The Blindboy Podcast - Drinking wine with Vincent Browne

Episode Date: September 4, 2018

A conversation with legendary journalist Vincent Browne Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Blind Boy podcast number 48. If you're hearing this, if you're hearing this, it means that I am currently in Spain and the room that I have in Spain has got terrible acoustics. So I've had to post this episode as the emergency backup because there's no way I would do a podcast from Spain in a room full of tiles where there's nothing but reverberation

it would sound like gogs so that's what this one is but first before I continue I would like to read a piece of short prose that was sent in to me by Hollywood actor Barry Pepper. Quentin's in the kitchen preparing a fool. It's a dessert named after an idiot. His hands

shake as he massages the fool. His mind wanders back to the deserts of Kuwait, 1991. The orange flames are a thousand children screaming. The clouds rain down Isle. He looks at his boots. He's back in the kitchen, preparing a fool. That was a piece of prose there called Desert Dessert. Desert Dessert by Barry Pepper. Thank you very much, Barry, for sending that in, so here's the crack, I'm over in fucking Spain and can't

record a podcast, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a live podcast and this is, this was recorded about six months ago and it is myself and the magnificent vincent brown and vincent is he's a journalist tv presenter but he's most importantly he's just a very aggressive voice of truth vincent in his uh fearlessness and tenacity in calling out power and fucking going head to head with power he kind of, he's like an old school lad that reminds

all of us young people the importance of understanding that just because someone is a politician or just because someone is in a position of power that you have every fucking right to ask them why and to hold them to account and that's what vincent does and that's what he's done his entire career fearlessly holds people to account and he

is a terrifying figure if you're on the wrong side of him. So this interview, it was in LIT, Limerick Institute of Technology, in the theatre there. It was about six months ago. And special thanks to Limerick School of Art and Design, the photography, film and video course, and also the audio-visual course in LIT for making this happen.

And just a general big shout out to Limerick School of Art and Design I did my degree there I did my master's there and they've been nothing but supportive of me uh ever since so yeah this is myself and Vincent Brown and I think we're bought a little bit pissed and then we sober up because they put a lot of wine into my dressing room when I was drinking it then Vincent came out and I got a kind of a feeling because they put a lot of wine into my dressing room when I was drinking it then Vincent came out and I got a kind of a feeling

that he had a bit of wine as well and we needed to find our feet after a while but what I like about this is that this was in front of a fucking packed audience

there must have been seven, eight hundred people but it had the intimacy of a conversation between two people you know I won't be doing like an ocarina pause.

Will I? I won't be doing a full ocarina... My fucking place is falling apart. I won't be doing a full ocarina pause on this because I'm going straight into the interview. I'll play the ocarina for two seconds. Actually, I might fucking buy a new ocarina in Spain I think that's what I'll do because I got this last one in Spain as well I'll get a bigger one but so before I go into the interview

like the podcast subscribe to the podcast and if you feel so inclined this podcast is supported by you the listener um via the patreon page so if you if you like the podcast and you would like to donate to it and give me we'll say the price of a pint once a month for creating content please do patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast so here is an interview with myself and Vincent Brown. God bless you cats. Would you ever think of going maybe online, Vincent? Because if you had, let's say, a YouTube show, you can go wild with that, you know? Because I always felt with you,

I felt that there was this spirit inside of you that was always held back by the bullshit rules of television. there was this spirit inside of you that was always held back by the bullshit rules of television. No. I have a project now which I've wanted to do for years and it's part of a larger project. The larger project is

to write something about the illusion of Irish freedom. To make the point that people fought for freedom but freedom for what? How were the mass of people less free after we got independence than they were prior to then? They were still enslaved by poverty, by misery,

by unemployment or by employment in so many ways. And the idea of freedom really was made a nonsense of certainly some people from clonkers or munchers or whatever or glenstall did well and got status jobs but for the massive people

I think that to talk about freedom was a nonsense that the social system which was already there continued even with greater cruelty after independence than before that. So you're talking about

freedom of economic mobility. The freedom to escape what you're born into. Yeah, all of that. Because it's interesting, I was talking to a historian last week and he was talking about the ethos of coming the nail

and how they had set up, how they wanted to set up the idea of an Irish ruling class once the British left. When you talk about do you mean that you feel that the War of Independence 1922

did not give us something more socialistic? Do you feel it went too capitalistic? Yeah, I could put it that way. But the people who... For instance, W.T. Consgrave, who was the first Taoiseach President of the Executive Council, during the War of Independence in 1931, W.T. Consgrave, who was the first Taoiseach President of the Executive Council, he, during the War of Independence in 1931,

he wrote to Austin Stack, who was supposedly Minister for Local Government in this make-believe government they had at the time, complaining about people who came from poor houses and saying that they were never going to do anything in their lives,

they were no good, they just wanted to live off the rest of society and the more of them that emigrated, the better. That was the mindset that informed much of the first government that came into office. The second government, the Fianna Fáil government, that came into office in 1932, was a bit more left-wing than the previous governments had been and a lot of good things were done in the early 30s was a bit more left-wing than the previous governments had been. And a lot of good things were done in the early 30s in spite of the fact that there was an economic war and things were very difficult economically.

But then they too sort of succumbed to the mindset that had been there previously. And I suppose you could call it capitalist mindset where people control the lives of other people and where a mass of people really live in misery. And that's what it was. Like a million people left Ireland from independence onwards. So what was freedom?

