Being in the UK it can be easy to miss some of the stories back home. One such story is that of Cathal Ó Searcaigh now I do know what it is about but I think I missed the overall reaction and emotions invoked by this. For my non-Irish readers basically Cathal Ó Searcaigh is a famous Irish Poet living in Nepal. There was a documentary about him in which it was shown that he was having sex with 16 year old males he is 50. And that it seemed that he was using his comparable wealth to basically exploit the situation. Now much has been written about it. However what got me thinking about it was this post on Damien Mulleys site.Cathal Ó Searcaigh - Remove his poetry from the syllabus in which he lays into  (amongst others) Dermod Moore of Hotpress for defending him. And is similar to Fintan O’Toole’s piece in the Irish Times. 

What saddens me about the whole Cathal Ó Searcaigh affair is the proof that so many distinguished, thoughtful liberal intellectuals have refused to learn the lesson that we took it on ourselves to teach the Catholic Church over recent years. We despised the church for its moral equivocation, for its culture of denial, for putting tribal loyalty ahead of ethical honesty. When we saw the agony of church people at having to give up “one of their own”, we thought that “people like us” would never be like that.

We would know, surely, that you don’t need moral courage to point out the failings of the other side. You need it for your own side, for people you know and like and believe in. It’s precisely when friendship and loyalty are at stake that morality is tempered in the fire.

There would have been something morally bracing in 2003 about a group of poets writing a letter in defense of Micheál Ledwith like the one that appeared in The Irish Times last week in defense of Ó Searcaigh. A claim that the allegations against him were tinged with homophobia would have been a revelation of an uncomfortable reality rather than a distraction from an obvious truth. But, as a defense of someone whose admitted behavior was so clearly exploitative it would have taught the church, in its worst days, lessons in denial and disingenuous.

I wonder is the reason that people want to defend him because they see it as an attack on homosexuality, that they see it not as an attack on a man who exploited his situation but an attack on homosexuality as a whole and that this will bring down the cause of gay rights as a whole if allowed to go unchecked. The strange this is the opposite is the case. Most people do not have a problem with gay couples. But the fact that some luminaries like David Norris come out and seemingly defend this type of behavior does make people less willing to become ok with it. It can reinforce the prejudices of people that gay people are pederast. This is certainly not the case for the vast vast majority of gay people but some of the reaction would seem to suggest that many in the gay community and the liberal cliche that is at the forefront of driving for equality think it is perfectly normal. The actions of Cathal O’Searcaigh should not have been defended, it was not an attack on homosexuality but by defending it as if it is then it in some peoples eyes it tars all gay people with the same brush. The push for equality should be based on equality andd that means treating it the same way as if this was a 16 year old girl and 50 year old man as Fintan alludes to.

Which brings me to another post by Damien Is knocking Ireland patriotic? Much the same thought process that is brought the defending of Cathal O Searcaigh can be brought to an Irish context.

The same would go for a site dedicated to explaining what happens if you set up a business in Ireland. Sorry, Dublin only, no proper broadband, all sorts of stealth taxes etc. etc. If that ranked on the same page as the I.D.A. and Enterprise Ireland, I’m sure that would not be liked or appreciated. Perhaps it would bring about change? The Government are great with their unpatriotic protestations when someone does a reality check, would a site like this which knocks Ireland be unpatriotic, should there be an element of talking up the country too to balance the site out?

If someone attacks something about Ireland I will defend it over here even if it is something I would not defend at home. This about face I perform is done subconsciously. I feel that any attack on an aspect of Ireland is an attack on all of Ireland. The fact that I am less able to single out the good and bad aspects of Ireland abroad then at home probably is due to a sense of inferiority complex built in a belief  that Ireland is a fragile nation that needs to be treated with kit gloves abroad that any one attack can bring the whole edifice to a collapse and thus the bad parts like the level of government accountability become as important to the sense of Irishness as the spectacular organisation that the GAA. After years of being on the bottom of the pile so to speak with our country out of the mire we were in we need to highlight the good if people are deceived and realize the truth they come bitter. This is not an thing we want people coming to Ireland to feel and will do more to crumble the edifice then admiting our faults and working to correct them.

This is propbably similar to what the defenders of Cathal Ó Searcaigh are thinking that they need to defend all when really only what is good is needed to be defended to maintain integrity defend the worse and it only damages your cause be it gay rights or Ireland. So boo to Irish government accountability  and come on Tipp