Ireland’s economy makes a bright spot on the Emerald Isle. Ireland no longer appears the backward, backwater it was for much of the 20th century, producing people angry enough to write fantastically.
Northern Ireland? How can one small island contain such contradictions? Today, when religiously-fueled backwardness rears its head, it’s more often from the counties of Northern Ireland, the counties England still rules. It seems that religionists in the northern counties want to keep their area away from the economic success of the south, fighting against almost all advances in economics, technology, and thinking.
That’s the case with the most recent outbreak of creationist tom foolery.
In a recent eruption, Democratic Unionist Party called for intelligent design to be given equal time in public schools. Better, one guy says, get rid of evolution in science classes altogether, according to a story in The Irish Times (the good reporting and writing still comes from the southern counties). Heck, he’d probably be happy to get rid of science classes altogether.
Mervyn Storey, who chairs the Stormont education committee, said his “ideal” would be the removal of evolutionary teaching from the curriculum altogether.
“This is not about removing anything from the classroom, although that would probably be the ideal for me, but this is about us having equality of access to other views as to how the world came into existence and that I think is a very, very important issue for many parents in Northern Ireland.”
Mr Storey has also challenged education minister Caitríona Ruane to apply her principles of “equality” to the issue.
“She tells us she’s all for equality; surely if that is the case, you can’t have one set of interpretations being taught at the expense of others,” he told the Belfast News Letter.
Creationists take a position that even the radical Sinn Fein disavows. When your advocacy is outside the bounds of the radicals, it’s time to reevaluate.
Northern Ireland is already riven by religiously-driven strife. Creationism wants to throw gasoline on that fire. Pray for the peacemakers and scholars to win.
(Full text of The Irish Times story below the fold.)
Darwin latest target of DUP as creationists challenge evolution
NIALL DUMIGAN in Belfast
A SENIOR DUP Assemblyman has pressed for creationism to be taught alongside evolution in classrooms across the North.
Mervyn Storey, who chairs the Stormont education committee, said his “ideal” would be the removal of evolutionary teaching from the curriculum altogether.
“This is not about removing anything from the classroom, although that would probably be the ideal for me, but this is about us having equality of access to other views as to how the world came into existence and that I think is a very, very important issue for many parents in Northern Ireland.”
Mr Storey has also challenged education minister Caitríona Ruane to apply her principles of “equality” to the issue.
“She tells us she’s all for equality; surely if that is the case, you can’t have one set of interpretations being taught at the expense of others,” he told the Belfast News Letter.
Sinn Féin dismissed the comments as “a distraction from the real issues at hand” and declined to comment further.
This is the latest in a number of interventions by Mr Storey on the issue. In June last year, the North Antrim Assembly man made a similar call during a sitting of the Assembly Education Committee, when he pressed Ms Ruane to “ensure that scientific explanations, other than Darwinian evolution, are taught in schools as scientific explanations”. Despite numerous requests, the DUP has declined to comment on the matter.
A statement from the Department of Education said that its policy is based on recommendations made by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) and that there must be a distinction made between “the evidence based approach to scientific theories and knowledge in science lessons, and exploring other beliefs about how the world came into existence”. Mr Storey has also weighed in to the ongoing dispute regarding the age of the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim.
Mr Storey, among others, has called for the proposed visitors’ centre to display not just accepted geological data, but also the creationist argument that the distinctive rock formation is only 6,000 years old. “The problem to date has been that we only have a narrow interpretation from an evolutionary point of view as to how these particular stones were formed,” he said last year.
His comments follow other controversies involving senior DUP figures and “faith issues” in Northern politics. Last month, Strangford MP Iris Robinson faced widespread criticism for her description of homosexuality as an “abomination”. She further asserted that “it is the duty of government to uphold God’s law”.
© 2008 The Irish Times
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
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Ireland is an economic basketcase that has done nothing to develop a stable infrastructure independent of foreign handouts or investment.
QUOTE
Help Ireland or it will exit euro, economist warns
A leading Irish economist has called on Dublin to threaten withdrawal from the euro unless Europe’s big powers do more to rescue Ireland’s economy.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
19 Jan 2009
David McWilliams, a former official at the Irish central bank, has said that Ireland could withdraw from the euro if they are not given more help
“This is war: countries have to defend themselves,” said David McWilliams, a former official at the Irish central bank.
