Garda Apology

Hotblack Desiato

1641 wrote: »

I hereby nominate Hotblack Desiato to apologise on behalf of the past generations of the Irish for what we now recognise as their unenlightened thinking and viewpoints, their moral flaws, and for the actions that flowed from those flaws and unenlightened thinging, etc etc etc.

Well as any catholic priest would say, the first step to redemption is acknowledging one's failings

While you are at it you might also humbly call on future generations to apologise on behalf on this generation for all our moral flaws and unenlightened thinking, which will be all too apparent to those future generations with the advantage of hindsight.

That is something we can and should be thinking about, actually. If you think everything is perfect you're (a) deluded and (b) not going to improve

May your humble apology and acknowledgement of our own failings free us from guilt and raise us to virtue.

You will probably need robes and some sort of pulpit.

Do you think will some sort of sacrifice be required?

A modest 10% of your income will do grand. Thanks. Blessings!

1641

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

That is something we can and should be thinking about, actually. If you think everything is perfect you're (a) deluded and (b) not going to improve

Nowhere is perfect anytime, anywhere. We can only keep an openness to our imperfections and hope to improve.


But we do not know what the generation 35 years into the future will see as our imperfections. You seem to assume that they are the same thing tht you currently regard as our imperfections. We don't know that at all. Values will change - how and in what way we don't know. They may feel the need to apologise for the very values that you cherish. All we can do is do the best as we see it today. If the people of more conservative values who dominated in 1984 went in Rip Van Winkle mode then, and reawoke today, they would be astonished at how life and values have changed.

Hotblack Desiato

You have no reason to believe the majority of the public (or even AGS senior officers) were on board in 1984 with what happened to her, though.

This was an extreme outcome even then.

Didn't help that the commissioner Laurence Wren took a personal interest in her case (there was no justification for this whatsoever) and he was a daily massgoer.

Hotblack Desiato

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I was talking about her mistake because she’s the person who still claims she didn’t do anything wrong. She clearly did.

She didn't do anything wrong.

She wasn’t fired, she kept her job, and she could have kept her child like many of the other members of AGS who violated the regulations of their employment and were able to keep their jobs and their children. She chose a different path.

As has been pointed out to you several times -

She only barely kept her job (after the personal intervention of an archbishop with the commissioner)
Others were not charged with disciplinary offences for having sex or giving birth.
She had no support whatsoever from her family or the father of the child.
She was harassed and pressurised for months by senior garda officers to sign the final adoption papers.
She had no real choice other than giving up her job and bringing up a child in poverty.

She’s choosing to misrepresent the facts when it’s quite obvious that what she was being punished for was breaching her employment regulations. She was treated no differently than anyone who has breached the regulations of their employment.

That is absolutely untrue, other unmarried mothers in the force were not punished.

And afaik there was no specific regulation about having sex, she was charged with a catch-all 'disrepute' bullsh!t charge.

I’m entitled to say I have very little sympathy for her when she decides to misrepresent the facts when she’s speaking out and looking for sympathy and apologies.

The only part of her story which has changed is that while being interrrogated she said she was not put under pressure to sign the adoption papers. She had a very good reason at the time to say that. Even in very recent years we have seen AGS ruin the lives and careers of members who stood up against the wrongdoing of senior officers.

Ehh, no she wasn’t cheated out of a career and a pension. She chose to remain on with AGS for another 15 years. She didn’t lose her job as a result of any disciplinary action against her

:rolleyes: She would have if the archbishop hadn't personally intervened with the commissioner. He wanted her gone.

she chose to leave 15 years later. What damage was done to her well being was as a result of her own actions, I don’t blame anyone else for that.

She was harassed and bullied by senior officers even after the conclusion of the disciplinary proceedings. When she left, they put on her records that she was retiring on medical grounds due to 'mental incapacity'. They were cnuts to her even then.

I didn’t say it because I can’t be certain she is a liar.

Yet you're happy to continually imply that she is.

manipulated by other people to push their political agenda.

You have no evidence whatsoever for this and there is no political gain to be made from this. It's a terrible story which needed to be told.

but you’ve been doing him down, belittling him, blaming him and calling him a moral degenerate when you don’t even know him.

I have no reason to doubt anything that she said, and his actions were not unusual but nonetheless immoral.

One eyed Jack

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

You have no reason to believe the majority of the public (or even AGS senior officers) were on board in 1984 with what happened to her, though.

This was an extreme outcome even then.

Didn't help that the commissioner Laurence Wren took a personal interest in her case (there was no justification for this whatsoever) and he was a daily massgoer.

You can’t seem to make up your mind whether the majority of Irish society did what they did because they were told to by “celibate” men, or whether you’re actually willing now to admit that people had minds of their own.

No justification for the Garda Commissioner to be involved in what became a national scandal? He was no friend of the political establishment either -

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/obituary-larry-wren-34534992.html

Fcukall to do with him being a daily massgoer, and everything to do with the fact that he didn’t tolerate the AGS being discredited by anyone who thought the rules that applied to everyone, didn’t apply to them.

