http://www.gayhealthnetwork.ie/folder/web/pdf/hatecrimereport.pdf

Donal I really do have to question this statement – To me it proves that you did not read the report – If you did you would notice a hate crime was described as a “physical or verbal attack”

You also falsely assumed that most of the attacks that were referred took place right outside the Dublin scene venues – again if you read the report you would see a lot of attacks reffered took place in places other than venues

And yes, I freely acknowledge it colours my viewpoint. As, indeed, your experience colours your viewpoint. Which is why, if you read what I said, independent research is so important and necessary, to take it away from the personal. Which is why, to repeat myself ad nauseam, you need more than a few quibbles (and your criticisms are minor, really) to declare so certainly that “Beating up gays is no longer a sport in Ireland”.

The violence continues, it’s a big problem in Dublin, it’s bigger than the guards are aware of, and it’s certainly bigger than you or me.

Well, you did find this page in the first place by googling yourself. And as for there not being many others in this thread, it’s not a group blog or a group forum. It’s just a series of comments about my response to your article.

I meant by sport was something that is casually countenanced and viewed as trivial by society and the gardai.

So you’re now claiming your headline should really have gone as follows?

“Beating up gays is no longer viewed as a sport by society in general and the gardai”

I think you must concede that that is not what you said.

We have come a long way from the Palmerstown Park case.

Which one? I’ve been away from Ireland since 1993. My first serious queerbashing was in Palmerston Park, by a gang that piled out of a white van brandishing fake garda ID cards to distract me. I was so ashamed I was there looking for sex I lied to everyone about it, and even moved a garda car along when they stopped to enquire on the street what was wrong with my face covered in blood and a broken nose. That was back in the eighties. I’ve come a long way since then. But it means I have some direct insight into why people don’t report to the guards. Concentrated calculated practised violence is a terrifying thing to experience, it does terrible things to a person.

The gardai i spoke to who work in the area would not. But then what do they know.

They only hear about 20% of the attacks. From my personal experience, I respect the guards and the work they do. But they can only go on what they are told.

You seem resigned to us not reaching a shared understanding of this problem.

In my experience, I trust anyone who admits to making a mistake, or perhaps wishes something might have been put a bit differently, or perhaps saying that a headline wasn’t quite right, etc etc etc. But you have displayed no such attitude, despite having been given many such opportunites, and are now even trying to persuade me that your damning headline really means something else. Such sophistry does not convince.

I’m glad that in addition to reading my stuff you’re now also googling me. Thanks for taking such an interest! I look forward to giving you plenty more material for the scrapbook in future.
I’m not playing the ‘my readership is bigger than yours’ card, merely noting that yourself and myself seem to be by far the most prolific contributers to this thread. Oh yeah and conor, although he seems to have cut and pasted a lot of his CV so perhaps we can’t count all of his post!
Again and again you voice annoyance at the word ‘sport’ used in this context. I may be repeating myself but what I meant by sport was something that is casually countenanced and viewed as trivial by society and the gardai. This I think is no longer the case (altough progress could still be made – eg. legally defining what a ‘hate crime’ is) We have come a long way from the Palmerstown Park case.
The superintendant in pearse st may have issued this warning and gay men have been attacked but i wonder would he be comfortable saying that there is a violent attack on a gay person every night of the week in dublin (as per the johnny survey). The gardai i spoke to who work in the area would not. But then what do they know.
You seem resigned to us not reaching a shared understanding of this problem. Again I think you are painting my picture as more extreme than it actually is. I wrote in the original piece that there is a problem with violence against gay people, that it should be tackled and that it is inexcusable. I merely questioned that the problem was quite so severe or that the attacks happened in the numbers described in the johnny survey. So I’m not quite turning the problem on its head or saying that the problem of violence against gay people does not need to addressed.
Thank you for your counterpoints. This has been my first experience of blogging, or responding to threads online and it’s been interesting if nothing else. If I write about this again in the future I will bear your points in mind.

Thanks for your comments, however barbed. If you are still willing to stand 100% by the headline statement that “Beating up gays is no longer a sport in Ireland” then I can’t see how, with the best will in the world on both our parts, we can move towards some small shared understanding of this matter. I agree with you that the best response to the detail of your argument is a stout defence of the methodology. But given your stance so far, I doubt if you are going to change your mind, no matter what is written, and no matter that the Superintendent of Pearse St issued a warning on 30th May about a gang preying on gay men at night in Dublin. How many do they have to attack before you change your mind? One is too much.

