On February 17, 2014 I became the first female bankrupt under the new Insolvency laws in Ireland. I didn’t arrive at this point lightly. It had been a very torturous six years leading up to my finally appearing in the High Court and standing up briefly while I was adjudicated bankrupt by the judge. Along the way I had lost my husband to divorce, my home to repossession and my business to bailiffs. I had accumulated debt in the same way an elderly lady accumulates cats. At first there was only one or two to feed, and then before I knew it, I had a house full of the meowing buggers. No one was more puzzled than I about the straitened circumstances in which I found myself. And no one is more puzzled than I about my inability to extract myself from the same mess. I have been playing a waiting game, with a timetable set by the government and at a cost that goes beyond my €200 per week job seekers allowance. I should like to first say now that which I wanted to say to the Judge. I didn’t ask to be bankrupt. I hadn’t been reckless. […]
Continue readingAuthor Archive: Jillian Godsil
TEdxTheHighSchoolDublin – April 18, 2015
TEDx is coming to a Dublin secondary school for the very first time. The High School, in Dublin 6, has secured the prestigious licence from the global innovation platform, and will run the first secondary school TEDx conference on Saturday April 18th, from 12-4pm. The conference is being organised by two teachers, Eoghan Keegan and Sarah Garnett, and seven pupils. The organising team comprises of fourth and fifth year students Alannah O’Reilly, Kate Hunter-Hanley, Jason Cosgrove, Aela O’Flynn, Grainne Dowling, Abigail Nolan and Ellen Galvin. The media team, responsible for recording the event on the day, is made up three other fifth year students – Kirsty Leith, Conor Ryan and Ethan Jones. The external speakers are: Mary Aiken, Director of the RCSI CyberPsychology Research Centre Colm O’Gorman, founder of One in Four, former senator, and current executive director of Amnesty International in Ireland Arthur Godsil, Educationalist and former Headmaster of St Andrews College, Blackrock Dr Gary McDarby, CTO of Fifth Province Ventures and Co-founder of Camara Jillian Godsil, past pupil of the school and former European Parliament candidate Jane-Anne McKenna, Director of Médecins Sans Frontières, Ireland Niall Harbison, founder of ‘Lovin’ Dublin’. Mark Griffin, junior doctor, writer and director. […]
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The Tricolour
The Irish Tricolour, with its distinctive stripes of Green, White and Orange, is often viewed as a militant flag, a direct contrast and challenge to the British Union Jack and owned solely by one tradition in Ireland – the nationalist Catholic community. In fact, its origins could not be further from the truth and there is currently a movement to rehabilitate its image and indeed to encourage its widespread use in the same way that Americans, of whatever ethnicity, fly their national flag in backyards across the States. The Irish Tricolour was first flown in Waterford by Thomas Francis Meagher on March 7, 1848, at the Wolfe Tone Confederate Club at 33 The Mall. This was also of significance as Wolfe Tone a century before had fired up a movement that said: ‘Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter all unite under the common name of United Irishman.’ Meagher had just returned from France and wanted to realise a vision of a New Ireland from the wreck of the old sectarian Ireland. The band of white in the flag was the symbol of peace to join Irish Catholic with Irish Protestant and to forge a new unity and brotherhood between the two sides […]
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Woman who challenged law on bankrupts standing in elections wins costs
First printed in The Irish Times on February 24, 2015 Jillian Godsil found to have been ‘directly instrumental’ in bringing about a change in the law A woman has been awarded the costs of her legal challenge which prompted legislation allowing undischarged bankrupts to run for Dáil and European elections. Jillian Godsil — an Independent who stood in the European and local elections last May on an anti-debt platform — had asked the Supreme Court to award her the costs of herHigh Court challenge which was withdrawn when the Government changed the law. A three-judge Supreme Court unanimously ruled she is entitled to her full High Court costs. She was also awarded her costs in the Supreme Court. Following the withdrawal of her action when the law was changed last year, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said she was only entitled to the administrative outlay costs, including stamp duty on filing documents. Giving the Supreme Court’s decision awarding her all her costs, Mr Justice William McKechnie said Ms Godsil had been “directly instrumental” in bringing about a change in the law relating to bankruptcy which had stood since 1923. While […]
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Fifty Shades started surge of Mammy Porn in Ireland
