It saddened me recently to witness a collective of Irish women publish an ‘Open Letter’ to you, for the sole purpose of discrediting your current mission, silencing your voice and mobilising public hostility towards your proposed visit to Ireland. That it is based on ignorance and a heinous misrepresentation of our shared feminist history outrages me; that it implies their view is in any way representative of all Irish feminists shames me; and that it uses its object both to ostracise you and mobilise hatred and violence towards fellow Irish women, incenses every fibre of my being. There is no doubt about it, we need to talk!
I don’t know exactly what you may or may not know about Irish feminism, but what Iknow is that in every single struggle for liberty from sex-based oppression, your matrilineal ancestors and sisters have stood alongside us, either should-to-shoulder on Irish soil or as underground allies to our forsaken women when they crossed the Irish sea. The shared feminist struggles of Irish and British women are unambiguously entwined in an alliance which has inspired and influenced the status of women in Ireland both up to and following the formation of the Irish State. To detail the full extent of this shared history would merit an entire book but for now, I offer a snapshot of some feminist highlights from the past century:
In 1876Isabella Tod from Edinburgh and Anna Haslam from Cork both started the suffrage movement in Ireland. They were instrumental in the 1886 Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act which had brutalized prostituted women. By 1896 they won the right for women to be elected as Poor law Guardians and by 1898 Irish women had won the vote for all local government bodies although they could not sit on County Councils until 1911.
In 1908 Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and Margaret Cousins founded the Irish Women’s Franchise League and in 1909 Cousins spent three weeks training in England with the Women’s Social and Political Unionan experience which she described as “a helpful apprenticeship for our campaign later in Ireland.”
In 1912 In protest against the Irish Parliamentary Party’s exclusion of women’s franchise from the Third Home Rule Bill, four English suffragettes Gladys Evans, Mary Leigh, Sarah Jane Baines(aka Lizzie Baker)and Mabel Capper,travelled to Dublin to participate with the Irish Women’s Franchise Leaguein their first militant defiance. Their actions, which included throwing a hatchet at vising Prime Minister Asquith and setting fire to the Royal Theatre, earned them sentences of up tofive-years penal servitude, the first ever such sentenceshanded down to suffragettes. Incarcerated in Mountjoy Jail, the women went on Hunger Strike following which, the Irish Suffragettesjoined them in solidarity. Mary Leigh became the first suffragette in Ireland to be force fed and Gladys Evans continued to be force fed for fifty-eight days.
In 1967 after the legalisation of abortion in Britain, you opened your doors to the tens of thousands of Irish women who for the 50yrs since, have been criminalised in their own country and forced to travel abroad for abortions. And over the decades and prior to the Internet, subversive Irish and English women provided the informal Intelligence and logistics network which provided essential support to travelling Irish women: meeting them from buses, distributing phone numbers, providing sofas and paying for taxis. I’m not sure that we’ve ever thanked you for that!
In 1970 Margaret Dunlop (Gaj) born in Edinburgh and Mary Anderson born in London were both founder members of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, a short lived but influential feminist movement. In their 1971 Contraception Train publicity stunt to highlight the criminal status of contraception in Ireland, some English women were amongst the 49 strong delegation of women who travelled to Belfast to bring contraband contraceptives back through customs to Dublin.
In 1983 when the Pro Choice Anti-Amendment Campaign fought to oppose the insertion of the 8th Amendment into the Irish Constitution, once again English Pro Choice women travelled over to participate in our campaign. Through the decades BPAS has been unyielding in their alliance with Irish referral services and advocating on our behalf on request.
That same year, women in the UK Labour Party who believed British women, in particular English women, had a political responsibility to support British withdrawal from Northern Ireland, constituted an autonomous group called Labour Women for Ireland (LWI). From the belief that women’s liberation and national liberation were inextricably linked, they organised with anti-imperialist and republican women. Six separate delegations travelled to the North of Ireland from Sheffield, Brent and London (which resulted in some of them being expelled by their Trades Councils) and then returned home to lobby against the Strip Searching of women in Armagh and Brixton Prisons, and to advocate for contraception and abortion rights for women in the North of Ireland.
In 2012 following the death of Savita Halappanavar, women in London and Edinburgh held protest vigils to coincide with the Dublin vigil, whilst feminist journalists have publicised her case ever since in publications such as the Guardian and the Independent.
In 2017 women in Glasgow, Aberdeen, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Royal Holloway, Manchester and Durham went on Strike For Repeal in solidarity with the Irish Campaign. That same year British experts travelled to Ireland to contribute to making the case to Repeal the 8th Amendment at the Citizens’ Assembly.
And in recent years I, like many other Irish women who occasionally divert our gaze from our navel, know that whilst we were exposing and reconciling the injustice and trauma experienced by women incarcerated in Magdalene Asylums, you too were coming to terms with the exact same legacy across the British Isles. We know that Magdalene Asylums were established in the 1700s by the Church of England in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. We know that by the 1900s there were 12 in Ireland (plus one Bethany Home) and 172 in England, all run by various religious organisations. That 35,000 women and girls went through nine Irish Mother and Baby Homes between 1904 and 1996, where thousands of mothers and children died, and thousands more babies were trafficked for adoption; is no greater nor lesser injustice than the estimated 500,000 British women who went through similar institutions during that period. We do know that in Britain forced adoptions peaked in 1968, with 16,000 babies forcibly taken from women in England and Wales during that year alone. That there are Irish Feminists deriding you by Open Letter for not abandoning your own cause and rushing to ours, is sickening.
Our shared feminist alliance over this past century hasn’t been without fracture and difference of opinion. When English suffrage organisations suspended their activism during World War 1 to recruit women into war work, it drove an ideological wedge between Irish and English feminists, as Irish women advocated a pacifist anti-war position. For the most part our mutual solidarity has been based on the pursuit of a shared struggle for liberty from sex-based oppression, and I am very much aware that when the English man had his boot on the necks of Irish men and women, he had the other placed firmly on the necks of his wife, his mother, his sisters and his daughters.
One thing I have learned these past few decades is that when women subordinate their cause to other struggles – they lose. Too often we have conceded the grounds upon which we negotiate, to the terms of reference set by men. The 1983 Abortion Anti Amendment Campaign (AAC) was a case in point. When the opposition framed the debate as the “murder of babies” the AAC was unwilling to argue its case on the basis of promoting women’s rights, and countering lies about abortion. They opted instead to argue on the grounds of “pluralism” and the rejection of sectarian laws rather than on ‘abortion rights’. The so-called Left didn’t stick its head above the parapet for their comrades. In its leaflet asking people to oppose the referendum The Workers’ Party achieved the seemingly impossible – not only did the leaflet not mention abortion, it did not even mention women! The Irish Congress of Trade Unions leaflet wasn’t much better only managing to include the word women in the final sentence.
