By Sean Hillen

An excellent, well-organized and diverse program provided by Julianne Mooney, Gert Ackermann and team was provided over the weekend at the Dublin Book Festival.

Discussions were wide-ranging, varying from politics (the New Republic) and economics (surviving the recession, entrepreneurialism and personal finance) to women in Irish life; from developments in the crime genre to various platforms for fresh, up ‘n coming new writers, both in Irish and English; as well as tips on writing and the business of publishing (though I don’t accept the point made by established authors that other wannabe authors shouldn’t decide about what genre they’re writing for before they put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. They should, writing is a business, and such far-sightedness may well help them get published, and make a living easier).

A suggestion here: make debates on the ‘hotter’ issues 90 minutes long not 60, some were just getting into gear when they had to be stopped.

In addition, after-hours entertainment for attendees was excellent. The Nighthawks event at The Cube, Project Arts Center, was nothing less than superb (such wonderful talent in song, words, music and acting performance), and perfectly timed (at least for me), allowing me circa 10.30 to wander unhurriedly down to Connelly Station and catch the last train to Maynooth. 

Looking around, attendance also seemed commendable with several events fully booked, and others with few seats left. The venues – City Hall and the PAC – were excellent: central and well facilitated.

Of particular note was the wise and insightful contributions of TV and radio host Ryan Tubridy and UCDs Diarmaid Ferriter during the ‘Ireland: Lessons of the Past’ event, though it must be said that mediator, Newstalk’s Susan Cahill, became like a recording disc stuck in a groove: ‘Aren’t we a great nation? Aren’t we a great nation?’ It was as if mandarins at FF or FG (or indeed the ‘new’ Labor) had given her a euro or two to make sure everyone said they were happy with our present lot in life. It was not only annoying to audience members but also to the two invited guests, whom I thought would eventually at one stage tie her up, gag her and hang her from the rafters above for the good of all Man (and Woman) kind.

Also illuminating was the insights provided by The Irish Times, deputy editor, Fintan O’Toole, and  Pat Leahy, political editor of The Sunday Business Post, at Sunday’s ‘Political Reform in Ireland’ debate - as was Susan McKay, CEO of the National Women’s Council, on the ‘women quotas in parliament’ issue. Interestingly, while saying national referendums on key issues were not appropriate instruments (O’Toole had suggested one on whether to accept the IMF/EU bailout, supported by me and not by Kevin Rafter), McKay said there should be one on childrens’ rights (it was also peculiar she said publicly in the hall, she was from Belfast, but said privately she was from Derry – is this intellectual schizophrenia, or a prestige thing that escapes me?).

Susan also hosted Sunday’s ‘Tomorrow’s Women’ debate and did it well, insofar as she moved the Q&A’s along rapidly allowing as many people as possible to have their say (and gently halting one panel speaker who was in the midst of reading a comprehensive 3/4 page document as her opening remarks). Ironically, in dealing with the key issue of exclusion, Susan became guilty of doing just that.  She managed quite deliberately to exclude from the debate a member of a tiny minority - men – in the room, even when an audience member said women should involve men in discussions on the issue as it relates to women. The poor man’s arm was raised high and in full view of the chairperson (he was actually seated very close to the main podium) for a good part of the debate but was clearly being ignored, even when members of the audience indicated they’d like to hear the man’s views, including the woman who made the point about men’s involvement and a member of the speaking panel, Dr. Ann Mathews, author of the excellent ‘Renagades’ and professor at NUI Maynooth.

For what it’s worth, my point (yes, mea maxima culpa, I was the guilty party) - in relation to men’s involvement in the equality issue as it relates to women and education – was that it would be interesting to have priests, Bishops, Archbishops, maybe even the Pope himself, enter such a hall full of intelligent, opened-minded women – as equals – and listen and learn.  Why? Because the Church in Ireland, particularly the Catholic variety, has far too much control over education in Ireland and as its agenda is a fairly strict anti-women one, seeing them in primarily servile roles, its power needs to be curtailed severely. Ironically, the key to equality for women in Irish society – in the political, social, economic and cultural arenas – is closely linked to putting the Catholic Church back in its spiritual box and turning the key. In controlling education, the Church places young girls in strict streams of thought at an early age and - in effect - trains teachers to do likewise. Priests et al control key agendas and paid personnel locally, as well as community jobs and overly influence many politicians (no more so than in rural southwest Donegal where I live) and as the new Dail is 86 per cent male, even a blind man can see what narrow-mindedness, anti-women bias and utter inequality this situation inevitably leads to. 

Getting ‘Men of the Cloth’ to enter the portal of the City Hall – not to influence the men of power therein, which they do often, quite conveniently discarding their spiritual-only garb for a distinctly secular one – but into a room full of intelligent women such as there was on Sunday afternoon is a challenge indeed, but not an insurmountable one.

So there you have it, the poor unfortunate, ignored man’s modest contribution to the ‘Tomorrow’s Women’ debate that was never heard on Sunday afternoon at the Dublin Book Festival. I rest my case.