You haven't met dickheads until you've met a Stag Party.

Oh, well they're far too good looking. Though they do seem dickish enough.

You hear them before you see them. Be they shouting, chanting, clapping or belching they make their presence known. Loudly. The locals wince when they pass. The continent is not well-versed in their virile ways. They're crude, obnoxious and at times slightly racist. They are the stag parties on tour in Krakow. 

On Friday morning they are first spotted. They seem a bit lost, a tad confused by their new surroundings.They're a long way from the cobbled streets of Manchester or the high-rise flats of Peckham. You would almost mistake them for ordinary tourists; if it weren't for the ghastly, novelty stag-themed t-shirts they seem to insist on wearing. Then, you can see their pupils dilate and their knees buckle as they spot the first watering hole. "8 zloty fur a pint? That's 1 pound fookin' 50 that. We'll fookin' have that", they exclaim as they inspect the menu. And they finally look like they're home.

They are the bane of my fucking Erasmus life. I live in Krakow. Krakow is a beautiful, cultured city for 4 days of the week. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday it is overridden by herds of macho-dickheads on Stag Parties, mainly from Britain. No, scratch that, entirely from Britain. Krakow has become very popular among revelers on stag nights due to low cost Ryanair flights, cheap alcohol and an abundance of strip clubs. And as I watch them march down alleys and streets, shouting and screaming, I can't help but feel the locals crave for the days of Nazism and Communism. At least back then they didn't have to suffer these drunk, buff dickheads.

I bear no ill-will towards social drinking or English people or partying. It just seems a prerequisite that to attend a stag do you must be A) A complete obnoxious knobhead B) Have an extensive knowledge of imperialistic British chants (Rule Britannia simply will not do, something more vitriolic is required) C) Have a complete disregard for any sense of human decency. Sounds harsh but I have concrete (anecdotal) evidence to back it up.

Irrefutable Evidence 1: An Irish bar. Ireland vs England in the Six Nations. The first few notes of the Irish national anthem bellow out. Irish people in the bar sing along tentatively. Two English men. One (The groom) dressed in a hilarious horse costume. The other, short fat and bald with a complexion and face that only someone of Anglo-Saxon/Hiberno heritage possesses. They both start chanting "UP THE UVF, UP THE UVF" and "TAIGS OUT, TAIGS OUT". The thoroughly decent English chap (Who's not on a stag) next to me with whom I am watching the match shakes his head ruefully and expresses his disdain for the ignorance of his fellow countrymen and apologises on their behalf. No need sir. It's the Stag dickheads that are to blame.

Irrefutable Evidence 2: Another Irish bar. Manchester United vs Liverpool in the Premier League. The bar is silent except for a large group of English men enjoying a stag do and wearing hilarious novelty t-shirts who are chanting, shouting and exclaiming "Aw, she's well fit" and "Ooh, she'd get it" every time the (admittedly attractive) barmaid passes by. Their insolence and latent misogyny is not what annoys me most however. For the whole game one member of their group punctuates the chanting with very, very loud belches. Literally every 2 minutes a burp is audible from that side of the room. After the first 3 burps I crane my neck towards him and leer disdainfully in his direction. He is laughing though. And after every burp he laughs again. He laughs as if he's just told the funniest joke in the world. The game doesn't cheer me up either.

I've mentioned the novelty t-shirts which almost every Stag Party group insist on wearing and, in a trivial way, they are the most fucking infuriating thing about them. Christ, when you've seen one you've really seen them all. "Dave's Stag Do - Insert nickname related to sexual innuendo here" is standard. It's basically The Inbetweeners just 10 years older and much fatter. In many, though not all, Stag Parties the groom is obliged to wear a novelty outfit as I have mentioned in Irrefutable Evidence 1. That sap chose to dress as a horse though he was an exception. Most commonly it is a dress which the groom dons and, as you'd expect, the lads find it fookin' hilarious. 

Ah, I realise I sound like a right dour eejit. You're probably thinking, "Well, I bet he's great craic at parties." But you must understand. Once you've spent 8 weekends surrounded by these noisy, nauseating pillocks you would understand. Because Krakow, especially the centre, is such a peaceful, cultured place during the week that it's like watching the cast of Geordie Shore stomp around Ancient Rome. But at least in that scenario there's a chance they might be enslaved and killed by lions. Such a fate has not befallen any Stag Party in Krakow yet unfortunately. We can but dream. 

