THERE are no boozers in Iran. In the capital, Tehran there are plenty of shops selling spare parts for trucks and heavy machinery though. There are also a plethora of stores flogging long-sleeved shirts, hijabs and chadors (full body cloaks).
In the Islamic Republic, advertising is virtually non-existent. Western brands are forbidden. They drive Iranian-made cars and drink their own brand of Fanta, Coke and Sprite.
The only advertisements you’ll see, apart from those praising local products, are massive murals celebrating the Islamic Republic and its death cult leaders. The forbidding eyes of the now-dead mullah-in-chief, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stare down from almost every wall in the capital.
The “martyrs” of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war adorn the sides of apartment blocks. Hamas and Hezbollah fanatics, brandishing guns and “death to Israel” slogans, adorn bus shelters and the fronts of Mosques. They hang enemies of the state after Friday prayers by slowly lifting the poor sods on cranes.
The street outside the old British Embassy is still named after the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.
Four-lane motorways accommodate eight lanes of traffic, at least. Afghan refugees with no arms beg for scraps in the choking traffic.
A city of 10 million souls live in a theocratic prison. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 promised freedom, instead it delivered repression, isolation, inequality, death and despair.
Men in black never deliver.
Those are some of my memories of Tehran. I was there for the guts of a week in November 2001, sent by my editor to cover the World Cup play-off match between Ireland and Iran. The winner would go to Japan and Korea.
Ireland had won the first leg in Dublin, 2-0, so were favourites to complete the job in Tehran five days later.
I was part of a media pack of about 20. A further 100 or so die-hard fans joined us. We travelled on the same plane as the team, jetting out on a Sunday. We all stayed in the same hotel, the five-star Laleh International, guarded 24/7 by plain-clothes Iranian regime spies and car loads of Basij, the morality police.
Whenever we ventured out, we were followed at an indiscreet distance. We knew they were there and they wanted us to know they were there. After all, it had been just two months since terrorists had flown two planes into the Twin Towers in New York. Times were tense.
DICKY STOMACH
After two days without a drop of drink, many of us had mouths like the bottom of a parrot’s cage.
There’s only so much soft drink one can imbibe, without the body rebelling. Then, on Wednesday afternoon, the day before the big game, rumours swirled at the hotel that someone had sourced booze, but at a secret location in the city. All very hush, hush it had to be.
A go-between by the name of 20 Major had set up the pre-match party, but it’d be £50 a head (punts).
Money was no object at this stage. After four days on the dry in the capital of repression we’d have paid £1,000 a pop for a sup.
That evening, three or four mini-buses drove up to the back gate of the hotel to take 40 or so who’d stumped up the necessary. After an hour’s ride through back streets the buses parked up outside a block of apartments.
The fans were ushered inside and found themselves outside a flat in a dark hall. The door slowly opened and they were ushered in, the hosts holding their fingers up to their lips.
Hands were rubbed, lips licked, feet tapped together in anticipation of a feed of drink. In they traipsed to the kitchen. A generous spread of grub was piled on one table, but all eyes were on the table at the back wall.
MATCH DAY
For there lay the holy grail; 200 cans of Tuborg that were TWO YEARS out of date. Undeterred by the prospect of a dicky stomach the following day (and they all had), the cans were devoured.
At 3am, they were smuggled back to the hotel, mercifully without incident.
Match day. Thursday evening. The Azadi stadium. 99,900 Iranian men. A sea of beards. 100 Paddies. A cacophony of noise, colour and horns. The stadium was ringed with Islamic revolutionary slogans. Two giant portraits of old, dead Khomeini and the new man in black, Khamenei staring at us.
A dour, nervous game. The first time women had been allowed into a football stadium in Iran (after a diplomatic wrangle). Ten or so of our girls. Wearing green chadors in defiance, in a metal cage.
STADIUM SCENES
Iran winning 1-0. Ireland hanging on for the win. Scenes. Rocks and bottles come at us from all angles. The revolutionary posters are torn down and set on fire. Seats are on fire too. We’re kept in the stadium for three hours afterwards.
