Letters to the Editor: The Wolfe Tones were rabble-rousing at Electric Picnic

One reader says the 'anachronistic rabble-rousing of old fossils' will not help achieve a United Ireland, while others consider issues including mental health services and the RTÉ controversy

Brian Warfield, Noel Nagle, and Tommy Byrne of The Wolfe Tones attracted a record crowd to the Electric Arena during the 2023 Electric Picnic festival. Picture: Debbie Hickey/Getty

I was very disappointed to see the Wolfe Tones were playing at Electric Picnic and even more depressingly that they got such a huge response from the crowd. 

Afterwards, with their usual lack of restraint, they had another triumphalist dig at Joe Duffy after his recent effort (August 18, RTÉ1) to bring some understanding as to why so many people in Ireland find their brand of sectarian republicanism so offensive. The whole episode is damaging to the great ethos of fun and diversity that has always been a hallmark of Electric Picnic.

Those of us who lived through the era of the Troubles and listened to the increasing death toll on a weekly basis know that the suffering caused by the bloody campaign of the IRA still continues to this day and will for a few generations yet to come.

The myth prevails that nothing could have been achieved without a violent campaign up North. I, and I believe a majority of Irish people don’t subscribe to that view, but we will never know what the heroic John Hume and others committed to nonviolence could have achieved without the killings and heartbreak caused by paramilitaries on both sides.

If we genuinely want a United Ireland what we don’t need is the anachronistic rabble-rousing of old fossils like the Wolfe Tones whipping up the easily stirred energies of young people who are just there for a good time but by now should know that what they are doing in chanting “oh ah up the ‘Ra” is offensive to many fellow Irish people of all denominations and none like myself.

Staging such a crowd draw as the Wolfe Tones might be viewed as a success in a sense, and certainly commercially, but a morally flawed success nonetheless.

Can we just stop aiding and facilitating such base old nonsense and move on.

Cynthia Carroll, Newport, Co Tipperary

HSE little hope for mental health

The Irish Examiner view [Friday, September 1] asks: “Why does it appear that services for vulnerable children are routinely unavailable, underfunded, or inadequate?”

It doesn’t ‘appear’ — it’s the truth. The Government, the HSE and we as a nation make it so. We operate an apartheid system where the type of illness a child has dictates the treatment. If it’s ‘physical’, you generally get help according to clinical need. If it’s ‘mental’, you get put on waiting lists. Lots of them. And very long lists. Children can’t vote and the adults caring for them barely manage to breathe let alone have time to advocate. So no incentive to change.

In fairness child psychiatry/Camhs gets all the rap and other services covering disability, autism, primary care psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy etc get away scot free by comparison.

None of them in the main ‘do’ emergencies. HSE management officially exhorts patients not to contact the very services mandated to treat them in ‘urgent’ situations. Its (un-negotiated) solution? Contact your beleaguered GP or ‘nearest’ emergency department.

The great heralding of ‘care in the community’ in this respect has been an abject failure. Sitting in clinics far removed from patients with work hours of 37 out of 168 per week and ‘appointments only’ policies make it so easy to say, no. (And by God, they do. Just ask patients and their families.) There are individuals who do good work but overall Camhs and other community services as currently constituted are not fit for purpose 

What evidentially does work? Hospitals. 24/7. 

Patients arrive in pain. Suffering. They are in front of you. You don’t say no. You don’t insist on a 14-page-plus ‘referral’ form. You don’t put them on interminable long waiting lists or see the parents only and not the patient. No exclusion criteria. A ‘reasonable’ wait time is ‘now’.

You assess. You listen. You treat. You help. Immediately. All this despite no ward staff trained in psychiatry, dangerous surroundings and almost zero funding for paediatric liaison psychiatry services. If a bed is needed and there are none, you make one. Sometimes literally.

Does HSE management even mention this? Does it even count or record the hundreds of patients seen in paediatric hospitals with psychiatric illness? No.

Maybe we should all read the sections of the mental health commission’s report on paediatric liaison psychiatry services. And reflect.

We must do better. Now.

Kieran Moore, Ros Mhic Thriúin, Co Chill Cheannaigh

Tubridy cash ‘error’ would be nice

I think it’s right for Pat Kenny to defend Ryan Tubridy — neither of whom are on my list to take much notice of. Pat makes the point of where is the beef in the relentless attacks on Ryan — apart from why did he get overpaid and not say anything about it, which seems to be the cause of the national outrage.

To be honest, I believe if my State seniors’ pension of €265 per week was, on occasion, boosted to €2,650 on, say, four weeks out of the full year, I’d take my chances and make myself believe it’s because the pensions department really believe it’s because I’m worth it.

If they came after me and admitted their mistake, eventually, then perhaps I’d suggest paying back the surplus through a deduction of €4 per week until I cleared the debt and, if I died in the meantime, it would become a case of whichever came first. It’s hard to argue with the sudden joy of an unexpected bank bonanza.

Move on from the Tubridy circus as many of us are just living in hope of commas and decimal points being officially and beneficially put in the wrong place on a weekly basis.

Robert Sullivan, Bantry, Co Cork

Not all ‘democracy’ is equal

A letter writer recently advocated, whether in jest or in seriousness, that Ireland consider joining the Brics alliance, in contrast to an international alliance such as Nato [ Irish Examiner, September 4].

Another reader rebutted this suggestion. I was confused when reading his letter, as many of the fine points he made about Brics countries could describe perfectly the US, Britain and other Western democracies.

Let’s firstly remember that we fought a bloody war to free ourselves from a democracy, because (surprise, surprise) that democracy (the UK) was not run for the people, but for the wealthy.

In relation to the most recent letter’s arguments, the writer asked, “do we seek to align with the appalling human rights record and catastrophic civil dysfunction of...?” Well, you can fill the blanks yourself. I personally would add to that list France, UK, Canada and Turkey. The evil that these countries have in their history at home and in colonial conquests is almost unspeakable.

Nor is it a historical issue. They weren’t just the bad guys in the past; many large players still have atrocious policies in the last few years and at present.

My point is, people who believe fervently in the goodness of the ‘international order’ should remember the old adage, history is written by the victors. Read up on your history, and you will be disgusted. Are they blindsided by the glamour of the red, white and blue? Is Hollywood to blame? I don’t know the reason why many educated people don’t seem to know of the evils of modern Western imperialism.

Democracy is the way, but we do not have to choose to hold hands with bigger, vicious and hypocritical plutocracies.

Fachtna O’Raftery, Clonakilty, Co Cork