Spot on Joe. Fucking cunts.
Joe needs to be our next President.
We need joe to be our next president
Anyone read Joeâs article yesterday? Slating Kerry for negative football and wasting Clifford.
Canât be easy for Clifford helping to rear a newborn baby and complete a masters degree at 23. Iâd say heâs hectic even before the football. Hopefully it doesnât blunt his edge at all because heâs a tremendous footballer. By comparison with another Kerry GOAT Gooch was having naps just before all-Ireland finals at a similar age.
A quick look at the oul ladâs sunday indopendent tells me joe went the wh9le way to the white house and had to content himself with a photo with some dance troupe. A significant setback for his presidential bid, even if they did bound towards him like âexcited puppiesâ
Joe
Joe
Joe
Joe
Joe
Joe
Thats clearly a robot
Grown men pay money to support that shit then.
Has anyone picked up the Sindo on the parents kitchen table? If so, can you post the Joe Brolly column
Brolly meets Beattie: âTo watch a man die at the end of my bayonet has had a huge effect on my mental healthâ
April 9, 2022 by Joe Brolly
Jesse Ventura, the Vietnam veteran, wrestler, action movie hero and Minnesota governor, said once: âNever trust a politician who doesnât stand his round.â
One of the group says: âMe and my dad used to watch you on telly all the time.â I say: âDonât worry, I wonât tell anybody.â Again, laughter. A Guinness arrives for me, and Doug introduces me to the group, one by one. After a few minutes, he thanks them for their work that morning, makes his apologies and leads me to a corner table.
The photographer asks Doug if he can take a few pictures at the front door of the pub. âItâs very loyalist here, best not,â he says.
I tell him heâs in danger of giving unionism a good name. He enjoys that. I say I love their âUnion of Peopleâ slogan.
Q: âDid you come up with it?â
A: [Laughs] âI kind of did.â
Q: âYou kind of did? Or you kind of didnât?â
A. [More laughter] âIâm going to say yes.â
Q. âIâm not sure that would hold up in court.â
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A. âNo, it probably wouldnât.â
Here, as in every time the conversation turns to people, he is passionate. He explains he is interested in a union of people, regardless of religion, background, sexual orientation or aspiration.
Q. âIs that what the slogan means?â
A. âYes, of course it is. Unionism has to be far more expansive than the narrow sectarianism of the past. Everything I do is for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland. I am saddened to be part of this failure of democracy. We need to start working together properly and honestly.â
He plainly loathes sectarianism and constantly returns to this theme. He puts this down to his father, who âtaught us that religion was irrelevantâ.
His story begins with his father, Colour Sergeant William Edward Beattie, of the Royal Ulster Rifles. As a child, Doug travelled the world with him. When they returned to Portadown, 10-year-old Doug was soon landed into the shock of the Troubles. On April 25, 1975, his uncle, Samuel Johnston, a soldier in the UDR, was walking home from a night out with his girlfriend when he was gunned down on the footpath by the IRA.
âIt was 400 metres from where we are sitting, Joe. Samuel was my favourite uncle. I remember the knock on the door. I was at the top of the stairs. Mum went to answer it and I heard a manâs voice telling her that her younger brother had been murdered.â
We sit in silence for a moment. I order another round.
Not long after his uncleâs death, his mother, Constance Evelyn Johnston (Doug savours her name as he says it), who he adored, was diagnosed with cancer. Over the course of two long years she died an agonising death. Douglas, as his mother called him, was only 15. His older brothers and sisters had left home. He was left home alone with his father. Colour Sergeant Beattie, unable to bear the loss, turned to whiskey and thus began a grim routine for the teenage boy.
âLife was exhausting for me. Exhausting. Iâd come home from school, light the fire and make the dinner. He would come in from work, eat his dinner and start drinking. I looked after him, sober or comatose. Every night, at 2am, he would wake me up and bring me downstairs. He would put on the records he and my mum used to listen to and make me listen with him.â
A: âNo. He was just lonely. I have to say it affects me to this day. That song is still in my head.â
Q: âWere you close?â
A: âNo. We were very distant. Strangers, really.â
He is passionate about a better, modern education system that treats vocation and academia equally. He despises the exam system that âstigmatises childrenâ. He left school when he was 16, âdisenfranchised from learning by a system that had nothing for meâ.
Q: âSo, where does your confidence come from?â
A: âThere isnât any confidence. Iâm not what people think I am. I think Iâm a failure and Iâve carried that sense of failure through my life.â
Q: âI saw you with the group earlier. Funny, gregarious, popular. They clearly have great affection and respect for you. How could you be a failure?â
They were quickly besieged by a force of 2,000 Taliban. Their orders were to hold out for 24 hours before a larger force would reinforce them. The reinforcements never materialised. For 13 days he fought, eventually hand to hand as the Taliban broke through the perimeter like the Zulu Dawn. By day seven, they were down to three British soldiers and 50 Afghans. He slept in a half-dug grave in the graveyard to avoid the rockets. He stripped corn from the fields to eat.
