As the new school year returns so too does the Scholar Gypsies interview series. I’m delighted to kick off term with Christian Morris. Christian Morris TV is the main platform he utilizes to bring Ireland his thoughts on the various forms of nuttery in operation in this country. Brilliant, insightful, wickedly funny, and unafraid are just four words that spring to mind when thinking about him. His weekly skewering of the mainstream Sunday papers is a particular favorite of mine.
We talk about the Hate Speech legislation, The viral clip of the woman calling out RTE on the Upfront current affairs program last night, NGO’s, media and government in Ireland, the Burkes and Christian starts off by pointing out how we have already won.
This evening I am chatting with Dr. Anne McCloskey on the Scholar Gypsies. We’ll be chatting about her ongoing fight with the General Medical Council in Northern Ireland to clear her name, her decision to run as an independent candidate in the local elections in Donegal and also to get her take on some hot topic current events like the immigration protests at Newtown Mount Kennedy and also the calculated UK government decision to direct asylum seekers and refugees from the UK direct to Ireland via Northern Ireland.
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Thomas Sheridan - one of Ireland's great creative, expansive and brilliant minds. We talk archetypes, building parallel systems, Ballymun & his upbringing with a few insights into how psychopaths run Wall Street!
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Today, I speak with Una McGurk, senior counsel about the proposed Irish Hate speech legislation. Calls to scrap the the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) bill have intensified since the March 8th referenda. Public opinion has shifted drastically against this latest government over-reach and which is crystallised by the response of some our political class who voted it in favour of it last year but now have done a big U-turn.
For example, Sinn Féin is now calling for the Bill to be abandoned despite the fact all of its TDs voted in favour of it in the Dáil. One of the original architects of the legislation, former Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has more or less done the same. FG TD Michael Ring, and Fianna Fáil TD and former Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea, have echoed the sentiments of Sinn Fein.
Yet, Minister Helen McEntee still persists in pushing forward with the legislation. This Bill is very much not dead in the water. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Una McGurk, barrister and senior counsel since 2004, about the bill in detail and explore why it is still being pursued.
Indeed, as recently as this morning FF Senator Malcolm Byrne outlined his support for the Justice minister’s bill.
"This is not about preventing people saying horrible or awful things... this doesn't do that, nor should it. It will protect those people who want to say horrible and awful things. However, there is a line that has to be drawn between strong opinions and particular views, and where you actually incite violence."
Like McEntee, though, the good senator is not proposing to define hate in the legislation. So, significant support still exists within the houses of our Oireachtas to plough ahead with this most dangerous of legislation.
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I’ll be releasing a number of the performances that we were fortunate enough to record at Tuatha Dé Danann in Fermoy over the next couple of days.
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Scholar Gypsies Ep 19: Colette Colfer is an Irish academic, writer and lecturer on world religions. Colette also teaches modules in ethics and critical thinking and has worked in third-level education since 2006 .
Prior to her academic career Colette worked in broadcast journalism with articles in national and regional newspapers and magazines. She produced the Spokes podcast during Covid and her poetry has been published in many print and on-line publications. She was the a runner-up in the Patrick Kavanagh poetry award in 2019.
I was delighted to have a chat with Colette Colfer about gender identity and to get into detail about many of the questions I have about gender identity and certain aspects of the gender identity revolution that’s been exploding across the Irish landscape over the last number of months & years. To try to isolate some clear thinking from the noise. Many people are afraid to ask questions on this subject, and, yet, many people have so many questions and fears around the subject. My last video with Niamh and my conversation today with Colette are my attempt to ask some of these questions and explore some of the answers being provided by our government and the lobby groups educating them.
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