The Left, no more than the Right, has proven to be an unreliable ally of feminism. Political ideology of all hues has been shaped and defined by patriarchs from ancient Greece to the present day. Likewise with every shade of theocracy. Aristotle, Machiavelli and Marx; Jesus Christ, Buddha and Allah; Dalai Lamas, Caliphs and Popes, have all shared one common practice – the subjugation of women. The rights of woman will ALWAYS be subjugated to the more noble purpose of man: indoctrination, war, political governance, commerce, sexual gratification and the liberation of one man from the binds of another. These causes are narrated as struggles for the ‘liberation of people’ but NONE of them seek to liberate women. Their sole object is to advance the position of men. For centuries the word ‘people’ has been misappropriated to solicit women into the work of men, rendering them complicit in their own subjugation. In this regard, Liberal Feminism has delivered the greatest number of own goals: underwriting men’s right to buy sex; guaranteeing supplies of women and girls to pimps and traffickers; endorsing the sexual violence and commodification of women in porn; giving their imprimatur to the eradication of protected spaces and status for women and; advocating for the sexual grooming of lesbians by trans identifying males. It is truly time to write the sequel to this Handmaids Tale which is why, we need to talk!
It is evident, that by stealth, the feminist movement has been infiltrated and commandeered by the interests of men, whose illegitimate power was being diminished by the advancement of women. Women as an oppressed sex class, has been erased from the consciousness of many women, young and old. Of course many never had the benefit of such consciousness, as the powerful spiritual and secular influencers ensured their psychological submission to the doctrines of the patriarchs. But others did, and in order to mitigate the dissidence of feminism, the patriarchal interests cleverly aligned themselves with the cause and became ‘allies’. Misogyny was repackaged and sold back to women with media messages that would resonate with feminist thinking. The manipulation of what psychologists call mirroring – the reflection of another’s behaviour, speech pattern and attitudes; was used to build rapport and foster a belief that both sides shared similar attitudes and ideas. And so, the subjugation of females to male engineered feminism was rebranded and sold to women as Liberal Feminism. In the words of Sun Tzu “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
In conclusion my dear sisters, it is seems to me that a re-radicalisation of feminism is both necessary and imminent. The contamination of feminist ideology by men is beyond neutralisation and I for one, am not prepared to bear witness to the gradual degradation of the liberties achieved by my matrilineal ancestors. Nor will I concede my own efforts of forty odd years, nor betray those of the many fantastic feminist women I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to befriend or work alongside over a number of decades – those of us who were not afraid to use the ‘F’ word, in the face of contempt from men or pity from other women. But my bravado is of little consequence without the solidarity and camaraderie of other like minded feminists, an association that in this technological age transcends distance, political borders, social class and sectarianism. You my English, Scottish and Welsh sisters, are amongst my comrades in the ongoing struggle against the sex-based oppression of women, and you are most welcome to come visit my friends and I across the island of Ireland any time you want to, or need to, talk. I look forward to meeting you with a céad míle fáilte(a hundred thousand welcomes).
I have no mandate to speak on behalf of other Irish women and have not solicited other signatories as an exercise of public validation. I am certain however that any woman who shares the sentiment herein, will find her own words to express them and her own means to addend any further commentary.
Undine Rising from the Waters (1880) Chauncey Bradley Ives
When Marie-France van Heel walked through Downing Street alongside her husband, she brought an intimidatingly robust resume. A Cambridge graduate, a polyglot, a successful corporate marketing executive and an NGO board member, she is by any metric a highly accomplished woman.
Yet, within hours, the digital public square (most notably from corners occupied by conservative-leaning, self-styled ‘Gender Critical’ feminists) had reduced her entirely to a collection of physical flaws.
The critique did not focus on her skills, her politics or her achievements. Instead, it hyper-focused on her dress and the natural silhouette of her 56-year-old body, with users labeling her choice of attire a “crime against fashion” and an embarrassment. What followed was a masterclass in relational aggression, body-shaming and intellectual deflection. But more than that, the backlash served as a stark case study in how modern interpretations of feminism are being actively weaponised to protect the very patriarchal structures they claim to oppose.
As the Áras 2025 campaign enters its final week, Ireland’s media landscape feels less like a marketplace of ideas and more like an echo chamber of recycled questions.
With Jim Gavin’s early withdrawal leaving only Heather Humphreys and Catherine Connolly in the field, the stage was set for a meaningful national conversation about vision, integrity and the moral imagination required of a President. Instead, we got a dreary carousel of repetition — the same questions, the same confrontational tone, and the same absence of curiosity.
The Rise of Churnalism
What could have been an opportunity for thoughtful scrutiny quickly devolved into what can only be described as churnalism — journalism stripped of rigour, imagination, and fact-checking. Every interview on every platform became a tired re-run of the last: Humphreys grilled on her husband’s membership of the Orange Order, her Irish proficiency, fox-hunting, and a nominal property tax bill; Connolly pressed again and again about retaining an ex-prisoner, the briefs she accepted as a barrister, the Burke disturbance at the University of Galway, and a fact-finding trip to Syria.
The pattern was identical across outlets, reminiscent of the old “rip and read” practice when news was lifted straight from agency wires. Yet this time, RTE, Virgin, Mediahuis, The Irish Times, Irish Independent, and The Journal weren’t sourcing from a verified news wire — they were sourcing from each other. Each journalist seemed to assume that because a question had been asked elsewhere, it must be valid. No need to verify. No need to probe beyond the headlines. The result was a national inquisition masquerading as accountability.
In a small media ecosystem like Ireland’s, the problem is magnified. Where one broadcaster or paper leads, the rest tend to follow. What was once the Fourth Estate — designed to challenge power — now too often mirrors itself.
Failures of Verification and Privacy
Take the Garda vetting controversy. Not one broadcaster or print journalist appears to have verified how the process actually works in Leinster House — who manages it (it’s the Oireachtas Commission, not the TD or Senator), or how long it typically takes for new staff to receive their fobs. Instead, Catherine Connolly was challenged to defend a “practice” that is entirely standard: new hires have supervised access to Leinster House on a visitor pass until vetting is completed and a fob is issued or declined.
The absence of basic fact-checking created the illusion of scandal and fuelled a social media bonfire of misinformation. Worse still, it propelled a private individual — the staff member concerned — into the public domain, breaching her right to privacy. Despite having served her sentence and being entitled to post-conviction privacy, her name was broadcast and dissected as though she were a political actor. When Connolly attempted to defend her employee’s privacy, she was told by a prominent broadcaster that by running for office, she had forfeited her staff’s anonymity. This logic is not only warped; it is ethically corrosive.
