Irish "Antifa" Attacks Protesters - "Liberal" Irish Media Don't Mind

 

So far I have been at three demonstrations in Dublin that have been attacked by Antifa types. The first two were outside Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) protesting the Irish Government's proposed new Hate Speech Law and I have an article about the initial demonstration and attack by Antifa HERE - Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies and My Response to Department of Justice The third was a protest outside the Custom House against the Government's Covid restrictions. (As it was a different topic I wondered on Twitter if Antifa would attack but they did!) 

Brenda Power had an excellent article in the Sunday Times recently concerning a different demonstration outside Dail Eireann on 10 October where the Antifa attackers seem to have been even more aggressive than anything I had experienced. (I learned about it very late and decided not to go - if I had known what was going to transpire, I would certainly have gone along to show my support). It seems that political violence is becoming a feature of Irish life, it is getting worse with time, is coming almost exclusively from the Left but THAT fact is being played down by the Irish media  that prefers to talk about clashes between groups - as if both are equally to blame!

Most of Brenda Power's article is behind a paywall. I have used my two free articles a month privilege to reproduce her article dated 18 October 2020. 

Antifa counter-demonstrators (left) attack demonstrators outside Dail Eireann

Brenda Power: Left-Wing Activism Flies Under the Extremism Radar

The Sunday Times October 18 2020 by Brenda Power

A group of people opposed to lockdown, in the belief that the Covid-19 threat is exaggerated, organised a protest last weekend to air their views outside Leinster House. As they stood peaceably at the gates, they were set upon by a violent group of masked hooligans. Footage from the event shows this mob aggressively confronting gardai as officers attempt to protect the 150 or so people behind the riot barriers.

The original crowd of protesters was not belligerent, was not physically threatening anyone and, because they don’t believe in the things, for the most part the campaigners’ identities were not conveniently concealed behind face masks. And with a gathering smaller than you’d find around a decent Hozier tribute act on Grafton Street, they didn’t pose any immediate threat to the stability or security of the state. They were just a bunch of people, in a country that constitutionally guarantees free speech, trying to express an unpopular opinion. The other crowd was a gang of sinister thugs trying to beat them up.

At least, so it might appear to a disinterested observer, perhaps a news reporter: peaceable group versus violent thugs. No problem figuring out the bad guys in that equation, right? Well, wrong, actually — at least not from the perspective favoured by the majority of the liberal Irish media. Because the peaceable protesters, led by the National Party, have been filed under the all-purpose heading “far right” and so, as far as the prevailing narrative has it, they are always, always going to be the ones in the wrong.

Even when they’re being physically attacked for expressing their views. Even when a Dublin hotel is forced, as in 2016, to cancel the National Party launch because of “public safety fears”. Even when it is clear that the only danger to public safety, then and last Saturday week, came from the people assailing them. But because this shower style themselves “left wing”, then they are always, always going to be the good guys.

The centre of Ireland’s political gravity has moved steadily to the left over the past 20 years. We have a “socialist” president who, up to recently, was also a landlord. President Michael D Higgins once lauded the murderous tyrant Fidel Castro as “a giant among global leaders”. The media is dominated by socialists with typewriters who are acutely attuned to the dog whistles of the right but entirely deaf to the growing rumble of left-leaning menace.

The violence at that Dail fracas came almost entirely from the self-styled protectors of liberty, equality and harmony on the militant far left, but most such clashes illustrate an obvious flaw in the left-versus-right model. It is not a straight line from the good guys on the far left to the bad guys on the far right, but rather a tight horseshoe, with the two extremes separated only by the width of a riot shield.

When The Irish Times dared to publish a glossary of far-right terms a few years ago, the most vocal liberals lost their reason. The very people who had paraded under the Je Suis Charlie banner after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, defending the French newspaper’s right to insult Muslims in vile terms as an exercise in free speech, were having none of that free speech lark when it came to their own cherished views. Their pious excuse was that they were fighting against “fascism” — mostly just people with different opinions — and that’s the same justification employed by those thugs outside the Dail, who will defend to the death, literally if necessary, your right to agree with them. Better dead than, er, not red.

You’ll find lots of definitions of fascism online but, as Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty observed, words can mean what you want them to mean. Yet most agree that, in essence, fascism is characterised by dictatorial power, the strong regimentation of society, and the forcible suppression of opposition: you know, being compelled to hold exactly the same views, which some unelected cabal has decreed are the correct ones, with dissenting opinion being punished by threats to your job, your reputation, your personal freedom, even your physical safety.

If you’re of the liberal left, that’s a hypothetical scenario which must be averted at all costs. If you’re right wing, it’s basically Twitter.

NPHET’s Death Toll in Doubt, But Debate is Off Limits

On June 16, NPHET [National Public Health Emergency Team]  announced that the national death toll from Covid-19 over the previous three months had reached 1,709. Yet on July 3, HIQA [Health Information and Quality Authority] released a statement questioning this figure. In the previous three months, HIQA calculated, there were about 1,200 deaths more than usual, and therefore 500 supposed Covid fatalities were not directly due to the virus.

The explanation was that the reported number of Covid deaths “may have included people who were infected with coronavirus but whose deaths may have been predominantly due to other causes”. NPHET has not revised its figures; the current death toll is predicated on that June figure being correct, despite HIQA saying it was not.

Last week a full-page advertisement addressed “to our leaders” appeared in The Irish Times. Citing “facts from Irish government websites”, it questioned the lockdown model, and linked to the recent Great Barrington declaration by leading epidemiologists which denounced the approach.

The ad also claimed that younger folk had a greater chance of being killed by a car than by Covid-19, and yet we may still drive. It said the median age of death from the virus was still 18 months greater than our average life expectancy, and pointed out that the Covid statistics included those who died with, rather than of, the virus. That was exactly as HIQA said in July. Yet the mere publication of these claims was then decried as irresponsible.

We cannot, it seems, even debate this subject.

brenda.power@sunday-times.ie

We Have a Decadent Ruling Class That Won't Stand against Terrorism (or Sinn Fein)

The author of our new proposed Hate Speech Law is former Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan - the guy who used Parliamentary Privilege to libel Sister of Mercy Nora Wall - see my article Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [1] During his Dail speech, Charlie also denounced Kevin Myers - the only journalist who defended Nora when she was convicted of rape - and he did so because Myers had defended Nora. Our journalists barely reported Charlie's libel at the time. They were aware that it was false and that Nora had successfully sued the Sunday World for libel in 2002!