I’ve explained why I don’t buy The Sunday Independent, and when I’m back living in Dublin full-time, which is only a matter of weeks away, I’m still unlikely to. But on the matter of violence in Irish society, I will carry on writing about it, here and in Hot Press, and watch keenly the debate about it, wherever it occurs. It may surprise you that I am against a culture of victimology, and believe that too many gay people fall into it.

I use Google to keep tabs on things when I’m away from home, it’s quite useful really, although it has its flaws. I wouldn’t be so quick to knock it. Looking up “homophobic violence dublin” results in this page coming first on Google. And I wonder what happens when one searches for donal lynch journalist?

Don’t knock blogging, or play “my readership is bigger than yours”. This page will be around for quite some time to come, and many people will get to read it, who want to find out more about this topic. (Or about you.) Including the mistakes I made in my initual blustering post, which I’ve admitted to. That’s the nature of blogging – it’s not perfect. But this debate has to happen somewhere, and if it happens in this imperfect medium then I’m glad.

The day that beating up gays is no longer a sport in Ireland is a day that I’d love to see. I certainly intend spending a lot of my time and energy working towards that day. But it’s certainly not here yet, and for you to declare it so, in the most popular newspaper in Ireland, on the flimsiest of grounds, is simply wrong.

Donal writes:
Well Dermod, firstly I haven’t had any response from Johnny and they did not take the opportunity to respond to the piece in the letters to the editor the following week. Nor did you.

I can’t answer for Johnny, that’s down to the PR officer. As for me, I only came across your piece from a Google news alert for responses to the Johnny Hate Crime report, which arrived in my in-tray 3 weeks after your piece was published. I never buy the Sunday Independent – the paper is steeped in a sort of malice, of which the headline of your article is but one example. (Despite my repeatedly challenging you on it, your silence speaks volumes.)

Secondly I can’t see how it follows that if the report is flawed then ‘sensible constructive debate about what needs to happen is delayed by years’. Why would this be the case?

“Sensible constructive debate about what needs to happen” can only happen when the facts of a given problem are established. Then, and only then, government policies can change, on foot of that knowledge. When the facts are unclear or disputed, then that queers the pitch for all concerned. That’s why your challenge is so serious, and why you’d better be very clear you know what you’re talking about. You appear to underestimate the impact of throwing mud at the report.

And if the report is flawed would it in you mind be better that people not point this out?

As I’ve said, I’m more interested in truth than drama. But what you have done is quibble with a few things and then dramatically declare in your piece the opposite of what the findings were: attacks are “no longer” a sport. SPORT????? I hope you never ever have to endure being beaten up by a gang for sport. You would never allow such a headline to appear, and if you had any compassion for people who have been attacked like that you’d hang your head in shame.

Let’s take another example: Supposing a report is commissioning which ‘proves’ that 90% of children in Ireland have been abused. This seems an unlikely statistic so we examine the methodology behind the survey. We then suggest this is flawed is various ways. By your logic in this scenario we would by our criticism be setting progress on child welfare back by years.

Well ordinarily it would, on a non-emotive issue – how could governments proceed in changing the law or taking action on a matter unless they had a reliable report to go on?

But your example highlights one important thing. Taking action against violence against queers is NOT the same as taking action against the abuse of children. The government will rush through legislation in a week to protect a child – but they will need a hell of a lot more persuasion to take the necessary action to protect victims of homophobic violence – who, let’s face it, are often those of us who are the least likely to win public sympathy – men on their own looking for sex at night.

In order for the root of homophobia to be tackled, it has to be talked about in schools, especially in tough all-boys schools, who produce the monsters that get their kicks beating up queers. In order for that to happen, the Catholic Church will have to be directly challenged. In order for any government to want to do that, they’d need reliable evidence and research to establish the extent and nature of the problem.

Oh, by the way, if you were questioning the child-abuse report in the same way that you questioned the Johnny report – let’s see. How sensitive would the Sunday Independent be? How respectful to the victims? I can see the headline on your piece now…

“Pre-teen sex toys no longer on the shelf”