“It is essential that we go to Europe and say we have a serious problem. We say, either we default or we pull out of Europe,” he told RTE radio.
“If Ireland continues hurtling down this road, which is close to default, the whole of Europe will be badly affected. The credibility of the euro will be badly affected. Then Spain might default, Italy and Greece,” he said.
…
“The economic disaster we are facing is unlike anything which has happened in my lifetime. It is a national crisis and needs a government of national unity,”
…
Mr McWilliams said EMU was preventing Irish recovery. “The only way we can win this war is by becoming, once again, an export country. We can do what we are doing now, which is to reduce our wages, throw more people on the dole and suffer a long contraction. The other model is what the British are doing. Britain is letting sterling fall so that the problem becomes someone else’s. But we, of course, have ruled this out by our euro membership.
“We are paying twice for the euro: once on the exchange rate and once more on the interest rate,” he said.
“By keeping with the current policy, the state is ensuring that Ireland turns itself into a large debt-repayment machine. Is this the sort of strategy to win wars? ” he said.
UNQUOTE
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Re: “when religiously-fueled backwardness rears its head, it’s more often from the counties of Northern Ireland, the counties England still rules.”
How ignorant you are.
The Irish people of Northern Ireland exercised their right under Article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, to not be part of King George V’s Irish Free State.
1. Irish Republic proclaimed 21 January 1919.
2. Southern Ireland, a de jure autonomous region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, established 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
3. The Irish Free State Dominion [Saorstát Éireann] established 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty (signed by Irish representatives 6 December 1921); replacing both the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland and the Government of the Irish Republic .
4. The Irish People of Northern Ireland, on 7 December 1922, exercising their constitutional rights under Article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, presented the following address to George V, King of The Irish Free State:
“MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922, being the Act of Parliament for the ratification of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, do, by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.”
5. George V, King of Ireland, 13 December 1922:
“I have received the Address presented to me by both Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in pursuance of Article 12 of the Articles of Agreement set forth in the Schedule to the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, and of Section 5 of the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922, and I have caused my Ministers and the Irish Free State Government to be so informed.”
6. In 1936 George VI was declared “King of Ireland”, and in The Irish Free State’s External Relations Act of 1936, the Dublin government empowered Ireland’s King George VI to represent the state in its foreign affairs. King George VI, as Head of State of the Irish Free State signed treaties as The King of Ireland, accredited ambassadors to Dublin, and received letters of credence from foreign diplomats.
7. The Irish Free State was abolished on 29 December 1937, with the enactment of the presumptuous Constitution of so-called “Ireland” [Bunreacht na hÉireann].
8. In 1949, the state presuming to call itself “Ireland” officially declared that it could henceforth describe itself as a republic.
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Re: “Strangford MP Iris Robinson faced widespread criticism for her description of homosexuality as an “abomination”.”
Not true. She was on The Nolan Show to discuss government business, and was badgered with questions about “gay pride”. She responded by quoting the Bible, Leviticus. “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.”
So it was not Mrs Robinson who described buggery as an abomination.
“And here’s to you Mrs Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you can know”
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Now I’m confused, Ian. Are you defending the backwardness? Are you saying it’s just propaganda the creationists were trying to gut science classes?
That would be good news indeed.
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Ed, you need to strive a bit harder for accuracy when you write in such an ill informed way about Northern Ireland. “Religiously fuelled backwardness” is not confined to the counties in the North – do a bit of research on what happened to the protestants of the south after partition (and investigate the cosy relations the republicans had with the Nazis during the war at the same time) Check out the ethnic cleansing that has gone on in the border areas over the last thirty years.
“England” does not rule here – we are British subjects by consent. And check out the “economic success” of the South – largely based on European handouts and rapidly evaporating as the EU has expanded
Don’t fall victim to all the propaganda that makes its way across the Atlantic mate!
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Hmm – sounds then like a lot of balance is needed in the NI education system. If creationism is an “equal interpretation” to evolution, then we can’t leave out the Hindu creation myths, or the Hawaiian volcano myths or the ancient Egyptian myths and (why not) the Spaghetti Monster? Man, those kids are going to need to stay behind for extra lessons…
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