Putin and Obama: When they're both bastards you don't have to pick a side.

Ain't no party like a diplomatic party, yo.

Let's clarify a couple of things before we begin. Vladimir Putin is a bastard. He's a gay-bashing, power-hungry, oligarch-funded bastard. Likewise, Barack Obama is a bastard. He's a drone-happy, privacy-invading, Wall Street-funded bastard. We're clear? Good. Because it seems to me certain people have difficulty wrapping their heads around these mutually compatible points. We seem to have this intrinsic need to always pick a side to back, to always label one guy as the "goodie" and the other as the "baddie". When it comes to politics, and particularly foreign politics, we see issues in black and white and never stop to realise the obvious greyness of it all. Because that would probably be too boring for the media. This has been all to evident with regards to the recent crisis in Ukraine. 

The expression "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" springs to mind. There are quite a substantial number of left-leaning people in Europe and here in Ireland who have been bitterly disappointed by Barack Obama's two terms of presidency. Indeed, 2013 is probably Obama's annus horribilis. We've had the revelations of NSA spying, the drone strikes continuing in the Middle-East, the haphazard pursuit of Edward Snowden and the fact that Guantanamo still remains open. He's a giant corporate turd, everyone is very surprised, and we're desperately seeking a new saviour.

Because of this, many of these normally sane, rational people have leapt to Putin's defence after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. I've seen them on threads, on Twitter, on comment boards. They say he's afraid of NATO aggression. They say he's protecting Ethnic Russians from almost certain persecution. They say the toppling of Yanukovich was a neo-nazi coup d'état. They say that 93% of Crimeans voted for joining Russia so their wishes have to be respected. 

Now there is some credence to some of these remarks. NATO are being aggressive and have been for years. They've broken a 1990 promise made to Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards but now, 24 years later, countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary are all NATO members while Ukraine have applied for membership. 

There were certain far-right elements involved in the toppling of Yanukovich. The party Svoboda, which has a large presence in the new interim Government (Including providing the current vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych) has often been accused of being anti-semitic and fascist. The Right-Sector, which is definitely anti-semitic, played a big role in the clashes with the Birkut and Ukrainian police. But of course, the role of these elements and their significance have been exaggerated by both Putin and the Russian media. 

Then there's that whole Crimea thing. Crimeans probably do want to join Russia. The majority of them are ethnically Russian, they speak the language and the revolution in the West of the country received virtually no support from the region. But that bogus referendum held last week should not be taken seriously. Regardless of whether it violated the Ukrainian constitution, it was too hasty and held in the midst of such tension that its result cannot be accepted. It should have been arranged a few months from now so a proper debate could have formed. 

So Putin and the Russians are not benevolent actors on a crusade to free their fellow countrymen from oppression and despotism. But the hypocritical condemnations from the West are just as appalling. Russia are attempting to exert their dominance over Ukraine. So are they. Just today an IMF bailout package worth between $14bn-$18bn was agreed for Ukraine. We Irish know all to well what that will entail for ordinary Ukrainians, namely austerity, hardship and "liberalisation" of Ukraine's economy (i.e. opening it up for Western Companies to make some serious money). 

Then there's the amazingly barefaced lectures on international law from Western leaders, particularly Obama. The President has "expressed his deep concern over Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is a breach of international law". I mean, it sounds like a bad joke, right? Serial international law transgressor pontificates on the importance of international law. It's like Charles Manson lecturing on the sanctity of life. This is some 1984 shit, man.

The media too are to blame. They castigate Russia Today and other Russian media sources as propaganda tools for Putin and the Kremlin. And they're not wrong. But they too are propaganda tools for The White House. They toe the party line. Very few have pointed out the hypocrisy of Obama's remarks on international law. While the far-right elements of Ukraine's revolution were exaggerated by Russian media, they were whitewashed by Western media. They mightn't define the revolution but they're still worth discussing.

And yet people still feel the urge to choose a horse to back. Just this week in The Irish Times there was this article entitled "If we have to choose a side over Crimea, let it be Russia". This naive and muddled article is symptomatic of what I am talking about, of an affliction affecting many left-leaning people online. Why exactly do we need to pick a side? The stand-off between the US and Russia over Ukraine and Crimea is two power-systems engaging in a game of diplomatic one-upmanship. 