Kevin Myers -  a strong supporter of Israel - was subsequently libelled as an anti-Semite (!) by our Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, his then Deputy Frances Fitzgerald and a former Deputy PM Joan Burton. See my article Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid. It's pleasant to note that Frances Fitzgerald - who was also a former Minister for Justice - was forced to resign as Deputy PM in an "unrelated"  bogus scandal (but it was related to the athmosphere of hysteria she had helped to foster). However Leo survived unscathed. Even when the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland said the allegation against Myers was false, no journalist asked our Prime Minister if he would apologise.

Before  Francis Fitzgerald was Minister for Justice and Equality, the role was held by Alan Shatter. - a man who plays a prominent role in my article Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews In 2009 Shatter demanded - and got - a year long Garda (police) inquiry into claims that the Catholic Church had been involved in the unsolved murder of a young girl Bernadette Connolly in 1970 - nearly 40 years before. A few months after the Gardai reported there was no evidence of any Catholic collusion. the Government fell and Shatter was promoted to the ;post of Minister for Justice and Equality. No journalist questioned his fitness for the role - just as they raised no objection to Charlie Flanagan's promotion to the same role in 2017.

As per Wikipedia "On 7 May 2014, Shatter resigned as Minister for Justice and Equality and as Minister for Defence following receipt by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, of the report of Seán Guerin into allegations made by Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe." It was a bogus scandal and a subsequent inquiry established that Shatter had done nothing wrong - nor had Fitzgerald Fitzgerald also forced to resign in 2017 - but both were victims of the athmosphere of public hysteria they had conspired to create!

I have an article dated January 2018 The Maurice McCabe Affair - Six Top Level Resignations To Date (and More to Come?)  that relates inter alia, to Alan Shatter, Frances Fitzgerald and Charlie Flanagan. There were media calls for the latter to resign also in relation to the Maurice McCabe Affair. He was likely saved by the fact that both his predecessors had been forced out of office and the appetites of our brave investigative journalists were sated! However my prediction of "More to Come" has been fulfilled by the recent forced resignation of Ireland's EU Commissioner for Trade, Phil Hogan - a man who also used Parliamentary Privilege to libel Nora Wall! Phil Hogan was forced out in the preposterous Golfgate Scandal - another legacy of the public hysteria he and has fellow politicians had thought useful as long as it could be directed against the Catholic Church!

The Decadence of Archbishop Diarmuid

Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin had something to say on this topic and naturally he condemned the victims of the assault! There was an article in the Irish Examiner on Friday 16 October (by Cormac O'Keefe) that should be compared to the above-mentioned article by Brenda Power on the following Sunday Diarmuid Martin Warns Anti-Mask Protestors are 'Dangerous Influence' on Young People and I quote:

Catholic archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has warned that organisers of ‘anti-mask’ protests could be a dangerous influence on young people by denying the Covid-19 pandemic. He said some of the people who have taken part in anti-mask rallies are the same groups that attempted to “overturn” his car when he attended an Islamic gathering in Croke Park. This is thought to refer to an historic prayer service on the pitch to mark the holy festival of Eid al-Adha, which he attended last July.

Speaking on Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show, Dr Martin said the people who set up anti-mask rallies are very organised and he is worried they might have an influence on young people. He noted that elsewhere in Europe young people are being influenced by neo-Nazis. 

A number of 'anti-mask' protests have taken place in Dublin the most recent on October 3 seeing several hundred demonstrators packed onto Grafton Street and staging a sit down. This was followed a week later by a so-called "End the Lockdown" rally outside the Dáil, which was organised by the far-right National Party and saw clashes with counter-protestors. [My emphasis]

Compare this to Brenda Power's  "As they stood peaceably at the gates, they were set upon by a violent group of masked hooligans..... They were just a bunch of people, in a country that constitutionally guarantees free speech, trying to express an unpopular opinion. The other crowd was a gang of sinister thugs trying to beat them up." 

But the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin will only condemn those attacked by the gang of sinister thugs!

Sinn Fein and Antifa

Since Ireland's three main political parties are in coalition now, Sinn Fein are the main opposition and are likely to come to power in Ireland's next general election. I referred above to the Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies last December where those of us who opposed Charlie Flanagan's Hate Speech proposals were attacked by Antifa. The attackers were held back by the Gardai (police) and by their own stewards. I have little interest in politics myself but I was told the stewards were from Sinn Fein. But what will happen when Sinn Fein are in power? Will they appoint a new Garda Commissioner and instruct him not to intervene in those circumstances? Will they continue to restrain the street fighting thugs - OR use them as their own enforcers of political orthodoxy? 

One thing is clear. Politicians like Charlie Flanagan and Leo Varadkar have gutted their integrity - much more so than democratic politicians in the Weimar Republic whom historians see as mediocrities rather than morally corrupt. Weimar "decadence" was more in evidence among the intelligentsia than the political class. It's certainly evident among Irish intellectuals who express no objection to bogus allegations of child rape and murder being directed at Catholic clergy. However our political class are similarly decadent and equally incapable of standing up to the barbarians at the gates! 

[See also article Justice Ministers Kevin O'Higgins to Charlie Flanagan: from Decency to Decadence"    Not all my predictions came true but I think the essence still applies - including politicians who are prepared to betray senior civil servants in order to save their own skins.]

Seminar on Tuam Children's Home (Online) - Transferred to Galway

This is a follow up to my article "Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Cancellation of Seminar on Tuam Children’s Home" The Seminar originally scheduled for Dublin University Church on 30th August was cancelled by Archbishop Martin and eventually held in Galway on 4 October. I had intended to do an article on the subject but www.CatholicArena.com have done so much better than I could. This is a link to their article IRELAND'S MOTHER AND BABY HOMES: THE REAL STORY (After several postponements, Judge Yvonne Murphy is due to present the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to Government on 30 October 2020).

At the conference in Galway, three historians (including my amateur self), Brian Nugent, Eugene Jordan and Rory Connor discussed the various inconsistencies in the prevailing public narratives of this period of Irish history. 

Brian Nugent: Did Home Rule equals Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?