What did freedom mean to them? It didn't mean anything. They were escaping the awfulness of Ireland. Just think of people in mental institutions and think of what was done to them during all those times. There was an act passed in 1945, the Mental Health Act in 1945

and it required the government to publish every year a report by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals to publish it every year and it gave a special authority to the President of the High Court to ensure that it was published. The purpose of this was to ensure

that the people would know the conditions in which people were living in the mental hospitals. From 1945 until 1967 no report was published. The report was done okay

but never published. And nobody not the President of the High Court during that time, not any Minister, not any TD or anybody else raised the issue of what was going on. Why weren't these reports published? And I got to see some of those reports and they described

really appalling conditions in which people lived in mental hospitals and indeed long afterwards people in mental hospitals lived in truly appalling conditions. I saw one in St. Peter's in Port Rann in Dublin. It just was appalling.

People living in dormitories with maybe a foot between the beds, with a tiny little knocker, and that was all people's possessions, not even a curtain between the beds, so there's no privacy, no dignity, no anything.

These were people in mental hospitals. When you think of people in the Magdalene laundries, for instance, and all the chimneys, and the children as well, the children in well. The children reformatories. All of that. The children or people in prisons, prison

conditions were pretty terrible too. All of that. This was misery for so many people. Anyway. I'm assuming, Vincent, that it was, like I know what Magdalene Laundries, it was targeted at the poor more so than people who came from good families would say in inverted commas that it was the girls who came from the poor

families that were more likely to end up in the magdalene laundry and i'm guessing this was the same thing with the mentally ill oh absolutely yes but an industrial schools of course if you were uh if you were a young lad and you were misbehaving, if you came from the wrong family, you were sent to an industrial school. If you came from a good family, you were given the freedom. Yeah. My mother was born in Glasgow. Her mother and father had come from Manaheim. And her mother had four children, or five children.

And when my mother was three or so, her father was killed in a brawl in a stockyard in Glasgow. And they were living in a tenement in Glasgow and they had to come back to Valley Bay and Caddy Manor. And one of the children was deaf and dumb. Oney was his name. And because of the culture at the time, he was kept in a back room. And the family was deaf and dumb. Only was his name. And because of the culture at the time, he was kept in a back room. And the family was ashamed of him.

And just think of what that did to his mind. And then, he was sent to a mental hospital in Marlondown. And a cousin of mine, also a grandchild, a grand nephew of, or an actual nephew of,

Oney and I, who's also a nephew of Oney. And we found out about him from details in Manor Mental Hospital. And the conditions in which he lived for so many years. And that family, I'm sure my family is no worse than many other families, that was the culture of the time. So you say that it was the conditions of mental hospitals, that people in mental hospitals came from poor families. Yes, to a large extent, but they also came from rich families,

people who were ashamed of them and who wanted them out of the way and it was really something pretty horrific also the Catholic Church did so much damage that's what I was going to bring up this notion of when you're speaking about

we didn't get the freedom post independence do you feel that's because too much power was handed to the church and they restricted freedom? Yes, that was largely the case. People go on about partition and the reason we had partition essentially was because

a large number, a million Protestants in Northern Ireland didn't want to be part of Northern Ireland believing that home rule would be Rome rule and by God they were right and that

just think of how miserable it would have been for them if they had been coerced into a United Ireland

during all this and what they did well it's possible they would have been incredibly

demonised but of course what they did to the Catholics in other hand was

pretty appalling too and that's inadequately understood as well because that's what gave rise to the conflict later on. A rising anger among the Catholic communities there that was abandoned by the South. The South didn't want to know about them. writing about that at the moment and representations there was a groups that have campaigned for for social democracy in other land uh started by a gp actually in duncan and he and his wife were very much involved conrad klauski was his name and others were involved and they uh they published pamphlets they did studies on the scale of discrimination scale in housing in the gerrymandering in employment employment, and all that. And the southern government just didn't want

to know anything about it, and made it clear to them, just go away, stop annoying us. And that attitude and the sense of abandonment that the northern community felt, abandoned by what they saw as their own people

in the south led to the frustration and the anger that eventually exploded in late 1960s in the late 1960s into 1970s caused the horror of the conflict in Northern Ireland It's mad how some of the stuff you're talking about how we can still see

that rippling today like in, we'll say the mental health crisis in Ireland at the moment, access to mental health is atrocious in Ireland at the moment, treatment is atrocious, but it affects people with less money more.

People, like, if you have a mental health issue in this country, the best access, the best treatment that's available is either charities or if you can afford it going down the private route um if you can't afford that then you're essentially the system says fuck off similarly uh the eighth amendment in this country um the fact that women don't have access to abortion in this country

but if you're poor you cannot afford to go over to England. You know, and so we still see this rippling of how the system affects people with less money. There's a report published in 2002, it was called

Inequalities and Mortalities. And it showed that for all the killer diseases, including cancer, and the varieties of cancer, that people in the lowest income bracket, as compared to the highest income bracket,

died, and the mortality rate was far higher, people in the lowest income bracket. In one case, in one of the cancers, I can't remember which it was, it was far higher, people in the lowest income bracket. In one case, in one of the councils, I can't remember which it was, it was 30 times higher for people in the lowest income bracket. And so that inequality persisted even

unto death, and it was a massive issue. You talk about the Eighth Amendment, and thinking about it nowadays, this reflects of course a misogyny and Mary McAleese put it about that the Catholic Church is

an empire of misogyny and that's certainly true and that infected our minds very crucially as well but other factors, it wasn't just the Catholic Church that did that to us there were other factors that did misogycially as well. But other factors, it wasn't just the Catholic Church that did that to us,

there were other factors that did it misogynally as well. And one of the arguments, sorry, essentially the argument against the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, in my view, is misogynistic. And it is that people just don't think that women who are pregnant are in a

unique situation or babies who are in the womb of a pregnant woman are in a unique situation because they uniquely are dependent on a particular person for their sustenance. And there are

often cases where the woman, where the person who gives substance to this being, just can't do it. And just for various reasons, just can't do it. For whatever reason, like

say she has five other children, the husband has left her, she's in desperate state, and she just can't go on with it. And she can't give sustenance to that other person. No man is ever in that situation. Ever. It's impossible. And

the attitude in our society is, well, fuck her. Too bad. She's got to, under pain of criminal sanction, she's got to give her body to the substance of that person irrespective and that's it

