February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Patrick Markey
A Kilcormac St. Patrick’s Day parade has become the center of a growing controversy over a parade float that mimicked Nazi regalia and the family involved has vowed to boycott floats from future events.
The parade director is refusing to comment, but one float organizer said the people in Mountbolus — the area where the float was made — are raging about the criticism, according to the Midland Tribune.
The strange row began when the Nazi entry was asked to lower its swastika flags and stop its public address announcements as it filed past the reviewing stand. Organizers said they had received a complaint about the "insensitive" nature of the display.
But the float owners deny insensitivity and instead claim their anti-Nazi message was missed in the controversy.
The float consisting of two vehicles, an open-top car decorated with swastikas and carrying an Adolf Hitler impersonator along with a number of men dressed in Nazi uniforms and a jeep, which carried prisoners of war and other soldiers decorated with swastikas.
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One rider addressed the crowds lining the streets in German and interspersed his frenzied monologue with Sieg Heil chants and the customary salute.
"We were really humiliated and embarrassed," said one float organizer. "The whole purpose was to show up the evil of Hitler," she said.
Busting out in Kerry
Things are busting out all over the place in Cork and Kerry.
The Kerryman newspaper recently reported that 36 people a week are going under the knife for comestic surgery in Kerry and the company Advanced Comestic Surgery opened a Cork clinic to cope with the 600 percent increase in business since 1997.
The most popular operation for Kerry men is liposculpture — getting rid of the flab — and facial surgery. For Kerry woman, breast jobs were the most popular, followed closely by liposuction.
"People in Kerry today obviously have more disposable income and if they are unhappy with something about their body, they’re now able to do something about it," said one company rep.
Fighting for family honor
The family of an Aer Lingus pilot who crash-landed a DC3 in 1953 are battling to salvage his reputation half a century after he was ousted from the airline on charges of criminal negligence.
The Sunday Business Post reports that Capt. T.J. Hanley suffered a double engine failure on a flight from Dublin to Birmingham but managed to bring down the plane in a remarkable crash-landing, saving the 22 passengers onboard.
But the incident cost the captain his career. Despite recommendations for his bravery, six months later a tribunal accused Hanley of criminal negligence and barred his license. He left his family to work as a flight dispatcher in Honolulu for 20 years.
Until his death eight years ago, the Mayo-born pilot protested about his treatment by the Irish aviation authorities.
Now Hanley’s daughter Nuala Hanley-Pearce has tracked down witnesses, interviewed aviation officials and employed language experts to re-examine the court transcripts to prepare a new inquiry into the case.
The family has uncovered new evidence that has prompted the Department of Public Enterprise to concede there are "unsatisfactory aspects of the whole situation."
The department’s Air Investigation Unit has offered to ask the minister for public enterprise to make a public apology to the family for the "harsh and excessive punishment" imposed on Hanley.
"The files clearly indicate that this was decided — clearly against the recommendation of the inspector of accidents — the court did not recommend any disciplinary action," one aviation official said.
But the family’s literary composition expert found that transcripts had been altered to remove testimony contradicting the court’s verdict. The Post reports the missing evidence contained testimony about a similar engine problem reported by the crew of another DC 3 in Liverpool.