Ignorance Masquerading as Inquiry
A similar failure occurred when a print journalist, seemingly unfamiliar with the “cab-rank” principle governing barristers, pursued a hostile and ill-informed line of questioning. Connolly answered clearly — three times — yet the journalist persisted. The resulting misinformation forced the Law Library to issue an unsolicited public clarification, effectively vindicating her. A single phone call to the Law Library before pursuing the story would have spared the public a torrent of ignorance and the tedious misnaming of possession orders as repossession orders.
By contrast, the student-led Galway Pulse handled the Elijah Burke incident at the University of Galway with exemplary integrity. While mainstream outlets splashed sensational headlines and dramatic images, Galway Pulse published a detailed, sourced account explaining the actual sequence of events — demonstrating that fact-finding is still possible when curiosity outweighs clickbait.
From Scrutiny to Theatre
Radio and television debates offered further proof of how adversarial performance has replaced investigative truth. With only two candidates, journalists had ample airtime for depth — yet every “new” question had already been aired elsewhere. The herd instinct prevailed. The assumption seemed to be: if one outlet asked it, it must be valid. The result was not scrutiny but theatre — a form of journalistic karaoke in which everyone sang the same tune, slightly off-key.
The Consequences: Disinformation and Disillusionment
Despite the chaos, the duty of truth-telling still belongs squarely to the media. Balance is not achieved by clock-watching or asking both sides the same question; it is achieved through verification, context, and the courage to abandon a faulty line of enquiry.
When media fails to verify, the public pays the price. Disinformation does not arise in a vacuum — it germinates in the soil of unchallenged assumptions first planted by broadcast and print. False claims spread faster than corrections. Clips are edited, motives assigned, and the line between journalism and gossip dissolves.
This has tangible democratic consequences. The rise of the “Spoil Your Vote” campaign — a viral protest against perceived corruption — is less an expression of civic rebellion than of despair manufactured by mainstream failure. Spoiling a vote may feel like a statement of conscience, but in practice it is voluntary disenfranchisement: an illusion of agency within a broken information ecosystem. When citizens spoil their votes because they are sick of the noise rather than guided by truth, democracy doesn’t flourish — it withers.
To spoil one’s ballot is a silent protest. To spoil the public sphere with lazy journalism is an institutional failure.
Recovering Integrity
Ironically, both remaining candidates have emerged largely unscathed in the eyes of voters — much to the frustration of certain opinion writers. Despite the noise, polling suggests that most citizens recognise the shallowness of the smears. Integrity, when seen clearly, still carries weight even when shouted down by the chorus.
Yet the campaign has laid bare how fragile our information ecosystem has become. This should have been an election about moral authority, the soft power of the Presidency, and how Ireland’s head of state might foster inclusion and reconciliation at home and abroad. Instead, we have been treated to a fortnight of circular skirmishes that reveal little about the candidates — and much about the condition of Irish journalism.
As the campaign draws to a close, there remains one final chance for redemption. Journalists can still ask the questions that matter: those that reveal character, not choreography; vision, not rumour.
How might each candidate use the soft power of the Presidency to promote reconciliation, inclusion or cultural renewal? What role should the President play in acknowledging unsung communities? How can the office embody empathy while maintaining neutrality in an increasingly divided world?
These are the questions that tell us who our candidates really are — and who we are prepared to become.
A reflection on camogie’s dress code row and the deeper tensions beneath it.
A quiet revolution over dress codes has spilled out of the camogie dressing room and into public consciousness — and it’s being led by players, not by administrators. Last week, the Kilkenny and Dublin senior county camogie teams took to the field in shorts rather than the traditionally mandated skort however, both teams were told the match would be abandoned if every player did not comply. It was a simple act with radical implications, sparking heated debate within an all-female organisation. At first glance, it might seem like a minor uniform dispute. But beneath the surface lies a deeper tension about autonomy, legacy, and what happens when institutions founded in resistance stop evolving.
The Paradox
Camogie, like many women’s sports, has radical roots. The women who founded it in the early 20th century weren’t just starting a sport — they were defying a society that believed women should not run, sweat, or compete. They were carving out space in a male-dominated culture, demanding autonomy in the cultural life of the new Irish State. That was no small thing. The rules they set, the structures they built, were acts of defiance.
Yet here we are. A generation of players now finds itself arguing not with external patriarchal forces, but with its own governing body. They are asking for the freedom to choose a kit that reflects how they experience the game: one that is comfortable, practical and on their terms. What was once about making space for women in sport has, paradoxically, become about controlling how women appear in sport.
Dublin captain Aisling Maher put it powerfully, and painfully: “Career low for me today when 60 plus players ready to play a championship game in shorts are told their match will be abandoned if every player doesn’t change into skorts.”
This was not hyperbole. It was a moment that collapsed preparation, professionalism, and pride into a single ultimatum — not over performance or safety, but over attire. In a sport where players train year-round for the honour of representing their counties, to be met with the threat of abandonment over shorts is more than frustrating, it’s demoralising.
This isn’t unique to camogie. At Wimbledon, players recently challenged the all-white dress code that caused stress for women athletes, particularly during menstruation. Once a symbol of tradition and elegance, the rule had become a site of control. After sustained protest, it was finally relaxed. The change didn’t dishonour the past — it redeemed it.
There’s a lesson here. Women-led institutions are not immune to becoming gatekeepers. Sometimes, in the name of tradition, they reinforce the very constraints they once existed to dismantle. The radical energy that founded them can fade if not consciously revisited. And when rules become relics, power can harden into conservatism — even in feminist spaces.
What’s playing out in camogie is not a betrayal of tradition, it’s a call to remember its purpose. Maher’s words echo a deeper truth: that autonomy is still conditional, that participation remains policed. The skort was never the point. The right to self-govern, to play freely, to shape your own game — that was the point. That still is the point.
Running Interference
There’s now talk of calling the Camogie Association before an Oireachtas Committee. I understand the impulse — public scrutiny can be a powerful lever. But I find myself wondering: will a parliamentary grilling encourage the kind of cultural self-reflection that’s needed here? Or will it push the Association into a defensive crouch, turning an opportunity for renewal into a game of blame and backlash?
Culture doesn’t shift through confrontation alone. It shifts when people feel safe enough to reimagine. What’s needed now is not just policy change, but deeper generational dialogue — a re-engagement with the original spirit of camogie, on the terms of those who are still out there on the pitch.