Do you feel that because I was always of the opinion regarding, we'll say, I thought Ireland was quite left after independence, and it wasn't until the 50s, with Ireland voted that China should be allowed to enter the UN in the 50s, and at that moment, a message was sent to the bishop of uh boston to tell the bishops in ireland that the ireland and irish are gone to left wing and need to denounce communism from the catholic church so is is that a myth was that was ireland not left before the 50s no that was just a just a blip um it's uh It's had no particular significance.

The Catholic Church went berserk about it, but so what? And they went berserk about a lot of things. John Cooney's biography of John Charles McQuaid was the most powerful bishop there has been in Ireland since independence. He's the man who wrote the Constitution? Not quite, but anyway.

But this fellow complained to the editor of the Irish Independent who had shown an advertisement of a woman in a swimsuit. And he had taken out a magnifying glass and seen

that under the magnifying glass and seen that under the magnifying glass he could see a sentence of a pubic hair. And now imagine the mindset that would take a magnifying glass to look at this. And he demanded that no such

advertisement would appear again. Just think of that bloody idiot. Without him seeing the absurdity of it. It's very absurd, yeah. But anyway, the... Well, if you have to take out a magnifying glass if you're looking at photographs of nudie women, then what does that say?

Well, it wasn't a nudie woman. It was a woman in full bathing costume, stuff, and all her body almost entirely covered except for this bit of pubic hair. There's no pubic hair anymore, but... Were you ever held back from pursuing a guest on your show by the

producers or editors no no one ever said here chill out Vincent no next question what do you think are the main political faults of the last decade

ah yes think are the main political faults of the last decade? Ah, yes. The main problem, we have politics here is a circus. And they're saying that for this reason.

Politics is supposed to be about competing ideas about the kind of society we have and the kind of policies we should have. But there's no divergence of view at all in it. Sinn Féin looks as though they might offer a different view, but now they're so domesticated and they're so keen to join the establishment

on whatever terms that are on offer for them, they're the same. So Sinn Féin, of course, the Labour Party has gone away, one hopes. Sinn Féin, Fíor Fáil, Fíor na Géal, and if you ask anyone, well can you find any difference between them? X. Like you need a magnifying glass and an archbishop to find them. X. Like you need a magnifying glass and an archbishop to find it. On the subject of that, someone asked me if you think a mainstream left-wing youth movement like they currently have behind Corbyn in the UK is possible in Ireland. And who would you see as potentially even leading that? Are there any candidates?

Well, I think it's wrong to think in terms of leaders because if there's leaders, there are followers. And followers, when you think about followers, they're sort of gobshites who can't think for themselves. But basically, we've got to argue for a different mindset. I've made this point a number of times previously, and I'm sure some of the people have, whom I cannot see, none of whom I can see from here,

which I think is deliberate. But slavery was regarded as the natural order of things for millennia thousands and thousands of years in fact human beings have been around for 200,000 years certainly for 150,000 years slavery was regarded as the natural order of things some people were born to be masters some people were born to be slaves that's the way it is for certainly for 10,000 years

and I'll explain why I say only 10,000 years in a moment people believed that women were, if not the property of men, they were under the control of men or should be under the control of men and that they were under the control of men or should be under the control of men and that they were incapable of being in positions of

power or authority or whatever and it's only in the last very short time when you think about it, the spectrum of 200,000 years, it's only in the period of say the last 20, 30 years that people have begun to change their minds about women and women

have got some degree of equality but it's still far short of actual equality and of course slavery has ended and this was represented a transformation

of mindsets and suddenly people thought no slavery isn't a representative transformation of mindsets. That suddenly people thought, no, slavery isn't a natural order of things. There's something inherently insidious about slavery. It's wrong. Similarly, with regard to the treatment of women, there's something seriously insidious about it. And the feminist

movement, of course, is hugely important in alerting us to that. Something insidious about the way we we are equal where we treat women and that we still do and that us men still regard women and talk about women when you look at the on april 5th you must be very careful margaret it's a girl witness the birth bad things will start to happen evil things of. It's all for you.

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of the fellows who accused the rape in that room, irrespective of who you think is guilty, whether you think they're guilty or not, but the way they talked about it, the text about her the following day, that is a mindset which is prevalent among a lot of us men still, and particularly in the rugby fraternity,

that women are there almost just as sex toys for us men. So anyway, the point I'm making is that mindset, and you could call it ideology, is really what it's all about. And that if you don't change people's mindsets, nothing will change. That's happened with regard to slavery, it's happened with regard to women, and a lot of other things. And that's what we've got to do with regard to our politics here. We've got to change mindsets. We've got to open the possibility.

Yes, it's possible to create an equal society. It's possible to have people earning more or less equal incomes, to have equal access to healthcare, to have equal access to education, etc., etc., etc. But we're millennia away from it.

