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www.celtic-connection.com
DECEMBER 2011/JANUARY 2012
Mock megalithic circle on Achill Island believed to be a 'tomb for Celtic Tiger'
THE MASSIVE Stonehenge-esque structure on Achill Island is believed to be a "place of reflection" where people can think about what has happened to Ireland overthe last few years in a place of quiet and solitude.
DUBLIN - The strangely compelling Stonehenge-style structure created on Achill Island by maverick builder Joe McNamara is intended to be a "tomb for the Celtic Tiger," it has been revealed.
McNamara who was arrested on December 2 after a judge ruled he was in contempt of a High Court order requiring him to immediately cease construction of the structure.
According to Benny Meehan, one of McNamara's supporters, the concrete structure is intended to be a "place of reflection" where people can think about what has happened to Ireland over the last few years in a place of quiet and solitude.
"Some people have portrayed Joe as some kind of lunatic. He is not. He is a quiet and reflective man and he is just trying to raise awareness and get people thinking about what has happened to this country," said Meehan.
Mayo County Council brought proceedings against McNamara (41), with addresses at Achill Island, Co. Mayo, and Salthill, Co. Galway, claiming that he breached court orders by continuing working on the structure after he was served with an order to desist to build what the council said was an unauthorised and unlawful development.
MAYO County Council have brought proceedings against property developer Joe McNamara to cease construction on the Achill Island structure.
The High Court Judge Roderick Murphy found that McNamara had continued work on the structure, which consists of an outer ring 30 metres wide marked out by imposing 4.5 metre high columns with tapping stones placed on top, after being properly served with the order to desist.
The judge ordered that as McNamara was not prepared to purge his contempt, he would stay in Mountjoy prison until December 6.
McNamara was acquitted earlier this year of charges of criminal damage and dangerous driving over an incident where a cement lorry with the words "toxic bank" was driven up to the gates
of Teinster House.
He also abandoned the same truck outside Anglo's Galway offices and parked a cherry-picker outside the bank's HQ in Dublin.
Following the court's ruling, Pat Butler, counsel for the local authority, said the council was prepared to ask the court not to jail McNamara if he was prepared to give an undertaking that structure would be removed within a given time period.
McNamara's solicitor Declan Keane said his client was not prepared to give such an undertaking.
The structure on Achill Island is set to cost over a million euro to build. It is 15 feet high and 30 meters in diameter. According to reports in The Mayo News, McNamara has been planning for this build above Pollagh for six months.
"Achill-henge" as it has been named by locals, is believed to be a working replica of the prehistoric English monument.
It has been built to sync with sunrise on the summer and winter solstices and March and September equinoxes.
What will be at the centre of the ring is yet to be revealed. Currently just a semicircle structure can be seen.
McNamara and a large group of men worked long hours on the structure, with 30 trucks arriving to Pollagh with precast concrete.
DEVELOPER Joe McNamara was charged with criminal damage after driving a cement truck into the gates of the Irish parliament at Leinster House in Dublin.
Inquests into 1971 Paratroop killings reopened
BETFAST - Northern Ireland's Attorney General John Parkin has ordered the reopening of the inquests into the deaths of 10 people who were shot dead by the Parachute Regiment in west Belfast over three days in August 1971.
The relatives of those who died have been seeking a public inquiry into the actions of the soldiers, who claimed that they were returning fire. Campaigners and members of the victims' families have welcomed the news.
None of the dead, who included a priest and 50-year-old woman, was armed. Some were shot in the back and others hit as they went to the aid of others who were injured.
An eleventh victim, Paddy McCarthy, died of a heart attack but in all other cases the original inquests returned open verdicts. He died after a soldier put the barrel of a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger; the gun wasn't loaded.
' Suffering of Irish people outrageous5 says NY Times Paul Krugman
NEW YORK - Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has called the "suffering of Irish people outrageous" in the current economic recession.
Krugman wrote on his blog that they (the Irish) "find themselves forced into savage austerity because they're saddled with debts that by and large weren't even used to finance Irish investment.
"Ireland was both a large borrower and a large overseas investor, and because its investments were risky, the crash in asset prices pushed it deep into net debt.
"Actually, Iceland is a similar story, on an even more extreme scale. But the Icelanders, of course, basically said that their citizens weren't liable for the sins of their bankers," Krugman wrote.
Meanwhile, Irish Government leaders are "working with the lights out," writes a leading Irish financial advisor James
Fitzsimons in the Independent and their actions will plunge Europe into "a depression that will last for generations."
Fitzsimons writes that the EU is heading back into a recession and leaders failed to make the "tough decisions" to prevent it.
Consumer demand has fallen and big businesses have scaled back production, while banks "still control the purse strings," he says. If action is not taken soon, the collapse of the euro and the break-up of the European Union is inevitable.
"Without fundamental changes to how banks operate, falling interest rates and recapitalisation will be wasted. Financial regulation is being used to justify reckless banking decisions while it pays lip service to protecting the consumer," warns the financial advisor.
The EU is unstable according to Fitzsimons and Ireland needs to set its own course. "This doesn't mean we abandon the austerity measures, but this time they need to be in our own best interest."
Receiver has doubts on Quinn's finances
BETFAST - Serious questions have been raised about the true state of businessman Sean Quinn's finances by the legal official in charge of his bankruptcy.
Quinn, whose personal wealth was once valued at almost EU5 billion - but claims he now only has EU11,169 cash in the bank - successfully filed for bankruptcy in Belfast in November.
On November 21, the Commercial Court in Dublin heard that the official receiver in charge of the Fermanagh-born former billionaire's bankruptcy viewed a sworn statement of affairs provided by Quinn, outlining his debts and assets, with "considerable scepticism."
The official receiver's concerns were revealed as part of a bid by Anglo Irish Bank, now known as the Irish Bank Resolution Company (IBRC), to get a judgment of more than EU2 billion it says is owed to it by Quinn.
While Quinn - who disputes the overall level of debt owed by him to the IBRC - successfully filed for bankruptcy in Northern Ireland, his bankruptcy has now been registered in the Republic.
The benefits of filing for bankruptcy in Belfast are significant for Quinn, as debtors can emerge free from bankruptcy in NI after one year compared to 12 years in the Republic.
IRISH businessman Sean Quinn, whose personal wealth was once valued at almost EU5 billion claims he now only has EU11,169 cash in the bank.
The IBRC is bringing an application to the Belfast court to have the bankruptcy annulled.
In the bankruptcy petition, the businessman listed the IBRC as his only creditor in his sworn statement of affairs.
However, lawyers representing the official receiver told Dublin Hgh Court Judge Justice Peter Kelly, the listing judge of the commercial court, that there may be others who are owed money by Quinn.
Barrister Bernard Dunleavy, representing the Republic's official receiver, said "there can hardly have been a bankruptcy ever before" like Quinn's in the UK or Ireland.
Peter Robinson threatens resignation
BETFAST - Peter Robinson came in for widespread criticism during the week when he talked of resigning as first minister.
He refuses to accept any change in the name and emblems used by the prison service to make it more acceptable to the nationalist community. He won't allow changes to be approved by the Executive and if any other method of effecting change is found he will resign and force an election. Many nationalists are unhappy at the designation 'Her Majesty's prison' and with the crown on the prison service emblem.