Search Results for 'Mark Killilea'

Galway politicians have it easy. I have been told that when each and everyone of them kneels down beside their bed at night to say their prayers, they thank God that Galway has two major hospitals. For all their faults, Galway University Hospitals, comprising University Hospital Galway (UHG), and Merlin Park (MPUH), provide a comprehensive range of services, from serious injury to cancer care, serving a catchment area in the region of one million people along the west from Donegal to Tipperary North.

My mother, who religiously listened to the Gay Byrne Show, operated a kind of censorship. There were certain topics she did not want me to hear. For two hours, five days a week, she would shut the kitchen door, and listen to Gay with the volume turned down. On one occasion I came into the room. She asked: “What do you want?” Nobody needs an excuse to go into one’s kitchen, so I’d rather indignantly replied: “Nothin’.” “Well,” she said, “I’m busy.” And that meant scram.

When I first started covering local council meetings here in Galway city and county, there were a lot of serious players on board. Heavy hitters who as soon as a meeting was over, would head to Dublin to make or take decisions in a higher forum. They looked and sounded serious. They were like Abbey repertoire actors let loose on touring the carnival tents and halls of rural Ireland. They knew how to play to the gallery and how to ensure their survival in an animalistic political arena. It was in the chambers of the councils that they fine-tuned their roar for the national stage.

The monthly meeting at County Hall was adjourned for five minutes on Monday as a mark of respect to the late Mark Killilea.

We are truly fully back when the old problems continue to assert themselves. Brexit has assumed a central role again on the political stage, with the usual chaos and parliamentary pantomime evident at Westminster. And yet no one has come up with an alternative to Theresa May’s Brexit plan. There will be a vote next week in the UK parliament, and as the Prime Minister herself has said, who knows what will happen next? It’s really unsettling all round and very difficult for government departments, agencies and so on to make any plans as they are facing into the unknown.

Hundreds are expected to turn out in Belclare this morning [Thursday January 3] for the funeral of former MEP, TD, and senator, Mark Killilea, who passed away this week aged 79.

It was Hemingway who said that retirement is the ugliest word in the English language.

Heading out from Dunmore on the way to Carrick-On-Shannon early on Sunday afternoon we recognised the car in front of us going at a good auld pelt.

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.

More than 200 people attended a function in the Salthill Hotel last Friday hosted by Galway City Fianna Fail to celebrate 40 years of service to Fianna Fail by former minister and TD Frank Fahey, when guest speaker on the night was former Taoiseach and party leader, Brian Cowen.