Month: May 2024

I was out walking recently on a promenade. It was a beautiful sunny day with a bit of a breeze and my nostrils detected the smell of smoke. I looked around and sure enough, there was a guy behind me smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t that close to me either, so it surprised me that even in the open air I was able to catch it because there was a time when I wouldn’t have noticed it unless I was on fire.

Smoking was so common back in the seventies and eighties that it was difficult to draw a breath of uncontaminated air at times. I often wonder how we survived at all because most of us lived in a nicotine fuelled smog, and we thought nothing of it. Hard to believe now but nearly everyone smoked back then.

Seems incredible in these health-conscious times but it wasn’t unusual to have a bunch of smokers puffing away in the confined space of a car or an office. Pubs were so smoke filled that the ceilings were yellow, and our clothes smelled like dirty ashtrays, but it didn’t bother us. In our ignorance, we didn’t care but we do now.

The Tobacco-Free Life Organization is a group with a mission to save lives by ending worldwide disease, damage and death caused by tobacco. Their website details the long history of tobacco and tobacco-related products.

In 1492, Columbus was warmly greeted by the Native American tribes he encountered when he first set foot on the new continent. He received gifts of fruit, food, spears, and more and among those gifts were dried up leaves of the tobacco plant. As they were not edible and had a distinct smell to them, those leaves, which the Native Americans had been smoking for over 2 millennia for medicinal and religious purposes, were thrown overboard.

Columbus soon realized though that dried tobacco leaves were a prized possession among the natives. By the end of the 16th century, tobacco plant and use of tobacco were introduced to virtually every country in Europe. Tobacco was snuffed or smoked, depending on the preference and some doctors even claimed it had medicinal properties.

Sir Walter Raleigh is credited with bringing it to England from Virginia and one legend tells of how Sir Walter’s servant, seeing him smoking a pipe for the first time, threw water over him, afraid he might go up in flames.

In 1604, King James 1 wrote ‘A Counter blast to Tobacco’, in which he described smoking as a ‘custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black and stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.’

Bob Newhart, the American comedian had a sketch where he played the part of the head of the West Indies Company in England in an imaginary phone call with Sir Walter Raleigh who tries to convince him that a load of leaves he loaded onto his ship in the American colonies, would be worth buying.

You can only hear Newhart’s side of the conversation and he is incredulous as Raleigh explains how the tobacco leaves are used. He tells Newhart how the leaves are rolled in paper, put between the lips and then set fire to. He said you could also put it up your nose and snuff it and it would make you sneeze.  Newhart in fits of laughter replies, “I imagine it would Walt.” It’s available on YouTube and well worth a listen.

As daft as that sounded though, smoking caught on and cigarettes came to the height of their popularity during the First and the Second World War. Tobacco companies sent millions of packs of cigarettes to soldiers on the front lines, creating hundreds of thousands of faithful and addicted consumers in the process. Cigarettes were even included into soldiers’ C-rations – which contained mostly food and supplements, along with cigarettes.

In Great Britain, snuff users were warned about dangers of nose cancer as early as 1761 while German doctors started warning pipe smokers about the possibility of developing lip cancer in 1795. In the 1930s, American doctors started linking tobacco use to lung cancer and General Surgeon’s report from 1964 definitely states that smoking causes lung cancer in men.

We know a lot more now. According to the Irish Cancer Society, smoking is the single biggest risk factor for lung cancer and a contributory risk factor in a number of other cancers. It also damages the heart and causes hardening and narrowing of the arteries and smokers are more likely to have a stroke than non-smokers.

It’s responsible for a multitude of other health issues too so with all this knowledge available to us you’d wonder why the habit remains so popular. Even more confusing is why anyone would deliberately set out to defend it.

The Irish Examiner reported recently that pro-smoking campaigners have vowed to fight government plans to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes and tobacco from 18 to 21.

Smokers’ rights group Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) said it would challenge what it called “creeping prohibition” following confirmation that the Health Minister plans to seek government approval for the move.

Simon Clark, the director of Forest, claimed the proposal to raise the age of sale will drive young adults into the arms of criminal gangs and illicit traders.  “If you can drive a car, join the army, purchase alcohol and vote when you are legally an adult at 18, you should also be allowed to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products,” he said.

I’m all in favour of democracy, free speech and freedom of choice but it’s hard to support their argument in this case.