But until we started and still start arguing about it or whatever, yes it will take 100, 200, 300 years for that to come about, but unless we start arguing about it or arguing for it and talking about it and talking about the possibilities of it,

it won't happen. Do you think something such as something such as the water protest movement got as close as a people to realising that? I had ambivalent feelings about that. And I have more than ambivalent feelings about the left. And I have more than ambivalent feelings about the left. And the reason for that is the left is afraid to argue the case for equality. And to argue, for instance, the case for virtually equal incomes.

And the reason they're afraid to argue for that is because they feel they'll lose votes. And of course they're right. They will lose votes. Because if you argue for equal incomes, you talk about very high taxation and people are adverse to that. But we've got to persuade people that we need much more equal societies in the interest of us all. I've argued this for years,

we're a very, very rich society. In terms of households, if you divide the number of the wealth and GDP of our society by the number of households, GDP of our society by the number of households. The average, it comes out about 100,000 euros per household.

Now, and say 30,000 of that has got to go on taxation and all that, so you've 70,000 left. I think that's more enough. That's okay. Most households could live on 70,000 a year.

But of course that isn't what we have here. Anyway, the point I make is the left refuses to argue for accepting and taking on issues like the water bills, which are easy to take on, but they then won't argue for very significant

increases in taxation, arguing why this is necessary to create the kind of society that they say they want. In other words the left cop out. So they go for more of a centrist type of thing so as not to Well, they don't. They actually just stay sound.

Another fact about the left is they don't elaborate their none of them really have I'm talking about people before property the Socialist Party or the Solidarity Party now and other left wing groups they don't spell out

how the changes in the society that they want is going to be paid for they won't do that because they know they'll lose votes and they'll lose seats and that's the way it is. Of course they will. And the only way they gain seats

is through populist movements like the water charges or whatever. And this is a pity because we won't be able to change people's mindsets unless we're honest about an upfront. Unless there's an honest conversation. Yeah. What are your opinions on, we'll say,

emerging technologies, right? And the case for universal basic income if if so many jobs are being replaced by robots therefore universal basic income that gives the case for us like if you look at just walk into duns or tesco you know we're buying things off robots now you know the the checkout people don't exist anymore. So those profits are still going to the top, but they're not paying the wages for them because it's a robot. So should we tax the robots?

I mean, tax some robots, like bankers. I always thought it was funny but the argument was you have to pay them huge salaries if you pay if you pay what's the cliche if you pay peanuts you get monkeys and we pay them fortunes to be still got monkeys um um sorry what was the question again should we tax the robots vincent i think that

and if we technology technology change is inevitable and is welcome and that a lot of If we... Technology can change it's inevitable and it's welcome and that a lot of really dreary jobs, just think of if you're working in done stores at a checkout point and that's what you do every day for six or seven days a year a week, maybe if you're lucky

maybe you don't know whether you're going to get work this week or next week or whatever but think of what a misery those jobs are. And think of how, if we had a really equal society, how people could flourish in doing things that are creative and liberating. So we shouldn't be afraid of technology. We should say, yeah, this is an advantage. And, of course, a start-up point would be a basic income thing but eventually

something close to equal income for everyone yeah and one of the great successes we have in this society is the ga i think it is really a remarkable institution and it's founded primarily without without leaving them yeah but also and voluntary work by so many people. People say, oh, you've got to incentivise people and give them loads of money. No, you don't. There are other incentives in life, such as people who contribute so much to the GAA.

And we don't sort of think, well, Jesus, how can that be such an amazingly successful and great organisation based on voluntary work? because they're incentivized or something to join doing that there's fulfillment in doing that and we've got to see the incentives in terms of that rather than purely in financial terms of course financial terms have financial incentives have

some point to play but it's got out of hand. Yeah. What do you, like, the argument that the government will make that we'll say about the multinational corporations, the idea that they will not come to Ireland unless they have this pretty, pretty fucking easy corporation tax. What's your opinion on that? Should we be taxing Apple properly? Taxing Google? Of course, sir. Because I think that's like a collective sense of low self-esteem. tax what's your opinion on that should we be taxing apple effect properly taxing up google

of course because i think that's like a collective sense of low self-esteem we've got a highly educated english-speaking workforce i think google should be happy that they're here well why don't we have an irish what is that that we haven't created the only thing that is what and corporate level in ireland in the last there's's the two Stripe guys from Limerick. Ryanair. What other international company has made such a mark? Stripe. Do you know the two Stripe lads? The Collison brothers.

So they're these two lads. They were about 17 years of age. They were going to Castletroy College in Limerick. And they created a company called Stri age that were going to castles right college in Limerick and They created a company called strike. Yeah, yeah, yeah similar up to PayPal But I don't know that I mean are there any stripe offices in Ireland? No, the boys are just fucked off and become San Francisco's. Yeah They're no Franciscans anymore in every country, there's no Franciscans in them rightimerick, are there? There's no Franciscans in Limerick, no.

What have we got? There's a cross from where the lobster pot used to be. What's the... There's no monks. The Redemptors are still here. The Redemptors are still here, and there's the two lads, the monks in my roster are doing great work. You don't remember the Redemptors, I assume, when they were in their full flight,

but they scared the bejesus out of most of us when we're growing up. Really? Shouting and roaring about the fires of hell and all that. I had a buddy and he went to the Redemptors Church. And at the back of the Redemptors Church, they had this giant, like an oil tank. And this is where all the holy water in Limerick came from. So my buddy was about 10 years of age and he went into the redemptorist because he had a very inquisitive mind and he asked one of the monks he said look what's the crack with the that giant drum of water like the blessed every day how is all that water holy and the monk anyway

water holy and the monk anyway showed him that they had an actual ball cock in this giant drum of holy water and apparently there was a level at the bottom was continually blessed water and they had it figured out the theory was that the blessing of christ would imbue the rest of the water and then the whole drum became holy so then my little buddy asked he said all right okay well when that evaporates then does that not just go into the clouds and make all water holy and he got kicked out of the church what's your view about all that what's my view about about religion about religion i wouldn't have a hell of a lot of time for religion i I mean, I respect people's rights to practice it. I do believe that people should have the freedom to practice it.