SUMMARY: Brian Nugent (author of  @Tuam Babies: A Critical look at the Tuam Children's Home Scandal) spoke on the topic “Did Home Rule equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?” He endeavoured to show that the frequently repeated claim of a kind of Catholic dictatorship in Ireland can be shown to be false. Firstly by examining the attitude of the Taoisigh [Prime Ministers] of Ireland in those years, then from the pattern seen in a number of other important institutions, such as the Judiciary, Presidency, and Lord Mayoralties of Dublin, and sectors like healthcare and especially education, and finally by raising the surprising subject of anti-Catholic discrimination in the South of Ireland in those years

W.T. Cosgrove was effectively the first Taoiseach (Prime Minster) of independent Ireland - from 1922 to 1932. He was indeed very religious and a close friend of Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary. However in a letter to Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam on 11 March 1931 he wrote (in relation to a dispute about the appointment of a Protestant librarian in Co Mayo):

"As I explained to Your Grace at our interview, to discriminate against any citizen - or to exercise a preference for a citizen - on account of religious belief, would be to conflict with some of the fundamental principles on which this State is founded."

A look at the career of Eamon de Valera (first became Taoiseach in 1932)  throws up three issues which are infrequently brought up: i) his excommunication, along with all the anti-Treaty side, during the Civil War. He and his colleagues didn’t modify their behaviour to accommodate the Bishops admonitions then, so surely that proves  their independence in political matters from the latter? ii) The angry reaction from many important Catholics to the lack of recognition of that religion in his constitution, including to a degree from the Pope and certainly from influential clerics like Fr Edward Cahill S.J. and Fr Denis Fahey C.S.Sp, who campaigned vigorously against his constitution on those grounds for many years. iii) The surprising fact, thrown up by modern research in archives in Dublin and Rome, that de Valera himself seemed to be most responsible for the appointment of Michael Browne to the Bishopric of Galway, and Dr McQuaid to Dublin. The State also influenced the Church as well as the other way around!

Sean Lemass (Taoiseach 1959-66 and de Valera's Deputy since 1932)

Extract from his taped Memoirs:

 "I think there was a political advantage in having a certain anti-clerical tinge.......The only time in my life that I ever got an enormous vote, the highest vote ever accorded to any candidate in a general election was when I was having a full-scale row with the bishop of Galway [Dr Michael Browne in 1944] and this was dominating the political scene and I found this on other occasions too – that having a good row with the bishop is quite a political asset and you do not suffer politically for it because there is an anti-clericalism in the Irish people."

First Four Presidents of Ireland

1. Douglas Hyde (1938 - 45)                     Protestant

2. Sean T. O'Kelly (1945 - 59)                   Catholic

3. Eamon de Valera (1959 - 73)                Catholic

4. Erskine Childers (1973 - 74)                  Protestant 

Lord Mayors of Dublin

Robert Briscoe (1956-57 and 1961-62)    Jewish

Maurice Dockrell (1960-61)                       Protestant

Judiciary

From the biography of Timothy Sullivan, first President of the Irish High Court (1924-36):

"Throughout his tenure Sullivan presided over a high court whose membership of six was equally divided between judges of a nationalist and unionist background."

Examples of non-Catholic judges of the time include:

 T. C. Kingsmill Moore, son of  a Protestant Minister, a Senator 1943-47, he was a High Court judge 1947-51 and on the Supreme Court 1951-66.

James Creed Meredith, President of Dail Supreme Court 1920-22, judge of the High Court 1924-37, on the Supreme Court and for a time President of it, 1937-42.

Gerald Fitzgibbon T.D. 1921-23, judge on the Supreme Court 1924-38.

Healthcare: Some Dublin Hospitals in 1959 (amalgamation was being considered)

The hospitals concerned are Sir Patrick Dun's; Mercers; the National Children's Hospital, Harcourt St; the Meath; Baggot St; Steevens and the Adelaide. With the exception of the Meath, they could all be referred to as Protestant Hospitals, controlled by Protestants and largely staffed by Protestant doctors.

Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin was founded in 1745 as a Maternity Training Hospital, the first of its kind. It got its first Catholic Master in 1995!

Education (1964 quote from Irish Senator)

"We in Ireland are justly proud of our school system, he continued. Scrupulous care is taken that Catholicism, Protestantism or Atheism are not imposed on any pupil against his will. Any denominational group can, at any time, set up its own school and the corresponding State support is immediately made available on the basis of the number of pupils in attendance"

At Independence in 1921, the new Irish State took over the education system set up by the British in the 19th century without making any major changes. There had been furious controversy between the Bishops and the British Government in regard to the setting up of the National Schools (primary) system and the Queens Colleges (university) system. This was largely settled in the 1870s when the British agreed that all religious denominations in Ireland could build and run their own schools, while the State would pay the salaries of the teachers. The curricula for the Primary Certificate, Intermediate Certificate and University entrance examinations were set by the State but apart from that, the school managers could create their own study programmes for Religion, History  etc. The Catholic Church and all major Protestant Churches established their own schools on that basis. A Jewish Primary School was set up in south Dublin in the 1930s and later a a Jewish Secondary School.

In more modern times Educate Together (or atheist) schools were set up on the same basis from about 1979 and a Muslim school in 1990.

Trinity College

 Ireland's first university established by the British Government in 1592 appointed its first Catholic Provost in 1991. Its reputation as a Protestant/Unionist stronghold was such that until 1970, Catholic students were not  permitted to attend without permission from the Archbishop of Dublin. After 1921 it continued to be subsidised by the State on the same basis as the other universities. Under the terms of the 1937 Constitution, graduates of Trinity College elect three Senators to Seanad Eireann.  

Guinness 

"It (Guinness) had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s ...the blatant discrimination continued far longer than it should have" (Irish Independent, 17 June 2013)

Bank of Ireland

Founded in 1783, the Bank of Ireland got its first Catholic Chief Executive Officer in 1991.

Irish Times

Founded in 1859, the Irish Times appointed its first Catholic editor in 1986

Brian Nugent stated that it is nonsense to talk about some kind of Catholic dictatorship and Home Rule did NOT equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland!

