EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about a brawl on a Dublin Bus, the Provisional IRA and people with disabilities.
So here, in no particular order, are the standout comments from the week that was.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. Some 3,477 of you approved of Captain kirk‘s comment on a story about a fight on board a Dublin Bus.
So procedure is to lock everyone in with the phyco [sic] while the driver escapes, nice to know…
2. The wonderfully-named Ah Jasyus summed up what a lot of you were thinking in relation to people queuing overnight for Kanye West runners:
I don’t want to live in this planet anymore
Evidently, neither do 2,993 other people.
3. Beano got 2,502 green thumbs for this comment on a story about gangs in Dublin reportedly asking for ‘protection money’ for residents’ cars:
Any sign of their parents?
Time to organise a vigilante gang to fight back. If you’re old enough to rob or vandalise a car, you’re old enough to take a punch
4. Beachmaster questioned comments made by an Anti-Austerity Alliance councillor after it emerged he threatened to cut an activist’s throat:
How do you take a threat to cut someone’s throat out of context?
That one got 2,085 likes.
5. Jeremiah Pio McCarthy, a friend of Jason Cierans – who is in an induced coma after being assaulted in Sydney – had this to say:
a good friend of mine and the nicest fella you would ever meet, not a bad bone in his body you would never hear a bad word spoken about him, thoughts and prayers with you Jay and your family at this frightening time. You’re as strong as an ox I know you’ll pull through, God bless buddy!!!
His comment got 1,809 green thumbs.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. ‘I fear the lack of confidence I possessed as a girl will hold back my little girl in our masculine culture’ (382 comments)
2. Sinn Féin hits back at ‘cynical and wholly self-serving’ attacks (329 comments)
3. The LGBT community’s quest for respectability in Ireland is leaving so many trans activists behind (292 comments)
4. Unless you can magic up a few houses, welfare recipients will need to move away from Dublin (276 comments)
5. The Provisional IRA still exists but it’s ‘no longer engaged in terrorism’ (271 comments)
Standout comments of the week
On an article about the abuse faced by people with intellectual disabilities, Carol Oates told us about some of the negative experiences her son, who has autism, has experienced:
My son is autistic and intellectually disabled, and we’ve gone through this a number of times. He’s been yelled at from cars, laughed at on the street, verbally abused in-flight while minding his own business, had someone ask for him to be removed from our local pub, because apparently people like him shouldn’t be out in public. Unfortunately for that gentleman he said it to my brother, who was the barman on duty at the time. He is only allowed as far as the local shop alone, even that is nerve-racking for me. In the beginning I shadowed him and saw for myself how people behave when they think he’s alone. Even people who otherwise appear very respectable. But it is vitally important to him that he has that tiny bit of independence.
Basically, I have very little faith in society anymore after almost two decades of this. The latest incident was on the Dart coming home one evening. A pre teen walked right up to him. I thought he was going to say hello, instead he poked my son in the chest and stole his a cap at a stop. I reached for him but he was too fast. The little rat waved the cap at my son through the window as we pulled away. The lad was absolutely blessed that I couldn’t get my hands on him. My son was distraught for days until a family friend arrived from America with a replacement.I will say, in fairness to Irish rail, the customer service were very apologetic. They offered to check the station and see if it had been thrown away but my lad wouldn’t take it back after someone touching it so there was no point. They sent a care package of goodies to my son by courier the next day to try and cheer him up.
The only thing that keeps me going is knowing there are good people out there, the staff at our local Odeon (Point) are brilliant with him. A Board Gais manager offered him a box seat when I told her he wasn’t able for the crowds, something that usually doesn’t bother him. A gentleman pushed him ahead of him while waiting for a hotdog in a busy IKEA last week, even though I insisted it was unnecessary and he could wait like everyone else. For all the a-***** out there, there are those who can still surprise me with a little common decency.
As the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean continues, fitzdoherty made this point about people fleeing from war-torn countries such as Syria:
No-one lifts a screaming baby over a razor-wire fence unless they are running away from something terrible. Stay-and you get blown up with chemical bombs, run away and you get treated like the scourge of society. Some form of structured plan needs to be put in place for these poor unfortunate people who have done nothing wrong. It’s heartbreaking.
On a column about the Irish men who risked their lives to build the New York underground, John Doyle commented:
Its strange to think what the US and the world would look like today with the famine. It was major point in Irish and US history. I wonder would the people from central Europe have worked in those conditions? Would they have built the US like we know it today?
Meanwhile, Larry K had this to say under an article about a man in Mayo who ignored his own injuries after a car accident to help save a woman who was also injured:
people like this who volunteer are what make this world a great place. There is a lot of horrible things in the world but as long as we still have people willing to give their time and dedication to first aid and helping others we be all good.
After a Gaelic grammar blunder led to a sign reading ‘Welcome to Penis Island’ in Scotland, Toddimus Maximus exercised his pun skills:
They’ll erectify it asap
On another note, O Swetenham had some sage diet advice:
Water? Don’t listen to these fancy studies, drink a pint of gravy (or curry sauce) after your dinner and the weight will simply fall off you.
We’ll leave the final word to Conor Glancy, who had this to say about summer:
It has to start before it can end.
Indeed.
See any good comments? Send them on to orla@thejournal.ie
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