Do you believe in God? I don't know what God is. I certainly don't subscribe to religion. I wouldn't be so arrogant as to go straight off and call myself an atheist. I think our understanding of time is flawed. We view time as something that starts and finishes, whereas the likes of quantum physics would tell us that time is most likely circular. So I think we could be living in a simulation, like a video game.

You know, that's what I think, is that we're a big giant joke on someone on someone's computer in another universe so we're not really here at all or we might not be here at all or or that's um this is that this is a mirage a mirage and consciousness you know reality is created look at you you're at moments actually i think i think it's probably but uh regarding me and religion, sure, I fucking... I nearly got banned from RTE

because I call communion way for haunted bread. You know? But I do... I enjoy religion as entertainment. I love to crack open... No, seriously, I like to crack open. No, seriously. I like to crack open the Bible as an artifact of mythology. Like, you know, I was only reading last week about the Tower of Babel.

Do you know the story of the Tower of Babel? I do. It's phenomenally interesting. Do you know about the Tower of Babel? No. It's a story from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is grey crack because it's nuts. It's how the Bible explains how god invented language and basically there was a town babylon which is now

iraq and the inhabitants of babylon were like fuck it heaven sounds class let's build a building so high that we can go up there so the residents of babylon built this giant tower and it got as far as the clouds so then god was upstairs in heaven going fuck me the humans are fucking the humans are nearly at my door with their tower what am i going to do they can't just climb to heaven so god invented all the words languages so that the builders of this tower could no longer communicate and then the building stopped and when the irish were told that story of the tower of babel by saint patrick we had when the the irish monks got a hold of it the irish had imbued that story and written the irish language into the

story of the tower of babel because when the irish heard about christianity of course there was no mention of paddy in it at all so the irish started to write themselves into the bible and one of the things they did with the tower of babel is that they wrote a little extra bit on the end that said that when god made all the other languages he got the best bits of all languages and made the irish language and it was these type of these type of stories that the the Irish monks made were one of the reasons that the Brits used originally for invading us. It's true. You should read up about St. Brendan. He gave a fucking communion wafer to a whale. And the Brit Normans used a fella called Geraldus, who was a historian of Ireland.

He wrote a book called Toperaldus who was a historian a historian of ireland he wrote a book called topographic hibernica and in this book he just basically said look at what the irish are doing to christianity they're gone stone mad and then he wrote that in latin took it to pope adrian who was a british pope he wrote a thing called the fucking the papal bull lord billeter which was the permission for the normans to invade Ireland because of what we'd done to Christianity. Are there any historians here? No, good. That might be a little bit off.

They said the Bible was great, the Old Testament was great, crack. No, it isn't. Oh, it's not. I mean, if you touch Mount Sinai, you get stoned to death. That might be a bit of a crack. But what it says about women is utterly insidious. The book of Leviticus, which is the third book,

the fourth book of the Bible is Genesis, and then Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and something else, Numbers, Leviticus, and something else. But a part of it says that for a man to touch a woman who is having a period is an abomination. Now, just think of people believing that and think of what they think of women. Yeah. Isn't it just so insidious and it's actually poisons um i know paul jerk on the port and um i was talking about the about the religion of the old testament and he said it's poison in the well of civilization yeah and it is and he said it is poison in the well of civilization yeah and it is and i mean that's not a popular view but um but i i forgot

but that's the thing you know we're entitled i would like to see a society where we're entitled to have this view about religion and other people are free to practice it so long as like i'd be a big fan of secular secularism you know do what you want with your religion eat your holy bread eat your fucking haunted bread believe that you're eating the ghost of a 2 000 year old carpenter just get it out of my laws please you know it's not the ghost what is it and what is the actual it's the actual 2 000 year old carpenter that you've to eat yeah um you you seem fairly on the ball with your religion there is that from your school days?

no, I got a I was interested in religion because it's such a powerful influence in society not just in this society but generally and you really can't understand our culture without understanding religion or understanding Christianity and Judaism.

And I persuaded RTE to allow me to do a program every night for some years on the Bible and it forced me to read the Bible. In the interest of balance? No, no, there was no balance at all in the program. But I found it very interesting, but also scary. I don't understand how other people who are much more intelligent than me

and who are much finer, more decent people than I am, can subscribe to religion, but that's it. How are you about the New Testament? How do you feel about the word of Christ? Similarly, I cannot see what the veneration of Jesus I do not understand why he said nothing new

like this thing that love your neighbor as yourself this was said a thousand years previously by the Egyptians and nothing of any consequence did he say that was new. And so what the hell? What is it? But also, I find it surprising that somebody tomorrow,

maybe somebody tomorrow will tell somebody else about this conversation we're having. And almost certainly they'll get it wrong. Yeah. Tomorrow. Yeah. we're having and almost certainly they get it wrong yeah tomorrow yeah now about jesus um the three of the gospels mark luke and um matthew were written between 30 and 50 years after he died yeah and the gospel john was written about 80 years after he died now how likely is it that they they're just making a lot of it up did no fucking paper

exact exact quotations it's just ridiculous there's no tape recorders or either in flowerpots or elsewhere um and so um and and also the the those gospels were written very much to agendas. There were dissensions within early Christendom. For instance, on the issue of whether you had to become a Jew first in order to become a Christian. Yeah. And that was a big issue. I'm struck by a theory that the reason Christianity got up and running was because the Romans, Constantine and then later emperors, were very concerned about the factionalism in the Roman Empire due to different religions.

