Dean Buckley Housekeeping

Concluding Unjournalistic Postscript to Local Investigations

I first started this blog in 2011, when I was still in secondary school, and I’ve rebooted it four or five times since then. The last time I rebooted it, early last year, I wrote a post giving some context for whatever I wrote next. This was partly to lay out my political beliefs clearly so that I could avoid the tedium of clarifying them in every post or in response to future questions or comments. All that stuff is still accurate and up to date, but the rest of the post was meant to stress that “unless I say that what I’m writing about on this blog is important, please presume I merely find it interesting”.

I wanted to frame future posts that way because at the time, I was still in the midst of what we’ll call a years-long case of writer’s block because I don’t want to get into it and the main point is that I had stopped writing. This was highly unusual for me, as I’d been writing pretty much constantly since I was in primary school. From 2012 to 2016, I was mainly a poet, and I’ve mainly been a film and TV critic since then. Since 2017, I’ve written all but exclusively for The Sundae, a blog I co-created and co-edit with my friend Ciara Moloney. I’ve written almost nothing there, or anywhere, since 2021. When I rebooted this blog last year, it was part of a semi-failed effort to get writing again and I wanted to make the stakes as low as possible. I wrote two short pieces on neutrality and tax subsidies that I was pretty happy with, but I just couldn’t properly smash through that writer’s block until late April, when I began investigating a small group of anti-migrant agitators in my area, and ultimately wrote three pieces (1, 2, 3) about what I learned. I now find myself highly motivated to write again, but I can’t do that in good faith without acknowledging the change in context since I last rebooted the blog. I’m not planning to exclusively write investigative pieces here, but I am going to continue writing about local politics, amongst other things.

I can’t do that honestly under the premise that reader should presume I don’t think what I’m saying is important. I want to write for and about things that are important to me, including my community, and if I’ve learned one thing over the last three years, it’s that I can’t write if I don’t write with my heart on my sleeve. I always try to say what I mean and mean what I say, but I’ve let fear of vulnerability and responsibility limit what I write in the past. Not anymore. I’m writing again, and I’m not going to stop.

If it takes vulnerability, that’s between me, myself and I. But if it takes responsibility, I have to be responsible to more than just myself. I don’t care how pretentious, self-righteous or corny it sounds: doing the right thing matters to me. I feel a powerful, overwhelming sense of moral responsibility towards other people and I earnestly believe in an absolute moral law, ordained by God, that is the first, last and only standard against which any ethics can be judged. I will always try to hold myself to the highest possible standards – for better and worse, as far as my mental health goes – but if I’m seeking to promote the good by participating in the public square, I should be accountable to more than just my own self-assessment. If I were writing for a publication, I would have a code of conduct, but I’m writing on my personal blog. I might try to write something like a code of conduct some day, but in the meantime, a new context for future posts will have to do.

First, I need to reset the tone of the blog. I stand by the substance of everything I said in my three pieces on Clonmel Concerned Residents, and I don’t regret my willingness to express my views in the course of reporting facts. However, I was too often reckless with language, especially in the first piece, and the excessive profanity was particularly unwise. I curse like a sailor when speaking or writing freely and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I showed a lack of prudence, judgement and discipline in how I expressed myself by writing, editing and publishing those pieces in the form I did. They needed more drafts, but I let my sense of urgency about getting the information out override my better instincts as a writer and I let my fear that I’d stop writing again override my better instincts as a person. If harsh speech against others can be justified by moral righteousness, then it should be phrased as righteously as possible. Many leftists are convinced it’s okay to say otherwise unacceptable things as long as the target is sufficiently abhorrent, but I don’t believe in moral get-out-of-jail free cards and I don’t like bullies. I took too much satisfaction from insulting people in these pieces, and continuing to write so recklessly would only feed an ugly instinct toward cruelty I usually try to starve. I will try much harder in future to follow the advice of a wise commenter on my first CCR piece, who said I “need to be objective, not call people bastards etc”. It’s not the first time I’ve received that advice, admittedly, but it’s the first time I’m taking it seriously.

Second, I need to reset the intent of the blog. I want to write about things that are important to the world and things that are interesting to me. As far as opinion, analysis or commentary go, there’s no point pretending I know all the subjects I’ll want to write about, let alone follow through on writing. I’ll still be publishing future pop culture writing on The Sundae, though I have considered writing about video games here sometimes, since Ciara doesn’t play them and it seems cruel to make her edit my takes on them. Broadly speaking though, the topics I’m currently most eager to write on are politics, philosophy, conspiracism, the Internet and Ireland above all things. I have spent too much of my writing life trying to write for a general English-speaking audience and nowhere near enough writing about or for my country. I don’t feel some patriotic duty to glorify the nation or any shit like that, but I love my country and its history and culture, and I always have. I’m sick of not pursuing those passions on the page so I can be more accessible to Yanks and Brits who know nothing of Ireland. I’m done with it. I am not a citizen of the world, I’m an extremely tired man who’s lived all but five years of my life in the floodplain of a single river. I want to write like one.