first printed in the Sunday Independent on February 2, 2016 Jillian Godsil, who wrote ‘The Cougar Diaries’, has interviewed people about the impact of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. With the film adaptation of the book about to hit our screens, she reckons men in the audiences could be in short supply PRIOR to the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey, what might be considered deviant sexual practices were not discussed at the dinner tables the length and breadth of Ireland, much less practised in the bedroom. But following on from the book’s publication, the conversation went mainstream and in between the sheets. I started interviewing people and talking about the impact and found to my empirical knowledge that sex had mushroomed in Ireland. Taxi drivers, hotel porters and bartenders – the true barometers of Irish society – were having more sex than ever before and the women were driving the train. Which is somewhat ironic since the protagonist in Fifty Shades is submissive and very passive. The very Irish women turned on by the book appeared to be tying up their men – and sales of rope in Woodies are going through the roof without […]
Continue readingOn Being a Student – Again
Confession time: I am a student again. I am studying a Masters in screenwriting in IADT in Dun Laoghaire. It is a demanding course with full time lectures on Monday and Tuesday. The rest of the week you are meant to spend in the library. Of course as a mature student I spent the rest of the time doing the things I have to do; look for business, pitch writing gigs, do writing gigs, look after my kids, mind house, cook the odd dinner, sing with my choir, preside over my alma mater, learn to run and plan world domination. And that is only on Wednesday. It is a wonderful thing being a student again. It is a long time since I was a student and while it is different as a mature student, it is still wonderful. The biggest surprise is how much I don’t know. That sounds a bit foolish but life after university is often an exercise in using limited knowledge to navigate difficult tasks. The older you get, the better you get at navigation. But when you go back to college, the world sense you may have gained does not always parlay into expert navigation. For […]
Continue readingNEW YEAR NEW ME
I am currently studying a masters in screenwriting in IADT which has some savage deadlines including completing the first draft of our screenplay in less than ten days. Coupled with a rather arduous essay on Aristotle’s Poetics, I have been a bit remiss on my blog (but I am threatening to post my essay once I get it back from the examiners – just to prove how HARD it was to address that subject!) So apologies for the lack of content and I shall be writing here again very, very soon. In the interim, I am delighted to say I am one of the contributors for Barnardos’ Charitable and Artistic Series of Presentations called UnderMyBed.ie which will run from March 12 to March 14 and I hope you all put these dates in your diary. If last year’s event was anything to go by it should be a wonderful celebration. Here is a video from last year made by Hello Deer Films. CLICK HERE to view Talk to you soon Jillian 🙂
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Messines – Happy Christmas Everyone!
Don Mullan, author, humanitarian and Christmas Truce ambassador, stood in front of two graves in Messines, Belgium. On the left was Private T Delaney of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who died on Christmas Eve 1914 and on the right, was Private M Murphy of the same division who died on December 30th. It was a charged and emotional moment as he spoke of the 1914 Christmas Truce. That first Christmas in the war that was to end all wars and had already broken another promise of being over by Christmas. The gap in the dates on the two gravestones indicated that the truce, or at least the death toll, had temporarily stretched for five days. In a war that killed 13,000 men a day, this was a significant easement. Mullan said if the dead solders could talk, they would exhort the living to live, live, live. We, the Waterford Omagh Peace Choir, sang Red is the Rose with difficulty. Everyone was obviously and visibly upset, especially the very youngest members, and we struggled through the verses. This moment had been four years in the planning and the choir carried its emotion in the song. The 1914 Christmas Truce […]
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OMG look what the cat did to the Christmas Tree
OK – Let me confess about the twelve days of my Christmas tree: 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 1. My youngest normally does our christmas decorations but she is away until Christmas eve 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 2. I didn’t buy a real tree because a good friend is allergic to the sap 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 3. I couldn’t find the old one for ages and finally I did but I appear to have lost the middle piece for I am sure it was taller than that before 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 4. The two pieces I did find were very squashed and despite pulling and prodding I was not able to much improve their appearance 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 5. I was also unable to locate the stand 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 6. A stable boot (a work boot), surrounding by bundles of election pamphlets makes a passable stand 5 hrs · Like · 1 Jillian Godsil 7. but it is liable to movement with very little encouragement […]
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Messines – The 1914 Christmas Truce
We traveled to Messines for an emotional celebration of the 1914 Christmas Truce. The Waterford-Omagh Peace officially changed its name to the Island of Ireland Peace Choir Watch the news here Here we are singing in Iveagh House with President Emeritus Mary McAleese and in the Independent the next day RTE RTE video And we were also featured on Nationwide on December 19, 2014 And we went a bit viral along the way ….. including marking it into the UK Telegraph
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