And they were very keen to get a monotheistic religion because there'd be less there'd be no more arguments about my god is better than your god and all that by the way there's a sociological argument that's made that monotheism developed at a time when humans started to

live in larger communities that when you look at when humans were polytheistic it's when we were hunter-gatherers when we relied upon the forces of nature the sun the wind the moon that these things influenced our lives and when we grew into societies that had large amount large populations over a thousand that monetization creeped in because it echoed the political system that would be necessary to govern that amount of people. I don't know if that's true. I think that religions got codified about 10,000 years ago at the time of the agricultural revolution which I think is quite significant, because then private property came into play.

And the notion of surplus. And private property demanded that men control women's sexuality. And this was because men wanted to be sure that their property would go to their offspring, not somebody else, not some other fellow's offspring. So they had to control women's sexuality. And then religion came to the aid of that. Religion was formed around that idea.

And the early books of the Old Testament are polytheistic. They acknowledge the beliefs in other religions, etc. So that would have happened later on. But anyway, let me just... We have an interesting point of what you said there about 10,000 years ago regarding when property became a thing with the agricultural revolution that's also when dogs and cats right that's when cats became domesticated like cats nowadays are not fully domestic but dogs are we domesticated dogs when there were

wolves about 30 000 years ago when we were hunter-gatherers it's only when we had uh agriculture and then the idea of surplus being able to hold on to grain that vermin became a problem and then we started to domesticate cats and that's why cats today are still kind of pricks because we've had an extra 30 40 000 years to breed dogs to be friendly but cats are still kind of, I'm only 10,000 years old bud, fuck you. And half play with you. I haven't heard that before. It sounds

plausible. You're big into your history. I accept that you know more about cats than I do. You're big into your history. I'm not claiming it. Well, I guess I'm not claiming it. But anyway, I was

tempted to get around to saying that I'm attracted by the theory, and it could be just a theory, that the reason that Christianity got up and going was because the Roman emperors wanted an agreement on one religion, which meant monotheism, really.

And Judaism, obviously, would have been an option for them. And because of that, Judaism actually was allowed to prosper in many parts of the Roman Empire, like we know about Paul's journeys in Turkey and Greece and Rome and Cyprus and Malta, etc. But there was a problem with Judaism in having it accepted as the accepted religion throughout the empire. One of the problems was the dietary requirements of Judaism. And people weren't that keen on the diet restrictions and was that just pork or is there other stuff i don't know but the other was one was circumcision yeah but fathers weren't that keen on circumcision and uh so uh i in christianity came along and because uh christian christians had come to

accept that you didn't have to become a jew before becoming a christian christianity fitted the bill it's monotheistic didn't have the disadvantages of judaism and that was it but as well now that you mentioned that theory i'm not saying that this is true. How they used to circumcise back then, they didn't use a blade. The rabbi had to bite the foreskin off the child. I'm serious. So the argument could be made. I don't want to.

Have a rabbi bite off. A rabbi bite off your foreskin or someone puts water on your face. I'm going to put the water on my face. That's true, by the way i'm not making that up don't blame me if that freaks you out that's fucking that's three thousand year old shit there is something relevant to this that's very very topical and it's female genital mutilation and and about 200 000 women have been genetically mutilated uh in the world today and it's prevalent in primarily in africa but many other asian countries and it happens in britain and probably in ireland a little bit as well there

was a report last year that it was going on in Ireland, yeah. Yeah. And it is just horrific. I mean, you think of the extent to which... And, of course, the point of it was to diminish women's sexual appetites or enjoyment. Again, to control women's sexuality. And when you think about the scale to which men went to control women, it just is almost frightening. Yeah.

But we still do it um i in other ways but wasn't it in catalysism where women were not permitted to orgasm that a man was if a woman orgasmed there was a scene i hadn't heard that one i hope it's true and it didn't just come to me in a dream I hadn't heard that one. I hope it's true and it didn't just come to me in a dream. Do you think there's elements of Catholicism that are essentially polytheistic because of the veneration of saints and things like that? I never thought about it.

I think about that a lot. Do you? I do. Do you ever hear about the... There's illegal Catholic saints. There's a few of them. And one of them is a dog saint. He's an Italian.

I can't think of his fucking name, but he's... He's a dog that saved a baby. And... This village in Italy started worshipping him and drawing pictures of this dog in, like, a bishop's robe. And the church made him completely illegal, and now now you're secretly worshipping to this day Jesus Christ they had a similar thing out in Kilrush where they worship an eel

I'm joking here what what do you think of the current state of Irish journalism? Journalism is going through a difficult time now because of social media. Yeah. And also because the print media is moving towards extinction. And it's an issue. is moving towards extinction. It's an issue. It's a huge problem. And I don't know how it's going to be resolved. I assume that people will find, through social media outlets,

ways of doing good journalism again, and people will begin to appreciate it and will get followings and attractions because of it that's one reflection another reflection is that in many ways journalism it's possible to do journalism better than it was ever done before because of the internet that the

information that's readily available now is so gigantic as compared to what it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. And so it's possible to do things journalistically now that wasn't possible to do before. But another point is that the trivialization of public discussion is really for instance look at our media and look at the obsessions they have about Leo Vradka's

socks or whether Leo Vradka or Michal Martin will be the next teacher or Mary Lou will be in government next time and it makes no difference whatsoever, not a tiny little bit of difference. Who's in government next time,

