The legacy of an angel

Thu, Apr 03, 2014

It is amazing how much positivity can come out of a happening that seems to bring nothing but sadness.

Harbour project impact must be minimised

Thu, Mar 27, 2014

A few years ago, I hauled the entire hard copy archive of the Advertiser up to M6 to Dublin to get it all scanned so that it would be preserved for ever. That tonne or so of yellowing old papers containing hundreds of thousands of pages were then individually scanned so that the changing commercial and cultural life of a city could be retained for future generations to look back on. (The result is contained on a free archive for all to see and use at archive.advertiser.ie ) However, the net result of that journey is that the existence of such an archive gives us all perspective on the changing face of this city and how major projects have come and gone in the last fifty years.

Walsh’s Boston decision shows moral fibre we need from our leaders

Thu, Mar 20, 2014

We can take a lot from the life of Marty Walsh, the Mayor of Boston who comes here next month. Not alone is his story one of inspiration for so many Irish people who have had to travel far from home, but it is one of immense pride to the people of this county and especially Connemara that one of their own can do so well without sacrificing any of the moral fibre which has taken him thus far.

Passing of a woman who let in the light

Thu, Mar 13, 2014

Sitting there in the darkness, sobbing, waiting for a dawn to arrive knowing that it might bring some reprieve from the misery, thousands of abuse victims in this country must have wondered if there ever would come a time when what was being done to them would be classed as wrong, illegal, depraved.

City and county should embrace return of Friday night football

Thu, Mar 06, 2014

When darkness falls across the city tomorrow night, there will be one perceptible change to the night landscape that has been lacking for some time. The night sky over the city will be illuminated by those four beacons of light that will beam down on perhaps the finest football surface in the league of Ireland. And when the sharp shrill of the whistle goes at 7.45pm it will bring to an end one saga for Galway sport and start off what is hoped will be a major rejuvenation of sporting pride in the region.

Choose our councillors carefully — and reap the benefits in a decade

Thu, Feb 27, 2014

Over the next few months, a considerable amount of public money will be spent on making some very practical changes to our council chambers. In County Hall, the price of a house is being set aside to make room for the nine extra councillors who will take their seats there for the first meeting in June. Across the city in City Hall, the councillors will be asked to shed a few pounds and a few euro to make room for the slightly more respectable additional number of three councillors who will be elected to the new council.

City must be ‘happy’ with toe-tapping video

Thu, Feb 20, 2014

In the 10 years this month since Facebook was founded - initially among students at Harvard University - it has become an accepted and acceptable worldwide media tool.

The stroke and wink are still alive

Thu, Jan 16, 2014

I remember years ago covering Western Health Board meetings in far flung corners of the province where the matron of the hosting hospital would provide fine fillets of salmon and local sean nos singers to entertain the councillor-filled Board so that they wouldn’t starve on the return leg of their expenses-paid journeys.

We underestimate the possibilities of our friend, the sea

Thu, Jan 09, 2014

For most of the time, it just sits there, the pretty backdrop to the postcard that is our city and county, calm and rocking, its gentle waves lovingly lapping at our coast like a friendly puppy. And because it has been such an acquiescent friend, we have tended to disregard all of its possibilities, the good and the bad.

Don’t get stressed over Christmas

Thu, Dec 12, 2013

With all of the cronyism and financial vulgarity that emerged yesterday at the PAC hearings into the squandering of money at the Central Remedial Clinic, one could be forgiven for thinking that donations to charities this year should be put on the long finger. Especially when money is so tight in every household.

Generosity of spirit must remain the essence of Christmas

Thu, Nov 28, 2013

Americans around the world will today celebrate their traditional Thanksgiving - believed to have begun as an autumn harvest festival in the 17th century and a time for people to give thanks for what they have.

Coinciding with the start of the modern-day Christmas season - the fourth Sunday before Christmas being the start of Advent - it would appear to be a natural progression into the season of goodwill - a time to cherish time off work, relax with family and friends, and soak up all the joys that Christmas offers.

Market creates festive atmosphere

Thu, Nov 21, 2013

At this very moment, the view outside my window is positively Lilliputian. Many men and women are hammering away creating an experience that will be enjoyed by many over the next month. But what is far more important is that the vision that is taking shape is one that will be the boon this city and county needs in the run up to the most important time of the year for local businesses.