Eugene Jordan:'Tuam Children's Home Story & Failure of Modern Irish Historiography'

SUMMARY: Eugene Jordan, recently the President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, spoke on the question: “The Tuam Children’s Home story, a failure of modern Irish Historiography”. He described a lamentable pattern of how modern Irish historiography – the history of history –  unfairly runs down the Catholic Church, and frequently the good work of Irish people in general in the recent past. He spoke about the inferiority complex that seems very prevalent among Irish people in modern times, and to a degree among modern historians, and  questioned the sometimes intimidatory atmosphere created by feminism over some of these issues.

Regarding the limitations of Historiography in general (and the claim that the Catholic Church is hostile to Science) Eugene presented us with names of famous scientists few members of the public are aware of:

• Lazzaro Spallanzani: First person to perform In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in 1786 meaning in the glass as opposed to in utero, in the womb. Pioneer into the study of echo location in bats.        
• Eugenio Barsanti: Inventor of the first practical internal combustion engine. 
• Giovanni Castelli: Inventor of the Fax machine       
• Jean Antoine Nollet: Discovered the osmosis of membranes        
• Giovanni Battista Venturi: The Venturi Effect is named after him   
• René Just Haüy: Father of Crystallography
• Georges Lemaître:  One of the most famous scientists in the world you have never heard of. First person to come up with the Big Bang Theory
  

All were Catholic priests! .......... So indeed was the anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, for whom the Fallopian Tubes and other anatomical structures are named. So feminists who talk about the female sexual organs are invoking the name of a priest!

Deaths at the Tuam Children's Home have been compared to a "Holocaust" and explicit references have been made to the Nazis. So let's compare the statistics for the 36 year period from 1925 to 1960 inclusive) when the Home was open to a recent 36-year period from 1982 to 2017. 

The number of births between the two 36 year periods is remarkably similar with a figure of close to 2.2 million. Points to note. A mere 12,632 infants (less than one year old) died in the 1982 to 2017 period representing a massive drop from the 145,818 infant deaths in the earlier period. This means that 4,166 babies died on average in Ireland each year in which the Tuam Home was open. That figure has dropped in recent decades to an average of 361 infant deaths per year - or less than one tenth the number. This is in line with the drop in infant mortality that has taken place over the developed world - although the drop in Ireland lagged behind the rest of the world for  a few years due to the continuing economic deprivation.

There were 64,290 illegitimate children born in Ireland between 1925 and 1960 of which 13,431 children died but that figure is dwarfed by the deaths of 132,387 legitimate children, a figure nearly 10 times greater. Nearly all of these infants and children died from birth defects and diseases, which could not be inoculated against and were incurable at the time.

Compare Deaths by Age Groups THEN and NOW. According to a CSO graph (that compared 1916 to the present day), in 1916 slightly over 8,000 children under the age of 5 died in Ireland - compared to a few hundred in 2014. However in 2014 a little over 8,000 people died in the Age Group 75 - 84 i.e. similar to the number of infants in 1916!  Where children are concerned the pattern of deaths has to an extent been reversed in the last century! This can also be seen in the age group 5 to 14 where close to 2,000 children died in 1916 compared to a tiny number in 2014

Eugene stresses the connection between poverty and childhood death rates, that continues to the present day - and not just in the Third World. He quotes a Newsweek headline from May 2015 "Washington's Poorest Infants are Ten Times More Likely to Die Than Richest" He discusses the claim that Catholic nuns (and the Protestant women who ran Bethany Home) allowed  children to starve to death. 

"The primary evidence put forward for abuse and starvation is the appearance of the word Marasmus. Marasmus found on Death Certificates is what is chiefly used to accuse the nuns and the Protestant women of murder. 

Only 14 out of 796 death certificates from the Tuam home record the cause of death as being due to marasmus (10 as the primary cause) with a further 156 recording debility as the primary and contributory cause of death. It would appear that the journalists sensationalising the murder claims could not find the term debility associated with starvation on Wikipedia, even though it was classified alongside marasmus as ‘wasting disease’ thus they missed the opportunity to increase the number of ‘starved to death’ by tenfold!

"Looking at an extract from the Registrar General's Report for 1919, you can see what the medical profession think Marasmus is. It's a developmental and wasting disease and the three of them are there Atrophy, Debility and Marasmus. THIS is significant. Marasmus was also a killer of infants in Maternity Hospitals outside of Mother and Baby Homes. 

"Here is a Certificate with Marasmus on it. It's from the Adelaide Protestant Hospital (now amalgamated with Tallaght Hospital). Here we have evidence of Murder, Slaughter! [3 month  old infant died of Marasmus 25 July 1935]

Here we have Marasmus again. It's at Temple St Children's Hospital - murder taking place there! [10 week old infant died of Marasmus 21 May 1942] 

Here is another case of Marasmus where the child died at home and death has been certified by a medical professional. A doctor visited the home, certified that a child suffered from Marasmus and subsequently when the child died of Marasmus.[6 months old child, died of Marasmus, 26 November 1942, Ashtown

"Here is the famous Rotunda Hospital. Two cases of Murder there as well! [One infant died on 13 May 1942 aged 15 days and the second on 14 May 1942 aged 7 weeks, both from Marasmus]

"Here is an advertisement entitled "CURE OF MARASMUS: At seven months, she weighed under nine pounds". If Marasmus is Starvation as they are trying to make out, why is there a cure for it? Surely it's food or adequate food? [The Evening Herald, 3 March 1902]

"Here is a newspaper article from 1925 headed Death of Nurse Child. It states that Death from Marasmus was the verdict returned at an inquest held at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital on the body of a 9 months old nurse child of Thorncastle St., Ringsend. The coroner said that because of the condition of the child when it was brought to the hospital, the house surgeon was of the opinion that it had died from starvation but the post mortem showed that death was due to natural causes. The child had been under treatment for six months  in the Children’s Hospital, Harcourt St. and did not seem to improve. Dr. Hogan, house surgeon, stated death was due to marasmus, the child not being able to assimilate the nourishment given it. The jury found in accordance with the evidence."

i.e. the child did not die from starvation!