It's not about the importance of Ukraine's democracy or ethnic Russians' right to autonomy. The US has a prolific history of suppressing democracy worldwide when it doesn't work for them (Italy in the 40s, South Vietnam in the 50s, Chile in the 70s and Venezuela in the 00s just to name a few examples). Likewise, Putin does not care a jot for the well-being of Russians in Crimea. It's hard to imagine him waking up in a cold sweat in The Grand Kremlin Palace agonising over the fate of his ethnic brothers. This conflict is being waged for the financiers, the moneymen, the oligarchs and the politicians. Like almost all international conflicts. Neither of them are on our side. They are people in power working for powerful people. 

We're aware of this, or, at least we should be aware of it. And yet we still have to choose a side, we still have to decide who's the least worst, the side responsible for the least grievous crimes. This good-bad narrative is so ingrained in us that we find it hard to shake it off. I don't like to blindly speculate as to why this is the case but, fuck it, this is only a blog so I'm going to. It probably has something to do with TV and movies. There's always a goodie and always a baddie. For every Prince Charming there's always a Wicked Witch; for every Mufasa there's always a Scar; for every Tim Allen in The Santa Clause there's always Tim Allen's annoying ex-wife. And those are movies for kids. This dogma is inculcated into us at an early age. 

This attitude is damaging as it prohibits us from reviewing any alternatives. It's a very broad problem and one which is obviously not exclusive to this particular international crisis. We need to reevaluate how we view people in power. We still, subconsciously if not openly, seem to believe that they work for "us". Propaganda and conditioning from a young age are the causes. But now, in the age of the internet and free information, we need to realise that choosing between politicians is like choosing between chlamydia and syphilis. 

I'm finding it difficult to care about anything. Does that make me a bad person?

A possible advocate for apathy

"Is it wicked not to care/when they say that you're mistaken/Thinking hopes and lots of dreams that aren't there?" so singeth Glaswegian indie-pop stalwarts Belle & Sebastian. They were onto something with that 1998 composition. Apathy is generally regarded to be one of the great crises of modern youth. Everything's shit and we don't care. The economy's in tatters and we don't care. Politicians are lying parasites and we don't care. Louis Walsh still has a job on TV and we don't care. 

But I would like to extol the the virtues of apathy. Not caring about things may be a very narrow-minded and, indeed, conceited way to approach life but golly it makes things a lot easier. I'm not even talking about political apathy, which is the most popular form of apathy young people are accused of engaging in, I'm discussing more quotidian, everyday apathy. Let me share my own experiences with apathy and you can judge for yourself.

What actually compelled me to write this was yesterday's relative furore surrounding the no-make-up selfie for cancer which was all over Facebook and Twitter. I must admit I found the whole thing rather irksome. 

At first, you had the girls' posting selfies of themselves without make-up to raise awareness for breast cancer charities. An admirable cause though I must admit I wasn't wholly enamoured with the whole concept. "Raising awareness" is a pretty hollow platitude and I just felt it was yet another example of the pseudo-activism, a.k.a feeling-like-you're-doing-something-worthwhile-when-actually-you're-not-doing-much-really, that seems to pervade social media a la Kony 2012. But I resisted the slight urge I had to write a disparaging status/post because I really didn't care. No one was being harmed by this. It may even do some good. I stepped back from the keyboard and decided it was all very harmless.

Then, the whole thing turned into one big slugging match between the selfie posters and the people who sort of agreed with the point I had made above. The problem was that these people turned into sanctimonious pricks as they insisted on posting pictures of them donating money to charity from their phones onto Facebook/Twitter, ostensibly to "raise awareness" in a more efficient way, but really just to show-up the selfish bastards who would only post selfies for cancer.

I thought to myself "Why do you feel the need to show off your donation to the world? Why can you not do it in private? You can still urge others to donate and raise awareness without posting a "LOOK AT ME. I'M A GREAT PERSON" picture. But I did not wish to get involved. It was irrelevant*. 

It happens every week on Facebook/Twitter. I see something I find idiotic or offensive, such as the neknomination craze and the stupid, over-the-top reaction to it, and I take a step back, realise the irrelevancy of it all and ignore it. Another example came just last week. That Fáilte Ireland #IrelandInspires video. It was essentially a piece of masterful propaganda that would have made Josef Goebbels wince and exclaim "Fuck me lads, you've outdone yourselves". It essentially celebrated the bailout and us being a tax haven. And yet it was plastered across my newsfeed for days on end. Yet I bit my lip and didn't say a word. 

