On Friday morning the Sinn Féin vice-president, Mary Lou McDonald, was confronted by a self-styled “concerned citizen” on O’Connell Street in Dublin, to the delight of the gathered conservative media. According to the Irish Independent:
“The man, who declined to identify himself but said he ran a small business, accused the party of planning to “kill pensions”.
He said he was “apolitical” but that he would probably be voting for Fine Gael.
He declined to give his name when asked by reporters.
“I’ve no interest in talking but that’s my point,” he said.
“Sinn Féin annoy me by the way they go around and I just felt so incensed about it,” explaining why he confronted Ms McDonald”
The story was naturally given prominence by the press, and the individual was featured as something of a heroic, middle-class “Everyman” on the social media accounts of several right-wing journalists. So far, so fair. Unfortunately none of the numerous reporters who recorded the verbal street-attack on SF and McDonald were able to get the protester’s name or indeed make any effort to follow up on his identity. Which is perhaps not entirely unsurprising since the incensed middle-aged owner of a “small business” has turned out to be one Fergus Crawford, the CEO of the investment firm, Sarasin & Partners, part of the billion euro Swiss private bank, J. Safra Sarasin. In other words, a representative of the affluent, self-entitled “entrepreneurial” elites who brought this island nation to its knees in 2008.
Irony abounds…
As an aside, some sources are now claiming that the investments manager, who protested Sinn Féin’s plans to tax an extra 7 cent on each euro earned in excess of €100,000 per year, is the brother of the former high profile Fine Gael politician and TD, Seymour Crawford, who represented the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan from 1992 to 2011, as well as serving as the vice-chairman of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in the early 2000s. Crawford retired at the last general election, his seat being gifted to his FG colleague, the controversial Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, a fellow Ulster Presbyterian. However it seems unlikely that the two are related, given the financier’s forename of “Fergus” and his attendance at the exclusive Marian College in the affluent Ballsbridge district of Dublin, an educational establishment for the offspring of super-rich Taigs.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Another “Joe the plumber.” What a farce in the image of ‘meirica we have become.
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Is it bad to be rich?
Should we take their property away and then lock them up in concentration camps like the commies did when they invaded my country?
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It’s bad to pretend to be what you are not. An apolitical small business owner who is actually a CEO of a branch of a private Swiss bank worth €16 bilion euros, and a former official with the troubled ACC.
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There’s also this in the article you mentioned:
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However, a worker on €40,000 who pays 10pc into a pension pot could lose out on as much as €800 annually if Sinn Féin’s plan to reduce tax relief on private pensions is implemented.
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Do you think that people who earn 40k are part of the rich evil elite and they should be taxed to death? (I earn more than that btw)
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“Its bad to pretend to be what you are not” – Sinn Feins words – Tell that to Gerry Adams – pretends to be a peace maker – when he has a murderous past! As for Fergus Crawford – Was a former official of ACC Bank – Whats wrong with him having a job? Was banking not what our parents would have wanted for us as young people ? Maybe they would rather have had us killing people like Gerry Adams did?
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Lefties hate successful people and want to punish them by making them poorer…
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No doubt you will be going to the police to give them all your information so that this despicable human being can get his just deserts. It’s great to have such upstanding citizens like yourself who will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice. Why have you not been down to the barracks long before now with your unrefutable evidence as to this person’s guilt. Maybe you haven’t got the balls when you are away from your keypad.
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Gerry Adams grew up in a place where his background meant he wouldn’t have got a job in a bank when he was young, he’d probably be like the other 40% of his community who were unemployed. When he and others protested against this they were batoned off the streets and their homes were set upon by sectarian mobs who acted with the connivance of the police force. I’d regard it as a mark of character to react to that. I’d regard it as even more of a mark of character to then turn that around and work towards an acceptable peace. Doesn’t make him a saint but it doesn’t make him a murderous psycho either.
Really and truly the difference between Adams and the people who set up 26 counties is miniscule.
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Dublin is just a 2 h bus ride away from Belfast. What kept him from going there? There wasn’t a wall or anything.
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Maybe he wasn’t taken with the idea of self ethnic cleansing or should all of the Irish nationalist community have abandoned their homes and decamped southward post-1922? Why didn’t the Baltic peoples flee the USSR and communist rule? Oh I know. BECAUSE IT WAS THEIR OWN COUNTRIES! 😉
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Lots of us fled during and shortly after WW2 – thousands of those who didn’t make it were murdered by both Stalin and Hitler.
But after that many didn’t because there was a huge wall in the way with armed guards and landmines. I suggest you read how many people tried to get through the Iron curtain and escape to the west. They risked their lives to do that and many were shot and killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_attempts_and_victims_of_the_inner_German_border
And they didn’t flee to other Soviet republics, because the Baltics had the highest standard of living in the USSR.
I definitely would not live under a regime that oppresses me if I could just drive for an hour to escape it. So it seems that life in NI wasn’t as bad as you try to portray it in this blog. It certainly didn’t seem like an oppressive dictatorship when I was there.
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But millions of Latvians, Lithuanians, etc. stayed in their nations despite Soviet rule. If they had not done so those territories would now be part of the Russian Federation. Latvia would be simply another Kaliningrad, a place formerly called Königsberg.
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Of course they stayed – they had NO OTHER CHOICE because the USSR was a giant open-air prison. Northern Ireland wasn’t anything like that. People who lived there were free to leave it and go to the Republic of Ireland or to Britain or to other European countries. No such luxuries behind the Iron Curtain.
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Janis you sound like a coward. We true Irish don’t run. We stand and fight. Something you scorn us for. While the likes of you fraternised with the Nazis and communists true Irishmen and women took on the greatest empire the world had ever seen and kicked their ass. If that attitude annoys you,which it seems to,then too bad. Get on your paddle steamer and head eastward again because your type is no good to us here. Tiocfaidh Ar La.
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Really! I lived in N.I. right through “The Troubles” and knew plenty of Catholic people who worked for banks like the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank. Maybe he could have applied for a job in the NI Civil Service and worked alongside all the Catholic people I worked with in the 70s. Or perhaps Gerry just made his own choice of “career”.
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I suppose using hyperbole for literary effect! Gerry probably could have got a job but he could’ve been one of the hugely disproportionate number of Catholics who didn’t get a job. Especially in Belfast. Or do you feel the employment market wasn’t skewed against Catholic people? Because the evidence is very very clear on that.
But he didn’t have to turn to killing people, it’s true. It’s my opinion though that he was instrumental in breaking through many obstacles to peace and he wouldn’t have been able to do that if he hadn’t been what he was earlier on in his life.
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Your use of the term NI gives you away. We were harassed when we were not being murdered. I like your reference to the 70’s. That’s when the British backed Butchers roamed Belfast freely with their hatchets, knives and RUC backup.
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http://observer.com/2016/02/estonia-wants-more-nato-troops-but-only-if-they-arent-black/
By the sound of some on here,cough cough, you would think the Baltic countries were a bastion of decency and the pesky Russians were always the bad guys?
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Hi, Not sure what I’ve done but now all your posts are going straight to my junk so to try to sort this, i thought I’ll unsubscribe then subscribe again ? Honestly I’ve not lost the plot just how to work my iPad Cheers Margaret
Sent from my iPad
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