Search Results for 'Dick Spring'

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Why a political revolt by Ireland’s under twenty fives is now a certainty

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One recent evening Insider watched the 1967 Jean-Luc Godard film La Chinoise in which a small group of French students sit around their apartment, located in what is described as a “workers’ district”, and engage in theatrical discussions about how they must overthrow the bourgeoise and, in particular, the hierarchal French university system which saw students as passive receivers of knowledge handed down by their god-like professors, rather than participants in a dialectical exchange in which both students and teachers learn from each other and grow as a result. No one, with the exception of chairman Mao, is radical enough for most of these students. The French Communist Party which, to draw an Irish parallel, would have been more or less the political equivalent of present day Sinn Féin, is condemned as hopelessly “revisionist”. The Soviet Union, in particular its then president, the now largely forgotten Mr Kosygin, is convicted by the students at their kitchen table discussions of failing to do enough to support the Vietnamese in their war against Lyndon Johnson. And the French working class, with whom said kitchen table debaters absolutely sympathise, are seen as hopelessly passive. In a mix of desperation, madness, and idealism, the students decide to mount a campaign of terrorism, which will involve them doing something they have singularly failed to do for most of the film; getting up from that kitchen table and going outside. They plan to kill the visiting Soviet minister for culture who has been invited by President de Gaulle’s own culture minister, the novelist and decayed Stalinist intellectual Andre Malraux, to open a new wing of the university. After that, they hope to bomb the Sorbonne in the belief that this will spark a revolution. Insider is against blowing up universities. Partly because he knows such actions more often provoke backlash than revolution. But also because Insider happens to teach at a university and coming out in favour of blowing up universities might lead to an awkward email from one’s department head.

Conferences, communions and a royal wedding!

You will remember last week I spoke about going down to Tralee for a Probus conference last Wednesday. It was a wonderful event and I so enjoyed it.

Sports, drama and everything else in between!

Well, it is clear Leinster are the new kings of Europe. It emerged last weekend when they had a win in the European Championship final in Bilbao against Racing 92.

Katie triumphs as Catalan independence appears lost

Well, we had great news earlier this week with our very own Katie Taylor being crowned World Boxing Champion.

From the sports field to the ballot box and everything in between

Yes, Dublin won out over Mayo in the women’s GAA final last Sunday, but there were positives to this contest, which makes it different.

Tánaiste Joan Burton visits Athlone as part of Equip2015

 

 

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