Perhaps what’s needed is not just scrutiny from without, but courage from within — the kind that once built camogie in the first place. The kind that says: we trust players to lead this conversation. We trust them to know their own bodies, their own comfort, their own dignity.
Because when 60 players stand on a pitch in protest, it is not a fashion statement. It is a statement of agency. This is not rebellion — it’s a reclamation. Players are not turning away from camogie, they are calling it home.
What’s playing out is not a betrayal of tradition, it’s a call to remember its purpose.
[Photo credit: Skysports-limerick-offaly-camogie]
About the Author Business and organisation consultant occasional writer and broadcaster, advocate for inclusive systems. Passionate about rethinking leadership, equity, and the quiet power of solidarity. When not working, she’s usually reading, listening, plotting, or people-watching with intent.
The Ironman; The Midnight Run; these aren’t just stories — they’re part of a wider framing of success that quietly excludes those who can’t, or shouldn’t have to, go to extremes.
When Endurance Becomes Exclusion
Some years ago, I sat through a talk by motivational speaker Gerry Duffy. A man of physical extremes — famed for completing multiple Ironman challenges — he spun tales of endurance, grit, and triumph over the self. It was slick, tightly rehearsed, and enthusiastically received. Everyone around me seemed inspired.
I, however, felt a slow-burning sense of alienation — even revulsion.
Around about the same time, Bressie (Niall Breslin), an influential voice in the mental health space, was sharing his story of coping with debilitating panic attacks. In one widely cited anecdote, he described getting up in the middle of the night, lacing up his runners, and heading out for a jog to stave off a wave of anxiety. It was meant to be inspirational. But again, I found myself shouting at the radio: “Women cannot safely go running alone in the middle of the night.”
The Problem with the Endurance Narrative
These two moments crystallised something for me — something I’ve come to see not just as a personal irritation, but as a deeper flaw in how we frame success, resilience, and leadership in our culture.
What both examples represent is a very particular kind of endurance masculinity — a narrative of strength through conquest, of wellbeing through self-discipline, of leadership as lone heroism.
These stories — though wrapped in the language of motivation, wellness, and progress — often rely on invisible scaffolding: male privilege, physical ability, financial security, access to public space and, crucially, freedom from fear.
This isn’t about singling out individuals — both Duffy and Bressie have undoubtedly helped many people and they are not alone. Podcaster Joe Rogan, biohacker Ben Greenfield and grit psychologist Angela Duckworth all use the frame. But their stories reveal something deeper about what kinds of narratives we’re encouraged to admire — and what’s missing from them.
Outdated Culture Rebranded
This narrative still shapes much of corporate and organisational culture. It’s the mindset of the stoic leader who “pushes through.” The entrepreneur who “hustles harder.” The executive who runs marathons and expects their team to follow suit — if not in Lycra, then in spirit.
Behind the progressive language of performance and wellbeing, we often find the same old tropes of dominance and self-denial, rebranded with smoothies and mindfulness apps.
So What’s Missing?
The truth is: this culture is not just outdated — it’s exclusionary.
It rewards a narrow, masculinised model of self-optimisation and presents it as universally accessible. It pathologises rest. It treats interdependence as weakness. It equates visible endurance with moral worth.
And it quietly ignores — or worse, gaslights — those for whom these scripts were never written.
This isn’t just about gender, though that’s often where the exclusion starts. It’s about the assumptions we build into our definitions of success, wellness, and leadership.
What Might an Inclusive Culture of Leadership Look Like?
It might look like:
Collaboration over competition
Rest over relentless striving
Emotional fluency over stoicism
Different bodies, boundaries, and backgrounds being not just acknowledged, but respected
It might mean recognising that endurance is not always visible — and that survival, for many, is a daily triumph with no finish line.
Final Thought
Leadership doesn’t need to be heroic. Sometimes, it just needs to be human.
As Ireland marked Workplace Wellbeing Day last Wednesday, it’s worth asking: whose wellbeing do we centre when we celebrate resilience? And what might it mean to value care, rest, and inclusion as markers of strength — not signs of weakness?
About the Author Business and organisation consultant occasional writer and broadcaster, advocate for inclusive systems. Passionate about rethinking leadership, equity, and the quiet power of solidarity. When not working, she’s usually reading, listening, plotting, or people-watching with intent.
The Government’s current display of brinkmanship in its attempt to rapidly enact revised hate crime legislation prior to a snap general election, bookends a four-year process of legislative authoritarianism, political belligerence and policy capture that in this instance and from the outset, has manifest widescale public dissent, universal confusion and a substantial degree of public occlusion – all in equal measure. The fundamental changes to the constitutional principal of legal equality proposed by this legislation, coupled with the parliamentary guillotining of public scrutiny and political debate undoubtedly (and without a scintilla of hyperbole)represent a profound threat to our democratic processes and an erosion of our increasingly fragile framework of social cohesion and the social contract.
In the current political climate, mistrust and hate have become political emotional cryptocurrencies that, though devoid of intrinsic value, are increasingly popular speculative tools for those who stand to benefit from division and chaos. Public policies and processes that manufacture dissent and amplify discord, inflate the value of mistrust and hatred and can be manipulated for gain. Codifying the emotion of hatred in the Irish legal system and making it a crime, that in and of itself carries specific penalties, elevates hatred to a valuable and exploitable commodity in our legal-political economy that can be manipulated by a variety of political and social actors to consolidate power, divide opposition and distract from material shortcomings in other tangible public policy domains such as housing, healthcare, employment and economics.
The Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 that Government proposes to bulldoze through the Oireachtas in the coming week, is a solution to a problem that did not exist, the consequences of which will have a profound impact on the grounding principal of Article 40.1 of the Constitution that guarantees all citizens shall be held equal before the law. The creation of a hierarchy of victims for identical classes of crime, misappropriates the principles of equity and justice that its proponents claim to pursue and there is every possibility that the enactment of such legislation may in fact inflame hostilities placing the communities it purports to serve at greater risk of violence.
The following is an attempt to set out the trajectory of the legislation to date, to highlight the lack of transparency and accountability in the legislative process and to throw some light on some of the shade of the public discourse that never happened .
How We Got Here
The background to the proposed legislation has its origins in a 2008 EU Framework Decision to harmonise laws that would combat racism and xenophobia and mitigate the propagation of both hatred and violence across the European Union. Specifically, the high-level EU obligation compelled member states to make provision in criminal law for public incitement to violence or hatred on grounds such as race, religion, or national origin. It also compels signatories to penalise the public denial, gross trivialisation or condoning of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes —where such denial incites hatred or violence. While Framework Decisions specify the result to be achieved, they do not prescribe how member states incorporate its provisions into national law therefore, each country has the flexibility to decide the exact means to achieving the result. Since 2008 levels of response and implementation from member states have varied greatly in scope, reach and sanction.