It makes life so much easier. Before I would have felt obliged to voice my opinion and/or condemnation like a judgemental prick but now, with the power of apathy, I don't feel the need to. 

This can manifest itself in harmful ways however. Just because one is apathetic does not mean one should lack compassion or love or a sense of justice or any other supposed human emotions. At least it shouldn't in theory. But it actually can. Take last Saturday. I'm in McDonalds here in Krakow and deciding whether to order the new New York Beef Classic Burger or stick to the tried and trusted McRoyal (European version of a quarter pounder. I know, I thought of Jules and Vincent too). 

As I peered at the McDonald's logo hanging above the window-sill I thought of how evil a corporation McDonald's is. I thought of the recent allegations of tax avoidance, I thought of their despicable treatment of their employees worldwide, their egregious record with regards to animal rights and the fact they're basically one of the faces of neo-liberal, globalised, Americanised capitalism. 

But then I thought, "Fuck it. I'm really hungry." And I bought the New York Big Beef Classic. Bad person? Possibly. Satisfied customer. Certainly.

I've noticed this many times before. The apathy which I have ingrained in myself allows me to divorce myself from moral issues which should plague me. It's the same in Penney's. I know about their woeful record with regards to cheap labour in foreign, mostly Asian, countries. I know that that building collapse in Bangladesh which killed 1129 people last year makes clothes for Penney's (Though they did provide a minuscule amount of compensation, unlike some other companies who produced products there). And yet if I need a cheap pair of runners or a bargain t-shirt I will nip into Penney's to buy it. When you spell it out like that it sounds a bit evil, doesn't it? 

I'm not saying I don't find McDonald's or Penney's labour and tax practices repugnant, of course I do, but I can justify using their products in my head with flawed reasoning like "Uh, I'm broke" or "Uh I'm hungry" or "Uh, what difference does one fucking Big Mac make to their global machine anyway?". Of course, this is not a malaise which is exclusive to myself. Everyone's guilty of it. Something to do with Western society, neo-liberalism or something something. 

Though I must admit I still enjoy the relaxation apathy imbues in me. As a result of it, feel I have I become more aware of my own mortality and less concerned with it. One of my favourite TV programmes at the minute is HBO's fantastic, outstanding True Detective. It follows two detectives in Louisiana on a 17 year hunt for a sadistic serial killer.Matthew McConaughey plays Detective Rust Cohle who, while not being totally apathetic, is definitely a bit nihilistic and perhaps a smidgen solipsistic. He's like an existentialist philosopher who's also a hard-drinking homicide detective. Like a mixture of Jimmy McNulty and Sartre. He comes out with some intriguing soliloquies and speeches on subjects as disparate as human life, the universe, love and religion which really help validate my now inherent apathy. 

Take this one for instance - 

"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal"

Pretty deep, huh? But it sums up the absurdity of human life and emotions quite well in my eyes. It might not be pretty or altruistic or even very nice but apathy is one surefire way to comfort and tranquility. It asks nothing of you but in return you get so much. I urge you to give it a go. Anything that irks you, or perturbs you or downright disgusts you that you see on the internet or anywhere else for that matter, ignore it. It makes it all so much easier. 

*I realise posting my opinions now is, in a sense, getting involved though I feel it is necessary to do so to illustrate where I'm coming from with regards to apathy.

Having a slow laptop in 2014 is an affront to my human rights

My laptop in happier times

I have a slow laptop. This laptop was purchased in the grand summer of 2011. I know, I know, it was many moons ago. The iphone 5 was just a glimmer in the iphone 4's eye, nobody knew what a selfie was and Facebook hadn't even introduced the cover photo yet. Simpler times, yes. It was a well-behaved laptop at first. It zipped from programme to programme with the finesse of a figure skater and its new Windows 7 features were a sight to behold for someone like me who was more accustomed to the banality of Windows XP.

Alas, it seems our honeymoon period is over. It has been for some time, I think I've just been afraid to admit it. Now it seems more like a geriatric chain-smoker; choking its way interminably through the last few breaths of life. It's not just slow, it's glacial slow. 

Turning on my laptop is like trying to start one of those old-style planes you see with the propeller at the front. It's a whole ordeal. It takes no less than 5 minutes. As soon as I press the On button, the fan makes this terrible wheezing noise as if to say, "Kill me you poor bastard and put me and you out of our misery." I actually feel guilty using it as I know whatever nuts, bolts and chips that comprise its insides must feel like sweatshop workers at this stage. 

