The Irish Catholic Church has had little influence on the country’s direction for almost forty years, yet establishment hacks still cannot help but blame themselves for their failures.
The most hilarious manifestation of this was this past Saturday, when politicians who had held power in the country actually protested at Leinster House, complaining that the church was getting in the way of a Maternity Hospital being built or something.
Most comically, Aodhan O’Riordain was one of those in attendance, who not only worked as a principal in a Catholic school, but who was part of a political party that completely gutted the country’s healthcare sector and who created a massive trolley crisis during their time in government. Evidently, O’Riordain honestly believes that the church was the reason why his party made put many people homeless on the streets, on hospital trollies and emigrating to other shores.
Alongside him were members of the Social Democrats, led by Roisin Shortall who herself was Junior Minister for Health when the rot in Ireland’s health system began in the early 2010s.
Surely these people have the self awareness to know that they are not legitimate when they present themselves as some sort of noble outsiders in this system?
That is to miss the point of their protest.
Their protest, allegedly about religious involvement in the new National Maternity Hospital (where the intentional killings of unborn children will still be performed) revealed itself with two hilariously ridiculous signs that were so bizarre that many social media commentators suggested that they must have been photoshopped.
One, in echoes of the Spanish Civil War and Ireland’s Penal Laws, read ‘No Nuns’ while another, get this, actually read ‘Full State Control’. We’ve had ‘Full State Control’ of everything in Ireland for ten years and the standards of living, qualities of public services and general direction of the country have all skydived.
The ‘No Nuns’ and ‘Full State Control’ protests were heavily endorsed by the establishment and their media outlets, with RTE and others sending journalists to cover the event as if it were some momentous occasion.
As it turned out, despite occurring in perfect weather on a Saturday, the attendance was dismal.
Only 175 people turned out to the event, with only about 25 of those in attendance not paid to be there, not a member of a political party or not a child dragged there by boomer parents.
The public voted, the protest was lame and anyone at it was a loser.
One man who tried to rescue the momentum from the spectacular failure was Dr. Peter Boylan, one of the poster boys of the Yes Campaign that sought to remove the 8th Amendment in 2018.
In a pathetic Twitter rant, Peter whinged about sick people having access to prayer inside the hospital. In his rush to upload the pictures, which were sent to him by someone an hour earlier, he haphazardly included the most religious of items, an appeal for helping a hospital in Zambia, nice one Pete!
The response to this poorly executed series of tweets was overwhelmingly negative, with Boylan being seen as mean spirited and lacking in compassion.
Others pointed out Boylan’s insensitivity towards those who were dying and needing comfort.
With the government set to sign off on the Maternity Hospital plans, which are not pleasing to Catholics for their abortion inclusion nor to anti Clericalists for their refusal to openly express disdain towards Catholicism, it appears as though Boylan’s clump of tweets have terminated his public campaign once and for all.