According to a report on RTE, anti-social behaviour on public transport is out of control. An exasperated frontline transport worker told RTÉ Investigates he is simply sick and tired of dealing with the abuse he gets every day and doesn’t see an end in sight.

“There’s just groups and groups of young teens, young adults going around, not having a care in the world, just being aggressive, being like little sh**es, excuse my language, to everybody that they encounter,” he said.

Over several weeks, RTÉ Investigates travelled on most forms of public transport to see first-hand what the daily commute was really like. Using hidden cameras, the researchers witnessed a wide variety of anti-social activity including begging, substance abuse, unruly individuals, and gangs, and even threats of violence.

Teenagers travelling in gangs is an increasing problem on the public transport system and many passengers described a sense of menace when travelling close to these gangs. Drinking and drug-taking are also adding to the anti-social behaviour and the sense of fear experienced by the travelling public.

Frequently, they witnessed people drinking alcohol on board Luas trams, and the DART. Some passengers were also seen rolling joints, and consuming pills taken from bags concealed in their socks.

It seems things have deteriorated since I was a regular user of the Cork to Dublin train back in the early eighties. At one stage I travelled up and down that route almost every week and while there was no fear of intimidation, there certainly was discomfort, especially in the winter.

It wasn’t unusual to be without heat or light, or both at times, and you wouldn’t want to be wearing your best bib and tucker as the seats weren’t the cleanest. It wasn’t unusual either to have standing room only, especially if you travelled on a Friday evening.

Overcrowding was common and there were always complaints about the lack of carriages which is something I still hear commuters grumbling about today. Iarnród Éireann say they have improved their stock since then and they now provide the option of a quieter carriage on their Heuston to Cork services too. 

That’s good news because the only threats we were subjected to in those days came from the irritating announcements over the public address system. As soon as you settled into your seat, a loud monotone voice addressed passengers to inform us where we were going, and which stations would be serviced along the route.

I never knew why we needed to be told this. You’d imagine that before buying the ticket, passengers would have worked out the train’s destination. But in case we hadn’t, the voice named every stop between Cork and Dublin, and repeated the whole thing again in Irish for those who didn’t understand English.

The same rigamarole was repeated every time the train pulled into a station, making a snooze almost impossible. I don’t know if that still happens, but I learned on my travels abroad that, as I expected, there’s no need for it.

Last summer, my wife told me she wanted to visit Italy. She said it was on her bucket list so off she went and arranged everything. Before I knew it, we were standing in Pisa in the middle of August, admiring the famous wonky Tower. Later we left Pisa and headed for Cinque Terre which is about an hour and a half away on the train and it was on this journey that I noticed something – it was peaceful.

There were no announcements because the Italians have come up with a better idea. On each platform they have a digital notice board displaying the names of the various stops and the time you will arrive at each one. So, all you need to do when boarding the train is look for your destination and note the time of your expected arrival. After that, just keep an eye on the watch.

They also have onboard information screens to keep you updated which eliminates the need for noisy recordings and the system seems to work well.

It sounds simple but of course for that to work, the trains have to run on time which might be an issue here. They also operate an honour system which might be another problem for us. You purchase your ticket online and validate it online before you board the train.

They don’t have an issue with free loaders because the tickets are cheap and also because of the reputation of Italian rail inspectors. They don’t mess about.

A few years ago, an Italian train conductor was sacked for issuing passengers with too many fines. He was accused of “terrorising” passengers by overzealously handing out a record number of 5,000 fines within the space of a couple of years.

He was let go in 2017 after the company received a deluge of complaints from unhappy customers, costing it about €10,000 in reimbursements for fines the company argued had been issued arbitrarily and for mistaken sums. The inspector had fined passengers for various infractions, such as boarding a train without a ticket, failing to date-stamp it or for travelling on incorrect routes.

He sued the rail company for wrongful dismissal and a court ruled in his favour. The court described the conductor as someone who worked with “uncommon zeal” and was “inflexible”. However, it ruled he was only doing his job, albeit in an “extremely meticulous way”, and did not seek to profit personally.

With reports of bad behaviour on public transport here, we could do with a worker with “uncommon zeal.” The ill-mannered passengers putting their feet on the seats or placing their bags on the seat next to them and refusing to make room for other passengers could do with some “inflexibility” too. Maybe we should employ some Italians.

