Tuesday 18 June 2013
ORDINARY decent people within a 50-mile radius of the Lough Erne Resort will have asked the question many times already as the security net is drawn tighter and tighter, impacting on daily life.
OTHER countries do state dinners and 21-gun salutes but it often seems that no visit to Ireland by a foreign leader is complete without a visit to a pub and a pint of Guinness.
'Meath have a lot of nice footballers on that team," said a man on his way out of Aughrim on Saturday evening as if that was the final seal of approval for the new-look side that had just weathered a very stormy 75 minutes against Wicklow.
So, did you have a jolly Bloomsday yesterday? Did you celebrate it by having offal for breakfast, attending a horsedrawn funeral, getting stocious at Davy Byrne's, or just reading aloud some of the more sexually explicit passages from 'Ulysses'?
I don't believe in UFOs, partly because I have never seen one.
Madonna's single 'Express Yourself' became a hit nine months before Simon Zebo was born. Not that he would have needed the advice. He has taken the riff of that maxim and mixed it to a whole new level.
HE was a proud man who worked all his life. A couple of years ago, he was on €600 a week, but then he was let go. Now he is down to a third of that. The redundancy was all right enough, but not enough to last forever. Most of the money was spent on doing up the house. Herself wanted a new kitchen. Then there was this "see-through room at the side of the house", as he calls it. Known to you and I as a conservatory.
THE Dail's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is a pretty sniffy body. It looks down its nose at other Oireachtas committees. Uniquely, its members are deemed so distinguished that no substitutes are ever allowed.
The Taoiseach has shown a sure touch from start to finish in promoting the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill. I say finish because Kenny's playing of the JFK card has secured him massive public backing. Hence he can take a hard line with hand-wringers.
THE media loves spies, but even more, it loves spies to have interesting sex lives. The allegation by Edward Snowden that intelligence agencies have access to our private data has caused much angst, but that he has abandoned a hot girlfriend has added spice to the story.
TODAY I will save you a lot of time and a lot of energy. You know that debate they're having about the Seanad? You know the way they're asking you to think about the advantages and the disadvantages of having a second chamber? And then to vote for or against?
We could do with some light relief. There's a lot of serious stuff happening right now – the abortion debate, unemployment stagnant at horrendous heights, the Government's hounding of the sick and the handicapped, the continued looting of citizens' pockets for the benefit of the elite. We need a comic distraction. And, with the superb timing of a veteran performer, our Taoiseach has arranged a referendum on the abolition of the Seanad.
ANDREA finished her honours Irish Leaving Cert paper in central Dublin this week – and last night the latest offering in an endless library on what life was like on the Blasket Islands was launched in the depths of Dunquin, Co Kerry.
IT felt as if there should have been a thunderclap. But yesterday, when separation of church and State finally happened in Ireland, it was heralded neither with a bang nor a whimper.
There was a rather jolting moment the other day when the 24-hour news channels just seemed to effortlessly slip from street violence in London to street violence in Turkey.
THEY still don't get it in Leinster House. It is five years since the economy fell off a cliff. Yet the public would be forgiven for thinking little has changed in the political bubble on Kildare Street.
THERE are around 180,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland, employing more than 900,000 people. That's 69pc of the workforce, worth more than €40bn to the Irish economy every year. SMEs are the drivers of Irish economic growth over the short and medium term.
AS I walked along the beach yesterday, I overheard two teenagers talking. One asked: "Did you bring any sun cream?" Her friend turned to her, looking shocked and said: "Sure, the Irish sun doesn't burn you."
HUMAN rights defenders will rejoice at US President Barack Obama's nomination of Irish-born Samantha Power to the post of US Ambassador to the United Nations.
Where do you stand on Simon Cowell? Well, unless you're a hormonal teenage girl or want to be on one of his talent contests, then the chances are you wouldn't mind standing on his head. Repeatedly.
IF YOU like the occasional political conspiracy theory, try this one: Enda Kenny was barely holding on to his job as Fine Gael leader in autumn 2009. So, all of a sudden, he hopped out a 'big idea', to abolish the Seanad, promising the necessary referendum once he became Taoiseach. It worked as he fought off his doubters, became Taoiseach and now has delivered on the referendum.
THERE were plenty of cushy numbers in the old days. A friend who worked for the State in an office told me of a fiercely competitive game they played every morning. The throw-in was at 10 and the final whistle was blown at 11.
The news that there was a spike in racist graffiti in some Dublin areas over the bank holiday weekend is, it should go without saying, disgraceful.
THE looting continues. Last week, the banks got their way again. Savings schemes run by An Post for the National Treasury Management Agency are being deliberately handicapped at the insistence of bankers. An Post, it seems, was too successful at running such schemes. Which annoyed the bankers. So something had to be done about that.
LAST week, Eamon Gilmore's spin doctors sold a feel-good story to the media about the Department of Foreign Affairs selling off expensive wines – as if this would make a dent in the national debt. An alert media would have rejected that story and laid into the lack of a firm Irish foreign policy on dealing with brutal dictators like Assad of Syria.
THERE is a conversation going on, about the banning of alcohol sponsorship of sports. There is even talk that something will be done.
QUESTION One: why is former MEP Eoin Ryan not being reappointed to the board of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (the EBRD)?
NO matter what mental gymnastics he engages in, the fact is that many Fianna Fail voters will conclude that Micheal Martin's support for the Government's abortion bill is a broken promise on his part.
THERE could be trouble ahead. The late John Kelly once said Fine Gael could not walk past a sleeping dog without feeling the need to give it a kick. Enda Kenny's one-man drive to abolish the Seanad could yet be filed under this heading.
Tin-foil helmet? Check? Infowars T-shirt? Check. Copy of The Illuminati Papers in hand? Check, check and check again.
SWIFT deliverance from his debt mountain must have seemed tantalisingly close to Sean Dunne. There he was, good to go with a US bankruptcy application, when a judge looked at where the money is owed – Ireland – and where the assets to be divided up are located – Ireland again – and said "hold your horses, cowboy". Or words to that effect.
If you were to believe the news over the last few days, British society is under threat – from white extremists, most particularly, the English Defence League.
There I was, leaning against a railing, as breathless as Alan Shatter at a breathalyser check point. I had just run a mile for the Kerry Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre to highlight their being a named charity in the famed Ring of Kerry cycle in July.
There had been telltale signs about Tyrone's right to be named among the best six teams in the 2013 All-Ireland race over the past few months, despite their fine achievement in reaching the National League final against Dublin.
POOR Enda Kenny. His six-month term as president of Europe could end in tears. His friends in America are handing ammunition to his enemies in Europe.
THE road to the political hell in which Alan Shatter now finds himself was liberally sprayed with bullshit – and for the past 10 days too many people have pretended not to see it. What a pity that Mr Shatter now finds himself somewhat embarrassed, having slipped and ended up sprawled in that foul substance.
Photos challenge clichéd domestic violence notions
IRFU insist Sexton was too expensive to keep
Low-price alcohol sees cirrhosis on the rise
She has a good heart, but truly deserves better
Finally fulfils mother's wishes with an honorary degree
Fianna Fail mastermind dad to baby girl at 71
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