Rory Connor: False Allegations of Child Abuse Against the Catholic Church, including Homicide

SUMMARY: My talk is based on my Blog article "Blood Libel in Ireland - Directed Against Catholics not Jews!".  I had originally intended to make limited reference to the Tuam Home itself BUT I had come to realise that it also included references to the Nazi Holocaust and claims that the Bon Secours Sisters had starved children to death (an issue highlighted by Eugene Jordan in his talk). Accordingly Tuam assumed a higher profile than I first thought necessary. In the above-mentioned article I assumed that Ireland's Blood Libel hysteria had come to an end in 2010 when the Gardai informed the then Minister for Justice that their year long inquiry into the murder of Bernadette Connolly in 1970, had disclosed NO evidence of involvement by the Catholic Church. But of course, anti-clerics - like anti-Semites - are immune to rational considerations and an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" opens with the following:

Seventy years ago, on the orders of a maniac, little children and babies were herded into barren camps in Germany and occupied Poland by men in black uniforms. They were starved to death in those camps; sometimes they had hideous medical experiments carried out upon them while alive, so hideous the silence of death was probably merciful. And when they died, their little bodies were thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Jewish scum.

[I could also have pointed out that Emer O'Kelly twice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters in her Sunday Independent article  i.e. the wrong nuns!]

I date the start of my present "Crusade" to 25 September 1999 when the Irish Times published an article by Patsy McGarry quoting a leading member of Survivors of Child Abuse Ireland who claimed he had attended the funerals of boys in Artane who died after being punched by a Christian Brother. No boy died of ANY cause while this gentleman was in Artane Industrial School! There were numerous such allegations published and broadcast between about 1997 and 2010. As indicated in "Blood Libel in Ireland" the first and last related to the deaths of real children - reinterpreted to blame the Catholic Church - but in between hysteria reigned in the media and there were a number of articles and broadcasts in which the Christian Brothers were accused of killing non-existent boys. I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders" to describe the latter. 

About 2000 and again in 2001, I approached the Gardai (Irish police) about two of these Murder of the Undead claims (by the Irish Times and TV3 respectively) as I felt they must be in breach of the Prevention of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. The Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute - perhaps on the basis that false allegations of child killing do not PROVE that the media are motivated by hatred!  In 2004 I approached the Irish Human Rights Commission who were no help at all. (One reason they gave me for refusing to look into the issue of false allegations of child murder, was that it wasn't in their Three Year Plan!) However my dealings with the IHRC inspired me to summarise the allegations of child murder against the Catholic Church into one document. The above-mentioned article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews" is an updated version of that 2004 document.

Tuam Mother and Baby Home: The REAL Story (Brian Nugent)

SUMMARY: The Tuam controversy alleges that babies were buried in a septic tank. This arises from no other source than the coincidence that the area of the current graveyard of the Children's Home, corresponds with old maps referring to a 'cesspool' attached to the old workhouse, as discovered by Catherine Corless. But this can be easily disproved as insignificant, for example:

- the cesspool corresponds to about a quarter of the area of the current graveyard, but that graveyard was condensed drastically around 1980 and was a much bigger area when the nuns were there which therefore makes it unlikely that they buried bodies at that exact spot;

- the large old cesspool, was only an over ground structure where manure was temporarily placed before being sold off to use on farms, therefore it isn't very significant to say that the same area could be used for burials some 100 years later;

- and it can be easily proved that the bones discovered by recent excavations are reburials by the County Council during c.1970-1981, creating a dedicated structure, an Ossuary, to house bones thrown up by their development of the site during that period. This of course is long after the nuns had left.

 A Discussion about Tuam and other topics

SUMMARY: The seminar ended with a discussion among the three speakers. Rory described some of the atmosphere in the Irish religious orders and congregations when these scandals broke. One congregation of nuns went from naivete, in cooperating and apologising enthusiastically with sometimes unfair allegations, to terror, as they realised to what extent it was a witch hunt against the Catholic Church. Hence his blog is called irishsalem.blogspot.com (with reference to the original Salem Witch-hunt).

[I also spoke of my Novice Master in the De La Salle Brothers, Brother Maurice Kirk, a conservative who nonetheless invited the "radical priest" Fr Michael Sweetman SJ to give us our 8-day Retreat at the end of the novitiate - August/September 1967. I suppose I am a relic of that long ago era that might have been a historical Turning Point - but History failed to turn and the world is as it is now!].   

Eugene pointed out that when the Ryan Commission expanded its remit to include physical abuse, rather than just sexual, then any teacher – and maybe parent – of that time could have fallen foul of their criticisms because corporal punishment was widespread everywhere at the time, not  just among the religious orders.

Meanwhile Brian pointed out the too trusting attitude that the modern Irish Church has to the State with respect to these inquiries. The Church overdoes its cooperation with the inquiries expecting justice, whereas some in the State see the advantage in discrediting the Church in the eyes of the populace, to assist in their various referenda campaigns etc

My Conclusion 

An article by Alison O'Reilly in the Irish Daily Mail on 8 April 2017 is headed "We Want Inquests Into All Deaths, Tuam Victims Tell Zappone" and begins

The families of the children buried in a mass grave in Tuam have told the Minister for Children, 'We want an inquest into all the children's death', the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.. It follows a two-hour meeting which took place yesterday between the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone and local Government Minister Simon Coveney as well as Kevin O'Kelly, chief executive of Galway County Council  and survivors of the home as well as relatives....

Those in attendance included local historian Catherine Corless who uncovered the names of the 796 children who died in the home, as well as Tuam resident John Rodgers, PJ Haverty, Walter Francis and and Michael O'Flaherty....During the meeting, Ms Zappone was given a brief submission by solicitor for some of the residents Kevin Higgins. In it he asked that the Government 'act with urgency' and to hold  a proper coroner's inquiry. The submission also said 'the failure of the Attorney General to invoke 24 of the Coroners Act as early as 2014 represented a serious failure of judgement'. It also urged against carrying out inquests into 'unidentified infants', and sought individual post mortems for each body....

Catherine Corless said: 'I am quite pleased, I expected an hour but they gave us a good bit of their time. It was good. They were fairly challenged and everyone got a chance to talk. They need an inquest, there's no point in moving them into a big grave.'.[my emphasis]

Regarding Inquests and Inquest reports, Citizen's Information states that: 

If a person dies and the death cannot be explained, an inquest may be held to establish the facts of the death, such as where and how the death occurred. An inquest is an official, public enquiry, led by the Coroner (and in some cases involving a jury) into the cause of a sudden, unexplained or violent death. An inquest is not usually held if a post-mortem examination of the body can explain the cause of death. [My emphasis]

 So it seems we are back where it all began more than 20 years ago with claims that Catholic nuns - in 1997 it was the Sisters of Mercy - were criminally responsible for the deaths of children in their care. All deaths in the Tuam Home were certified by doctors appointed by Galway County Council so it is clear that the reputations of those doctors are also being trashed!