Ireland already had thirty-year-old pre-existing legislation in the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 which remains the prevailing legislation on the Statute Book today. This Actcriminalises actions likely to stir up hatred against a group based on race; colour; nationality; religion; ethnic or national origins; membership of the Travelling community; or sexual orientation. It does however, fall short of the 2008 EU threshold as it fails to address incitement to violence; does not expressly criminalise the denial of genocide or other international law crimes; and lacks modern provisions for dealing with online incitement. Concerns have also been raised about enforcement as prosecutions under the 1989 Act have been limited however there is significant opacity as to why: low levels of reporting; inadequate resources to investigate and gather evidence; a high burden of proof required to secure convictions; and mercurial definitions are among some of the suggested contributing factors. This experience is similarly reflected across the EU member states with many countries falling below the compliance level and poor levels of enforcement. In any case little was done to fulfil our Framework obligation either by amending the 1989 Act or introducing new legislation, until Charlie Flanagan, the Fine Gael Minister for Justice (2017 to 2020) initiated a process of updating Ireland’s hate offences during his tenure. Over the past six-years and two different government administrations the hate offences law-making process has been grounded on legislative incoherence and subject to policy capture by unaccountable actors creating a foundation of ever shifting sands to the present day.
From There to Here
In 2018 Minister Flanagan announced his aim to address gaps in existing legislation and incorporate the provisions of the EU framework into national law. His specific focus was to modernise Ireland’s laws to address rising concerns over online hate speech. Flanagan’s approach focused on reviewing and updating existing hate speech legislation, particularly the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. In 2019 he launched a public consultation to gather input on how Ireland should tackle hate speech and hate crimes. This consultation was a significant part of shaping future legislation and while the priority at that time was criminalising hate speech, particularly online, with less emphasis on hate crimes as a separate category — it did flag up that research was underway at the Dept of Justice into the concept of hate crime as a standalone offence.
Flanagan also sought to broaden the definitions of hate speech beyond the EU obligations of race and ethnicity and to expand it to include categories such as gender identity, sexual orientation, disability and religion. In the contexts of the growing concern about the rise of online hate speech, the proposal also sought to bring digital and social media platforms into the regulatory framework including discussions about holding them accountable for failing to address hate speech on their platforms.
While Flanagan’s initiative was aimed at making it easier to secure prosecutions given the 1989 Act was no longer fit for purpose, the consultation attracted considerable criticism from both Left and Right with particular regard to its potential threat to freedom of expression. It also provoked considerable reaction regarding the expanded categories of protected characteristics in particular those that diverged from objective characteristics to subjective characteristics. In any case, the government fell in December 2019 before any draft legislation emerged from Flanagan’s consultation process.
In December 2020, Helen McEntee the Fine Gael Minister for Justice who succeeded Charlie Flanagan in the new Dáil launched the findings of the public consultation and announced her intention to bring forward both hate speech and hate crime legislation in the following months. It was a further two years however before McEntee presented the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill to members of the Dáil. With few exceptions, the Bill was received with uncritical acclaim from both government and opposition parties alike. While tangentially building on the groundwork laid by Flanagan, McEntee’s Bill expanded profoundly both the scope and reach of the its powers with significant regard to input from special interest quangos.
While retaining Flanagan’s focus on hate speech the 2022 Bill also sought to not only criminalise incitement to hatred but also expand it to include incitement to violence. Substantively however, McEntee’s Bill migrated significantly from Flanagan’s through the introduction of specific provisions to criminalise the motive of hateas a separate offence to the primary criminal act committed by a perpetrator. This additional crime would be sanctioned through the legal instrument of aggravated sentencing which imposes an additional sentence for the motive of hatred or prejudice.
The 2022 Bill also aligns with international obligations by addressing genocide denial and war crimes as part of its hate speech provisions; and puts a stronger emphasis on regulating hate speech on digital platforms. To support enforcement of the legislation,the Bill sought to lower the threshold for what constitutes incitement to violence or hatred, making it easier for prosecutors to bring cases to court.
As mentioned earlier, while there was almost bipartisan favourable consensus for Bill from the outset, there were also some dissenting voices across the political spectrum that resisted the punitive objects of the Bill (in preference to preventive measures); its sweeping powers of search and seizure; its threat to civil liberties; the creation of a hierarchy of victimhood; and its slippery language and undefined legal terms. Public reaction and criticism of the Bill also indicated that public resistance was more widespread than simply fringe flanks of the left-right political divide. Malcontent emerged among rank-and-file members of both government and opposition parties (including Charlie flanagan) and despite McEntee’s efforts to consign public criticism to the ‘lunatic fringe’ the public disquiet remained.
Despite this, and with little public discourse or analysis of the substantive elements of the legislation, and with media talking points generally confined to topics of free expression or protected characteristics, in April 2024 the government rejected Dáil Amendments moved by opposition TDs and McEntee’s resolve to forge ahead with enactment continued unabated until September 2024.
What Happened Next?
Events dear boy, events! Borrowing from either Harold Wilson or Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate existential events in the second quarter of 2024, would have the most profound impact on the Bill since its initiation. Following a withering and decisive defeat of the government’s Family and Care Referendums in March 2024 (which every opinion poll indicated would be won) both government and opposition parties (who had unilaterally advocated for YES) were left on the back foot. The defeat revealed a deep chasm between ordinary voters, grass roots members of all political parties, and elected parliamentarians. This defeat was consolidated by a loss of 67 seats for the coalition government parties (and Labour) at the Local Elections in June, with the gains transferring to the main opposition parties and Independents. Fine Gael suffered a further defeat with the loss of an MEP seat, leaving Fianna Fáil the largest political party in the country by the end of the summer. The draconian Hate Crime legislation was a talking point on the doorsteps throughout these elections and also garnered some unsavoury, albeit superficial, international attention and criticism from well know populist commentators.
With the prospect of a snap general election before year end, in September 2024 McEntee unexpectedly announced that she would be dropping the hate speech element of her Bill. This de facto vote of no-confidence in her own virtually unopposed Bill, suggests that Fine Gael had somewhat read the room of the electorate and was convinced of the political jeopardy the Bill posed at the general election polling booths. However, given the absence of public discourse on the substantive issue of hate crime as opposed to hate speech McEntee, along with her coalition partners and opposition bench supporters, have continued to overlook the remaining resistance to the creation of legislation that codifies human emotion as a crime. On the 16th October 2024 in an effort to force the final Bill through the Seanad, McEntee presented her amended draft to the House with a guillotine on debate – a blunt parliamentary device that imposes a restriction on the time allocated to debate a Bill to enable it to be passed without adequate opposition or scrutiny.
