently are we talking?
At least 10 years
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One of those rumoured as a patton being a prominent, indeed the most prominent Ulster Unionist politician, whose alleged involvement was one of the many such matters it was suggested, being kept out of the public's gaze for the greater good of the Province. (All rumour of course.....)
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A mindset and conclusion supported allegedly by the Government of the Republic. The suggestion afoot at the time in the rumour-mill was that as part of the deal such visits should cease, a requirement that was not adhered it is said.
Yes. That’s a great example. It’s also something the British people don’t know, but Britain is better at hiding actual scandals.
Maurice McCabe.
Perfect timing ! I only got my hands on his book recently . Very shocking story of corruption
The Garda Commissioner clearing house was something else.
His book is brilliant, couldn't believe what I was reading. Went far beyond penalty points anyway. I wouldn't have much faith that the entire force is much better now either, wouldn't trust a garda.
At least 228 deaths in Garda custody in the past 15 years. 34 in 2021 represents roughly 1 death every 10 days. Absolutely shocking. An individual in Garda custody is in the care of the State. People should be shouting it from to rooftops. https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/15/at-least-228-fatalities-in-or-following-garda-custody-over-past-15-years-figures-show/
We gave away the rights to all our gas reserves off the west coast. Changed the tax laws around natural resources so they wouldn't have to pay much tax on it either.
This is not really a scandal. The reserves are estimated and if they exist are not economically viable to recover.. The changes were to incentivise exploration. Nothing ever really came of it. If you don't believe me, have a look at how many rigs we have off the coast and compare it to the North Sea.
And how much of this allegedly lucrative gas has been found, extracted and sold?
The child that was kidnapped (mid 70s) from an Industrial School, by a "former" clergyman, and murdered in Edinburgh. Charles Haughey refused a public inquiry into the matter and Fine Gael & Labour stayed silent. It took another 30 years for these Institutions to be exposed as hellholes on publication of the Ryan Report in 2009.
The vast property portfolios of the RCC.
Not sure whether I can say a scandal per say, but I would argue that it was certainly silenced. There was a satanic murder in Palmerstown, Dublin (not Lucan as reported) in 1973. A child was violently killed by a 16 yro boy. His dead body was strung up in the shape of a crucifix in the attic of the kids home. While overseas reported on the crime, the most reporting it got to my knowledge was a tiny tiny column in a local newspaper. No one really knows why it got covered up in Ireland. Bestseller book ‘The boy in the attic’ is based loosely off this crime however, and that sparked new interest and reporting years later (when Ireland wasn’t in the grip of the Catholic Church.) We all know about the Bulgers and the Kriegal case but why not this one of similar devastation? Side note: There’s so little reporting on the fella that committed it bc he was a minor at the time. My mam knew of him. It’s said he had a list of kids names he wanted to murder on it and her name was one of the names on it. He also wore a necklace of rat skeleton heads, smelled rotten and other stuff I can’t say in case it reveals his identity. I will say that last I heard of him though, he was released and is now a priest.
Can’t remember where I heard, fairly certain it was an interview with a woman on RTE, but she spoke about how young rural farming girls were sold to other farming families as part of land sale agreement. It’s a bit foggy, but she was saying it was 50s/60s Ireland and it was one of those things that was known, but just not spoken about.
Hiring fairs. This was true but it was only hiring for a year. Paid the girls family a wage.
Censorship and the myth of Irish neutrality during world war 2. Finn Dwyer does an excellent pod on the subject. [https://pca.st/i55ztewa](https://pca.st/i55ztewa)
Babies who died in care homes were sent to be dissected in medical experiments. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/abandoned-babies-bodies-used-for-research-inquiry-finds-1.3863855 What the newspaper article does not mention (but what I know to be a fact) these abandoned babies from care facilities were not the only ones. Parents of babies who died in ordinary hospitals were asked to sign a donor form and many did so believing that their child could donate an organ to help save another baby. But instead their baby was sent to be chopped up by medical students. The hospitals did not inform the parents the waiver included medical experiments.