But I don’t just want to write opinion, analysis and commentary here. I want to write on local issues and I will be doing further investigative work even if I only publish investigative pieces occasionally. I decided early on I could write, at most, three investigative pieces before saying “I’m not a journalist” would start to feel like a lie, and I wrote three on Clonmel Concerned Residents, so I’m all out of excuses. I still don’t feel like a journalist, but whatever I call myself, I have been doing journalism, and I’m going to do more journalism in the future, so I should be held to the appropriate ethical standards. However, I want to make it very clear that I have zero intention of pretending I have an objective point of view on anything I write about. I will never report as fact anything I cannot prove as fact, but I can’t and won’t hide how I feel about those facts. I think it’s more honest to be upfront about my opinion than pretend I don’t have one. It’s one thing when you’re part of a publication or institution that has to collectively stand over what individuals write, and where a strong firewall between news and opinion is actually very important to build credibility and maintain public trust. But I’m just a man with a blog and I’m not putting a firewall in my brain. I would rather be trusted for my independence and integrity than my ability to appear impartial. I may not have the manpower or resources of a professional newsroom, but I will always work as hard I can to ensure my reporting is reliable, accurate and fair.

To that end, I’ve set up a tip jar for readers who want to support my work by contributing towards my expenses. I have limited opportunities for paid work due to a rare sleep disorder and haven’t actively pitched as a writer for years. I’m fine with that, and I’ve been happily writing and publishing pop culture criticism for free since 2017, because I’d rather make nothing than write nothing and I’m too punk to paywall. But I’m putting a lot more work into my new writing and it costs money to access the research materials and public documents I’ll need to do it well. I’m still too punk to paywall, especially work in the public interest, and I still have a rare sleep disorder, so I can’t commit to a regular publishing schedule. The only crowdfunding option that makes sense is pay what you want, when you want, if you want. I appreciate whatever help I get.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who supported me through my long dark three years of the soul and throughout the writing of these pieces, especially my partner, my mother, my friends Ciara, Conor, Matthew and Graham, my neighbour, and everyone in the community who reached out to express solidarity, offer advice or share information. I very demonstrably could not have done it with you.

Dean Buckley Investigative Reports

The Fire at Heywood Road

For my previous articles on Clonmel Concerned Residents, see here and here.

I genuinely meant it when I said I didn’t intend to write about Clonmel Concerned Residents and their campaign against housing for refugees in the town again any time soon. I won’t pretend I haven’t gotten anything from the experience of investigating and writing about this group, but I equally won’t pretend it didn’t take a toll on me. The actual footwork mostly consisted of reading posts and comments and watching videos that were alternately tedious and disgusting. I needed a break and already had one booked, a visit with friends in London, my first holiday since before the pandemic apart from a weekend sojourn to catch a Frankie Boyle show. I’d everyone in my life telling me I needed to look away for at least a few days or I’d go cracked, and for once, I listened and looked forward to unplugging and detoxing and all that good shit.

Unfortunately, the pace of events did not respect the sanctity of my travel plans. First, two core members of Clonmel Concerned Residents, Dee Dempsey and Shane Smith, announced they would be running in the local elections in Clonmel. Then, on the 13th of May, members of Clonmel Concerned Residents established a camp on the Heywood Road and began a campaign of direct action to obstruct the development of 82 modular homes intended to house currently homeless Ukrainian refugees. They had previously announced their plans to occupy the site at the 2nd of May meeting I attended, though I chose not to publicise it in my previous post for fear of giving them free advertising.

That night, I also sent my previous posts to several local media outlets, including Tipp FM. I mention Tipp FM specifically because they replied immediately the next morning, so I know for a fact they’ve had everything I’ve reported since then, and I think it’s important they not be able to plead ignorance about how extreme this group is and has been from the start. I was already fairly anxious about how fast everything was happening as I was heading off, but I was still shocked by just how quickly things escalated in the next few days. By the 17th, there had been a night-time attack on the site in which a number of construction vehicles were burnt out, along with the small plywood shelter that Clonmel Concerned Residents had built for their camp. More concerningly, security staff at the site were assaulted, with one man requiring hospitalisation. I have no evidence that Clonmel Concerned Residents were involved in this attack or a possible second incident of arson, but they celebrated it all the same and doubled down on their campaign with, at best, complete indifference to the risk of further violence.