Then, when I eventually get to the homescreen and key in my details, it takes another few minutes to load the desktop. It vomits out the various features. First comes the taskbar. Then the desktop image decides to amble along. Then the various programmes begin to dot the screen very languidly, in keeping with custom of course. I then have to wait a couple more minutes as I know if I leap right into Google Chrome or my documents folder, my laptop will shit itself into a comatose state. 

And then when I actually get the chance to use it it performs about as well as Wayne Rooney in an England jersey. The programmes begin to not respond at will. If I have the audacity to click a feature too quickly or the cheek to try and multi-task by opening more than one tab, whaddya know, Google Chrome is not responding. And how do you know things are really fucked? The box informing you that the programme is not responding begins not responding. It's a nightmare. There are certain websites that just really get my laptop's goat as well. My laptop dislikes Youtube especially. It dislikes it so much that it panics and freezes as soon as I key the letter Y into the search bar. It knows. It has a similar distaste for Twitter. 

It hinders me. As a human. As a student. I want to be industrious and dilligent. I want to work on my projects and my college work, honest I do. But when I begin working on such work and the pages take their time to load or the programmes begin to not respond, I naturally cast my eye onto other websites. While that article I need for my essay is taking its time loading I might just pop over to Facebook on another tab for a gander and then, whack, I've wasted half an hour trying to work out if that girl with strict privacy settings who liked my profile picture is in a relationship or not. 

Allied to its inherent slowness, my laptop has another major problem. The shift key is busted. Broken. Caput. It does not work. This means I have to use the on-screen keyboard whenever I need to type a question mark or a dollar symbol or an at symbol or an exclamation mark. This is torrid. The on-screen keyboard is constantly on stand-by. The problem with it is that it is a sadistic bastard and likes nothing more than not responding. I can see it chortle as my screen turns pale and my faces turns red. It's a vicious circle.

They say that our generation has the greatest capacity for learning as we have the internet, an infinite encyclopedia of knowledge, while past generations only had libraries and books. That is true but they didn't have 180 petabytes of porn at their finger tips or notebooks that jammed when they began writing their essay. 

My human rights are in violation, I believe. No really. According to the UN, usually a good authority on the whole human rights malark, broadband access is a basic human right up there with "the right to healthcare, shelter and food". My broadband connection is ok but the medium through which I am to receive this broadband, i.e. my laptop, is a crock of shit. It's like receiving top class medical attention in a garden shed. 

The solution? I'm not sure. I'm broke. Student-broke, not proper broke. I cannot afford a new laptop though. Is there an answer? Will I forever be deprived of quality computing? How long more will I have to endure clunky interface and unresponsive programmes? I am Mandela and this laptop is my Robben Island. It's a long walk to freedom from slow computers.

Why do Irish people think being Irish is so funny?

We're fucking gas alright boys

Us Irish are hilarious. Everything we do from our daily mundane tasks to our zany idiosyncrasies is immeasurably funnier than any other nationality. How do we know this? Because we say so. And since, as stated above, we're the funniest fucking race on the planet, we're a pretty good authority on the subject. 

You know what I'm talking about. Those lists, those articles, those videos which seem to have invaded the internet in recent years celebrating the vagaries and the oddities of us Irish. "You know you're Irish when; You say grand stretch in the evening; You have an uncle John and an auntie Mary; You drink flat 7UP when you're sick; bleh bleh fucking bleh. 

What started out as a bit of harmless, self-deprecating-yet-at-the-same-time-vaguely-patriotic humour is now a bona fide industry online. Youtubers have jumped on this bandwagon in their droves. Blogs and Facebook pages are dedicated to this phenomenon. Even apparently respectable publications (*cough*THEJOURNAL.IE*cough*) churn out articles en masse on the subject.

It's all a bit tiresome, no? The popularity of these articles and videos has shown no signs of wavering. Last year, the third most viewed Youtube video in Ireland was Republic of Telly's contribution to this growing library of national self-aggrandisement. The video was, to put it bluntly, cliched and shit. Especially considering very few of the skits were original and a couple were rather blatantly lifted from online (The homework during Glenroe skit has been a like-page on Facebook for years).

We have a bit of an obsession with ourselves, don't we? You may have noticed I referred to these videos as self-aggrandising in the above paragraph which may strike you as odd as most of the videos and articles are ostensibly self-disparaging.. But they're not really. Even if it seems that the videos and articles are bemoaning our backwardness and stupidity, what they're really trying to say, in a broader sense, is "Look at us Irish! So unique! So goofy! And we can laugh at ourselves!". 