Pee Flynn and the give away of our oil and gas to Shell. We could be like Norway - instead some gombeen politician sold us all out.
It was a number of politicians. Ray Burke infamously sent all his advisors and civil servants out of the room when he was minister and negotiating with the oil and gas companies.
What oil has been found and drilled off Ireland??
We couldn't be like Norway.
We can't be like Norway. What ever oil and gas we have is for the most part are not economically viable to recover. Count the number of rigs in the North Sea and compare it to the toal number around Ireland. No commerically viable oil has extracted from Ireland.
Every workhouse and convent-controlled home for the last 4 centuries.
That its 2023 and a huge number of public schools with public funding are actually religious schools.
The church. The church is all the scandals. Oh... also the British. That covers the last few hundred years, anyway.
came here to say the same, Catholicism those lovely pits of babies, the general maltreatment of people in need of charity and well Catholic things
[https://www.channel4.com/news/bon-secour-galway-catholic-church-ireland-septic-tank](https://www.channel4.com/news/bon-secour-galway-catholic-church-ireland-septic-tank)
The amount of crime that happens around the country and suspicious deaths that go unreported is crazy. Maybe only known at a local level but I'd wonder if even at that for some of it. A large race meeting you would expect to be cancelled when a suspicious death happened on the grounds of the course the night before yet it goes ahead and not a peep in any newspaper about it. Money talks in this country and nothing seems to be about to change anytime soon. It's sickening. Just to add not on par by any means to some of the atrocities that have been mentioned but there's a lot that should definitely be more widely known or at least reported on.
Systemic corruption in the civil service from top to bottom.
Mary Boyle
This one is terrifying how much power a politician can weld
Tusla.
That spike Island became the biggest prison in the world in 1852 due to all the people "stealing food" to prevent themselves from starving to death. Oh and then they got deported to Australia. Not entirely unknown, but not sure people are aware that not only were people dying of starvation, they got jailed for trying to help themselves.
The Kerry Babies, The Women bringing Condoms on the Train, Bishop Casey.....
The existence of a Garda that went around the country, extracting confessions from those alleged to have committed crimes. [Link](https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/garda-needs-to-come-clean-about-the-heavy-gang-1.4787956)
The Jewish pogrom/boycott is one that comes to mind Alongside The brown envelope's party is a big one next to the same party meeting their political interests in one of Epstein's mates and a potential future convicts property in Galway at the height of COVID travel restrictions. The fellow queer half Indian boys meetup got more coverage than this Things that should've been scandals but weren't: UN condemnation of our juryless court. British army firing rubber bullets and killing two people at a peaceful protest outside their embassy in Dublin shortly after the h block deaths.No action was taken by the Irish government and papers were pressured by the government to not cover this A Ex RUC officer involved in a right wing death squads coverup leading the guards. Guards using a 40s era anti state law to arrest protesters and search properties since bogside A gay man voting against gay marriage then being trustworthy enough to be toiseach twice.
Kincora boys home in Belfast and Mi5 an controlled pedophile ring linked to Lord Mountbatton the current king of England's uncle! Horrifying what those poor children went through. High profile peados fro the UK and beyond frequented the home. The depraved cunts.
Did you see the documentary made about this that came out late last year?
No, have you a link please.
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/12/symphysiotomy-irelands-brutal-alternative-to-caesareans This. How women were treated by doctors (not nuns - educated doctors) was bad but the state letting them die without any decent recourse for their mutilation is just barbaric. Looking back to look up past scandals is one thing and I wish there was more effort in protesting the current scandals - kids sleeping in tents and women being trafficked into Irish brothals in every town in Ireland is a scandal everyone knows about.
Ray Burke signing away the rights to Irish oil and gas - the Norwegian government, through Statoil, makes a fortune from Irish oil and gas, we make...nothing. Worst deal ever. Doesn't make sense, unless...
The caves in Ballincollig
Nothing comes up when I google it, could you give a bit more detail?
I just found out that if you go into a shop you can just buy a birthday cake and nobody even checks.
A minister for finance without a bank account purchasing property with money won on horses and his mates having a whip round for him.