Perhaps Catholic activists like myself should respond in kind? I noted above that a doctor at the Rotunda Maternity Hospital certified two infant deaths from Marasmus on consecutive days in May 1942. Compare the Tuam Home where doctors certified 14 Marasmus deaths over a period of 36 years (1925-1961)! Moreover the Rotunda, founded in 1745, did not get its first Catholic Master until 1995! Is not this deeply suspicious? Perhaps we should have a series of inquests on all Catholic children who died in the Rotunda from the foundation of the State until 1995. To reduce the size of the task, we could include only cases where the Death Certificate for a Catholic child was signed by a Protestant doctor! The resulting investigation should be of no greater size than holding inquests into the deaths of the 796 children who died in Tuam.

Rory Connor

30 October 2020

Tuam Babies and Associated Press Apology to Bon Secours Sisters

 

[1] America Magazine and Associated Press (AP) Apologies

I previously wrote about the apology made by the Associated Press (AP) for the world-wide publication in June 2014 of a story that the Church had refused to baptise the children of unmarried mothers at the Tuam Home (see Part [3] ) It was the Jesuit  America Magazine that had successfully pressed AP to make their original apology on 20 June 2014 and I see that AP followed up on 23 June with a more detailed statement. AP Expands on Corrections of 'Tuam Babies' Story is an article by Kevin Clarke in "America" on 24 June 2014.

In a report released June 23, the Associated Press expanded on the corrections it issued on June 20 after America asked an AP media representative to respond to apparent inaccuracies in its reporting on the scandal swirling around the disposition of deceased residents of a mothers and babies home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland between 1925 and 1962.

According to the AP:

Revelations this month that nuns had buried nearly 800 infants and young children in unmarked graves at an Irish orphanage during the last century caused stark headlines and stirred strong emotions and calls for investigation. Since then, however, a more sober picture has emerged that exposes how many of those headlines were wrong.

The case of the Tuam "mother and baby home" offers a study in how exaggeration can multiply in the news media, embellishing occurrences that should have been gripping enough on their own....The reports of unmarked graves shouldn't have come as a surprise to the Irish public, who for decades have known that some of the 10 defunct "mother and baby homes," which chiefly housed the children of unwed mothers, held grave sites filled with forgotten dead.

The religious orders' use of unmarked graves reflected the crippling poverty of the time, the infancy of most of the victims, and the lack of plots in cemeteries corresponding to the children's fractured families.

It added:

When Corless published her findings on a Facebook campaign page, and Irish media noticed, she speculated to reporters that the resting place of most, if not all, could be inside a disused septic tank on the site. By the time Irish and British tabloids went to print in early June, that speculation had become a certainty, the word "disused" had disappeared, and U.S. newspapers picked up the report, inserting more errors, including one that claimed the researcher had found all 796 remains in a septic tank.

The Associated Press was among the media organizations that covered Corless and her findings, repeating incorrect Irish news reports that suggested the babies who died had never been baptized and that Catholic Church teaching guided priests not to baptize the babies of unwed mothers or give to them Christian burials. [my emphasis]

The reports of denial of baptism later were contradicted by the Tuam Archdiocese, which found a registry showing that the home had baptized more than 2,000 babies. The AP issued a corrective story on Friday after discovering its errors.

There was a brief discussion following the America article to which I contributed THIS comment:

Rory Connor 6 years 2 months ago
The following extract from an article in the Sunday Independent by Dr Maurice Gueret, editor of the "Irish Medical Directory" should finally dispose of the "babies bodies in a septic tank" obscenity:
"We Need Less Outrage and More Home Truths about Tuam" 
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/we-need-less-outrage-and-more-home-truths-about-tuam-30380889.html [link no longer works]

The sight of politicians calling for declaration of crime scenes and a newspaper arranging radar examination of a graveyard does little to bring clarity to a complicated story. It was no secret that many children died young, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. They were dying all over Ireland from infectious diseases. Principal causes were TB, dysentery, diphtheria, meningitis, bacterial pneumonia, and complications of measles and polio. This was the pre-antibiotic era. You were considered lucky if all your children lived to adulthood. Every year, the Galway Health Board would advertise a public contract in local newspapers for a supply of coffins to its Tuam children's home. They were to be made of white deal, one-inch thick, and supplied in three different sizes. Specifications included electro-brassed grips, breastplate and crucifixes. It was no state secret that orphanages that looked after large numbers of vulnerable children, most under the age of five, had higher death rates than the community at large. [My Emphasis]

When the official tribunal produces its Report in a year or so, I predict that it will ignore the false atrocity stories in favour of a swinging denunciation of our grandparents "repressive" attitudes to unmarried mothers. Thus the journalists responsible for the current libel will feel virtuous and vindicated!

[2] Text of Advertisement for Coffins

Here is what an advertisement in the Tuam Herald said in 1939:

"Tender for coffins for Children's Home, plain and mounted, in three sizes, must be 1" thick, made of seasoned white deal, clean and free from knots and slits, pitched and strained in large, medium, small sizes. Mounting must be similar make, but mounted with Electro Brassed Grips, Breast and Crucifix."

quoted by Bill Donohue , President of The Catholic League in "Ireland's Mass Grave Hysteria" 

[3] Original AP Apology dated 20 June 2014

Ireland-Children’s Mass Graves story DUBLIN (AP) — In stories published June 3 and June 8 about young children buried in unmarked graves after dying at a former Irish orphanage for the children of unwed mothers, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that the children had not received Roman Catholic baptisms; documents show that many children at the orphanage were baptized. The AP also incorrectly reported that Catholic teaching at the time was to deny baptism and Christian burial to the children of unwed mothers; although that may have occurred in practice at times it was not church teaching. In addition, in the June 3 story, the AP quoted a researcher who said she believed that most of the remains of children who died there were interred in a disused septic tank; the researcher has since clarified that without excavation and forensic analysis it is impossible to know how many sets of remains the tank contains, if any. The June 3 story also contained an incorrect reference to the year that the orphanage opened; it was 1925, not 1926.

