Women & children deserve privacy, dignity and safety. https://xitter.cf/t.co/oRyzHV8jFX
Ireland
Joined September 2020
- Tweets18.8K
- Following2.4K
- Followers26.4K
- Likes41K
Pinned Tweet
CEO and Founder of The Countess, Laoise de Brún BL, @laoisedebrun discusses the news that the Minister for Justice will appeal the EU Commission decision to fine Ireland for what the Commission said was Ireland’s failure to comply with the EU Council 2008 framework on hate. Laoise explains the nuance of that Council framework and how Ireland has in fact complied. She also explores why the Council may wish to suppress debate and dissent. Laoise points out that one person’s fact might be another person’s hate, given that there is no definition of hatred in the currently shelved Hate Speech element of the Hate Crime Bill.
The Countess retweeted
I was investigated by the NHS, called a transphobe and thought of suicide
thetimes.com/article/cfde7b4…. When the topic of “trans healthcare” cannot be discussed openly, the results are doctors like Dr Redvers are ignored and children & young people are harmed. Dr Redvers was treated appallingly, for raising concerns, by the NHS. Instead of taking her concerns seriously, they caused huge damage to Dr Redvers mental health.
I was investigated by the NHS, called a transphobe and thought of suicide
thetimes.com/article/cfde7b4…. When the topic of “trans healthcare” cannot be discussed openly, the results are doctors like Dr Redvers are ignored and children & young people are harmed. Dr Redvers was treated appallingly, for raising concerns, by the NHS. Instead of taking her concerns seriously, they caused huge damage to Dr Redvers mental health.
The Countess retweeted
@OCallaghanJim clearly disowns the CUAN attack upon grandparents. But no apology forthcoming. Reminds me of @NormaFoleyTD1 denials of @MaryCreedon4 exposure of @DCU SPHE sex games for schools debacle. Norma as ever refused to apologise.
The Countess retweeted
A newborn or stillborn baby cannot identify as non-binary.
This Bill would have let parents mark an infant’s birth record with an “X,” erasing their biological sex before the child could speak, consent, or object. Yet we hear so much about consent, but rarely when it matters.
That is not recognition. It is adult ideology imposed on a child. The “X” becomes a permanent official record that follows them through healthcare, education, and public life.
If they later reject it, the stigma & paperwork remain.
Disorders of sex development are rare medical conditions that need accurate diagnosis, not reclassification under a modern identity category.
Birth registration records objective facts, not feelings.
Undermining sex data harms medical research, safeguarding, & the sex-based protections women & girls rely on. Children’s rights start with the truth about their bodies, not with enlisting them in a culture war.
The Government was right to defeat it. Reality is not optional.
The Countess retweeted
1. I wrote up some more notes from this afternoon's court hearing as tweets. This is from the Irish prosecution of Kirk Loco for "fake news" -- except that what he wrote about (a migrant harassing teenaged girls on the bus) was 100% true.
The Countess retweeted
The systematic dismantling of Irishness.
@john_mcguirk and @sarahcatryan make an excellent point of on today's episode of @JohnandSarahIrl about the "don't hug your grandkids" ad and Family A - we are being subjected to consistent messaging intended to deconstruct Irish cultural identity. Even Micheál Martin's recent comments about the 1916 leaders are more of this effort to rewrite history in order to redefine what it means to be Irish.
This is not happening by accident. This is the influence of specific critical social theories, forced on us by academics and NGOs. It's about to get a lot worse for our children. They are going to be bombarded with this anti-Irishness in schools.
I implore people to read the newly published NCCA-commissioned literature review on Intercultural Education. It's all in there.
Woven into every aspect of schooling, they want children to "unpack and problematise ethnocentric, essentialist, and exclusionary understandings of Irish identity and culture". They want children to "see alternative visions of and possibilities for what it means to be Irish (e.g., including but also beyond white, settled, Catholic)" so as to "create an inclusive sense of Irishness".
The Family A exercise shows us exactly what this looks like when it put into practice. Certain cultural markers are represented in an incredibly stereotypical and offensive way, and are equated with intolerance and close-mindedness. The NCCA literature review does the same - "rural, White and Catholic" are problematic. These representations of Irish cultural identity "perpetuates the false assertion of cultural homogeneity in Ireland prior to the 2000s". Ultimately, it takes issue with the Irish, as the dominant culture group, being positioned at the centre of the Irish cultural map because this has the effect of "‘othering’ of racialised minorities in Ireland".
It sees parents and children who resist as having succumbed to "hard-right populist 'White victim' narratives", which the literature review says needs to be carefully addressed with education.
This is not ok. Let's do something about this before it gets any worse.
