Many young seem to seek the respect they crave by showing a lack of this quality for themselves and others, writes ORNA MULCAHY
TEENAGER LAURA Mulvanney lost her case against Wezz disco this week while lifting the lid, if you’ll excuse the pun, on the carry-on at the Donnybrook night spot.
The 19-year-old sued Wesley rugby club for €38,000 following an incident in one of the toilet cubicles at the disco when she was 15. Drink, your honour, was involved. It seems that Mulvanney, of Foxrock, and a friend shared the toilet cubicle, there was some kind of kerfuffle, and then the cistern lid came crashing down – revealing two naggins of spirits. As the lid fell, it cut Laura on the leg and then all hell broke loose, or perhaps not.
I’d say it was just business as usual for Donie Bolger, Wesley’s events manager, who has been running the disco for about 100 years and has seen generations of Irish gilded youth make an absolute disgrace of themselves.
Mulvanney had to be carried off to Vincent’s hospital to have her leg stitched. Call into AE there on a Friday night and you will find similar shenanigans. Stomach pumps working away into the small hours.
Anyway, you would think that would be the end of the story, but no, Laura Mulvanney’s mother takes a case on her behalf – Laura’s a minor, remember – and it trundles through the court system for four years, until Laura reaches majority and can take the case herself. It was finally dismissed this week with costs awarded against Mulvanney.
The court report made unedifying reading, though there is nothing new in it for parents of Wezz-obsessed teenagers. Donie Bolger said the disco had a policy of zero tolerance on alcohol, and searches were carried out to prevent alcohol from being smuggled in.
Indeed Donie, so how do you explain the overpowering whiff of booze coming off the teenagers when they’re collected, and the number of gardaí on the scene at midnight to keep them all safe from themselves? The idea that Wezz succeeds in being a booze-free zone is simply not true, but then, what does a bouncer have to do – breathalyse and body search everyone on arrival?
The report went on to say that both girls looked intoxicated in the first-aid room. Laura Mulvanney had said to her friend O’Higgins: “You bitch. Why did you do that? I told you to stop messing.”
Lovely talk between friends. But again, foul language is the norm among some of our most privileged teenagers. Recently, a mother told me that her daughter had received a text of such a pornographic nature that she, the mother, nearly fainted reading it. The daughter took it in her stride.
The other night I tuned into the Adrian Kennedy show on FM104, which is always good for a bit of God-We-Are-a-Nation- of-Peasants thinking. It was a quiet night at first. They couldn’t seem to find anyone to rant wild about their criminal exes or their neighbours’ benefits scams.
“Are we turning into Liveline or what?” asked Adrian, after Maureen phoned to talk about her 40-day fast that she hopes will bring her closer to God. He and his sidekick tried to liven things up by calling a sex hotline, but you never heard anything so boring – it was like trying to get through to NTL . . . press this, press that, hold on the line and so on for several minutes, until a husky voiced but clearly pre-recorded Tara said: “How are you tonight, are you feeling hot?” or some such nonsense. The naughty brigade at any one of several south Dublin schools could do a much better job.
Finally, something shocking did happen. A listener texted in a vile message about the show, calling Adrian a whore and worse. He got mad, called the number straight back and we all waited to hear what kind of delinquent was at the other end of the line. The voice that answered was posh south Co Dublin teenage girl. Her defence? Oh God no, like, seriously, she didn’t mean to send the text to him, really no, that was a mistake, she babbled on . . . She’d meant to send it to her friend.
Her friend? If I got a text like that from a friend I’d be in John of Gods. I wondered what her mother would think. Probably hasn’t a clue what’s going on, no more than I would.
We’re too respectful of our teenagers’ space and their privacy to be screening their texts. In any case I can’t read the screens on their tiny phones without putting on glasses and holding them under the halogen beam from under the cooker hood. And the opportunities to do so are very limited. Teenagers guard their mobiles the same way that adults who are having affairs do. They never, ever leave them lying around but keep them snug in their pockets at all times.
Here’s my suggestion for the Your Call, Your Country campaign. Take some empty buildings. Employ people with brains, with class, compassion and taste. Open the buildings up as finishing schools. Charge a fortune, and teach our teenagers some self-respect and some manners.
I’d pay.