I quoted the above in Part [2] of my 3-Part series "The Tuam Babies and the Bon Secours Nuns" and also in the final part of "Eight Falsely Accused Bishops (and Archbishops) in Ireland" . The people who invented that libel were aiming at the nuns but it would be a Bishop - in this case Archbishop of Tuam - who would make the exceptionally rare decision of this type.(It might conceivably happen, if parents made it clear that they had no intention of bringing up the child as a Catholic). 

In their expanded apology on 23 June 2014, AP state that they had repeated "incorrect Irish news reports that suggested the babies who died had never been baptized and that Catholic Church teaching guided priests not to baptize the babies of unwed mothers or give to them Christian burials". I find it difficult to imagine that ANY Irish journalist seriously believed that the Catholic Church refused to baptise the babies of unmarried mothers or denied them Christian burials. Will Judge Yvonne Murphy track down the source of these libels? Did the journalist(s) responsible publish/broadcast any other stories - of a type whose credibility cannot be established 60 years after the closure of the Tuam home - but at least the public should be made aware that the source is unreliable?

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Cancellation of Seminar on Tuam Children’s Home

The Site of a Graveyard for Children who Died in the Tuam Mother and Babies Home, Co Galway, Ireland

Proposed History Seminar on Tuam Mother and Baby Home

On Sunday 30 August I was due to speak at a History Seminar arranged in the leadup to the presentation to Government of the final Report on Mother and Baby Homes - scheduled for 30 October 2020. The seminar was due to be held  in the University Church on St Stephen's Green, Dublin. The particular focus of our talks is the  Home operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway from 1924 to 1961. The Tuam home is only one of 18 such being examined by the Commission of Investigation chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy BUT it was the world-wide publication of atrocity stories about the Bon Secours Sisters in 2014 that sparked the creation of the Commission. I have referred to these stories in the course of my three previous articles on The Tuam Babies and the Bon Secours Nuns  {link is to number [3]}  One illustration will suffice here (from an article by Brendan O'Neill)

A hysterical piece in the Irish Independent compared the Tuam home to the Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda and Srebrenica, saying that in all these settings people were killed ‘because they were scum’

My own topic was to be “False allegations of child abuse against the Catholic Church, including homicide". This talk would be based on my June 2018 blog article Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews! but updated in line with the atrocity stories relating to Tuam. I had thought that Ireland's Blood Libel scandal had ended in 2010 when a Garda inquiry told the then Minister for Justice that there was no evidence to link the Catholic Church to the murder of the child Bernadette Connolly in 1970. However it seems that I was premature!

Cancellation of Seminar - by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin?

At about 2.30 pm on Thursday 27th August, the person in charge of the booking arrangements for the University Church rang our own organiser Brian Nugent to inform him  that the Church had cancelled the booking. This person did not say why or who exactly instructed him to do that. Brian told us that he was amazed that while we, as the speakers and organisers, were not told anything very much about why the venue cancelled it was nonetheless prominently reported in the Irish Times on the same day (see below). Brian told us that it is clear from the Irish Times report that the Archdiocese cancelled it, maybe under pressure from the government, or maybe because the subject matter was disagreeable to them?

Brian went on to tell us that - as regards whether or not we are within government health guidelines - he had twice, cleared the event with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), via their helpline, which is the main Government information source on the Covid regulations. He tried but couldn't get that advice in writing. However he noticed that the Irish Times itself, on the front page of its edition the previous Saturday (22 August) stated in reference to the current in force guidelines

Since late June, indoor gatherings have been restricted to 50 people under the Government public health controls. Further restrictions announced this week identified only weddings and artistic and cultural events as being allowed to have groups of up to 50.

Our Seminar arrangements are clearly within that 50 limit, and that's what the HSE confirmed to Brian.

So why on earth would Archbishop Diarmuid Martin insist on the cancellation of an event that was approved by the HSE and was defending the Catholic Church against false allegations of child abuse - up to and including Homicide?  I have a detailed article on the Archbishop on my old website (not Blog) www.IrishSalem.com  that may explain a lot! (He is the Irish Catholic equivalent of Hewlett Johnson the late unlamented "Red Dean" of Canterbury - but at least the latter never made it to Archbishop!)

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin

Article in Irish Times by Patsy McGarry

Seminar in Dublin Church on Tuam Children’s Home Cancelled due to Covid-19
Topics included ‘False allegations of child abuse against the Catholic Church, including homicide’

Irish Times 27 August 2020, by Patsy McGarry

A “history seminar” challenging findings of various Commissions of Inquiry into child abuse and planned for Dublin’s University Church on Stephen’s Green next Sunday has been cancelled.

Advertised as a history seminar “with particular reference to the Tuam Children’s Home” likely attendees had been advised to “arrive early as numbers are restricted due to Government Covid-19 restrictions.”

A spokeswoman for Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese said staff at the University Church had “confirmed that the event due to take place this Sunday has been cancelled. Current Government guidance permitting people to gather at places of worship is for religious services only. No other gatherings are permitted.”

The theme of the seminar was: “Do modern Irish historians exaggerate the role of the Catholic Church in independent Ireland” and speakers scheduled to take part included Brian Nugent, author of the book @Tuambabies: A critical look at the Tuam Children’s Home Scandal.

It challenges findings of local historian Catherine Corless concerning the Tuam Mother and Baby Home and those made there by the Mother and Baby Home Commission, published in its March 2017 interim report.

It found that “significant quantities of human remains” had been discovered there, in what appeared to be a sewage tank. The remains involved “a number of individuals with age-at-death ranges from approximately 35 foetal weeks to two to three years,” it said.

Mr Nugent was to speak on “Did home rule equal Rome rule in independent Ireland?”

Another scheduled speaker was Eugene Jordan, author of False History Underpinning the Irish Mother and Baby Home Scandals. He was to give a talk on “The Tuam Children’s Home story, a failure of modern Irish historiography.”

The third scheduled speaker was Rory Connor, described as an “expert on various Commissions and Inquiries” as well as author of the irishsalem blogspot.com website. He was to speak on “False allegations of child abuse against the Catholic Church, including homicide”.