Outside, Iranian fans and police engage in running battles.
Our buses arrive. Reporters, photographers, Irish fans and team clamber on board. Glass and debris litter the road on the 45km drive from the stadium to the airport.
No one says a word. Fear makes you shut your trap. Airport staff can’t get shot of us fast enough. Scowls. Moustaches. Dark eyes. We board the Aer Lingus plane. A beer and a smile greets each of us. The taxi, the cheer when we take off.
The relief to be away from that suffocating place. What must it be like for ordinary, decent Iranians? We endured five sobering days there. They’ve put up with it for the last 46 years.
The soft and remarkable Iranian people long for regime change, the one thing both Israel and the US have balked at doing over the last two weeks.
For lasting peace in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic needs to be toppled and the reign of tyranny ended. Someone tell Donald.
STUDENT RITE ENDS
YOUNGSTERS heading to America on J1 student visas to work during the summer is an Irish institution.
We’ve been doing it for generations. I went to Germany to work when I was in uni, but most of my buddies headed west across the Atlantic.
They worked in bars and restaurants, at amusement arcades, as hotel valets and porters to name but a few.
They had a ball. America gave them a taste of a culture that’s been in the Irish DNA for over 150 years. Both profited hugely from the exchange.
Students will now think long and hard about heading to the States on a J1 after Trump ordered US embassies world-wide to vet the social media of everyone seeking a work visa.
Kids will now have to make public every social media post they’ve made for the last five years, so US officials can scour them for anything they deem to be anti-American.
Who would want to go through that? The days of the J1 are over. Until Trump is ousted and sanity prevails in America, Irish students and anyone else in possession of a brain will go to work and live in Europe, Canada or Australia.
SOLVE THE MYSTERY
TO lose a child is unfathomable. To lose a child and for them never to be found is a heartbreak too far.
Annie McCarrick, who vanished without trace in 1993, has been back in the news after gardai began to search a house and arrested a suspect in his 60s for questioning.
The search of the house has ended. Gardai found nothing of evidential value. The suspect was released without charge.
Annie’s mother, Nancy, who lives in Long Island, New York, has endured a living hell. The latest developments would have given her renewed hope of a breakthrough as to what happened to Annie.
The cold case cops are close, but not there yet. For Nancy’s sake, hopefully they will crack the case soon.
ALL TALK, NO ACTION IN DUBLIN
THE hot air brigade were busy again this week huffing and puffing and bloviating about what they will do.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Simon Harris took to a government dais to proclaim how they’re going to fix broken Dublin.
Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, we’ve stopped believing anything that emanates from either of their mouths.
We’ve heard it all before. Now is not the time for more talk, it’s way past the time for action.
Dublin is suffering under both men’s watch, because all they can do is talk. When it comes to delivery, they’re bottom of the class.
Dublin is blighted by dereliction, crime-ridden due to too few cops, chronically littered and its public spaces filthy. A firm hand would end that quickly. Instead of tough love, we were again served up the weak hand this week.
Martin, Harris and government colleague Sean Canney gave wishy washy commitments.
Martin said policing numbers would be increased over the next TEN YEARS. Christ almighty.
They waxed lyrical about the revamp of the GPO, the Abbey and Ambassador theatres and the Fruit & Veg market. But these are already under way and not because of anything they did.
The Dublin City Task Force made a series of recommendations last year. Those recommendations remain largely unfulfilled.
‘DUBLIN IS A JEWEL
SINCE that report, the government has failed to implement concrete plans and match any commitments with the necessary funding.
Dublin is a jewel. It is a city we should be proud of. It deserves better than the plamas being lobbed in its direction every few months from politicians who, if they did care about sorting Dublin’s problems, would just get on with it and do it.
It’s clear this government, with FF/FG in power, has failed Dublin and its citizens.
They have repeatedly reneged on a recommendation from the Citizens’ Assembly that Dublin have its own directly elected mayor with real power.
Hot air won’t transform Dublin, a mayor with teeth would. Until that happens, don’t believe a word the government says about our capital city.
