I don't know what to make of this story. About 3 weeks ago, a 19 year old student from Donegal who's been volunteering in Senegal for the summer dropped his trousers and mooned outside the home of one of the governor's homes. The article here claimed he did it as part of a series of dares. A local man saw him doing it and, enraged, apprehended the kid and held him until the police arrived and threw him in the slammer. Where he has been for 3 weeks. Presumably he's spent some of that time thinking that, in hindsight, he probably should've taken the forfeit on that dare.
3 bloody weeks! Think about that. Yesterday, his latest hearing was deferred until next week. So by the time he gets out he'll have spent almost a month in prison (reportedly with 40 inmates) for droping his pants in public.
Apart from it being a bizarre story, the thing I find interesting is that it's not getting a lot of attention in the press over here (although I haven't seen today's papers so that may have changed). I guess between Aer Lingus, Brian O'Driscoll and the Rolling Stones at Slane there's only so much news the papers can handle. But what would have happened if a 19 year old Sengal man did something similiar in Donegal and spent the better part of a month in prison? The Evening Herald would be apoplectic (nothing new there), the switchboard on Joe Duffy's radio show would be in meltdown and the anti-racism groups would be raising all kinds of hell. Irish people love to stick up for everyone but ourselves it seems. I wonder are there are any local groups in Senegal looking out for the dumb Irish kid in prison. I think I can hazard a guess.
I was just reading the comments on Devine's bebo page. Someone has sympathised with him and told him that at least he'll probably get an appearance on the Late Late Show when he's released. I don't know - hasn't he suffered enough?
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