Toll Me Hole

28th Sep 2011

The pressure will always be there on Cork to succumb to Dublin’s demands like the way they are softening us up for a toll on the tunnel. For generations the Rebel capital has worn whatever infrastructural hand-me downs and political scraps the other ‘capital’ has sent our way.

TD for Dublin West and Minister for the Luas and M50 Leo Varadkar is the latest jackeen to brazenly seek more taxes from Corkonians to fund the Dubs’ deficit. He wants a toll on the Jack Lynch Tunnel.

Everytime a Dubliner makes shit of the country Cork has to pick up the tab

Here are a few headlines from his website:

Minister Varadkar welcomes Phoenix Park road upgrade

Minister Varadkar provides funding for all-weather pitch in Hartstown Park

Clonee to get high-speed broadband network

Minister Varadkar welcomes start of work on new Porterstown Road

Varadkar confirms €250,000 allocation for improvements to Old Hansfield Road in Ongar

Real-time bus signs to be rolled out in Dublin 15 – Varadkar

That’s some eye-bogglingly expensive kit he’s lashing out up in the Pale in the middle of a recession and Cork motorists are going to have to fork out for it. It seems to us that the Dubs are always on the take.

Then there’s that beardy fella with designs on the presidency who sounds like he’s never been more than 500 yards from Trinity College’s English department. He came down from Dublin recently begging Cork County Council to give him the nomination required to get on the ballot paper.
 

Norris is likely to make a tit of himself again.

When Anglo Irish Bank on St. Stephen’s Green collapsed faster than the Gooch in a small rectangle, the Pale’s agents came knocking on Cork doors with their hands out: “more tax to lob into the bankers’ vortex please, Cork!”. And they got that too.

When Jackeenville looked like it was going to eat itself if it didn’t get hold of Sam Maguire our footballers bowed out of the championship a bit early so as not to embarrass the Dubs more than once a year - and most Corkonians would admit that this year’s league victory was almost as enjoyable as the championship semi-final last year. Again, we gave them what they wanted.
 

Dublin's Anglo Irish Bank: you'll have to pay for this jackeen mess at the Jack Lynch tunnel

When the boys of 1916 made an admirable attempt to put it up to the British the results were catastrophic but to be fair to him, De Valera in his Dublin based Ivory Tower was hell bent on severing the connection with our neighbours and looked south instead.

Enter Cork men like Michael Collins, Tom Barry and a county full of brave and courageous rebels whose efforts eventually led to the Brits withdrawl from Dublin. We won.

Everyone’s on about the Presidential race and the importance of who will be in Aras an Uachtarain in 2016 for the Rising’s centenary but why are the Dublin media focussing on the memories of Easter 1916?

Why not the more successful dates of January 1919 when the Declaration of Independence was published or December 1921 when the war against the occupier finally ended? We seem to prefer celebrating war instead of peace.

Even if we had actually elected to celebrate Irish woe properly there are lists of famines, massacres, failed rebellions, city burnings, ethnic cleansings and land grabs to choose from that would surely surpass the tragedy of a voluntary engagement with a superior military force.

The real reason is because the capital must exert its grossly exaggerated self-importance regularly over the rest of the island. Just take one look at RTE right now – chances are there’s some Dub waffling on it.

Corkonian and Real Taoiseach Jack Lynch signs Ireland up for the EU

Dublin needs to regularly fool itself into believing that it leads the island of Ireland when in fact, it has only ever dragged the other 31 counties down. Just compare the performances of Bertie Ahern and Jack Lynch as Taoisigh: the Cork man led Ireland into the EU, the Dubliner nearly had us thrown out.

While giving the brave men of The Rising our full respect as men who gave their lives for what they believed in, honing in on 1916 captures the essence of Dublin’s Ireland perfectly: a psyche that loves a gallant defeat, a people that crave an admirable loss over a respectable victory.

Why not celebrate the day the Black and Tans packed up their armoured cars, tanks and guns and shipped them back across the Irish sea? Or the day that the first Dáil’s ministers pulled up their chairs to the first cabinet table? Or even the day that Ireland beat Romania on penalties in Italia 90?

The Brits won in Dublin but got whipped in West Cork.

Such joyous victorious occasions are anathema to how the country sees itself and this is the fault of the country’s leadership. Focussing on the misery of the past is important to honour the memory of those who gave their lives for the country but failing to laud great successes officially is typically Irish.

This feen Varadkar will lean on Cork for more moolah for his pretty projects around the Liffey but us Rebels need to wake up to this cod and someday soon we’ll break the cycle of deference to the east coast.

Tom Barry: a real rebel who won every battle

To tax Corkonians using the tunnel named after the Real Taoiseach because one of his pathetic bungling successors made a bags of the country’s finances would be a gross insult to Leeside and to the memory of this great man.

And furthermore after years of campaigning the Dublin government finally gave us a leaky tunnel that seems to be closed more often than a busy pub toilet.

You know our solution at this stage: send a stiff letter to the Minister on behalf of the people of Cork stating that his political interference in a foreign state is unwelcome. Mend the holes and to hell with tolls.