The Countess retweeted
Due to popular demand we've published our first #BattleFest full debate early:
CONVERSION PRACTICES BILL: CRIMINALISING PARENTS, TEACHERS AND PRIESTS?
W/ @janmacvarish of @SpeechUnion, Lucy Beney, @el_nagashi, @JNHanvey, @HJoyceGender, @SVPhillimore
youtu.be/NUCHW3mMZyg
The Countess retweeted
If you don't know what the Conversion Practices bill is about, please please watch this. It purports to ban "abuse" but in fact it will criminalise loving parents seeking to protect unhappy children from lifelong harm. It's extraordinarily serious.
Due to popular demand we've published our first #BattleFest full debate early:
CONVERSION PRACTICES BILL: CRIMINALISING PARENTS, TEACHERS AND PRIESTS?
W/ @janmacvarish of @SpeechUnion, Lucy Beney, @el_nagashi, @JNHanvey, @HJoyceGender, @SVPhillimore
youtu.be/NUCHW3mMZyg
The Countess retweeted
A Canadian judge authorized a $600 million class action lawsuit against P*rnhub, its parent company, AND ITS FORMER OWNERS Feras Antoon and David Tassillo for knowingly distributing and profiting from child abuse, rape, sex trafficking and nonconsensual content.
This is very significant progress in the fight to hold P*rnhub and its owners accountable.
Shut. It. Down.
The Countess retweeted
I'm on a plane to Ireland tonight. Tomorrow a man goes on trial for a tweet.
I'm writing this from the airport. In a few hours I'll be in the air, and tomorrow morning I'll be sitting in the public gallery of Bray District Court, south of Dublin, for the trial of Kirk Loco.
You may remember Kirk. He's an ordinary Irishman. Two years ago someone in that group posted a warning: a migrant man had exposed himself on a public bus, in front of a 14-year-old girl. The bus driver stopped the bus. There were half a dozen witnesses. It was on CCTV.
Kirk did what any of us would do. He reposted the warning so other parents would know.
The migrant wasn't charged. Kirk was.
The Irish police charged him under a so-called "fake news" law, Section 12A of the Criminal Justice Act, 1976. It was passed during the Troubles to fight terrorist propaganda. It had never been used against anyone, in fifty years, until they used it on Kirk. He is the first and only person in Irish history to be prosecuted under it. They picked him because of his politics: he's a critic of mass immigration. They are making an example of him.
Here's what has happened since. Kirk has been dragged into that courtroom in Bray again and again, almost ten times, for a single retweet. Each time he takes a day off, each time his lawyers prepare, each time the Gardaí (that's what the Irish call their police) turn up and the thing gets put off again. I've flown over for one of those hearings myself. In May the judge lifted an outrageous bail condition that had banned Kirk from attending any protest, anywhere in Ireland. That was a real win. But the same judge refused to order the police to hand over the bus CCTV or the names of the witnesses. The people who saw what happened on that bus could clear him in five minutes, and the state won't tell his lawyers who they are.
Kirk said it best himself: "I just can't believe that I'm eight court appearances in for a retweet." That was in May. There have been more since.
The process is the punishment. Even if Kirk wins tomorrow, he's already been punished for two years: the stress, the lost days, the cloud over his name, the ban on protesting. That's the point. It's not really about convicting Kirk. It's about making sure every other Irish person who sees something on a bus thinks twice before saying a word.
Tomorrow is finally the trial itself. A full day. Kirk's barrister, Laoise de Brún, and his solicitor, Padraig Langsch, will fight it in open court. They are principled lawyers who refused to do what Irish legal aid lawyers do, which is tell you to plead guilty, pay the fine and go home. Kirk won't plead guilty to telling the truth.
And then I'm staying on. Because four days later, on Tuesday, the same two lawyers are back in court in Wexford, for Hugh Fagan. Hugh is the man I wrote to you about this week: he sits quietly on a bench in his town square with homemade signs, wearing headphones, and for that he's charged with a public order offence. Same country, same pattern, same week. One man for a tweet, one man for cardboard.
I'm going alone this time, no videographer, economy flight, cheap hotel, to keep the costs down. I'll live-tweet from inside both courtrooms (I'll be the only journalist there; RTÉ never shows up) and I'll film my own reports outside on the courthouse steps and send them to you the same day.
Ireland's "fake news" law had never been used on anyone until Kirk Loco. If they get a conviction, it becomes the template. That's why this one trial matters far beyond one man.
Kirk's trial is Friday, October 23 in Bray. Hugh Fagan's is Tuesday, October 27 in Wexford. One trip, two trials.
REPORT by @ezralevant:
A newborn or stillborn baby cannot identify as non-binary.