When I was a young lad, there was a guy who often passed by close to our house at night on his way home from the pub. I thought he was an old man at the time, but he was probably only in his fifties. He would stop at the corner of our terrace before tackling the next stage of his journey and with nobody else in sight he would launch into a tirade of abuse.

This involved lots of cursing and swearing but I’m not sure if anyone knew exactly who it was aimed at. Or even if there was meant to be someone on the receiving end. It may have been intended for the community as a whole.

The outbursts never made any sense to me. I couldn’t understand a word except for the expletives and maybe they didn’t even make much sense to himself. He was a peculiar character. A quiet man by day who lived on his own and whenever I met him, which was always during the daytime, he would say hello.

This was back in the sixties and maybe if he had been born in the modern era he may have been diagnosed as being on the spectrum and with some of the care that’s available today, he might have turned out differently. He wasn’t the only one. There was always a character like that in the town as I suppose there was in every locality. Usually classed as odd but harmless.

Shouting obscenities at the world was as daft as howling at the moon but it was tolerated as long as nobody was offended. I worked in a locality back in the eighties and I can remember a similar character whose antics sometimes overstepped the mark of what was acceptable and when they amounted to a breach of the peace, he ended up in the garda station.

Generally speaking, these people were harmless but that’s changing now. Public expressions of anger and intolerance have reached new levels, the likes of which I have never experienced. The worrying part is that much of it seems to be going unchallenged.

There was video footage shared on social media recently of Leo Varadkar sitting outside a café in the sunshine minding his own business. A male and a female voice could be heard shouting at him from a car which had stopped nearby. The vitriol that spewed from those people was outrageous. They directed disgusting comments from the top of their voices at Varadkar and were so proud of their actions that they recorded the incident and uploaded it to social media for all to see.

Another clip doing the rounds showed a guy who turned up for work in Newtownmountkennedy at a site earmarked to accommodate international protection applicants. He was met by a small group of protesters but one guy in particular lost the plot completely. He was hyper aggressive, insulting, threatening and abusive and looked as if he was close to lashing out.

What surprised me, apart from the small-man antics, was that nobody else present made any attempt to calm this character down. They were passively supporting him which emboldened him even further which probably sums up in a nutshell where Irish society is today in relation to these far-right activists.

They’re bad news, we know that, but we’re standing back, reluctant to tackle them in case we inflame the situation and further their cause.

It’s time to stand against these people but the lead must be taken by An Garda Siochana. They are the lawful arm of the State, but they are hesitant. Speaking in Dublin Castle recently, Commissioner Harris said that the Gardaí are taking a ‘long-term view’ on the far-right.

“There’s two bits of their playbook that we can see that they want to achieve.” he said. “One, they want to act on local fears, local concerns and, in effect, gather up a crowd. They’ve been successful on occasion and other occasions they’ve been completely refuted. The other piece, and it’s a classic part of their playbook, is an over-response by the authorities of the State, i.e. An Garda Síochána. We are not going to fall into that trap.”

We’re all familiar with the far-right tactics. They stick camera phones into the faces of the gardai while screaming obscenities and aggressively pushing the boundaries of public order, hoping for a response.

At the mere hint of a finger on one of the agitators there is a dramatic tumble to the ground accompanied by screams of police brutality for added effect. The videos are then uploaded to social media as examples of police violence and used to recruit more misguided souls.

They are becoming more aggressive and more emboldened as recent attacks on the homes of politicians have demonstrated. They wrap themselves in the tricolour and claim to be patriots justifying their behaviour as defenders of the State.

It’s time for change. The softly, softly approach isn’t working. The argument that it prevents escalation of unrest and reduces the possibility of propaganda videos doesn’t hold water. These people are running rough shod over the authority of the State and it’s time they were dealt with using whatever force is necessary to achieve that end and bring them before the courts to face justice.

Commissioner Harris is concerned about “an over response by the authorities of the State” and how that might be perceived. But as long as the response is lawful and proportionate what’s the problem?

Ireland is changing. There is an element in society now intent on causing disruption. They have no boundaries, no respect, and they’re full of hate. They’re growing in number too. There is plenty of legislation available to deal with them, all that’s required now is the backbone to use it.

Baltimore promotes itself as a village of some 400 permanent inhabitants whose numbers are swelled by visitors in the summer months. It lies about 60 miles west of Cork city in the region known as West Cork, one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland and the final stop on the 2,500 km (1,500 mile) Wild Atlantic Way.

