Jumping headfirst into middle age

Thu, Apr 08, 2010

Phew. That’s it. That’s the last issue of the first 39 years of the Galway Advertiser completed. from next week, the newspaper turns 40. Which means it will be probably have to be grumpier and slightly more balding. It will have to moan and groan even more, and have the odd midlife crisis.

Toddler death was every parent’s worst nightmare

Thu, Apr 01, 2010

In what must be every parent’s worst nightmare, the shock at the death of the little toddler in the accident at the weekend has sent shivers down the spines of us all. The horror of the moment is in all of our minds, but this must be a terrible period for the parents and family of little Oskars Dauksts.

End of the Teo show as Eamon gets a proper job

Thu, Mar 25, 2010

Dear Eamon,
First of all comhghairdeachas on your appointment. Can I say how glad I am that you’ve been moved from that Godforsaken department where every time I wrote to you for a few bob, I had to let on be a gaeilgoir, gathering up phlegm in the throat and rattling off a rake of focails just to give the impression that I was worthy of the many grants you threw me way. Even when they answered the phone, they hit me with some questions in the gaelgish when all I had was “Ta me go maith. Now, an bhfuil Eamon there?” But no, that was never enough for them, They always kept going, asking me if I thought you’d know what I’d be calling about. When we all know that the only type of calls you ever got were for the grants. I used to say “Deaglan anseo from (fill in the blank) Teo. Once they heard the word Teo, they knew I was ringing about the cash and put me straight through.

Reshuffle leaves us distinctly underwhelmed

Thu, Mar 25, 2010

You know that when the depiction of Tony Killeen and Pat Carey are presented as the bright new hopes for any project, that there is bound to be a certain amount of disappointment, but the Government reshuffle that was presented to us this week as the beginning of a new era leaves us distinctly underwhelmed. Competent ministers they may well be, but the grounds for their promotion are based more on loyalty rather than any any great aptitude for the job in hand.

Snakes and rape victims being told to go quietly — nothing’s changed

Thu, Mar 18, 2010

The more things change, the more they stay the same — 1500 years after they were expelled from this country, exiled snakes and their descendants have broken their silence on the move by Welsh churchman St Patrick to drive them from this country.

Who can we now trust in the Church?

Thu, Mar 18, 2010

The revelations this week that Cardinal Sean Brady sat in on and conducted interviews with traumatised victims of child rape, believed their story to be true and failed in his moral, Christian and legal duty to inform the gardai, is a true indicator of the extent of the level of denial that exists in the Catholic Church regarding the culture of secrecy.

The Boy With The Dragon Yahoo and other Swedish things

Thu, Mar 11, 2010

SOMEWHERE in Dublin. Probably Buswells. A Wednesday. Around teatime. Cups are clinking. A man stands up on a chair. Silently, a grey cat breaks wind and spits into a fire. Simultaneously. The man talks.

Tis great to be thick and poor again.

Thu, Mar 04, 2010

At the start of the nineties, with the last chords of ole ole ole croaking from our throats, and the whole world knowing that we were great craic, complete with a copy of The Joshua Tree under our arms, we sat down to see how we could all be taken more seriously across the world. For decades Paddy had been seen as the man with spuds growing in his fingernails, with the next fight just an utterance away. Now that we were universally acclaimed as being great fun to be with, all we needed to join the world was a bitteen of wealth and a bitteen of education — the two things our forefathers had fought for in the GPO.

The times we live in

Thu, Feb 25, 2010

Ya know the world is not right when Irish politicians are resigning on the grounds of principle...without any video or audio evidence...when the Greens are the ones who are caught out being unlawful...when Tiger Woods is pretending to be human and is saying sorry to everyone but the scores of mistresses...when Willie O’Dea is giving out about people kicking a man when he is down. Ya know the world is not right when Mayo beat Galway...twice...in a row...without even trying. Ya know the world isn’t right when the Galway footballers are dying their hair blond...and they not even knowing Michael Jackson. Ya know the world isn’t right when hurling fans in Tipperary hand the GAA €150,000 on a snowy Saturday night, be tormented for an hour or so, and then head off home into the night without seeing any hurling or without getting any of the cash back. Twice. Will we get a receipt? Will we f... ya know the world isn’t right when Galway club hurlers have to go to the High Court to get a victory...Ya know the world is not right when ya realise how long it took for Cheryl to realise that Ashley is a twat. And we all knowing that for years. Honest. Ya know the world is not right when ya realise that it’s costing the Guards €10,000 to police rag week in Galway and leave a state of the art policing buggy in the Square to do the job when criminals are shooting each other across the country... Why don’t they just give the money to charity and tell all the students to stay at home...ya know the world isn’t right when despite all the policing, rag week students behave themselves...ya know the world isn’t right when Enda Kenny is trying to find himself and then be that person...and then finding out that that person is a cross combining Roy Keane, Ena Sharples and Arnold Schwarzenegger...ya know the world isn’t right when Jedward tickets sell out in 15 minutes which is probably 12 minutes more than the material they have...ya know the world is not right when the last connection with Wanderly Wagon goes to his eternal reward and when the first person you meet (on ‘Judge’ment day) in the afterlife is Bosco...ya know the world is not right when ya hear that an unelected Green can tweet us all into distraction...when the Bishops are asking us for their forgiveness...when Thalimidomide survivors can’t even get a grant to help lock their homes while a directly elected mayor will have a staff of 30...ya know the world is not right when Ronan O’Gara writes to newspapers to complain about them complaining about him...ya know the world is not right when the Irish bobsleigh team don’t come last in the Winter Olympics and when Irishman Mikey Graham is still in the running to win Skating on Ice...ya know the world isn’t right when Michael O’Leary comes over all patriotic and caring...So how could we be anyway but the way we are?