This Bill would have let parents mark an infant’s birth record with an “X,” erasing their biological sex before the child could speak, consent, or object. Yet we hear so much about consent, but rarely when it matters.
That is not recognition. It is adult ideology imposed on a child. The “X” becomes a permanent official record that follows them through healthcare, education, and public life.
If they later reject it, the stigma & paperwork remain.
Disorders of sex development are rare medical conditions that need accurate diagnosis, not reclassification under a modern identity category.
Birth registration records objective facts, not feelings.
Undermining sex data harms medical research, safeguarding, & the sex-based protections women & girls rely on. Children’s rights start with the truth about their bodies, not with enlisting them in a culture war.
The Government was right to defeat it. Reality is not optional.
The Countess retweeted
Men who claim to be women have more rights than actual women in Australia and it breaks my heart 💔
The Countess retweeted
I have had four pregnancies and birthed three children. My first was a miscarriage.
I breastfed all my babies.
I fostered 5 children, 3 of whom are a very special part of our family.
They now have families of their own.
My son is married and soon to be a father.
I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, auntie.
I am female.
My experience as a woman is because I am female.
No bloke in a frock, who is a eunuch or dependent on drugs for the rest of his life to pretend to be a woman can hold a torch to my womanhood or any woman.
You don't have to be a mother to be a woman, but you do need to be a woman to be a mother.
The Countess retweeted
Irish government strategy meeting:
Chair: “Hey folks. We need to look like we're doing something to tackle sexual violence”
Comms intern: "I was told at uni 'consent' is a magic word that stops rape."
Assistant paper shuffler: “Great, shall we tell people not to use pornography? That messes up sexual scripts & normalises violence.”
Awkward silence...
Chair- “Right. So it's agreed. Let's warn older people not to hug their grandkids without asking.”
The Countess retweeted
I wish my nan had asked for my consent before she hugged and kissed me. I nearly swallowed her false teeth once.
Families are best placed to understand their own children.
Parents & grandparents are not imbeciles who require state-funded campaigns to teach them how to greet their grandchildren.
This approach infantilises adults and removes agency from teenagers by turning ordinary familial affection into a formal “consent” lesson that outsiders must mediate.
Real safeguarding addresses actual risks; it does not pathologise normal bonds between children and the people who love them.
Irish parents have constitutional recognition as the primary educators of their children. The State should respect that boundary rather than micromanage private family relationships.
The Countess retweeted
*Important,
Let me explain the public money trail behind the viral advert about grandparents hugging their grandchildren.
Four Organisations keep appearing:
1. CUAN,
2. Community Foundation Ireland,
3. Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, and
4. We-Consent.
1. Cuan is the State agency.
Established in January 2024 to fund and coordinate domestic and sexual violence services, set standards, and run awareness campaigns.
It sits inside the Dept. of Justice
Its funding has risen from €58.6 million in 2024 to €84.4 million allocation for 2027 (+44% increase in three years!)
At end of 2024 it had 28 employees. That year it spent roughly €3 million on staff, administration and board costs + another €4.2 million on awareness campaigns.
In 2025 it allocated €58.36 million to 78 organisations (see pic below).
2. Community Foundation Ireland
Denise Charlton is CEO of Community Foundation.
She also sits on CUAN's statutory board, and is a named member of We-Consent’s advisory group.
Community Foundation Ireland helped fund the original We-Consent campaign (launched 2023 by DRCC, with Dept of Justice support).
Other CUAN board members also lead or sit on organisations that receive Cuan grants (including Women’s Aid and Galway Rape Crisis Centre and others).
These links are publicly disclosed. They are not evidence of wrongdoing. Everything here is above board.
But they do raise ordinary public-interest questions about conflict declarations, recusals, and how core grants are renewed versus the smaller open funding call (€3.2m in 2025).
3. We-Consent
We-Consent is a DRCC project, not a separate State body.
The precise cost, production details, and evaluation of this particular grandparents advert are not publicly broken out.
4. ***IMPORTANT**
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre does important work.
Supporting survivors and teaching boundaries are not in dispute.
But my question here is:
What measurable improvement has this new agency structure, CUAN, delivered per euro spent, and where is the independent comparison with the previous system?
*The graphic below shows how €58.3million was distributed in 2025. CUAN's total budget allocation for 2027 is €85million.
Ireland: where violent men are housed in the women’s prisons.
Schoolchildren are told they can change their sex. “Jonny can become Mary.”
Men in dresses can walk into the women’s toilets & changing rooms.
Where “TWAW” is the mantra du jour.
Biological reality is classed as bigotry.
But the danger to children are grandparents!!!
