9 Responses to “Paddy on Channel 4 TV 1989”

1. Andrew on August 2nd, 2009 20:34

   How prophetic or astute is the last sentence in the video about the state abdicating its duty of care …. ‘there are thousands of mes’

2. Paddy on August 2nd, 2009 22:02

   I wonder what would have happened if the Government had listened to what I was writing and saying about the treatment of children in care way back then – maybe they took one look at me and decided I was a pot smoking hippie! Mannix Flynn, Heather Laskey and Mavis Arnold had written about horrendous abuse perpetrated against children and the proverbial blind eye was turned. How different thing could have been if Government and society as a whole had listened.

3. Andrew on August 3rd, 2009 08:40

   .. and no publisher in the 26 counties would touch Heather Laskey and Mavis Arnold’s book. They had to go to Norn Iron !

4. Paddy on August 3rd, 2009 13:23

   It comes as no surprise to me that no publisher in the Republic of Ireland would touch Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey’s book, “Children of the Poor Clares” If it weren’t for an independent and brave publisher, Dermot Bolger, Raven Arts Press, “The God Squad” might never have seen the light of day. One of the biggest publishers in the Republic on seeing the manuscript of my book thought it was “great” but “too risky” to publish. Need I say more.

5. Andrew on August 3rd, 2009 15:43

   It’s a story on its own … and I’ve just noticed it was Channel 4 who composed this video!

6. Paddy on August 3rd, 2009 23:59

   The programme went out on Channel 4 twenty years ago exactly as it is on the video on You Tube and was called “Halfway to Paradise”.

7. raymond on August 4th, 2009 09:17

   Dear Paddy.

   How good and moving to see you in this clip. You handsome fellow! did Daniel Day-Lewis see this first, before winning his Oscar??

   I know that you have a wonderful wife and have met very wonderful people along the way. I hope you still get to “find that someone, some place, where you can get to the bottom of your grief, as the good doctor described…if only someone had taken you on their knee…..”

   Never say never. With your strength and determination, prove him right!

8. Paddy on August 4th, 2009 13:29

   Raymond, I doubt that Daniel Day-Lewis saw the programme before winning the Oscar. I take it that you’ve seen the RTE documentary – I’m making that judgement on your comment on the doctors comment you refer to. Thanks for the kindness of your comment.

9. Martha on August 20th, 2009 23:36

   Dear Paddy,

   Like yourself, I had the misfortune of being born into the Holy Catholic Ireland of the 1950′s, where the vast majority of mothers were either so terror-stricken by the “macho” Roman Catholic sociopaths who ruled the country with an iron fist (otherwise known as tyranny) or they were SO brainwashed by their RC childhood conditioning they believed that children are born evil and need to be beaten into shape, as it were. In other words, submit to their INSANE will.

   We Irish, as a people, no longer use physical violence to force our children to conform to our internalised RC culture: nowadays, we resort to more subtle forms of psychological rape. In other words, Ireland has yet to rid itself of Rome!

   What you had to say in your biography “The God Squad” was relevant, but few Irish people were actually listening to you back then, and fewer Irish people are listening to you now. That’s because most Irish people are still in denial about their own roots.

   Most Irish people cannot face up to the fact that their own mothers failed them so miserably when they were children. In other words, they fail to understand how traumatised their own mothers were.

   Kind regards,
   Martha

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