Hotblack Desiato

The majority kept their heads down, the RCC has always only needed a small number of influential/powerful people to keep the rest in line. Opus Dei, Knights of Columbanus, etc.

By 1984, "unmarried mother's allowance" had been around for over ten years. Public attitudes were changing, the iron grip of the church was loosening, and you have no basis to claim that an officer having sex was bringing the force into disrepute.

Of course, the guys in charge were still the 1920s generation. Similarly to how politicians were 10-20 years behind the public's opinion on abortion.

One eyed Jack

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The majority kept their heads down, the RCC has always only needed a small number of influential/powerful people to keep the rest in line. Opus Dei, Knights of Columbanus, etc.

By 1984, "unmarried mother's allowance" had been around for over ten years. Public attitudes were changing, the iron grip of the church was loosening, and you have no basis to claim that an officer having sex was bringing the force into disrepute.

Of course, the guys in charge were still the 1920s generation. Similarly to how politicians were 10-20 years behind the public's opinion on abortion.

For a minute there I thought we were getting closer to reality with your acknowledgment that attitudes in Irish society towards unmarried mothers were more nuanced than you first made out, but then you retreat back to the same argument you came out with earlier.

Of course I have a basis for claiming that an unmarried mother would bring discredit upon the force, because that was the prevailing attitude in Irish society at the time, pretty much the same attitude that prevails in Irish society today with regard to unmarried mothers and y’know the usual crap about how they’re only becoming pregnant for the free house. Some people are even of the opinion that we’ve created a monster, apparently -

I met a homeless Mother on the street

You sure you still want to maintain that attitude has anything to do with the Catholicism, 1920’s generation guys in charge, or the public’s opinions on abortion?

It has nothing to do with any of those things, and everything to do with the fact that the vast majority of people even nowadays who consider themselves “progressive” look down upon people living in poverty as a drain on “the taxpayer”, and there’s plenty of people who suggest that abortion is the solution to rid “civilised” society of undesirables.

You don’t appear to want to acknowledge either that the public’s opinions on abortion are more nuanced than you’re making out in your above post either, especially when the number of GP’s who are willing to provide abortion services are still in a minority in Irish society, with 85% of GP’s of the opinion that abortion is not part of routine general practice -

'Abortion is not part of routine general practice. 85% of GPs are of this opinion'

It appears as though anyone who doesn’t share your opinions are out of step with Irish society in 2019, and yet, your opinions are very much in the minority in Irish society when we actually look at Irish society as a whole.

1641

Attached clip from a Gay Byrne radio interview from 1986 with an unmarried mother and Cherish representative gives some flavour of the general attitude of the public, even then (and thing were changing throughout the 80s) :
https://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/2112-gay-byrne/633846-unmarried-mothers-in-ireland/

Beechwoodspark

Just on that commissioner of the guards

His son in law was on live line the other day ferociously defending him and denying he was involved in this.

Bobtheman

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

One eyed Jack wrote: »

They were mostly concerned with what their families, friends and neighbours would think of them.

And WHY would their families, friends or neighbours think badly of them if they were having sex or getting pregnant? Because the church was telling them what to think, and these people were stupid enough to listen to 'celibate' men in dresses pontificating on sex. Some rejected these notions, but most did not.

Even in her own story she gave an account of a nun in her time in an industrial school who was one of the kindest people she’d known.

She also said that nun left and after that things went very badly for her for the rest of her time in that place, so not all the nuns treated her well.

She wasn’t treated any more unfairly than anyone else in her circumstances.

Unbelieveable. Absolutely unbelieveable.

As if every other garda who was not either a virgin or an exclusively faithful spouse was disciplined.

Her "crime" was to produce proof of her "indiscretion" - by having a baby.

But even then, she was treated much more unfairly than other unmarried female gardai at the time who were allowed keep both their baby and their job.

She was continually pressurised by senior officers to sign the final adoption papers. Then she was charged, interrogated in detail about her private life, and almost sacked.

Not to metion that the male party to this "crime" was merely fined, and not threatened with the sack.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

She chose to reject the father of the child, yet still wants to maintain she was a victim because he didn’t give her the support she wanted from him.

He offered to marry her, but when she refused (she says she had never intended to marry him, and remember, no divorce then - and it says a lot about him that he asked her father before he mentioned the idea of marriage to her) he didn't offer any financial or emotional support whatsoever and basically told her to f*** off, not giving a damn about his own child never mind her.

I suppose you're going to blame her for his being such an irresponsible callous cnut, too...

I'm not sure of your agenda here. The male asked her father for her hand in marriage. A pretty typical thing in Irish society at the time.
As to whether other guards were disciplined or not who knows.
It was the morality at the time.
There were double standards at the time. Women carried the can as they often still do.
Anybody with sense would know we are only getting her side of the story -30 years later. We have not got the father's side.

Bobtheman

Modern liberals safe in numbers wage war on event when most of them were not alive.
I have more time for conservative miniority who question liberal majority today on their orthodoxy. Or the liberal miniority at the time.
There is lots to question- sexual morality, social media , 99 forms of sexuality-most of them bull****, excessive materialism , have as many abortions as you like,mulit culturalism etc etc