Where We Are Now
On Wednesday the 16th of October 2024 proceedings in the upper chamber can best be described as opaque, at worst a sinister subversion of democracy and political transparency. Having firstly condensed the last three stages (of five) of the legislative process (committee, report and final stage) into a single four-and-a-half hour guillotined ‘debate’, McEntee presented her previously unsighted Amendments to the original Bill and the first amendment was to change the title of the Bill from the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 to the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024. Thereafter, the proceedings were less than democratic and upholding the integrity of the legislative process fell to the handful of senators who bothered to turn up.
Seanad members (who themselves had also not had sight of the revised Bill before the House) had in advance submitted amendments to the original Bill without the benefit of knowing which of these, if any, still remained. They were however prohibited from proposing amendments to the Minister’s new amendments presented on the night, thus reducing the upper house to an uncontested clearing house for the railroading of government business. If you are finding it hard to follow this murky process you can read the entirety of the proceedings here. The session culminated with a request for extended time being denied, and with a call for a vote on the amendments being rejected as “less than five members” requested the division. The session concluded with the Ministers new Bill passing by default for ratification by the Dáil on Wednesday 23rd October 2024.
As of writing, the text of the newly revised Act is not yet available on the Oireachtas website. What we do know however, is that the elements pertaining to our EU compliance with the Framework Decision, have been removed. We are left therefore with a piece of incoherent legislation that has failed utterly in its original core objective yet is being coerced unseen through the legislative process under the guise of political expediency.
Before this draconian legislation is put forward for final enactment, let us look at some of the reasons why this law is deeply flawed, bad for society, and an attack on the secular integrity of our judicial system.
Some Citizens More Equal Than Others
Almost every crime begins with a motive that relates directly to one human emotion or another (the words motive and emotion have the same root meaning to cause motion). Aside from random crimes of opportunity, or spontaneous acts by virtue of insanity, every crime is driven by a compelling human emotion: anger; greed; envy; hate; love; jealousy; pride, lust, envy — to name a few. Criminal justice however has always been concerned with adjudicating the offence arising from these emotively driven acts, rather than treating the premeditated feeling as a crime in itself. When sanctioning perpetrators of serious crime, the courts first-and-foremost consider the harm caused by the act to the victim and secondly, the harm to society as a whole, from which sentences are then handed down accordingly.
For unsubstantiated reasons unknown, various jurisdictions have recently sought to criminalise the emotion of hate and codify it into legislation as a separate crime in and of itself, punishable by a separate sentence which would be additional to that handed down for the primary offence. This additional crime is considered an aggravation and sentencing referred to as aggravated sentencing. Efforts however to criminalise hatred have been mixed, with many jurisdictions pushing back hard on the basis of state over reach and the erosion of the rule of law.
The principle of ‘equality before the law’ dates back to the Magna Carta and holds that no-one is above the law. The concept that “everyone is equal before the law” regardless of status or other characteristics, became a key legal principle of the Irish judicial system and is embedded in article 40.1 of our Constitution. Minister McEntee’s Hate Offences Act 2024 seeks to erode that principle and create a legal legitimacy for some victims of crime to receive more justice than other victims simply because of the motive of the perpetrator. The corollary is that some perpetrators of serious crime will be treated more harshly than others simply because of the immutable characteristics of the victim and the perceived motive of hate prior to the offence. This unambiguously creates a legal hierarchy of victimhood and a subjective caste system of offenders classified according to the motive rather than the consequence of their crime.
It is evident that while the object of the original EU Framework Decision was to mitigate a rise in political extremism and public unrest driven by racism and xenophobia, and to find common ground in safeguarding societies from an erosion of social cohesion across the member states; there has been an ideological policy capture of the concept of ‘hate crime’ by many more actors seeking special category recognition of victimhood. Setting aside the ideological drivers for a moment, minimally we should expect that the introduction of new crimes and associated carceral penalties would be grounded on robust evidence.
By any standard, over the past decade, crime statistics in Ireland do not meet data collection quality standards. In 2014 significant deficiencies were discovered in An Garda Síochána’s (AGS) recording of data in its proprietary PULSE system. This prompted the CSO to suspend publication of crime statistics entirely in 2015 and again in 2017. Given the gravity of the PULSE quality deficiencies, the CSO only agreed to resume publication of AGS stats with a caveat ‘under reservation’ to advise users of the quality deficiencies of the underlying data. This health warning remained in place for the next six years and was only lifted in October 2023.
Despite AGS data quality deficiencies and the absence of a legal definition of ‘hate’, in 2019 the Garda Diversity and Integration Strategy adopted the Macpherson “perception based” working definition of a “hate discriminatory motive” based on recommendations from the Hate and Hostility Research Groupat the University of Limerick. In October 2020 AGS began recording Hate Crime and Hate Related Incidents on nine grounds of protected characteristic from which it has since published annual Hate Crime Statistics. The defining feature of the Macpherson Perception Test is that there is no burden of proof on the complainant at the outset and the complaint relies solely on the victim’s perception (or that of a witness or a third party) that the incident or crime was motivated by hate. It is not too difficult to see the implications of recording ‘hate’ based on an entirely subjective test of perception. The criminalisation of hate as a separate offence would demand the thorough investigation and the gathering of evidence of all of these claims and the resource implications are incalculable.
While the Macpherson framework has been widely adopted in Britain which has its own unique contextual and colonial relationship with ethnic and minority groups, its adoption has not been widespread in other common law jurisdictions, most of whom maintain evidence-based models. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Macpherson’s model is a suitable cultural or policing fit for adoption in the Republic of Ireland as we do not share the same past imperial and colonial relationships with racial and ethnic minorities on this island. While we face our own challenges with diversity and integration it is important that these are built upon our own unique biases and prejudices rather than misappropriating frameworks designed within an entirely different context.
For example, if enacted it is not difficult to see how the application of the perception test in Ireland could unilaterally criminalise people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Palestinian protests would reach the threshold of perceived antisemitism; while Israeli support actions would reach the threshold of perceived war crime/genocide denial. Similarly, actions undertaken by residents with genuine concerns about unplanned placement of asylum seekers and refugees in their communities will be undistinguishable from actions taken by anti-immigration agitators as both would reach the threshold of perceived racism.
