Saturday, March 20, 2010 Previous editions
RYAN Tubridy’s selection as next host of the Late Late Show did not come as a great surprise. He was always on the shortlist.
IN a review of Brian Cowen’s first year as Taoiseach, RTÉ News mentioned he had to face an unprecedented series of crises and that none of his predecessors “ever had to deal with problems of such severity”.
On October 6 the city reported a record 289 deaths in a single day, but it soon got more than twice as bad. The following week one of the victims was my grandmother – who was in Pennsylvania on holidays at the time.
WHY would the future Cardinal Seán Brady ask an eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy to swear on oath that they would not divulge that Fr Brendan Smyth had sexually abused them? The main aim was certainly not to protect other boys from that predator. Fr Brady was apparently more interested in protecting the Catholic Church as an institution from criticism.
WE are really in the midst of a revolution of sorts. All of the old certainties are being washed away. People are now questioning all the previously authoritative figures in society.
DURING the week Allied Irish Banks announced losses of more than €2.65 billion for 2009. In explaining the situation, Colm Doherty, managing director of AIB Group, described the current state of retail banking in Ireland as “quite dysfunctional”.
DOMINIC McGowan told Trevor Sargent that after seeing children tampering with a neighbourhood sign, he complained to the father of one of them, but he was head-butted and required hospitalisation as a result.
DEFENDING Willie O’Dea on Monday, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said: “I suppose Fine Gael are returning to type. They’ve always tried to get the dirt on people. I think it is despicable, to be honest.” Of course, he undoubtedly meant it is despicable to make false accusations.
THE Winter Olympic Games opened in Vancouver, Canada, early this morning (Irish time). The controversy over the Irish bobsleigh team prompted memories of earlier controversies about Irish participation in the Olympics.
A CONCISE version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was about to be finalised when somebody noticed a howler. The encyclopaedia wrongly suggested that our civil war of 1922-23 was fought between the Catholics of the south and the Protestants of the North.
THE global warming crisis is now being rebranded as a climate change crisis because it seems that instead of getting warmer, we may actually be getting colder.
WITH Northern Ireland now being jolted by a couple of sex scandals, maybe we should ask why our politics have remained strangely free of such scandals? The whole thing undoubtedly has a lot to do with hypocrisy.
LATELY the media has been the object of considerable criticism, founded and unfounded, whether in relation to Brian Lenihan’s illness, Noel Dempsey’s holiday or the Government’s appalling lack of leadership.
THERE was an amazing interview during the week on RTÉ in relation to the final decommissioning of weapons by the UDA. It seemed strange to hear Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group speak in such complimentary terms about the help received in Dublin.
THE visit of Pope John Paul II was undoubtedly the most popular event that ever took place in this country. It was witnessed in person by more people than the visit of President John F Kennedy in 1963 or President Bill Clinton in 1995. Yet strangely, the Vatican and the Catholic hierarchy treated Taoiseach Jack Lynch and his government with a degree of disdain.
LAST week was the 30th anniversary of Charlie Haughey’s election as Taoiseach for the first time, but the occasion seemed to pass without notice in the media. Maybe it is a measure of how low he has descended in the eyes of the public. Although he had always been acutely conscious of carving out a place in history for himself, it seems his reputation is now in tatters.
WHILE at university in Texas during the mid-1960s and early 1970s there was very little news about Ireland either on television or in the newspapers.
ELSEWHERE in today’s paper (News Analysis, page 17) I have reviewed Michael Clemenger’s book Holy Terrors, dealing with life in the industrial school in Tralee in the late1950s and early 1960s. It evoked many memories for me, having grown up within a mile of the school.
FREE Education for Everyone, with the inapt acronym FEE, organised up to 1,000 student signatures in protest against the appointment of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as a visiting professor at NUI Maynooth (NUIM). They called on the college authorities to suspend the appointment, at least until after the publication of the Mahon tribunal report.
DURING the recession of the 1980s sport helped to lift the public gloom, but unfortunately what happened in Paris on Wednesday night has only added to it now.
IN the last recession during the 1980s the cream of a generation were forced to emigrate. It was an eminently forgettable period, except in the area of sport.
THERE has been talk about cutting the size of the Dáil and abolishing the Seanad, but nobody seems to have suggested abolishing the Presidency, which is the single most expensive office. How much could be save by abolishing it?
THE author of England’s Greatest Spy: Eamon de Valera was interviewed by John Green on Radio Kerry during the week. The 470-page book, by John J Turi, will not be published until the last day of November so it is not possible to comment on it.
Some may argue that Irish people are more broadminded these days. They probably always were, but not enough people stood up to the clerical bullies to find out. For decades a few loudmouths were allowed to set the trends because people were afraid to buck them. Some bishops were among the worst offenders.
TODAY a memorial will be unveiled in Ventry to an incident that made international headlines 70 years ago. A German submarine, the U35, dropped off 28 Greek seamen at Ventry on October 4, 1939.
A LETTER writer to the Irish Examiner during the week asked if the manner in which John O’Donoghue was essentially forced to step down as Ceann Comhairle was “trial by media and mob justice.” There can be little doubt that there was an element of this in what happened. People are becoming dangerously exasperated.
THE coming few weeks could be very interesting politically. John Gormley has said that the Green Party will withdraw from government if the party’s rank and file do not approve a new programme for government by a two-thirds majority. That could prove particularly problematical, but then maybe he can secure some astonishing concessions from Fianna Fáil in the current circumstances.
EARLIER this month I was asked to discuss Irish neutrality during the Second World War on Tom McGurk’s programme on 4FM.
IT is amazing how exercised some people are about John O’Donoghue’s expenses when he was Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism. He provided an abject apology during the week to those who were paying the bills — the taxpayer.
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