who's not in government next time, whatever. It makes no difference at all, because it will make no difference to people's livelihood, or to people's welfare, because they all think the same thing. And you'll never have journalists, particularly political journalists, writing about how Fianna Fáil, for instance, or the present government, how the policies that they espouse or the policies they agree to

affects the lives of ordinary people. And just look at the scale of inequality we have in our society. The numbers of people who are living in poverty, which is very, very high, our risk of poverty is very, very high. We have very high levels of inequality in our society. Look at the problem of the housing. We're a hugely rich society, we can't provide housing,

a basic requirement for people. Look at the health, the point I was making earlier on about rich people or people better off, people in poor income groups dying prematurely by at least five years. 5,000 people

die prematurely every year in this society, this is what this report said, because of inequality. And nobody bothers about it at all. Similarly with regard to... But where are the journalists saying this? Yeah, similarly the sex abuse thing, I go on about the sex abuse, this is a very important thing. It shows that 200,000 people, women, 200,000 women have been raped in the course of lifetimes and another 100,000 to 200,000 have been otherwise sexually abused. But 200,000 women raped in our society. It's

just, in our society, 4 million people. It's just shocking. And the percentage of that that actually go on to successfully convict their rapist in court is something like 1%. And one of the big problems about this case in Belfast is, suppose these guys are acquitted and maybe properly acquitted, I don't know I don't know about that but let's just suppose for a minute they're acquitted

think of what that will do to women around in all of Ireland and elsewhere when they've been raped and they're thinking of reporting to somebody of course they won't do it they'll be terrified of that look at the audio that woman was put through

for seven days in the witness box people will be terrified I have two daughters and if either of them were raped I think I would say to them don't go near the police I'll get a big iron bar and break the legs of the people who did it

and that's what that's that's what... APPLAUSE Is your reaction like that, Vincent, because you have so little faith in the legal system when it comes to this type of... when it comes to rape? I'm afraid so, yeah. But also, it's not treated with anything like the same...

Sex abuse is not treated with anything... Its prevalence is so great that you think this is a major issue in our society it's a peripheral issue at best my peripheral issue which we get upset about every now and again for instance tom humphries that journalist fellow yeah uh convicted of of um grooming a woman and raping her a girl and raping her and the outrage that was about her. I really was irritated about the outrage, because I was thinking, how the fuck did you not know that this is an epidemic in our society? And we don't treat it as an epidemic.

There's no appreciation it's an epidemic, and it's a major problem that we need to do something about it. Anyway, that's my thought. Thank you. about it. Anyway, that's all. I mean... The one positive out of that is that that's why the Me Too movement exists. It's an act of digital vigilantism because the system does not work. Yes, absolutely. And that's really good that that's happened, yeah. Well, it puts... It makes men feel less freedom to commit crimes that they feel they'd otherwise get away with. Can I ask you a question?

Do you think that men, that we, us men, not just Irishmen, but probably generally, but let's talk about just Irishmen, that we're fucked up with regard to women and sex generally? Absolutely, yeah, that's definitely... I mean well what do you mean by fucked up well how did you agree with me if you didn't know what i meant by fucked up no but no for me when you said fucked up do i think we have uh when you said that to me i i taught we have a sense of power sexual power and entitlement i would agree with that but then i have to go what that's my definition of fucked up i wonder what vincent says

but the way we the way that men often talk about women for instance the use of the word fuck actually is in itself is when you think about it as i could give a fuck just think of that that's it as though the most it's devaluing the act of sex. The act of sex is the most useless thing you could have. It's one of the most beautiful things one can have, if you look at it properly. But the word cunt, unless you look at women, I think that there's something really disturbed about that.

That the word that we use to describe something, to give the worst description of a human being, happens to be the same word as it refers to women's genitalia. There's something really disturbing and fucked up about that. Jeez, there I go again. Thank you. um yeah no i mean i was asking do you think that no i'd agree with you and uh i mean i was raised uh as within the privilege of being a being a man you know i never have to i don't have to worry about my sexual safety at know i never have to i don't have to worry

about my sexual safety at any point in my life i don't have to worry about i can go into limerick city tonight and walk around at three o'clock in the morning and at no point am i worrying about being sexually assaulted and no but no one wants to sexually assault me well barren that i wouldn't but like yeah it's it's um i never had to think about this shit until it was pointed out to me by women and until it was pointed out to be my women i was blissfully going about my life just going ah you're overreacting and then someone had to point it out to me and go no this is how it actually is for me as a woman um i know i can't meet you there tonight why can't you meet me there tonight you lazy bitch uh because i can't go out at that time of night because people want to rape me i'd never thought of it you know it needed to be pointed out

to me explicitly but it's in it's having a more ordinary circumstance like for instance a woman walking along the street late at night when the street is fairly abandoned, and there's somebody walking behind her. That woman is scared. Terribly, yeah. Usually scared. For instance, a woman in a lift, like in Ireland,

there's not many very high-rise buildings, but, for instance, in America, there's a woman in a lift on on her own and a man gets in, she's immediately terrified. And there's something wrong with the men's culture. And I think it's to do with our sense of

what it means to be a man, the hard man, the fucking... What it means to be a man, the tough man. He's a hard man. But also, taking it back to some of the text messages in that rugby trail it's not not only us being elevated for being hard men

but being elevated for how much sex we can have and the quality, if the sex that we have is I don't give a shit about her it was just a ride that is elevated within male culture as a positive thing yeah when you're younger in particular like oh absolutely yeah yeah yeah so i mean i mean all you can do is fucking you talk to the lads coming up the young lads coming up is it enough to talk to them because that's the culture,

