Bernard Moffatt's blog

I recalled recently after hearing of the death of Brian Stowell my attendance with him at the Connolly Association (CA) conference in Liverpool in 1985 on the Irish sea its militarisation and pollution for which I was a speaker. Brian was a member of the Connolly Association and had high regard for its General Secretary Desmond Greaves - although having said that everyone had high regard for Desmond who was an infectiously charming ‘radical’.

The Celtic League have written to the Council of Europe ‘watchdog’ on Police and Prison services making it aware of a recent case in the Isle of Man which raised concerns about the circumstances of the detention at CPHQ of a person with ‘complex mental health problems’.

“Hugh Chetwynd
Head of Division
CPT
Council of Europe
Strasbourg-Cedex
France

23rd January 2019

Police detention Isle of Man Court criticism

A New Year and more Brexit. Howard Quayle MHK Chief Minister (aka ‘The Great Man’) has been setting ot his vista of the Brexit future.

The incident recently reported (after a delay of several months) involving a Royal Navy nuclear submarine and a Ro Ro Ferry reminds us once again of the dangers posed by nuclear submarines activity in the confined area of the Irish Sea.

The Irish (and Celtic Seas) are busy areas commercially and are getting busier in terms of merchant and fishing fleets, wind farms and oil and gas exploration.

The near miss between a Ro Ro Ferry and a nuclear submarine in the North Channel highlights once again the danger posed by dived submarine operations in navigational choke points such as the North Channel and Pembroke Strait.

MTTVs Paul Moulton is at Milntown talking to Charles Guard about the ‘chair of Illiam Dhone’ that the Milntown Trust have recently purchased.

I’m sure that Paul mentioned at the Illiam Dhone ceremony that he was off to the Antipodes later in the month so these must be news items that were ‘in the can’ so to speak.

Anyway it's a real gem (both the table and the Guard - Moulton interview).

‘I STOOD AMAZED; FOR IN THE ISLE OF MAN OUR POOR ARE NOT NEGLECTED’

The words above are from the Manx poet T E Brown’s work ‘Bella Gorry’ but it seems these days if you find yourself poor or in debt you are the architect of your own misfortune. This propensity to blame-shift is not peculiar to our society just go on line type in a search and you will find academics are writing papers on the tendency to make the poor ‘the architects of their own misfortune'. They don't 'budget correctly' or plan for 'unforeseen misfortunes' etc.

“A major bank told a customer who wrote to it in Welsh to complain that some services were not available in her language that she should communicate with it in English rather than a “foreign” tongue.

Nia Lloyd, a classroom assistant from Wrexham in north Wales, wrote to HSBC pointing out that online services were not available in Welsh.
Customer support replied that her message was in a “foreign” language and asked her to resend it in English. Both Welsh and English are official languages in Wales.

Children have rallied outside the Irish parliament Dail Eireann this week calling for action on climate change. Green Ireland ie reports:

“Hundreds of young protesters rallied in front of the Dáil yesterday to call on the Irish Government to immediately address the growing threat of climate change.

The Children’s Rally for Climate Action organised by Climate Case Ireland (CCI) comes just days before a high profile climate case against the Irish Government in the High Court.

Bearing in mind the decision of the Manx Treasury to bring back proposals for Employed Persons Allowance (EPA) in May I thought it would be useful to remind ourselves of the difficulties some families face in the school holiday period (see media links below). Although the focus was on the lengthy summer break there are of course equally lengthy times such as the two weeks over Easter. Also this Xmas media reported higher food bank demand.