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Well! There’s no doubt where I’m going to begin this column this week, and it is about last Sunday in Croke Park. Now I know this column extends to both Roscommon and Mayo so I hope the Mayo readers will excuse me when I go on a little bit about Roscommon.

This time last year Irish politics was in a state of paralysis; the most inconclusive general election result in the State’s history was followed by 10 weeks of protracted negotiations to form a government. One year on, and with a sense the next electoral test may not be far away, Insider has been considering the shape the various parties find themselves in and their battle plans both locally and nationally.

History was indeed made on November 8 when Donald Trump was elected 45th president of the United States. I am not quite sure why history was made, a Republican beating a Democrat is not new, but it certainly feels like something immense has happened. Only something immense could sway the US electorate from voting to return a black Democrat in 2012, to voting four years later for a white billionaire Republican who holds overtly racist and misogynistic views. 

Insider notes with amusement that the past three years have been catastrophic times for what, in the fantastic place that is the mind of the average Irish Times or Guardian journalist, passes for the 'the political centre'.

Well, there is so much to talk about this week both at home and abroad, so let’s begin with abroad.

First things first: Trump’s election was greeted by wild rumours in Galway that all the US multinationals would be forced by the new president to re-locate to North America. This did not happen under Obama, as was initially feared, and it will not happen under Trump.

What a tumultuous political year it’s been! It began with a sense that despite much turmoil and insurgency across the globe voters would shy away from the radical choices and that something akin to the ‘status quo’ would prevail. It ended with Madonna with no sense of irony berating the President-elect of the USA for engaging in sensationalist acts and rhetoric in order to generate publicity.

Hello to all the Advertiser readers. As I am writing this, in the very early hours of Wednesday morning, it looks like Trump is in the White House. Students are back in school, and Ireland is king of the rugby world. Now, how is all that for a starter paragraph to my usually placid weekly column?

Insider thought she lived on an island called Ireland and in a state called the Republic of Ireland. However, Insider recently realised she is wrong. According to The Marian Finucane Show, His Excellency John Bruton, and sundry officially sanctioned happenings - from Enda Kenny's Brexit gas-passing shop to events celebrating Irish classical composers - Insider now realises she in fact lives on an island called Island.

As I write this column on Wednesday after midnight, I am filled with sadness. My lovely sister-in-law Ann Lenihan died on Tuesday, October 25. It was completely unexpected; she just quietly passed away. Yes, she had been ailing and a little more than a year ago had a major heart operation, but she seemed to have come through it and to be making some headway.