ICAÕs Boot Camp for the very inadequate

It’s not that we don’t appreciate old values, traditions and ways. But when they are rammed down your throat as being the only way to live, then there is a problem.

Is it to my eternal shame that I cannot pluck a chicken? Should I never show my face in public simply because I cannot sow a button to save my life? Will I be the talk of the parish because I cannot run off a frock . . . ahem, I mean a suit on a sowing machine?

If one were to take ICA Boot Camp on RTÉ with even a modicum of seriousness, then one would feel very inadequate indeed.

It was one of these silly reality shows in which four young women with figures to die for were brought into the Irish Countrywomen’s Association home in An Grianan in County Louth for reasons best known to the programme makers.

But from what I can gather, it was to suggest that today’s young women are not a patch on women of their mothers’ generation simply because they cannot wring the neck of a chicken, bake scones or darn a hole in their knickers.

There was a certain arrogance about this programme. The four contestants (for the want of a better word) were competing against each other in a battle to become a domestic goddess of some sorts and were tutored by three biddies who were an unfortunate relic of an era that most of us would sooner forget.

The one off programme was more of an insult to women than it was to their credit. The three biddies in the ICA headquarters gave the impression that women were put on this earth simply to cook, mend, breed and clean up. And to make matters worse, they had an air of superiority about their roles in life.Anyway, the programme showed the four twenty

somethings arrive at An Grianan. One was a fashion guru; there was also a model; another was a former army chick turned personal trainer while the fourth was a singer – all unknowns.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.