Rescheduled Seminar

We managed to hold the Seminar in Galway on 4 October 2020 with the help of www.CatholicArena . Links to videos of the talks are here "Seminar on Tuam Children's Home (Online) - Transferred to Galway"

CUTIES "a Provocative Powder-keg for an Age Terrified of Child Sexuality"

I recently posted a 4 part series entitled  "Liberal and Green Support for Paedophilia?" 
[link is to Part 1]. This could be Part [5]! This Film Review is from The Telegraph - the UK "newspaper of record" and "one of the world's great titles". I first thought it might be a Californian namesake!

Netflix's advance publicity for Cuties caused an online furore CREDIT: Netflix

REVIEW

Cuties, Netflix review: a provocative powder-keg for an age terrified of child sexuality

Forget the moral panic – Netflix’s controversial French import is disturbing and risqué because that’s exactly what it aims to be

The Telegraph, by Tim Robey, FILM CRITIC 9 September 2020 

Dir: Maïmouna Doucouré; Cast: Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Maïmouna Gueye, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas, Myriam Hamma, Mbissine Therese Diop, Demba Diaw. 15 cert, 96 mins

The tricky line between marketing and exploitation caused a ruckus in the case of Cuties, a wild feature debut from French-Senegalese Maïmouna Doucouré. It won the directing award at Sundance before being snapped up by Netflix. Then a poster happened to it.

This was an image cribbed from the film’s most openly provocative sequence – the finale – which, out of context, made everyone see red. It showed four pre-teen girls striking “sexy” poses on a dance stage, wearing shiny crop tops, knee pads and booty shorts.

Netflix soon apologised for the poster, and switched to a different image of this quartet pouting to camera, but the damage was done. Doucouré received death threats on social media, and a petition to have the film banned has amassed over 340,000 signatures on change.org. Sight unseen – one can only presume – the originator of the latter Mary-Whitehouse-esque  (1) screed calls the film “disgusting”, “dangerous” and made “for the viewing pleasure of paedophiles”. The Turkish broadcasting watchdog RTÜK seems to have agreed, ordering the film’s removal from Netflix in that country.

But enough of the moral panic. No one involved in demonising this film has paused at any stage – or watched it – to consider that its very subject is the disturbing, premature sexualisation of young girls in French society. Doucouré is hardly sly with her theme: by the end, she goes all out to make us squirm. 

Eleven-year-old Amy (Fathia Youssouf), a Senegalese Muslim, has recently moved to a Parisian housing estate with her mother (superb Maïmouna Gueye) and two younger brothers. Her father, who we never see, is about to take a second wife, and preparations for the dreaded wedding are underway. At school, a troupe of wannabe dancers called the “mignonnes” (“cuties”) catch Amy’s attention, but she feels too square and shy to fit in – at least until she pilfers a mobile phone from her uncle, and begins using it to take selfies, beautify herself and get tips from hip-hop twerking videos.

Doucouré is blatantly pushing buttons here – never more so than in the ever-more-eye-widening dance sequences, where Amy quickly graduates from the rookie in this crew to the one schooling them in risqué, finger-biting choreography. If the pageant finale of Little Miss Sunshine often springs to mind, she functions in the story as Alan Arkin to her own Abigail Breslin. 

The other girls want to pass as 14 to attract boyfriends, and with Amy’s phone, they have worrying access to everything the internet can show. Their licentiousness starts to float free of strict plausibility. Amy borrows skimpy T-shirts from her brother, swipes cash and takes them all on shopping sprees. Their make-up budget starts to look enormous. Essentially, they’re aping the gang from Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood, who were 16 going on 25. In letting this play out, Doucouré is underlining an obvious fantasy of pre-pubescence: to fast-forward towards being treated as desirable.

The film is more an experiment in chutzpah than a slice of social realism. As the girls mess about recklessly and rehearse their moves, their lack of any supervision is odd, if semi-explained by the distracted chaos of Amy’s household. But they also know how their immaturity gives them a treacherous power, as we see when a security guard tries to hustle them out for trespassing and they brand him as a child molester. These certainly aren’t your neighbourhood’s average polite children. They’re twerking terrors of the pavement. (2)

Cuties (Mignonnes) is Maimouna Doucoure's first feature CREDIT: AFP

Following some well-received shorts, Doucouré made this from a very personal place. The keenest parts explore the push/pull of her Muslim upbringing. Amy is acting out because of her father’s betrayal, and unwilling to follow her mother – who’s secretly devastated – down the path of demure submission to the patriarchy. Her rebellion is defiantly flaunting herself, and thanks to some brazen invites from the film’s camerawork, the routines she masterminds tend to make the male gaze curl up in horror. 

This is powder-keg provocation in an age so terrified of child sexuality. Thanks to the furore, it has blown up just as much in Doucouré’s face. But the film’s first hour is top-notch for a debut. The child performances are electric. The range of emotion she gets from Youssouf – not just the jaw-dropping cosmetic transformations – mark her out as a magician with actors. Gang leader Angelica – quite the failure for nominative determinism, there – is played with almost Larry Clark-esque attitude by Médina El Aidi-Azouni, another brilliant find.

How Doucouré achieved her joyous last shot, I don’t quite know. Imperfect as it is, this film deserves to launch a career, not end one.

Cuties is available via Netflix now

Telegraph Media Group Limited 2020


NOTES:

(1) Coincidentally villainess Mary Whitehouse features in Part [2] of my series "Liberal and Green Support for Paedophilia ?" (see paragraph 4A)

(2)  As per Wikipedia: Twerking  is a type of dance that came out of the bounce music scene of New Orleans in the late 1980s. Individually-performed, chiefly but not exclusively by women, dancers move by throwing or thrusting their hips back or shaking their buttocks, often in a low squatting stance. Twerking is part of a larger set of characteristic moves unique to the New Orleans style of hip-hop known as "bounce".Moves include "mixing", "exercising", the "bend over", the "shoulder hustle", "clapping", "booty clapping", "booty poppin", and "the wild wood"— all recognized as "booty shaking" or "bounce" 
[My emphasis: when Wiki says "chiefly but not exclusively by women", I think they mean men sometimes perform the dance, not 11 year old girls!]