A: âWhere Iâm looking at you now. This close. Iâm looking you in the eye and killing you with a bayonet. They were breaking through everywhere.â
Q: âHow many men did you kill?â
A: âI donât know. A lot. It isnât a number I want to contemplate.â
Q: âHow did you survive?â
A: âI donât know. Iâm with my joint tactical air controller, calling in B1 bomber strikes on the enemy positions, and they are responding, âYou are danger close; we will need confirmation from your commanding officerâ. âDanger closeâ means within 750 metres of the target. We were 200 metres. I was the commanding officer and I had no choice. It was that or certain death.â
A: âNo. No. Iâm not. To watch a man die at the end of my bayonet, to watch his life go from him, I could justify because I had no choice, but when I came home, I could no longer justify it. It has had a huge effect on my mental health. Itâs always with me.â
His proudest award is the Queenâs Commendation for Bravery, a small oak leaf, presented to him by Queen Elizabeth for his heroism in saving two of Saddamâs soldiers in the early part of the Iraq War. He was on foot in Al Madina when he saw three men spread-eagled on the ground, surrounded by a baying crowd of thousands who were set on executing them. As he ran toward them, a tribal leader dropped a huge stone on the head of the first man, crushing him to death instantly. The crowd was insane, chanting and screaming.
Q: âWhat did you do?â
A: âI decided I could not allow these two human beings to be murdered. I charged into the crowd, knocking them out of my way until I was standing over the men.
Q: âDid the crowd scatter?â
A: âMade no difference. In Iraq, at that time, everyone was shooting into the air.â
We both burst out laughing.
Q: âAnd?â
A: âI stood my ground. I stood over the two men, pointed my rifle at the crowd and thought to myself, âF**k itâ. Then a phalanx of my soldiers burst through and we were saved.â
Again, there is silence.
Q: âDoug?â
A: âWhat?â
Q: âYou want some election advice?â
A: âGo on.â
Q: âYouâre telling the wrong stories.â
Again, he laughs heartily, and takes a long swig from his pint. Tears come to his eyes as he describes holding a dying child in his arms in Helmand in 2008.
âShe was so beautiful. She had puncture wounds from a mortar. Her grandfather ran to me in a panic and handed her to me to save. He just kept saying, âHelp! Help!â She begged me for water, but I knew I couldnât give it to her. There was nothing that could be done. She was too badly wounded. Her name was Shabia. She made me see how utterly useless war is.â
A: âIn 2008, in the Upper Gereshk Valley, we were on patrol when my medic stepped on a landmine. He was blown over the side of a cliff and lodged halfway down. One of my men climbed down to him and held his hand for 20 minutes as he died. Then, he had to push him off the cliff so we could retrieve his body at the bottom. So pointless.â
Q: âYou suffer?â
A: âIn sights and smells and sounds. Maybe something said in conversation. Or a crying child. Everything is tainted with the past.â
I tell him he is the first unionist I can remember who says âYesâ. He laughs. His vision is for a progressive society, with an imaginative approach to education and a political system that is democratic, not âthe sectarian headcount that we have at the momentâ.
Q: âAre you at the point where you see yourself as a good person making a significant contribution?â
A: âNo. My sense of failure hasnât changed.â
Q: âIs the evidence irrelevant?â
A: âIt is.â
He describes poverty and increasing inequality as the most important issues in society. He laments the DUPâs opportunism and sectarianism, describing it as âshort-sightedâ and âdoomedâ.
He encourages free thinking in his party. As he points out, he is pro-choice, yet his deputy, Robbie Butler (the two are thick as thieves), is pro-life.
When I get home, I find Millican & Nesbittâs Keep a Light at the Window. As I listen, I think of an exhausted 15-year-old boy and his lost father, sitting in the living room at four in the morning. I think of a grown man, weeping as an Iraqi child dies in his arms. And I think of this fragile, courageous, decent man who is set to make an enormous difference to Northern society. If only he could see that for himself
Too many of joeâs articles start with an account of him alleviating the tension, lads seeking his opinion, him making people laugh etc.
A few nights banter and slagging in McReynoldâs would work wonders for his soul, whilst sharpening his wit.
Itâs all very well us fellas in North South Derry knowing weâre brilliant, but we really shouldnât have to tell everyone âŚ
Joe will be a great President
Werenât they trying to cancel Doug Beattie a few months ago. He went on radio and apologised (fair enough) and that was that.
I hope youâre right, but the dublin establishment will attempt to destroy him if he tries escaping the little box theyâve allowed him.
They donât want is an intelligent, articulate, honest and integrous president. If they did half of dungiven would be throwing their hat in the ring
They already have one.