What made that Republic of Telly video I mentioned all the more disappointing was that it starred Martin Moloney who shot to fame playing the lovable waster Eddie Durkan in the brilliant online series Hardy Bucks (Yes, the online series, not the sanitised, bastardised version RTE put out). 

You see, Hardy Bucks was a much more subtle and, for my money, accurate depiction of Irish people's mannerisms. Sure, it was a mockumentary series, a medium which allows for much more scope and insight than a 4 minute Youtube clip or a 200 word article, but its depictions of Irish life felt much less contrived and much more natural. Which made it funnier. I mean, I've never actually, genuinely, heard an Irish person use the exact phrase "Grand stretch in the evening" and I don't actually have an uncle John or auntie Mary but some of the scenes in Hardy Bucks left me in awe at their attention to detail. If you want an example, this entire episode is both veracious and hilarious. 

What actually compelled me to write this article was the popularity of Mr. Cian Twomey, a Facebooker whose short videos documenting Irish mother's/grandmother's reactions to things have become wildly popular. I have no beef personally with him and I don't want to be labeled as one of his "haters" as the rappers would say but the popularity of his videos perplexes me. 

It's just the same cliched nonsense we've seen for years. Do people really find jokes about the immersion being left on and Bebo stunnahs hilarious after all these videos and articles? Obviously they do as his popularity is only growing though I think it says more about our obsession with ourselves than does about his comedic ability. I don't want to shit on him as it takes a lot of courage and confidence to post the kind of videos he produces and he does seem like an interesting and affable chap but it confuses me that Irish people still find this type of thing hilarious even though it's been done again and again and again. 

I guess my argument is a futile one. Humour is subjective and I can't say that just because I don't find something funny it isn't. But there is something deeper in this infatuation we have with ourselves. Other countries don't seem to bring it to such a level. I have a half-baked theory that it has something to do with the recession and the fall of the Celtic Tiger as during those years we seemed much less parochial than we do now. I'm not exactly sure why that would happen though. Maybe it's because of our isolation from the rest of Europe? Maybe it's because of the unfettering adulation we receive from other countries? Any sociologists in the room?

Super Serious Analysis: Is there any chance Ireland won't pass the Gay Marriage referendum next year?

Next year the people of Ireland will get to vote on whether or not to legalise gay marriage. In the 77 years since the Irish Constitution was enacted we have had 33 different referendums and, judging by our recent, farcical performances, we're still getting to grips with the whole constitutional amendment thing.

But surely this referendum will be passed? Yes? I mean, we like to think of ourselves as a modern country. A progressive, secular nation accepting of people from all walks of life. We are no longer, as the character of Sir John in The Wind That Shakes The Barley put it, a "priest infested backwater", are we? Are we? There's no chance we'll reject it. Is there? Let's do some quick (desk-based) analysis and try and work it out. 

Generally when a news or media outlet is trying to gauge public opinion in the run-up to an election or a referendum the first medium they use is opinion polls. So what do opinion polls on gay marriage in Ireland say? Well they tell us Irish people like the idea of gay people marrying. They like it a lot. 

Last November a Red C opinion poll commissioned by Paddy Power showed that a whopping 76% of likely voters would vote Yes to Gay Marriage and, when the "don't knows" are excluded, that figure rises to 81%. This is broadly on par with other opinion polls held in the last 5 years with polls conducted by The Sunday Times, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and The Irish Times showing similar margins. 

But opinion polls are a bit too black and white. These particular opinion polls have not been held in the run-up to the referendum and so they haven't been influenced by external factors like campaigning or televised debates. One would imagine in the run-up to next year's plebiscite that Ireland's conservative lobby and, more pertinently, the Catholic Church will be doing their level best to swing a few heads their way. You can bet your bottom dollar there'll be plenty of oratories from the pulpit proclaiming doomsday in the run-up to the referendum and it's difficult to measure how strong an effect they will have, particularly in rural Ireland. 

A similar issue to gay marriage, in that it divides people along roughly the same lines - religious/non-religious, old/young, urban/rural - is abortion. So it's very valuable what we can learn from public opinion and abortion. It was about this time last year that those lovely chaps over at the Youth Defence started their sabre-rattling and drum-banging when a bill that legalised abortion in the case of a woman's life being in danger came before the Oireachtas. 

