BACK, but only briefly, to the issue upon which we were talking yesterday the female male equality fantasy. which is made only possible by a singularly rigid exclusion of all the evidence available not merely, to our senses, but throughout history. Women behave differently to men, have different priorities, different appetites, think differently: yet the craven capitulation of male self confidence before the assault of feminist constitutional egalitarianism is creating institutional absurdity after absurdity.
No, this doesn't mean that women should stay in the home, and it doesn't mean that a woman shouldn't be Taoiseach, and it doesn't mean women shouldn't aspire to the highest posts in the land. But it does mean that merely because a woman wants something badly, doesn't mean she should get it, and the rules changed in order to satisfy her ambitions. Two rules should apply for all jobs: aptitude and appropriateness. Within the new regimen of universal legalistic feminism, often neither rule applies. We are creating institutional stupidities merely because of a self evidently ridiculous ideology.
Fighting Units
The incorporation of women into fighting units of armies is a classical example of this. In my own modest experience of war, I have seen two women reporters - I am not saying there are not more - who are physically as brave or braver than men: Maggie O Kane and Kate Adie. In war situations, 95 per cent of the journalists, and more important, 99 per cent of the technicians, and more important still, 100 per cent of the fighting soldiers, are male. All societies this century which have experimented with the fighting female - the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, the Israelis, and the Vietnamese, have abandoned the experiment.
We have not because we can not, by law. We are being channelled by the conduits of poorly thought out legislation towards the creation of mixed sex fighting units: which, when the time comes, almost certainly will not function.
Why have we gone down this road, most especially in Ireland, where this year we are marking the 1,300th anniversary of the Cain Adamnain, the law which ruled that women and children should be in violate from war? It was one of the legislatively civilising initiatives of early Christianity. We have forgotten it; but they have not forgotten it in Birr, where next month the President will be opening a three day celebration of King Adamnain's law.
Adamnain came from one of the great religious families of Ireland - he was a kinsman (kinsperson? kinsperoffspring") of St Columba, and is known in Donegal by the name which is still not uncommon in Ulster - Eunan. The cathedrals in Letterkenny and Raphoe are dedicated to him.
As apparently is the wish for women today, women then were - or so I read in the literature for the celebration - used both as porters and as common soldiery in the business of war. One quote used in this literature records: "On one side of her she would carry her hag of provisions, on the other her babe ... her husband behind her flogging, her on to battle ... for at that time it was the head of a woman, or her two breasts, which were taken as trophies."
Military Objects
Eunan, or Adamnain Abbot of Iona, was turned to the plight of women as military objects by his mother; but it was not until he was nearly 70 that he was moved to take action by the appearance of an angel who instructed him to make a law in Ireland in Britain" - those were the days, eh, when royal edicts to govern Portland Bill to Pentland Firth, and Malin Head to Mizen were issued in Birr, "for the sake of the mother of each one, because a mother has borne each one, and for the sake of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ".
Women were henceforward to be protected from the ravages of war, for great is the sin when anyone kills the one who is mother and sister to Christ's mother". Penalties for such crimes were to be paid - where else? to Columban religious houses. Well, nobody is perfect, and we can he sure that Adamnain was not the first - and he was certainly not the last - abbot to take an interest in money.
The law was promulgated in Birr, but its executive heart seems to have been in Donegal, and it was inscribed in Raphoe monastery. Two copies of this law were made: one is in the Bodleian, the other in Brussels. A third, I am happy to say, was made on vellum by a young woman on a FAS scheme for the anniversary celebrations at the end of next month.
These begin on Thursday, June 26th at the County Arms Hotel, where after a snip or two of the presidential scissors, Maire Herbert, Professor of Early and Medieval Irish in UCC, will correct the various errors in this piece, and add a good deal more information of her own about Adamnain. Others who have studied the prince abbot are Mairin Ni Dhonnachadha and Thomas O'Loughlin, and they too will be speaking on the man and his influence on European legislation.
Attempted Suicides
Since the topic of WOMEN and EUROPE necessarily conjures up one name, Padraig Flynn, him with the nutbrown hair and the white statesmanlike quiffs on the side, and since he will be addressing the gathering on WOMEN and EUROPE, might we not hope that he will avoid, in their entirety, both the word indeed, which he inserts at least three times in every sentence, and the term "in the context of" with which he begins each, sentence and which I am reliably informed has caused an epidemic of attempted suicides among the translators in the EU. Sacie bleu! Sapristi! Donner und blitzen! Caramba! Pog ma thoin! Not "indeed, in the context of" one more time. I cannot take eeet! Bang.
The event starting June 26th - complete with musical evenings finishes on Sunday with a boat trip up the Shannon to Clonmacnoise: the only way to approach that eerily wonderful place. Interested in this great man and true protofeminist? Contact the Rev Irene Morrow, Birr 1300 Committee, Birr, Co Offaly.