A Letter To Eric Dempsey And Potatoland

Dear Eric,

Over the past couple of months I have had a couple of lively discussions with you, over my referring to Ireland as "Potatoland". You don't like it. 

OK. Good. You shouldn't and are not supposed to. 

I use the term to confront, head on, a horrible aspect of our country, it's attitude and it's failures, particularly in reference to it's birding culture, but it applies in a general context too.

Your response, recently attempting to conflate my use of this term, as anything close to approaching the kind of racism I highlighted in a recent blog post was, in my humble opinion, somewhat beneath you, however, your frequent response of "we're not all like that", that things are changing, is in many ways, more disturbing to me.

Because we are "all like that".

We turn a blind eye. If it were an olympic event we would take gold home by the truckload. 

I know of no way to prove this to you on the societal level, on the institutional level, better than can be done from any current history text book. 

So I won't focus on the big picture. I'll, instead, focus on the individual aspect, as you have done. I'll focus on you.

I enjoy your blog. I read everything you post, and was particularly happy to see you take up twitching again, even if only sporadically. It is great to see you enjoying going for rare birds again.

I was disappointed with your latest offering though. 

Apart from the tenuous and flimsy-feeling introduction and segway with St. Francis, I found the entire posting to be a form of pandering. 

To be brutally honest, it made me cringe, because, seriously, what could be more potatoland, than appealing to the Catholic Church to interfere in the politics of our nation?

So often, in your arguments against our government and it's regulations on bloodsports and the environment, I see you refer to "19th century" attitudes.

My question now would be, "what about 20th century attitudes?", because it is not that long ago that the church had monumental control over the policies which governed our lives. 

Even today, when any attempt to advance our society forward is made, we must now fight the church. 

The Iona institute, despite not representing any constituency and having zero elected responsibilities, dance their way, unhindered, onto every public television talk show. Every official debate. 

I don't worry that the pope will not read your letter, Eric, I worry that he would. That the leader of a death cult that worships the zombified, self proclaimed son of a fictional sky-wizard, would be lured in by your pandering.

I worry that he would heed you. That he would speak to our politicians. And, most of all, that they would listen.

You would likely be overjoyed at such an outcome. Sing hallelujah, amen. 

I would cringe. I would shudder.

You will have shown our nation one thing, and one thing only.

That the word, work, data, science, common sense, protests and outright screams of our scientific community, our conservationists, our environmentalists, and any green minded, compassionate citizen of our nation, means absolutely nothing, when compared with the quiet word of the grand purveyor of a mass delusion. 

You will have won your fight, but lost the argument.

That is not the country many of us strive for, not the country I strive for, not the country that I would have my daughter be a citizen of.

Right now, there is a debate in our nation. "Should we even have him visiting? Should we be spending all the millions of euros which could be put to better use elsewhere?"

The answer is no. We shouldn't. 

We could gloss over, glibly, as you did in your letter, the many offences inflicted by the church on our country. As though we can compartmentalize such atrocities, in the hopes of a nice cup of tea and a few biscuits can achieve a greater goal. 

We could pretend those offences are not still happening, somewhere else in the world, somewhere else where people will turn a blind eye to the child rapists, the mass graves of babies thrown away like garbage.

We could pretend, that this man, who you have personally invited to interfere in our nations affairs, has not condemned thousands, if not millions to a slow, lingering death through HIV infection, because of his point blank refusal to renounce the dogma of his cult on condom use in Africa. He could save these lives, with a single word. 

I see no evidence of change in your letter. I see only a step backwards.

The time for pretence is over. 

Potatoland ends, only when we stop planting potatoes. When foolishness is replaced by reason. When delusion is replaced by truth.

Unfortunately, your letter suggests your thinking is, still, part of the problem, rather than a solution.