The Untouchables

by prayertoJah Fri Oct 11, 2002 22:35

ya big girls blouse, dont be such a backward snooty snob, think your a unionist do you.

by o as if Sat Oct 12, 2002 14:27

now let´s talk about "untouchable"
shall we?
writer=reader=iosaf=o as if

by reader Sat Oct 12, 2002 14:50

the expression derives from expressions
for lepers and those suffering a chronic
or a disfiguring condition that causes their
speration from society.
Many place names derive from slang names for "lepers"throughout history.
"Palmerstown" refered to a leper colony on the Liffey. for example.
There are millions of people alive today who carrying numerous "plagues". 1 Billion have tested positive for HIV (figure from world AIDS conference Barcelona 2002). c/f http://www.barcelon.indymedia.org

"Untouchable" here I construe as a reference to
The hundreds of thousands in Europe who bear many names for their communities who still practise a "travelling" ethno-cultural tradition.

In Ireland the majority of those keeping the "traveller" culture alive belong to the group who identify themselves as "Irish Travellers".
It is a mark of their importance to the Irish Indymedia community that an article drawing a parallel between them and the EZLN of Mexico is on the front page [scroll to the bottom].

If I may be allowed to reminsce a moment and "look back" I recall one evening on Dublin´s South Anne Street in 1990 I and group of buskers were enjoying food paid for by passerby´s thrown coins. I had a bike then and one child who was an "Irish Traveller" was playing with it bycycling in circles. Everyone was happy. The Waterboys were giggling. They had gone beyond busking. The tallest Garda in the Gardaí Siochanna a man of almost 2metres in height came to the scene and grabbed that child by the hair and threw her into a squad car for robbing my bike. I protested that she had not. I cycled on that bike to Pearse St. station to make a complaint to the Station Sergeant. The following weeks I was subjected to "stop and search" on many occasions. I learnt then how despised that community were for reasons I could not understand.
Who has caused you more filth? Your governments in cowardice and misgovernment be they in Dublin Belfast or London or the "Irish Travellers"?
Who has been alledged to have commited more serious crimes against you the governments and "elected assemblies" of Dublin, Belfast and Ireland?
Traffic wardens and cigarettes and cars and Louth and Irish Travellers and unionists and backwards looking and untouchable.
The words on this page.
When I protested to the desk sergeant about repeated searches on the street he said "If you walk like a duck, If you talk like a duck, if you hang around with ducks, only fair to presume you are a duck." Mr Ahern has spent years in cabinet with Haughey and Burke. Mr Trimble was an umbrella weilding hooligan on Portadown bridge before picked to replace "Wiley Molneaux".
No one is untouchable.
The emperor is as naked as he ever was.
And that desk sergeant is a superintendent.
And that "Irish Traveller" girl has a family of her own.
And just across from Louth is windscale /Sellafield / THORP.