The (Female) Elephant in the Room
Remarkably and inexplicably, while the proposed legislation goes to great excesses to expand the categories of potential victims of hate, women are not a recognised category. While much discourse has taken place regarding the ever-changing interpretations of gender and gender identity there is no proposition to designate gender-based violence against women and girls as an aggravated hate crime. While various submissions and reference documents include the range of phobias and ‘isms’ that classify prejudices and biases against protected classes, the words sexism or misogyny are not included. While all acts of violence against women and girls (VAWG) are not necessarily motivated by hatred or misogyny, it is well documented that a significant majority are. To be clear, I’m not advocating that VAWG should be classified as a hate crime, I’m simply pointing out that the absurdity of its exclusion reveals the absurdity of criminalising the perceived human emotion of hate in some circumstances but not in others. Despite this however, some victims of VAWG would be eligible for special consideration under the proposed legislation where they also qualify for additional protection under one of the protected characteristics.
Feminists and women’s rights activists have been campaigning for decades for a homicide classification of femicide in order to disaggregate data on murdered women to better inform public policy and develop preventive measures. They have also advocated for recognition of other offences such as stalking and non-fatal strangulation; increased protections for victims of domestic abuse; improved sentencing guidelines; and increased maximum sentences. All of these are concerned with strengthening penalties for substantive criminal offences and creating a reliable evidence base to reduce VAWG. To the best of my knowledge, there are no advocacy groups actively campaigning to criminalise the motive for violating women (whether it be hate, jealousy, rage etc) but there are many advocating for radical preventive interventions to reduce or eliminate violence against women and girls altogether.
Is a Sin a Crime?
The concept of codifying human emotions as criminal in civil law suggests a worrying crossover from religious doctrine to the secular domain. In Christianity, hate falls under the capital vice of wrath – a Deadly Sin that leads to other sinful actions. And there are six more (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony and sloth) most of which are motives for one crime or another. In the religious context, wrath is seen as a destructive emotion that can lead to harm or injustice, while the proposed legal concept considers hate as a destructive motive leading to harm or injustice. Which begs the question – are we simply making sin a criminal offence?
Framing ‘hate’ as a crime in the legal domain introduces an ethical question: does this reflect theocratic creep and an erosion of the integrity of our secular law? Secularity seeks to protect social harmony, public safety, and individual dignity by criminalising actions that arise from human motives whereas, religious moral judgement seeks to condemn both the deviant emotions and its consequent actions. If hate can be codified in civil law, why not all of the Deadly Sins? It’s certainly not a stretch to see how many of them could pass the perception test: Lust as a motive for sexual harassment; greed as a motive for embezzlement; sloth as a motive for Benefit fraud. The zeal to legislate morality is not untypical in conservative or fundamentalist religious frameworks the worst excesses of which emerge in theocracies such as Afghanistan. Ireland has made significant progress over recent decades to decouple civil law from religious morality however, the concept of criminalising bad thoughts indicates a regression towards a conflation of sin and crime and the introduction of penal responses to moral failings.
When progressive policy becomes reactionary in practice, it often unwittingly reinforces the very moralising structures it aims to oppose. Paradoxically, instead of promoting inclusive or transformative social change, it often resorts to punitive measures that resemble the conservative or fundamentalist logic they aim to counteract. By criminalising certain forms of hatred or extremism, governments may reinforce authoritarian or carceral structures, which ultimately curtail free expression and dissent, even if those restrictions are intended to protect marginalised groups.
The Biggest Losers
Recent rioting and anti-immigration criminality has mobilised and emboldened factions in some geographic communities to engage in extreme opposition to immigrants and non-nationals. As society and the law disproportionately focuses on identity-based protections while neglecting the broader and deeply entrenched issues of class inequality that often underpins such public disorder and violence, we have to consider are there any winners in the hate-crime olympics?
There is fundamental tension between how legal and political system frame victimhood and harm, and how certain forms of social oppression—particularly those linked to socio-economic status—are often ignored or downplayed in favour of identity-based frameworks. Discrimination and violence towards minority groups doesn’t exist in a vacuum and often thrives in communities marked by multi-generational poverty, poor education, unemployment, inadequate housing and a lack of political and economic opportunities. These conditions are not the result of individual failings but are rather systemic manifestations of poverty, poor education, inadequate housing, segregation, disempowerment and political abandonment – all of which result in these communities being ignored in policymaking, leaving them with few avenues to advocate for change. Such structural inequality is a symptom of class-based oppression that leaves certain communities in perpetual states of disempowerment. Viewing it merely as a product of “poor personal choices” overlooks the fact that people in these communities are often constrained by their circumstances, with very few opportunities to break out of the cycles of socio-economic disadvantage. Increasingly, these communities are finding themselves at the centre of friction between government immigration policy failures and human rights obligations to accommodate refugees and International Protection applicants.
The moral hazard for policy makers and legislators is that the potential for hate crime legislation to disproportionately impact working-class communities and exacerbate resentment without addressing the root causes of racism, xenophobia, and social division is extremely high. In working-class communities, particularly those that have faced multi-generational deprivation, racism and xenophobia often stem from economic competition. These communities are already struggling with limited resources in terms of jobs, housing, healthcare, and social services therefore, migrants and ethnic minorities may be perceived as further competition for these scarce resources. These communities often feel politically abandoned by the state and their socio-economic grievances go unaddressed, making them vulnerable to narratives that blame outsiders—particularly migrants and minorities—for their suffering. This may be further exacerbated by the celebration of migrant identities, or the framing of these groups as victims, and may be perceived as unfair by those who see themselves as ignored victims of systemic oppression. Working-class communities may feel that their poverty and disadvantage are overlooked in favour of identity-based victimhood. In this context, racist or xenophobic sentiments are often a by-product of economic and social competition, not a deep-rooted ideology of hate. Yet, hate crime laws tend to treat these expressions as isolated acts of bigotry, ignoring the structural conditions that foster them.
Hate crime legislation, particularly its carceral elements, is likely to have a disproportionate impact on working-class communities, for several reasons. These communities are already heavily policed due to higher crime rates linked to poverty. Adding hate crimes to the mix simply increases the likelihood that working-class individuals will be criminalised and incarcerated. They may also be subject to selective enforcement as the law might be enforced unevenly. In wealthier areas, hate crimes may not be as aggressively prosecuted, while working-class offenders may face harsher penalties. Aggravated sentencing for crimes motivated by prejudice risks criminalising motives in a way that disproportionately affects working-class offenders—who may commit such crimes out of frustration or desperation, rather than entrenched racism.
It is also more likely that the select defences to hate crime built into the legislation—such as those for political purposes or artistic expression—are more likely to benefit an elite minority rather than disadvantaged communities. Wealthy or better educated individuals or groups may be more likely to argue that their speech or actions are part of legitimate political discourse, whereas working-class individuals engaging in similar rhetoric could be criminalised as inciting hatred. The artistic defence is similarly skewed towards those who have access to platforms for cultural production. While artists or intellectuals may claim their work is provocative art, working-class individuals could face prosecution for expressing the same ideas in a less sophisticated or palatable way.