The climate is mild thanks to the nearby Atlantic and the influence of the Gulf Stream. Baltimore’s large natural harbour is formed partly by islands of the archipelago known as Carbery’s Hundred Isles and around the pier, charter boats and pleasure craft jostle with fishing vessels and ferries serving the main islands.

The oldest part of the village with its castle and rows of fishermen’s cottages is spread along the eastern shore of the harbour. At its heart is the village ‘Square’ around which are clustered bars and restaurants looking west over sea and islands towards the ‘Land’s End’ of Ireland, Mizen Head.

Sounds idyllic. A nice place to visit or maybe even a place to spend some time for a holiday with the family…or would it? Would you be safe sitting outside the local pub with your pint admiring the view of the harbour or could your kids be hauled off by some marauding pirates to a foreign land, never to be seen again? “That’s impossible,” you say but can you be certain? Afterall, it happened before.

Granted, it was some time ago, 1631 in fact when much of the local population was carried off by pirates, during an event known as the Sack of Baltimore. I can’t believe I’m only finding out about this now. I bought a book by Des Ekin,- The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates- and after talking to a few buddies about it, it seems that I’m the last person to hear about this amazing story.

Barbary pirates from North Africa led by a Dutch captain-turned pirate, known as Murad Reis the Younger raided Baltimore. The attack was quick and unexpected with the inhabitants taken completely by surprise. More than 200 armed pirates landed in the Cove, torching the thatched roofs of the houses and carried off with them ‘young and old out of their beds’.

It started on 19 June 1631 when the raiders gathered off the Old Head of Kinsale. They had already captured two fishing-boats from Dungarvan, one captained by John Hackett, the other by Thomas Carew, both containing five-man crews. The two twelve-ton boats, now manned by pirates, joined the little flotilla, which continued westward.

Aboard the lead vessel Captain Morat Rais, a Dutchman with extensive experience in the North Sea, demanded that Hackett pilot them into Kinsale. Perhaps aware of the presence of the Fifth Lion’s Whelp, under the command of Captain Hooke of the Royal Navy, in the harbour, Hackett allegedly persuaded Rais to continue on to Baltimore.

About 10 o’clock on the night of 19th June, the ships anchored east of the mouth of Baltimore harbour. At 2am on the morning of 20^th, some 230 men, armed with muskets, landed at the Cove. Quickly and silently spreading out, they divided up and waited at the doors of the 26 cottages along the shoreline.

At a given signal, brandishing iron bars to break the doors and firebrands to torch the buildings, they launched a simultaneous attack on the sleeping inhabitants. The terror of the population can only be imagined as they were dragged from their beds by strange men speaking a foreign language.

The marauders entered 40 houses, rifled 37 of them and captured more victims. William Harris was disturbed by the noise and quickly established what was happening. He grabbed his musket and ran to a wooded area from where he fired shots into the air to alert the remainder of the villagers. Another of the inhabitants grabbed his drum, ran to join Harris and began beating the drum.

Rais realised that the element of surprise had been lost and he thought soldiers were on the way to challenge them. The pirates retreated quickly to the Cove and returned to their anchored ships.  They had captured twenty men, 33 women and 54 children and youths, to add to the crews of the Dartmouth ship and the Dungarvan fishing-boats.

That was the end of the raid but by then more than 100 men, women and children had been taken from the coves of West Cork and forced into slavery. Some were destined to live out their days as galley slaves, which was often a brutal and short life. They would be starved and beaten by slave drivers and forced to work half naked as they powered the ship to their own doom.

They were sometimes worked until they dropped dead at which point their bodies were dumped into the sea. The destination was a huge slave market in Algiers, where white European slaves were highly sought after.

Most women were put to work as domestic slaves while others became concubines of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople. Many of the younger women would spend long years in the seclusion of the Sultan’s harem or within the walls of the Sultan’s palace as labourers.

In his book, Ekin explained that some of the female slaves converted to Islam and got married. They would have had a relatively pleasant life, living with their husbands and families in Algiers, which was a civilised city for the era. A decade and a half after the slaves had been captured, the British government paid their ransom and planned to bring them home.

An envoy was sent to Algiers to repay the slave owners the money they spent at the slave market. However, only two out of the 105 slaves wanted to return home. The rest were happy to stay.