Kennedy, Diana, 9/11 and O’Cuiv’s monumental decision

There are among you people who can remember exactly where you were when Kennedy was shot down in Dallas, when Diana died in that tunnel in Paris, where you heard about the horrors of 9/11, when Michael Jackson was rushed by ambulance to the hospital in Los Angeles. They were all events that marked out our lives, momentous you could call them, just as we will no doubt all remember where we were when this week we heard that Eamon O Cuiv was to make the most difficult decision of his life...and stay in Fianna Fail.

It was a decision that rocked national politics and necessitated the use of the honoured plinth outside Leinster House. No other platform would be large enough to handle the enormity of the event. Across Galway city and county, people laid down their tools, a la the Angelus, but an hour early, as they waited to hear him say those words that will no doubt shape their lives and represent a major shift in Irish politics. It was a decision that required bravery and conviction and would inspire thousands to follow in his footsteps.

To inspire schoolchildren, councillors will have to stop acting like them

It is perhaps quite appropriate that Mayor Hildegarde Naughton, herself a schoolteacher by profession, brought some of the city’s young people into the Council chambers this week to launch her novel initiative Know Your Council, which is aimed at getting young people interested in and giving them a knowledge of the workings of local government. At such an age, the happenings at City Hall on alternative Monday evenings are perhaps the furthest things from the minds of these youngsters, but it is a novel way of introducing the city’s youngsters into the processes that, for better or worse, determine how public services are overseen in the city.

This project is a good opportunity for pupils to explore the importance of local government and how the system works and the role that councillors play within the community and in the life and progress of the city It is a programme which if successful could be rolled out across the region and country, because there is a massive deficit in the interest which young people show in local politics, or politics of any nature.

Keep Galway in the shop window

As I’m typing this on this Wednesday evening, with the sun squinting in through the blinds and the sky blue as far west across the city as I can see it, it is not difficult to be optimistic about the fate of Galway in this time of unprecedented doom and gloom.

Galway is blessed to have many opportunities throughout the year to place itself in the shop window, and if the opportunities are not there, the place and its people makes them. We found ourselves in the news last weekend for the protests at the Labour Party conference. Last evening there was the good news of 220 new jobs being created in the county, and next week the whole Galway season starts with a bang with the first of the major festivals to fill the streets with the weird and the wonderful, the famous and the hopefuls.

More Editorial

• Kennedy, Diana, 9/11 and O’Cuiv’s monumental decision
• To inspire schoolchildren, councillors will have to stop acting like them
• Keep Galway in the shop window
• Marx and sparks — gonna be a fiery weekend for the left
• Galway loses more giants
• Bonhomie and not bulldozers will settle Occupy issue
• When is it time to say enough is enough?
• Ó Cuív move to make FF Eurosceptic?
• FC Heaven has made one hell of a signing
• A master storyteller moves on
• The numbers that sum up modern smalltown Ireland
• Exit strategy — the passing of a truly great roundabout
• 2012 — a spaced-out odyssey?
• The Christmas of the empty chairs...
• Everything up for grabs as eras overlap
• Don’t let Christmas get you down
• Let’s back the Mayor’s initiative and get Galway moving.
• Kiteflying is not doing anyone any favours
• Time for us to save ourselves now
• Let Sabina redefine the role of First Lady
• The Galway ethos deserves its place at the top table
• The last thing Ireland Inc needs is a besmirched presidency
• Enter The Dragon — presidential election boost could fasttrack Fianna Fail's time in the wilderness
• All Michael D has to do is keep his eye on the ball
• Race for the Aras begins next week
• Buy Mayo and buy often
• The world in union takes centre stage
• Remembering Ann Marie who never came home
• A prayer for the Ironmen...
• Points for pints — they can’t take away our right to drive drunk