Wednesday 29 June 2016

Stained glass window.

                               Medieval stained glass, circa 30 mins ago.







Mullioned window out of Cahir Castle.


Hypericum (St John's wort) used from ancient times as a cure for depression.

Sunday 26 June 2016

My view on why Brexit



OK, here goes.
Brexit was a Tory attempt to shore up the movement to the far right of that party. The far right had been there forever and one bane of many for that bunch of nutters was the EEC and then the EU. These guys were kept on the simmer all this time by Murdock's newspapers (him of Fox fame) to be brought out whenever that person thought the Tories were drifting out of orthodoxy. This is the general background that saw the PM Cameron state before the last election that if elected he would have a referendum on membership of the EU.Of course, the English not really using referenda unless they really have too, 3 in 50 years, had no idea what they were releasing. And what was thought would be an easy tool to gain more out of Brussels became the very mechanism for their exit. They thought they had control of it you see. and the tiny rump of Euro Sceptics that festered within the Tories would be stymied.
Of course what actually occurred was ALL the disaffected piled in and Voted Out. Not alone those that were inside the Tory party and the tory followers. It was as if Obama called a referendum on setting Roe -v- Wade within the US constitution thinking that the Pro Lifers inside the Democrats would be sidelined forgetting the Republicans entirely. Or at least underestimating the swing so much as to be criminal.
But why the split between rich and poor. For the most part that is so simple it's laughable. The poor don't go on holidays to foreign climes. And over the last 10 years the percentage that would call themselves poor increased hugely for the financial crisis obliterated whatever stability they had and whatever surplus that allowed them to holiday in Spain. Inside or outside just didn't matter.
Other aspects were entirely self inflicted. For 40 years the UK population was told every single petty little impingement was the fault of the EU. But the most egregious was what was occurring in counties that about 20 years ago started hi-labour fruit and veg farming. The touchstone on this was Boston in Lincolnshire.
There, large numbers of Poles and Lithuanians arrived to work in the glasshouses and the fields. Strawberry tomatoes and hand cut salad. This began as migrant labour, but soon became fixed. And here's the issue. Young people from the former east moved in together married had kids got sick and drove cars. In other words the population went up by 60% without an ounce of infrastructure being put in place by central government.
In fact, if they had decided to generate every factor that saw the rise of Hitler they couldn't have been more effective.This of course then entered all the other areas and cities where hospitals and schools were being rationalised (shut down).
But the funniest was the shock that the old people wouldn't give the government a kicking over changes to their pensions.
In the end, the 'liberals' simply didn't see it. They didn't get that their version of society had fallen short for 65% of the population. The Labour party is this very day trying to get rid of a leader elected by the membership with the largest majority ever. Why, well he didn't enter the fray with gusto, or at least the gusto expected by some of the Labour MP's in the Commons.   

Thursday 16 June 2016

OK almost all up.

It took two weeks for them to put the cords to support the images in the room. The rest of them that is. I could only get about half up.
In fact if it wasn't done by tomorrow I'd have removed the whole set.



Wednesday 8 June 2016

St Patrick's Well, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary

St Patrick's Well, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland










Todays questions.

You are middle class if your bookcase is bigger than your TV.

You are middle class if at 35 you are still paying off university fees.

You are middle class if your kids minder is earning more pro rata per hour.

You are middle class if ... . well what makes you working class then. 

Friday 3 June 2016

List of Images



The images on the North wall and the first on the main wall are of the passage tomb at Knockroe. This was found in the mid 1990's.

The middle image is of the mid winters sunrise just gone and the B&W is over the passage that is facing the setting sun of those days on the mid winter.
Anyone brought up in Ireland about my age caught the tail of the Victorian disbelief prevalent in schooling that anything existed of worth in Ireland before the Norman invasion.

Foggy Winter Road.

This is a new line. A rationalisation of roads that occurred in Ireland after the Workhouse system developed. This was little more than engineered slavery. Where the work was done for food.

Mountain Cottage.

This was typical of the type of farmhouse that was the target of economic rationalisation during the period of the land war and earlier. I waited for months to get the correct light here so that is returned that 'Cute' impression. And as truly lovely this house is, it is now one of the few such that birthed revolution. This cottage is near the place of a massacre. When in 1796 a beacon was lit and when the insurgents assembled they were slaughtered by the militias.

Derelict 1.

This is a building that is now at the very end of it's life. Soon it will get hit with a bulldozer and the stone reused in perhaps a farm roadway. This is typical of many such buildings that are now functionless with the changes in farm practice.

Slievenamon.

This mountain is the permanent backdrop to life in three counties. But for Tipperary it is iconic. Her profile seen by those who left 50-70 years earlier would draw the Kickham song unbidden. 'Alone; all alone; by a wave washed shore'.

WW1 Scene

I call this B&W a world war one scene. This is more my impression of the obliterated trees and the cold dark dankness of that place.

Derelict 2.

Death and decay. The people that lived here are gone and soon enough the building returns to it's natural state.

A wild Rose.


This is another beauty with an unusual past. These were collected and used in the rooms when people were waked. Of course the cultivated ones had been long used to mast the stench of death in the areas of Iran and Iraq. And later when they came to Europe, were used by those inflicted with a syphilis infection.

Thursday 2 June 2016

Exhibition in the Main Guard Clonmel

I've opened in the Main Guard Clonmel. I was there last year in May, and will be there for the month of June.