When is it time to say enough is enough?

Thu, Mar 08, 2012

The deadline is looming for every house owner in Ireland to pay the new property tax, and understandably people are asking: when does it stop?

Ó Cuív move to make FF Eurosceptic?

Thu, Mar 01, 2012

In every classic mob movie, whenever a Don is being buried, far back in the recesses of the cemetery you will see the raincoated FBI guys, with cameras trained on the congregation, just to see who has been flushed out for the occasion, to see who's in with who. By observing the faces in the crowd, assumptions and links can be made, and motivations mapped.

FC Heaven has made one hell of a signing

Thu, Feb 16, 2012

God never had any respect for the football transfer window. He feels it limits his options and you know how God is when it comes to having his will imposed on us mere mortals. But in assembling a football squad worthy of representing Heaven, he made one hell of a signing this week when he selected one of Galway’s most loved and most talented sportsmen. And like any football signing, his loss has left his family, friends, and supporters bereft.

A master storyteller moves on

Thu, Feb 09, 2012

Every town needs its storytellers, its raconteurs who can fill a silence with a story plucked from the ether, who can use the power of words to shape situations, to create pictures in minds, to instil the emotions of laughter and to lift the tastebuds of imaginations. Every town and community needs to have an image of itself shaped through its wordsmiths who polish the mirror and hold it up to ourselves. On Tuesday night, Galway lost one of its best exponents of this art when John Cunningham passed away.

There’s nothing like the filthy lucre

Thu, Feb 02, 2012

When we were growing up, we never thought that people like the county council employee or the teacher or the guard ever cared about the filthy lucre. They were people who did the job cos it was part of what they were. In our minds, they were the salt of the earth, who came to their jobs because they had a calling, a sort of vocation brought to them on the road to Damascus, when they were struck by a strong light and told by a booming voice “Son, your future is in forward planning and Section Fours. Now go forth.” Young gardai then were not reared on diets of CSI and Midsomer Murders. No, they were hewn from Connemara rock, with necks like a jockey’s b.. ahem, like a jockey, and with a chest that ensured the silver insignia on their shoulders sat two yards apart. Teachers were normally the lucky ones in a family who would have the good luck to have had a grandmother or an aunt wealthy enough to send just one of them to third level while the rest stayed at home, fought over the farms and descended into a lifetime of alcoholism and inappropriate thoughts.

Thu, Jan 26, 2012

For many of us, Terryland Park was the nearest we got to the San Siro back in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the most senior level of soccer we could get to see without getting on a plane to do so, and that was unheard of in those days.

The numbers that sum up modern smalltown Ireland

Thu, Jan 19, 2012

In a town I know quite well, these are the numbers that are resonating this week. Not because some local octogenarian who spends €10 a week on her lucky dip has won some obscene amount of money. No, the number resonates the opposite of joy. These are the numbers that represent the new reality in small towns like the one I am referring to.

Exit strategy — the passing of a truly great roundabout

Thu, Jan 12, 2012

They just couldn’t leave it alone, could they? It was there tempting them for many years. They stopped and stared at it, wondering what a mess it was, how it could be solved. And this week, they went for the jugular.

Exit strategy — the passing of a truly great roundabout

Thu, Jan 12, 2012

They just couldn’t leave it alone, could they? It was there tempting them for many years. They stopped and stared at it, wondering what a mess it was, how it could be solved. And this week, they went for the jugular.

2012 — a spaced-out odyssey?

Thu, Dec 29, 2011

There is no doubt that 2012 will be hard pressed to be half as interesting as 2011, but taking a look into my crystal ball, I can see some fascinating developemnts in the months ahead.

The Christmas of the empty chairs...

Thu, Dec 22, 2011

We had a young man working here with us for a while this year who had his Christmas dinner back in October. He went home to his family one weekend to discover that they had decked out the kitchen in festive fare, donned the silly hats, bought the crackers and crackling away in the oven was a turkey the size of an eagle.

