I’m not going to regurgitate the whole Darren Scully carry-on. But a few things occurred to me:
1. If a DUP or Tory councillor said the exact same thing about Catholics or the Irish, we’d be livid.
2. Whilst classing a whole ethnic group together is very very silly, I don’t think he actually is a racist. The fact that he didn’t think through the logic of his argument is far more worrying.
3. Newcomers to Ireland do have an obligation to adjust to our culture, and it is not racist to say so.
4. Whilst it is easy to get irritated with the usual “racist” labellers (who debase the label and make life just that little bit easier for real racists by making them believe they speak for “ordinary people”) what is really disturbing about this whole thing is the way it allows every vile remark out of the woodwork and onto radio shows and online. It is quite staggering the number of Irish people who believe that other ethnic groups should tolerate things they would not tolerate themselves.
Hellraisers is one of those books you read in a single holiday because it is a) quite short, and b) just so chock full of laugh out loud stories that you fly through them looking to get to the next one.
The subject is Burton, O’Toole, Reed and Harris, back when men were men who went roarin’ shoutin’ and fightin’ and then delivered their lines perfectly on set.
Whether it was Harris demanding tea and toast in a police station or Reed announcing to crowded pubs that one of his friends had a bigger cock than he did (When he wasn’t shooting at helicopters with his shotgun.) an absolute joy to read.
