Comments on: Cathal Ó Searcaigh

By: Seconds Out

Seconds Out — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:17:41 +0000

I think it was Declan Lynch that wrote that all Irish language poets should be put on a list – a bit like a sex offenders list – so that people will know that they are in the community, so that we can warn each other least they strike without warning and start reading their poems, in the vicinity of innocent children. The horror, the horror as Brando sighs in Apocalypse Now.

By: Sula Man

Sula Man — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:13:54 +0000

I have lived in south east asia for over 11yrs.
Did Maire Mhac an Tsaoi really say that all asian children are sexualised from an early ?

By: Bock

Bock — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:45:44 +0000

Your point is what?

By: grf

grf — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:38:55 +0000

The other thing to bear in mind is that whenever I have seen anything in the media that I happen to know something about I am impressed by the way they skew and sensationalise and warp and oversimplify.

By: Bock

Bock — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:49:55 +0000

That’s a fact.

Amazing levels of denial at work there, both by Cathal Ó Searcaigh and by his colleagues in Aosdána.

By: Conan Drumm

Conan Drumm — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:45:55 +0000

He’d be a creature to be pitied for his infantile immaturity were it not for his serial sexual predation in Nepal.

By: Bock

Bock — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:25:13 +0000

He pissed off a lot of gays by hiding behind his sexual orientation, which had nothing whatever to do with his exploitation of vulnerable people.

By: norma stleger

norma stleger — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:20:09 +0000

To quote O’Searcaigh in the culture section of Times sunday last.
” I think a lot of gay people have a huge tolerance and understanding of lonliness, isolation and suffering, and i suppose out of that comes a pity for the despised and a sympathy for outsiders ”
When questioned about his self centred nature, he responded ” Are’nt all artists pretty self centred ? ”
I found the interview alarmingly self serving, disgusting and displaying a degree of denial, narcissism and arrogance that was incomprehensible, It’s a constant source of amazement to me how anyone divulging in a bit of creativity can call themselves an ” artist ” but apart from that, the liberties this guy believes he is entitled to because he proclaims his sexuality as opposed to ” hiding ” it seems to entitle him to even more privlige, proclaiming ones sexual preference, whether hetherosexual or homosexual is hardly the issue though.
The Nepalese are an extremly gentle people possessed of aquiesance in a way that is not part of western culture, it seems very blatant that in his 12 years of visiting Nepal he just did’nt get it at all, and what part of bestowing his charity on these people gave him some kind of rite of passage (excuse the pun ) to engage in any kind of sexual acts with any of the people he was claiming to help, What would happen if workers from aid agencies decided to cross the boundaries and engage the people they were assisting in sexual acts ?
He is a spectacularly dispicable creature, he has accused the filmakers of ” entrapment ” what was he doing with those boys if it was’nt entrapment.
His claim that he brought the filmakers around because he had nothing to hide is just further indicment of his massive ego and total denial.
He also claims that he made most of his living from ” readings ” now he claims that is almost gone because of the film, I for one am delighted, his claims of human empathy and “understanding of the isolated and dispised” his claims have echos of ……..The christian brothers, did they not claim everything they did for the good of……….

By: grf

grf — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:57:26 +0000

Enough material here for a complete new system of ethics. (Or indeed a religion for what else is a religion but a complete system of ethics wrapped up in a fairy tale (the fairy tale being for children and the simple minded)).

All of the questions addressed. Your freedom to swing you arm ends at my nose. Your tinker friends freedom to live in shit ends when you choke on the smell of burning insulation or put your foot in the shit.

People do like to live amongst people like themselves, hence seek those who share their ethical (religious) views and to impose their ethical views (Sharia or however you spell it) on the remainder who do not.

Unfortunately not enough planets to accommodate all the various people who want to live in pure communities of the like minded, so kill the unbeliever? Or just get them to agree not to try to impose their systems of behaviour on you as long as you stop before you get to the end of their nose.

Funny thing about sex is that it almost never happens between equals. There is always some degree of exploitation. Always; even between people of equal age one will be more atriculate and the other less, one more intelligent, persuasive etc.. A normal adult persuading a more simple minded adult to submit is exploitative. Well it is if the one takes pleasure without giving it. Is it if the sex is giving as well as receiving, if the pleasure is mutual?

The law is a crude and blunt instrument. Various countries lay down laws which state limits in terms of numbers of years. It is a crude measure which takes no account of maturity or the nature of the relationship (giving and receiving pleasure (love?) or simply taking pleasure and giving pain). Yet it must be so for enquiring into subtle shades is beyond courts – on an everyday basis at least.

It is clearly wrong to buy a child an use it as a sex object taking pleasure and leaving it damaged. Also wrong to exploit those more poor, unsophisticated, weak, stupid, vulnerable, silly, drunk, unconscious, than oneself.

If this chap did use his relative wealth to obtain firm young flesh to sink himself into and then leave bleeding and sore he is a bad man whether they were fifteen years and eleven months and thirty day old or whether they were twenty or whether they were thirty.

It’s all a gradient, from getting a sexual partner tipsey or persuading a person of lesser social skills or intelligence to let you shag ‘em, all the way down to this chap.

So is morality and ethics. It all shades of gray merging from the clearly black end to the clearly white end.

Doesn’t matter – except for the small matter of going to jail – whether some arbitrary legal line is crossed. I might read his stuff if it’s any good (listening to Wagner? or whatever someone said about Cromwell’s friend above) but I won’t be inviting him to dinner. Or bending over in front of him.

By: A Poem For Cathal Ã³ Searcaigh - Bock The Robber

A Poem For Cathal Ã³ Searcaigh - Bock The Robber — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:58:33 +0000

[...] Cathal O Searcaigh [...]