Everything up for grabs as eras overlap

Thu, Dec 15, 2011

Sure it’s no wonder we are the way we are these days. The Chinese have a saying ‘may you live in interesting times,” but they never thought there’d be times that would be just too bloody interesting. Not a day goes by without something intertesting happening — the likes of which would only ever happen in a blue moon.

Don’t let Christmas get you down

Thu, Dec 08, 2011

When I sit and think about why Christmas is so special to me, and remember Christmasses past, it strikes me that what made them so special was not the bag of loot that habitually came the way from red-coated strangers climbing down chimneys, but that strangely unique feeling that families were together for a period of time. It is that sense of togetherness that kindles the fire of memories, not the material goods that we stuffed ourselves with, that stay in the mind.

Let’s back the Mayor’s initiative and get Galway moving.

Thu, Dec 01, 2011

More and more Galway is being associated with traffic gridlock — and it is a monicker with which we would not like to be stuck. Even a recent edition of The Apprentice saw the contestants come a cropper when they were delayed due to the infamous Galway traffic, and, increasingly so, traffic woes are becoming commonplace for the people who use this city.

Kiteflying is not doing anyone any favours

Thu, Nov 24, 2011

While the age old concept of kiteflying may be perceived as being a politically astute way of dampening down expectations of doom and gloom, the velocity at which information is leaving the Cabinet table has seen these leaks become spurts, all aimed at the fragile psyche of the Irish public. And to be honest, this is not acceptable behaviour by our political masters, no matter how new they might be to the business of power.

At a time when all households and businesses are trying their best to not merely plan for Christmas but to try, within limited resources, to create a festive season for their families and staff, the anxiety created by these drip-drip revelations is adding insult to injury for an electorate which feels let down by all parties who have been in power for the last decade and a half.

Time for us to save ourselves now

Thu, Nov 17, 2011

Over the past few days, there has been a jauntiness in the step of the people of Ireland. Perhaps it has to do with the weather. In the past few years, by this time, half the county was under water or under ice and the harsh winters of 2009 and 2010 were well under way.

Let Sabina redefine the role of First Lady

Thu, Nov 10, 2011

In 1966, young actress Sabina Coyne from Mayo was one of the cast of Insurrection, RTE’s TV series dramatising the events of 1916 and marking the 50th aniversary of the rising. At that time, she took her part among the cast, not knowing, but I suppose, not ruling out either, that 50 years on, she would be on the podium in O’Connell St to mark what will be a much more spectacular commemoration, in April 2016. All of that was two years before she met her life partner Michael D, before the beginning of their eventful journey that has brought them full circle, into the centre circle with the spotlights on full blast.

The Galway ethos deserves its place at the top table

Thu, Nov 03, 2011

For a county and city which has provided leaders in many spheres throughout its long and varied history, it is surprising that it is only next week that a Galway person will take his/her place in one of the key political roles in the country.

The last thing Ireland Inc needs is a besmirched presidency

Thu, Oct 27, 2011

Allegations of attempted murder, family rows, child abuse, age of consent, dodgy dealing with envelopes, confrontations with sons of murdered gardai, internal party bickering, quango queens, televised meltdowns, sibling savagery, bloody hands, political assassinations — it has been one hell of a presidential election campaign which comes to an end this evening when the last votes are cast and the doors on the polling station close at 10pm. Every element of the campaign so far would not be out of place on The Jerry Springer Show. Shows such as Springer’s specialise in gathering people bound by some connection in one place and then watching them disintegrate in front of a televised audience. It is the principle behind Big Brother, The Apprentice, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

Enter The Dragon — presidential election boost could fasttrack Fianna Fail's time in the wilderness

Thu, Oct 20, 2011

Just a few weeks ago, a national newspaper predicted that Fianna Fail would not be in government again until at least 2025. It was felt that the start of its rehabilitation would commence in the local elections in 2014, spawning a whole new set of faces in the cumainn across the country and that the party would regrow in the 2015/16 General Election, getting bigger in opposition.

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