it's there. And there is a problem with masculinities with us men and the only way to address it is through education but also through the media and through talking about it and acknowledging that it's an issue

and pointing out to men that there's something disturbed about it. And, like, I mean, what I'd wonder too is, like, in sexual health classes that kids are given, like, when I was given sexual health classes, it was delivered to me by a priest, you know, and I'm not that old. Now at least they have sexual health classes, but I'd like to know how much of the sexual health classes that are delivered to young male children have to do with consent and have to do with empathy for the fear that women face by simply existing

do you know what i mean because that for me like i said that was a huge eye-opener for me yeah to realize like you were saying there about a woman alone and lift that had to be beaten into me that had to be really pointed out to me for me to believe it because i've never dealt with it my whole life i've never worried about like the worst that's going to happen to me is someone's going to rob my phone do you know what that's what i have to worry about but no one wants to take my body like on the the program that I did on TV3 for 10 years, a feature which I never bothered with the Twitter thing, partly because I... With the what thing?

The Twitter thing. Trigger warning. Content warning. That I didn't want to do so because I felt that if I tweeted, I would then do so imp some positively at times and regret it and I never bothered reading it either but other people tell me just tell me that women on the program

would get the amount of abuse that was directed at them on the social media was really extraordinary and this happens all the time with any women going on television on any programs they get terrible abuse and terrible um denigration and there's something really strange um i'm disturbed about that i've thought about that and i think what it is is that

when when two men argue there's's the threat of physical confrontation. And I think when men are arguing with a woman, they're unconsciously aware that there will be no physical confrontation, that the man will always win. So men unconsciously moderate their behavior with other men. That's why lads, when they get together, tend to have great banter. their behaviour with other men. That's why lads, when they get together, tend to have great banter. Because to elevate the conversation into argument could mean two men fighting,

two men boxing heads off each other. And when they're online, if they have a woman, they go straight in with a load of violent language because she can't hit back, and she's not going to hit back, and that's what's in their head. That's just my theory about it. Yeah.

Yeah. In your... back and that's what's in their head that's just my theory about it yeah yeah but in your your in your i haven't i i tried to get your book through amazon and no there's not they're out of print they'll be in print yeah so i got it but um and in your podcast what are the themes what are the big issues you raise my big theme is uh mental health mental health i used to be a person who suffered from severe anxiety and depression when i was about 19 um so did i you did as well did you yeah around that time when you were young that yeah yeah and i overcame it and now i'm able to sit in front of an entire audience and be completely relaxed and comfortable,

and so are you. But you have to wear a mask. Well, no, that's just so, like, I can go to Aldi and buy carrots and people don't say hot or something. I'm not particularly interested in fame in Ireland. Sure, you know yourself. You'd be going to a shop and people go,

how are you getting on, Vincent? Do you know what I mean? Or they might go, I didn't like what you said the other night on TV, Vincent. For me, I want to avoid all of that shit. So I get to... Is that all it is, is it? That's the bones of it, yeah.

What's the flesh of it? What? What's the flesh of it? How do you mean the flesh of it? You said that's the bones of why you wear a mask. What's the flesh of it how do you mean the pleasure that's the bones of fire I just I I started the rubber bandits thing in the year 2001 Big Brother when the first Big Brother was on television and I got to see how disposable celebrity was and i got to see how we say the person who won big brother became the most famous person in ireland and england for about two months

and then slowly faded into nothingness and it scared the living shit out of me and i don't think i ever want to be recognized in the street or Or I don't ever want to... Like, I get to go on television. I get to have a podcast. I get to write a book. But at the same time, I get to live in Limerick and have a normal life. And I wouldn't trade that for anything, you know? That's what you said. And as well, being famous in Ireland.

That's what you said was the bones of it. Now, I asked you what was the flesh of it. That is the flesh of it. No, you said that was... You had already said that was the bones of it. Now, tell us about the flesh of it. That is the flesh of it. No, you said that was the bones of it. Now tell us about the flesh of it. There must be other layers of issues there. You're kind of picking up.

This is a man who used to have social anxiety and now he happens to wear a mask in his face and he feels comfortable doing it with a mask in his face. I don't know, like... Anxiety is no longer a part of my life. Do you know, it hasn't been a part of my life for about ten years and nor is depression. So...

I don't know, I just... I'm blind by now, shall I mean? If I took the bag off, I'd just be some lad. What's wrong with being a lad? I just... I want to go to Aldi. I want to go to Aldi and not be bothered by people. That is? That's about it.

I'd say there's more to it than that. But the audience think there's more to it than that. audience think there's more to it than that. I don't know. I haven't tested it. What did your mammy say about it? My ma? Yeah. She said, don't curse in front of Vincent Brown. Oh, Vincent.

You bald boy. Yeah, that was the magnificent Vincent Brown. Someone who just, he put me on a spot at the end, he put me on the fucking spot, because that's what he does, that's what he does, he will not, he's an expert at, like, there's no dodging questions with that man, he will go straight at it, what did you really say, what did you really say, fucking legend, so that was an absolute pleasure, absolute pleasure, um, I hope you enjoyed it, and again, apologies, apologies for not giving you the full shebang this week, but I'm over in fucking Spain, and I don't have

the facilities to give a decent podcast, to give a decent quality recording, so that's why I have the live podcasts on hand, in case of an emergency you know um it's better than doing nothing this week which i would never do i'll always put out something for you all right god bless go in peace uh have a lovely have a lovely week and i'm gonna back to you next week with a normal regular podcast hug you delicious boys and girls rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game

and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. you