Opinion polls in the lead-up to the bill being debated were pretty unanimous - these two here and here will do as examples - and they showed that Irish people were keen for such legislation to be instituted. But Christ almighty didn't Youth Defence and those aul biddies from the Catholic Church put up one hell of a fight. Around 50,000 people marched on Dáil Éireann in protest at the bill in question in July of last year. 50 fucking thousand. Few demonstrations in the last decade have been so well-attended or so passionate and, bearing in mind what's happened in the last ten years - financial armageddon, corrupt politicians, Jedward - that's as astounding as it is sad.

Youth Defence are known for having similarly enlightened views on gay marriage so expect them and the Catholic Church to stage similar demonstrations closer to the referendum date next year. This doesn't mean that they are representative of all of Ireland or all of Rural Ireland or, even, all Catholics. It just demonstrates the clout these organisations have that they can mobilise such a large number of people when, as the surveys from only months earlier seem to suggest, this issue, theoretically, should have little opposition. 

History can help with our guesswork too. Let's take a look at referendums on similar issues which have been held in this country. The most relevant plebiscite is surely 1995's referendum on divorce when, after 58 years and one previous rejected referendum in 1986, divorce was finally legalised in Ireland. Again, like abortion, it divided people along the lines we would expect gay marriage to in next year's referendum.

Divorce is now rather quotidian and it never ceases to amaze me that when I was born divorce was illegal. It seems so quaint in a sort of horrible way. What's even more astounding is the margin that the Divorce Referendum was passed by - in short, it was a bloody close one. Out of 1,633,942 votes cast, the yes side won by just over 9000 votes. 50.28% voted Yes while 49.72% voted No. The voting patterns that emerged from the result were rather easy to spot and the most obvious one is illuminated in the map I have attached below.

Do you see it? Virtually no constituency in Rural Ireland passed the motion. The entire West Coast rejected it and all of the Midlands too. The only reason it passed nationwide was because the margin of victory in Dublin was so emphatic. The only other places it passed were urban centres like Limerick and Cork and three counties in Dublin's commuter belt Kildare, Wicklow and Louth. This illustrates the difference between Rural Ireland and Dublin. While I don't expect Rural Ireland to be so vehement in its rejection of Gay Marriage it has to be expected that there will be plenty of constituencies, particularly in the West of the country, that will reject this referendum. 

You can already see the lines being drawn. The recent Pantigate scandal involving drag queen Panti, the Iona Institute and RTE was big news in Dublin and online, particularly Twitter. But I can say this with certainty, as someone who lives in Rural Ireland, the story did not register as much as a blip on the richter scale here. It wasn't a hot conversation topic nor did Panti engender much sympathy among anyone I spoke to here. For a lot of young voters and urban voters, gay marriage is a hot button issue. If a candidate in Dublin openly expresses opposition to gay marriage, he/she will be roasted alive at the polls. This, however, is not the case for much of the more conservative and more religious Rural Ireland. 

And that brings me on to another point; religion. The Catholic Church's influence on constitutional matters and government policy has been on the wane since the 70s and church attendance has fallen dramatically in the last two decades but it would be churlish to underestimate their influence on certain demographics, namely the old and the rural. 

The best graph for determining their influence is the most basic; mass attendance. Even though Ireland's mass attendance has dropped off by an estimated 50% since 1990, Ireland has one of the highest rates of mass attendance in the Western World. A 2011 survey by the Irish Bishop's conference stated that 42.1% of the people they queried attended mass "once a week" while a survey from a less bias source, The Irish Times, in 2012 found the figure to be around 34%. That is still a healthy chunk of the electorate and, though I haven't got the figures handy, you can be sure the rate is considerably higher among older people. Why is this important? Well, for the same reason that protests by pensioners are much more likely to be effective than protests by students, old people are a lot more likely to vote.  

Again, there is quite a broad rural/urban divide in mass attendance. A 2011 survey found that a mere 18% of Dubs attend mass on a weekly basis. Now when we consider that Dublin makes up 1/4 of our population and that the national average is hovering around the 40% mark, it shows that rural Ireland is quite keen on mass. It's important to clarify that just because someone is a church-going catholic, it doesn't necessarily mean they will definitely vote No to the referendum. In fact, The Irish Times survey I linked in the first paragraph stated that 66% of the catholics they surveyed would vote Yes to Gay Marriage. One would venture to guess, however, that the Catholic Church will do their level best to swing the heads of that 66%.  