Similarly, certain professional or academic circles may also have more access to these defences, creating a clear class divide in who can avail themselves of protections under the law. These defences reinforce the idea that elite groups—who have the education, resources, and social capital to navigate the legal system—will have more latitude in what they can say and do. Working-class people, by contrast, may find themselves criminalised for the same actions, without access to these defences.
The broader issue with hate crime legislation is that it focuses on punishing expressions of racism,prejudice and xenophobia without addressing the structural causes. Racism and xenophobia in poorer communities are often the product of economic deprivation, political disenfranchisement, and social exclusion. Hate crime laws don’t deal with the root causes of these sentiments. These laws can be seen as symbolic gestures—designed to demonstrate a commitment to equality—without addressing the material conditions that foster division. They criminalise individual actions without tackling the societal injustices that lead to these actions in the first place. Punitive measures alone, particularly those that target working-class offenders, are unlikely to foster social cohesion or reduce hate. Instead, they may increase the sense of alienation and resentment felt by these communities, especially if they perceive the system as being designed to protect others at their expense.
To avoid these pitfalls, hate crime legislation must be paired with a broader focus on addressing inequality and improving social conditions in working-class communities. Instead of simply punishing hate crimes, governments should invest in education, jobs, housing, and social services in poorer areas. This would help to alleviate the economic pressures that fuel resentment and division. Restorative justice approaches could provide an alternative to carceral solutions as these methods often help offenders understand the impact of their actions, while also addressing the social inequalities that led to the offence in the first place. While it’s important to protect minority groups from hate crimes, legislation should also consider the class-based inequalities that create the conditions for hate to flourish. A more holistic approach would balance protections for marginalised identities with efforts to tackle socio-economic injustice.
The End
The entire trajectory of this legislation from inception to last week’s presentation of the previously unsighted draft of the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 represents a profound threat to our democratic processes; and the absence of meaningful public debate and transparency has compromised proper scrutiny and left many long-term implications unexplored.
In summary, this Act is bad legislation that at best fails to address the structural conditions that foster racism and xenophobia and at worst, may exacerbate the very resentments it seeks to quell. There is no evidence that a carceral approach to hatred is effective and a high likelihood that it may be counterproductive, entrenching social divides and leaving the root causes of hatred and division unaddressed. By criminalising human emotion and creating a hierarchy of victims, this legislation is more likely to inflame tensions and increase the vulnerability of the very communities it seeks to protect.
With the legislation tabled for final stage in the Dáil tomorrow night (Oct 23rd) constituents can still contact their all of their local TDs and ask them to oppose this flawed legislation as a threat to social cohesion and constitutional equality. (A draft e-mail script for customisation or adaptation is provided below). With a looming General Election you can make this an election issue!
Miriam Kivlehan
_____________
Good [morning/afternoon],
My name is [your name], and I am a constituent of [your constituency]. I am contacting you to express my serious concerns about the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024, which I believe will have harmful and unintended consequences for our society.
Key Points:
The Act creates a dangerous precedent by criminalising human emotions like hate, which could further inflame divisions rather than reduce them.
It undermines Article 40.1 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality for all citizens before the law, by creating a hierarchy of victims.
Rushed through the Oireachtas with little public scrutiny, the Act bypasses democratic debate and proper consideration.
The legislation focuses on symbolic gestures rather than addressing the root causes of racism, xenophobia, and social inequality in economically deprived communities.
Women and girls are inexplicably excluded as a recognised category of victims in the Bill, despite the prevalence of gender-based violence.
With a General Election on the horizon I am making this one of my deciding issues when voting. I strongly urge you to oppose the passage of this legislation and instead advocate for solutions that tackle the structural causes of division and inequality in our society.
I’m not exactly sure when I started talking as an adult, but I was well into my late twenties. When I say started talking, I don’t mean that I suffered from any physical speech impediment, I just mean that I hardly ever opened my mouth. I was introverted. Not shy, just introverted, an inevitable and perfectly rational consequence of low confidence and poor self esteem. I embraced a maxim attributed to Abraham Lincoln..
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
And then, aged twenty-eight, I took all my skeletons out of the closet and began laying them all to rest. As I did, incrementally, I gained confidence and my self-esteem began to grow, but most significantly I started talking. A lot. And so it continued for the next twenty-five years.
Now however, as a middle aged woman with a curious mind and a tendency to talk a lot, it can be hard work for those who are preyed upon to listen to my latest outrage or big idea. For every person who eagerly hangs upon my every word there are twice as many looking for an exit and somewhat problematically, many of my friends and most of my family are of the latter disposition. With emerging digital technology becoming more and more accessible, it struck me that me and my big mouth might well be suited to creating podcasts where my audience could be self-selecting (or I could listen to myself endlessly on repeat). In any event, there is certainly a void in the digital audio market for content created by women and there are so many incredibly interesting women with fabulous stories, thoughts and ideas that at times, I really wouldn’t have to talk at all. So it seems to me that this is as good a starting point as any, and now as good a time as any.
In the long term I envisage using different formats and different treatments to achieve different outcomes, however at the outset I will focus on just two. A 7-minute monologue titled Talking to Myself will afford me the space for a scripted rant or perhaps a musing wherein I will endeavor to pitch a cogent thought, idea or opinion. The second format titled Double Talk will take the form of a guest interview or panel discussion on a specific theme or topic.
Talk is Cheap
As I don’t intend to put my money where my mouth is, I’ll be doing this on a shoestring. I propose to record all audio using mobile phone technology, with monologues recorded at home and interviews conducted on-location. Mixing and editing will be done on a laptop and back-up will be stored on Dropbox. I have identified two Open Source applications which I intend to use. For recording, NCH Wavepad is an extremely powerful mobile App from which it is possible to create broadcast quality audio. The raw audio will then be produced using Audacity a cross-platform software for multi-track recording and editing. The final mix will be published under a Creative Commons License to OnSoundCloud where initially it will be hosted under a free plan.
The initial target is to publish two episodes of Talking to Myself and one episode of Double Talk each month. I will be relying on a dedicated Me and My Big Mouth Facebook Page for publicity alongside other social media such as Twitter. In the meantime, I will begin by drawing up a schedule of topics and putting together a list of potential guests.
So now that I have the semblance of a plan and I certainly can Talk the Talk, I guess I better take a step forward and get ready to walk the walk!
me and my big mouth 