They organised a march in Clonmel on the 25th of May that drew in cranks from the South Tipp area and beyond to swell their own very small numbers and use the turnout to create a false impression of popular local support when the reality is that there is no appetite for this kind of politics in Clonmel. I’m under no illusions about Tipp being a lefty homeland either. We have one of the most conservative electorates in the country, but it’s a very traditional, cautious kind of conservatism already well-served within the spectrum of the Irish political mainstream. Before this march, Clonmel Concerned Residents had never turned out more than 30-40 people at a single event in a town of over fifteen thousand and even with outside agitators answering their call for support, they’ve barely fielded more than a dozen people on the Heywood Road at a time. They turned out substantially fewer people at a second march over the weekend, even though the first march was rained out and the stones were splitting for the second. The truth is that even most people in Clonmel who oppose the modular homes do not support Clonmel Concerned Residents and their campaign or their tactics. They can claim to speak for the silent majority all they like, but these are not marches by or for the people of Clonmel, they are marches by and for a national far right movement actively looking for towns to turn into sites of confrontation, whether the residents like it or not, and must be understood as such.

Events in Clonmel are now being reported on in both the national press and online outlets of the far right, with the former providing scant information and little context, while the latter are actively propagandising on behalf of Clonmel Concerned Residents, presenting them as the vanguard of a townwide rebellion instead of a handful of cranks so marginal only about half of their own public-facing members even live here. I have no illusions about anything I write making much of an impact in either of those media ecosystems, but I can keep doing my best to let the people of Clonmel know who this group really are, what they really believe and what they really care about.

This time, I have headings.

Continue reading “The Fire at Heywood Road” →
Dean Buckley Investigative Reports

“Clonmel Concerned Residents Group” is a Racist Fraud

(I have written a short(er) update to this story.)

The short version: a small group of agitators calling themselves the Clonmel Concerned Residents Group includes at least two deranged, racist conspiracy theorists who have both spoken for the group on local radio station Tipp FM, called Dee Dempsey and David Moloney. Dempsey is, to the best of my knowledge, an actual resident of Clonmel, and believes, among other things, that the Irish government is being directly controlled by Israel, and that housing for refugees is part of a Zionist plan to replace white Irish people with foreign settlers. Moloney is the operator of the Facebook page “Clonmel Concerned Residents Group”, official voice of the group and their campaign, even though he’s from Tipp Town, and has no connection to Clonmel whatsoever, by his own admission. He believes there’s a secret plan to construct a detention centre for asylum seekers in Clonmel, and claims he was personally told of this plan by Mattie McGrath, TD. At time of writing, Mattie McGrath has not responded to an email asking if he told Moloney this, and refused to give a straight answer to other questions about his communication with Moloney and the CCRG’s request for a list of buildings and sites in and around Clonmel that may be used as housing for refugees.

These people claim to speak for the residents of Clonmel, and particularly of the housing estates and halting site adjacent to a parcel of HSE-owned land on Heywood Road where the Department of Integration plans to build 82 modular homes to house currently homeless refugees from the war in Ukraine. They don’t speak for those people, and they know they don’t speak for those people. They’re being dishonest about the reasons for their opposition to the development, which is actually rooted in ludicrous conspiracy theories they are too cowardly to be upfront about. They’re deceiving people about this in part to recruit others with more sincere concerns into their campaign and use their well-meaning involvement as a shield against accurate criticism of the racist, conspiracist core of the group. They’ve begun going door-to-door with a petition in Clonmel, though they haven’t said what the petition is actually asking for on their Facebook page, and they definitely haven’t told anyone who’s signed the petition so far who they’re really signing up with.

In my opinion, that makes them liars and frauds. They should not be trusted or treated as a credible voice on these issues, and they definitely should not be amplified further by local media, who have already done a very disappointing job covering their activities. I don’t know the appropriate way to address what concerns surely do exist in Clonmel and in the vicinity of the site about this development, and I won’t pretend I do. But I am absolutely certain that this group is not acting with the interests of the town or its people in mind, and you shouldn’t buy whatever shit they’re selling.

If you want to know how I came to this conclusion, and see my evidence for my claims, you can read the full story below.