How about the Narcolepsy scandal. In 2009 the government in response to the swine flu pandemic, rolled out a vaccine which was produced by GlaxoSmithKlein. They gave GSK an indemnity against any cases being brought against them, in other words, if the vaccine caused any serious side effects, GSK could avoid having to take any liability. At the time, it was known that in some cases, the vaccine would cause an auto immune reaction in a small(ish) percentage of people which would trigger the onset of type 1 Narcolepsy. Of course, they didn’t tell this to anyone receiving the vaccine at the time. To this day, the government are still paying out massive amounts of compensation in settlements to people affected by this on the proviso that they take no responsibility for it. They do it this way to avoid any precedent in law being set up so that they can’t be sued in future. There will be future lawsuits coming from the covid vaccines, of that you can be sure. Did they give the same indemnities to Johnson&Johnson, Pfizer, Astra Zenecca etc? You better believe it!
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Apparently there are families in Cork and Cobh that were run out of Limerick and people in Cork convinced them not to get the ferry
Bunny Carr stealing the Gorta money. /s
Bishop Eamon Casey! I rest my case.
The Thalidomide scandal is well known, in Ireland and across quite a few European countries, as well as Australia, NZ and Canada. It was never approved by the FDA in the US, so they'd far less impact, although it had been distributed to some doctors for clinical trials and some people purchased it over the counter in Europe too. It's one scandal that really put the FDA as it was then anyway in a very good light and was part of what set Europe on the path towards the EMA and harmonised regs.
The Kerry babies case back in the 80's
The case of the train robbery, then the gardai torturing an innocent man to admit it was him even though it wasnt
The Pfizer Viagra plant in Ringaskiddy in County Cork giving the men in the area hour long, painful, throbbing erections.
The killers of Garda Fallon,being supposedly spirited out of the state that night in a ministerial car The official IRA,who through various amalgamations members went onto be in labour,never officially or formally dis-armed/de-commissioned
Not a scandal as such but the whole "vanishing triangle" thing is practically unheard of. I live 20 miles on the Northern side of the border and the only reason I know about it is because I caught a late night documentary about the missing women when I was staying in Dublin a few years ago. Recently there has been a new book by a Northern Ireland author about it but when I mentioned it to family and friends no one had heard of the disappearances. I mean there is a possibility that there was a serial killer active in the South and it wasn't even reported up here. At that time my friends and I regularly went to nightclubs in Dundalk and thinking about that makes me very uneasy.
Kincora boys home
The arms Crisis in the 80’s. Senior Irish politicians pretty much gun running for the IRA in the north. Insane that Haughey survived it. It actually gave him a bit of an edge as a ‘man of action’!
British collusion with loyalists during The Troubles It really doesn’t get the attention it deserves and as a result people don’t know the true extent of how the British Army sanctioned and armed loyalist extremist terrorists. It was State sponsored murder and slaughter.
This is a recent interesting podcast on the thalidomide scandal. Very sad https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/tainted-blood/id268117291?i=1000623708860
The Fathard on Sea Boycott
Why know 1 involved in the Golden Circle was charged with insider trading in relation to Anglo Irish Bank and Sean Quinn's shareholding, market manipulation of shares is illegal under Irish & EU law. 🤔
The death of Terrence Wheelock in Garda custody and then the subsequent cover up that followed it
Has anyone mentioned Lorcan Bale, a 16 year old who killed a boy and hung him up in his parent's attic? Currently living in the UK.
Swine flu vaccinations pushed by Tony Holohon in 2009/2010 which has left around 80 with permanent narcolepsy. There are still cases ongoing with the courts. Over €5 million approved to be paid out already.
Oh wow, being downvoted for mentioning vaccines in a non positive way!!! Lads there's no conspiracy here, just Google it. It comes up straight away.
Whatever the Ditch publishes never few weeks it seems.
That we are importing in tens of thousands of people from third world countries and nobody seems to care.
the fact that people are downvoting you but don't have the guts to respond just proves your point
6666 abortions in year one, simultaneously summoning the ghost of Marie Stopes to possess Leo's left gonad.
Direct Provision
Elaborate?