Irish politics is a bit like The Sopranos

Thu, Feb 25, 2010

Over the past fortnight, Irish politics has resembled the final episodes of that classic crime drama The Sopranos. As that series rumbled to a climax, all it took was one stray bullet to set into train a series of events that saw one character after another take a hit.

Pope’s blame misplaced as Irish faith was at its strongest when abuses were carried out

Thu, Feb 18, 2010

Abuse victims are hurting again this week at the apparent disregard of the Vatican for their suffering at the hands of paedophile priests and religious over decades in Ireland. While they may have been naive in thinking that the Church would change the habits of a lifetime and stage some sort of public lynching, the lack of any obvious compassion or regret by the world’s senior churchman has struck a sour note, not only in the minds of victims, but among all those who were viewing this meeting as a turning point for the Church.

Lee farce ruins chances of commoners in mayoral polls

Thu, Feb 11, 2010

There probably could not have been a better week for the Government to pass its laws on directly elected mayors. The idea of such a scenario has sent shivers down the spines of politicos for some time, given the fear that these seatsmay end up in the hands of what the royals might call ‘commoners’

Bye bye Gluas-keen, hello bendy buses

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

I don’t know about you but I’m still in shock over the fact that Galway is not going to get its Gluas, the light rail network which we were all sure was going to be built and be up and running by Christmas. None of us ever screamed ‘pipe dream’ at the time it was mooted, out of good manners and the way we were brought up, but ya have to say that the viability of such a system was never really a runner. Anyway, we in the media are never ones to really laugh out loud at these ideas at first hand anyway because give us an artist’s impression showing shiny happy people in a new building or train and we’re eating out of the developers’ hands.

Government should never have left Galway begging for race aid

Thu, Jan 28, 2010

The clock is ticking down fast on tomorrow’s deadline for Galway’s bid to be chosen as a stopover port for the 2012 Volvo Ocean Race and what is our Government doing about ensuring that we get this — practically nothing.

Our weather woes will encourage us to help Haitians

Thu, Jan 14, 2010

Over the past three months this region has suffered at the hands of mother nature — first with the floods which devastated and continues to devastate lives in parts of South Galway and in and around the Claregalway area where many people are still to return to their homes.

It didn’t take long for Galway’s ugly side to come to fore

Thu, Jan 07, 2010

Last year was one to forget in terms of crime in the city. In the Spring, we had to listen to the harrowing details of how Manuela Riedo met her end. In the midst of the Volvo Ocean race, we had the killing of young Kieran Cunningham on a night out with his pals. As I write this, another young man fights for his life in a Dublin hospital after being assaulted in the city at the end of the year.

Give the gift of yourself this Christmas

Wed, Dec 23, 2009

You know there is nothing in this world as important as the present you have yet to pick up for Christmas. Or the friend you just have to meet. Or the things you just have to do. Or the stuff for the turkey that your one without the hairnet on the telly said you just must have. And so on and on and on.

M6 and the cities — end of the road

Thu, Dec 17, 2009

Right folks, get a good sleep on ya, pack a bag of food, get some small change, make sure there’s something good on the radio ‘cos a lot of you are going to have the ride of your lives this weekend.

Tiger, chin up. You could be over here with us!

Thu, Dec 10, 2009

Tiger. It could be worse.
Ok, ok, they’re coming out of the trees as often as Padraig Harrington on the back nine of a major, but things could be worse. You could be living in Ireland. What are ya telling me, that it’s terrible to be cooped up in a doghouse in one of your many houses with your mother-in-law giving ya grief and your wife down the road waiting for an explanation or two (or eight) and your favourite car wrapped around a tree and your reputation in shreds, and every girl you’ve looked at since you were 12 selling her sceál to the tabloids, but hey, Tiger, or can I call ya Tigger (I’ve a Winnie the Pooh fetish thing, ya know) it could be worse. Ya could be over here with us miserable sods on this rock in the middle of the Atlantic with the rain peeing down for a month.

Help the people who know those who need help

Thu, Dec 03, 2009

In Dickens’ time, poverty was easy to identify. People in that category would, according to the writer, sidle up to you in the street and say ‘spare a tannah for a cuppa tea, guv. Bless ya.” These days it is not so easy to identify want in people.

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.