Tuesday 18 December 2012

Workers' Party (Cork) Christmas Draw 2012

Winners in Workers' Party, Cork Region, Christmas Draw 2012.


Prize                         Ticket No.                                         Winner

1st 1006 Anne Hales, Bandon
2nd  0954 Len McCarthy, Ballinspittle
3rd 1690 Roy Keating, Ballyphehane
4th  1500 Josephine Power, Mayfield
5th  0082 Sean Crowley,
c/o Three Horseshoes Bar
6th 0676 Owen O'Sullivan, Ballinure
7th 0927 Eileen McCarthy, Ballyphehane
8th  1448 Aaron Sherin, Mayfield
9th  0166 Pat Manning, c/o, Sean Crowley
10th  2081 W. Murphy, c/o, Mick Crowley
11th  1175 Nina Ahern, Clonakilty
12th  2067 Pete, c/o, Mick Crowley
13th  1691 Maura Keating, Ballyphehane
14th  0268 Sean Tynan, c/o, Ted Tyan
15th  2209 Frances O'Neill, Knocknaheeny
16th  2212 M. O'Neill, Knocknaheeny
17th  1682 Eryn Keating, c/o, Roy Keating
18th  1900 Josh Murphy, c/o, Mick Crowley
19th  1003 Mary Hales, Bandon
20th 0440 Billy Kiely, c/o, Ted Tynan
All winners will be notified. The Cork Regional Council of the Workers' Party would like to thank all our ticket sellers, buyers and prize donors. Seasons greetings and many thanks.

James Connolly Rolling in His Grave



I was stunned by Labour Party Minister Sean Sherlock's response on the front page of the Echo (Dec 14th) to comments that James Connolly would be rolling in his grave over the policies of the current government. Minister Sherlock was quoted as saying that 'I sometimes think those invoking James Connolly have not read his works. James Connolly was first and foremost a patriot'. As a reader of Connolly myself, I wonder which works in particular Minister Sherlock could be referring to. It certainly could not be the article published in Workers' Republic in 1900 which states clearly Connolly's position on so-called patriotism. Let me refresh the Minister's memory: 

'Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for "Ireland", and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar'.

The government of which Minister Sherlock is a part has certainly wrought its fair share of suffering, shame and degradation on the people of this country with its recent budget, which has featured cuts to Child Benefit and the Respite Care Grant and a host of other regressive policies. The most vulnerable in our society are bearing the brunt of an economic program of austerity that has been designed and imposed by those who are safely protected by large salaries and positions of power and influence. The idea that this situation could be justified through an appeal to doing our patriotic duty, as Minister Sherlock suggests, is the very kind of fraudulent rhetoric Connolly was denouncing 112 years ago, and he would most surely be denouncing it if he were around today.