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Last week, I was disappointed to read a story posted on the website of my local radio station, Tipp FM: “Locals fear Clonmel modular homes will house International Protection Applicants” (23/04/24). You see, a handful of people had shown up outside a parcel of land that has been announced as a site for 82 modular homes for refugees and put up three shit signs, the shittest and most unsettling of which promised there would “be big trouble” if the plan was not abandoned (a photo of the sign is the header on the article). I’d already seen photos of their demonstration online, but I’d not heard that they were calling themselves “Clonmel Concerned Residents Group”, or that one of them had been interviewed earlier that day on Tipp FM’s flagship show, Tipp Today, as quoted in the article. I immediately clocked their incredibly vague name as suspicious, and decided to search for any trace of them on the Internet or social media before that day. My web searches returned only one result: the article I had just read. Irritated by what seemed like my local radio station falling for fairly obvious efforts by racist agitators to pass off their bigotry as concern, I wrote the following comment under the story on Facebook:

“Here lads, just wondering, do ye think ye have any responsibility to make sure the “Clonmel Concerned Residents Group” actually exists and isn’t just a name made up by a handful of local racists to barely disguise their obvious hate campaign as something more palatable? I’m just wondering because searching for this group on the Internet only turns up this article, so it kind of seems like me checking that just now involved more actual journalism than went into this article.”

Personally, as far as Facebook comments go, I think this is pretty good, and as I write this a week later, I feel pretty good about it. But right after posting it, doubts started to creep in. I’m not someone who’s comfortable just throwing out false accusations, and while I had literally zero doubt whatsoever that I was right about the racists, I worried I’d been too harsh on Tipp FM. Maybe it isn’t so obvious if you’re not a mildly paranoiac and deeply cynical crank like me, brain steeped in years of research into both conspiracy theories and real conspiracies, and the adjacent growth and development of far-right extremism over the last ten years. (I’m not an expert, to be clear, I’ve just followed the work of some journalists and researchers in these areas, read coverage, listened to podcasts, watched documentaries, even picked up a book or two.) I felt bad for assuming that Tipp FM could have reached my conclusion on their own and publicly lambasting them for not doing basic journalism when I hadn’t even checked if basic journalism would have worked.

Of course, I’m not a journalist and I have no journalistic training except maybe a couple of classes on reportage from the non-fiction semester of my creative writing degree. I did a bit of student journalism in university, but it was mostly criticism and commentary, and I wrote for a couple of wrestling news websites a few years ago, but I’d never investigated a story before. But I had a phone, an Internet connection and nothing better to do, apparently, so I decided to do some snooping and see what I came up with.

Continue reading ““Clonmel Concerned Residents Group” is a Racist Fraud” →
Dean Buckley Political Analysis

Tax Credits Are Subsidies

Imagine you’re a landlord. Once the nausea has passed, imagine you receive €1000 per month from your tenants, or €12,000 for the year. You pay a ten percent tax on your rental income, so at the end of the fiscal year, you should owe the state €1200. However, there is a tax credit for landlords, so you fill out that part of the form. Your bill is reduced by €500 to €700, and you walk away with €11,300.

Now, imagine there’s no tax credit. At the end of the year, you hand over the entire €1200. However, there is a grant for landlords, so you apply and receive it. The state sends you €500 and you walk away with €11,300.

This is obviously a simplistic hypothetical, but I think it illustrates quite clearly there is zero meaningful difference between the state voiding €500 of your tax bill and the state giving you €500 in subsidies. Either way, you started with €12,000 and a tax bill of €1200, but you ended up with €11,300 and the state ended up with €700. Whether the state let you off the €500 or gave it to you, it’s €500 more in your pocket and €500 less in the public coffers. The only difference is where the numbers go in a ledger.

Yet this difference is treated with profound metaphysical significance in the official logic of capitalist politics. When I get my disability benefit every week, it’s a handout, but a landlord who gets tax relief on his mortgage interest is getting, well, relief. Tax credits and other ways to reduce your tax bill are the state cutting you a break on the burden of tax, whereas welfare benefits are the state giving taxpayers’ hard-earned money to the lazy and unproductive. But if you don’t care about the route the money takes, just where it ends up, a tax credit is at least as much of a “giveaway” as my weekly pittance for the becrippled and mentally strange. It’s a distinction that should only matter to accountants, but it’s used to shovel huge amounts of public money into the private sector via tax write-offs for business expenses while pretending it doesn’t count as spending.

Ireland is a country particularly afflicted by the paradoxical whims of an electorate that wants good public services, but doesn’t want to pay for them with taxes. It’s no surprise we’ve ended up one of the world’s premier tax havens for giant corporations, though the audacity of our government appealing a court judgement that ordered Apple to pay back billions in dodged taxes still staggers me. But issues like the government giving tax relief to landlords during a housing crisis or giving everyone electricity credits to help pay soaring power bills instead of forcing the companies the lower their prices seem to have raised the public consciousness a bit when it comes to just how much the Irish state exists to subsidise the private sector, not just in our country, but around the world. I’m not necessarily optimistic about the possibility of a reforming government in the near future, but there’s still something heartening in seeing the outrage grow.