The referendum should pass next year. Indeed, at the moment, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that it could pass by a double digit percentage margin. But we shouldn't underestimate the power of the lobby that will be opposed to it and the numbers they can mobilise, both population wise and monetary. It could be closer than we think. In Rural Ireland it's going to be very close, especially since the ratio between old people and young people has widened considerably in the last 5 years thanks to emigration.

To answer the question I ask in the title; There shouldn't be. I predict that this referendum will have an inordinately high turnout among young voters and this, and Dublin's inevitable passing of the bill will mean it should sail through. But this is no time for complacency and the lessons of the past tell us that the other side aren't going to go down without a fight.  

In praise of: the Paparazzi

The Paps. Ruining celebrities' lives since 1826.

Paedophiles. Ear wax. Nazi sympathisers. Dictators. Rapists. Cockroaches. Limescale. These are just some of the things our society holds in a higher regard than paparazzi. They are the pits. They are the lowest of the low, no strand of journalism (and this is saying fucking something) engenders as much contempt as they do. But can we just for a moment step back and reevaluate their role in society and perhaps add a little bit of balance to the debate on their function and the merit of their work? Because I love paparazzi. I truly, truly do.

I know. Don't act like I don't. I do. I know. Making the above admission is akin to admitting to being a member of the BNP or occasionally farting in an elevator. But when I see them on their miniature scooter in Downtown LA, clutching their camera in one hand, a copy of Heat in the other with the handlebars of the bike between their knees, chasing after Miley Cyrus or whatever equally loathsome celebrity they've spotted nipping into Starbucks to buy a skinny latte, I can't help but feel the kind of respect that a general has for his troops after winning a decisive military victory. "Gawd bless you martyrs", I say, "For King and Country, chaps."

Because celebrities are bastards. Real, major-league, full-time bastards. I should know, I presented a radio show on ULFM last year dealing with celebrity gossip so I encountered their idiocy and conceitedness on a weekly basis. Most people are incredibly sycophantic when they meet a celeb. Chat-show hosts fawn over them as if they were celestial beings bequeathed to us by the Gods and fans worship them as if they were Gods. Only paparazzi have the balls to treat celebrities like they really ought to be taught; as well-paid pieces of meat invented solely for our amusement and pleasure. 

Do they go too far? Nope. In fact, I don't think they go far enough. Hacking phones is amateur. They teach you that in Journalism 101. Camping outside a celebrity's property? Not good enough. Most celebrities' houses are better fortified than the Maginot Line was. They can't see you on the footpath in your makeshift tent. 

Trespass! Hop a wall, buy a pizza delivery boy costume, burrow underground like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape; there's a plethora of options. Then you can start really messing with the celebrities' heads. Rearrange their furniture, take pictures of their dirty linen, browse through their internet history. Just use your imagination.

Society on the whole is very vitriolic towards paparazzi but it is the fans of individual celebrities who hold paparazzi in the most contempt. Beliebers, Directioners and other "fandoms" purport to despise the paparazzi as they apparently invade the privacy and security of their chosen idol. Indeed, they often use their twitter accounts to vent their outrage towards their paps. Examples of said outrage can be found here, here, here and ooh, here. 

What's hilarious about the indignation that these fans express towards the paps is that their accounts and fan pages are peppered with photos of their idols that have clearly been snapped by the paps. They love sausage, they just don't love how it's made. Now, I don't mean to sound like a dick, most of these fans are kids so I shouldn't hold them to the same standards I would an adult but this dichotomy is nonetheless very amusing. 

Then there's the celebrities themselves. Apparently, they absolutely deplore the paparazzi. They are the bane of their otherwise perfect lives. But whenever they decide to wed one of their fellow vacuous celebs and exchange vows in some exotic place like the Seychelles, they like nothing more than to bring along a handful of paps to photograph the ceremony. For a rather large fee, of course. 

It's not surprising that they like being snapped in their most elegant, most beautiful for a handsome price and that they're not particularly fond of being caught in the glow of a thousand flashes for not so much as a tuppence as they're making the school run but, hey, you've made your bed now you gotta lie in it, celebs. 

So the next time you think about castigating the paps for their crass disregard for privacy or security and how they can ruin the lives of so many bright young things, just remember, these are the same people who elicited this response from Justin Bieber. Gawd bless 'em. The few. The brave.