Spare a few euro for those who have lost all

Thu, Nov 14, 2013

The Filipinos are a very resilient people. I know from personal experience how they can go with a flick of a switch from the depths of despair to the extremes of happiness. Their smile makes them the envy of the world. Their industriousness makes them popular and in demand employees and friends all over the world. Many million of them work overseas in a variety of conditions and environments, to send much needed funds back to families — a concept with which this country is familiar.

The impact of a Mayo victory

Thu, Sep 19, 2013

Galway should brace itself next week for a variety of unexpected emotional responses from otherwise rational people. Grown men could burst into tears in the street, rip off their clothes and run naked through the Square; logical women might be seen muttering to themselves, staring at the skies, wondering how this thing has come to pass. Families could be torn apart from the demon drink; marriages ripped asunder as previously pleasant understandings become irreconcilable differences. In fact, one wonders if the Chamber of Commerce have made allowances for the fact that hundreds and hundreds of staff may not turn up for work, and indeed, may never be seen again, as they cast off the baggage of decades past. And this, the week after the camogie players of Galway slew all before them on the hallowed turf.

Well done to all who brokered football compromise

Thu, Sep 12, 2013

The news that came out way last night that compromise has been reached in the ongoing campaign to have a single unified team representing Galway city and county in League of Ireland football is to be welcomed. Although, as is the case with most compromises, the solution is not ideal for all parties who may have had to budge from their original positions, it is good news for the football fan who has missed the fortnightly trips to Eamonn Deacy Park.

Now, next season, if the forthcoming licence application is successful, a team representing Galway city and county Galway FC will play their home games at the Dyke Road venue.

At last, a team and a cause for all on the Dyke Road

Thu, Aug 22, 2013

For those of us for whom Friday nights were irrevocably changed when top flight football left Terryland, there will always be a memory of the cups of Bovril and the smell of wintergreenand the smack of leather on a hardened hip in the days before the Dyke Road venue became one of the best football stadiums in the country. Back then with the pitch facing a different alignment, the cold breeze coming in off the Corrib on those winter’s days hardened many a memory in the minds of football fans across not just the city and county, but beyond. Back then when the man after whom the ground is now named marshalled the centre of the pitch, when the Bovril in your cup rippled with every thundering tackle from Miko Nolan, when Kevin Cassidy ran Mario Kempes-style through the hearts of many a defence, when Philip Fay and Carl Humphries threaded the ball down the sidelines like needles in the hands of a seasoned seamstress, they created a sort of magic for every youngster in the ground. And later when Ricky and Jumbo and Donie et al carried that magic to Glenina and back, there was a feeling that no matter the result, you never went home feeling cheated from a day out at Terryland.

A break from the madding crowd...

Thu, Aug 08, 2013

When you were young and the Yanks and those ‘ovah’ from the UK would come home for weeks on end, sporting the sort of clothes and the richness of tan that we only ever saw through the pages of National Geographic magazine, there was always a welcome hiatus when they left. Endless days and nights of chatter interspersed with endless cups of tea served in blue willow delft which for the rest of the year resided in my grandmother’s dresser, monotonous trip to the shop to get pounds of ham and tomatoes to create exotic summer salads all munched down between hundreds and hundreds of mentions of life ‘ovah.’

Paddy wasn’t built for the sunshine...

Thu, Jul 25, 2013

Paddy wasn’t built for sunshine. You see, he never had much practice at it, despite he convincing himself that every summer of his childhood was spent on his back in the fields looking up at a sky with ne’er a cloud to be seen. With the sun-tanned shape of his Casio digital watch festooned like a white tattoo on his freckled arms, he told himself that this would be the best country in the world if the sun shone all the time. He says that he never noticed the wimmen of the country ‘til the sun shone and that he never appreciated the natural beauty of the countryside either. And when the rain and the winds came and they did come with earnest for the best part of a decade, he wished that the day would come when it would be warm in the morning and warm at night and that then all his ills would be cured.

A LAR is born...

Thu, Jul 11, 2013

I'd never heard of a LAR before this week, that is apart from Lar Corbett. I didn't know what it was, whether it was a he, a she or an it, or whether you could manage to eat a full one. And now this week, with the birds falling out of the trees with the sunburn and us driven to distraction by a boat full of millionaires holidaying alongside Mutton Island, Fianna Fail has decided to unleash the LARS on a generally unsuspecting public.

When will the blather machine ever run dry?

Thu, Jun 27, 2013

I don’t do sincerity very well. Don’t get me wrong, it‘s not a flaw or anything which gets me down, it’s just a conditioning, a layer that has applied itself to me since a long time back. There are days when I wish I was a very principled person, one who could be strongly committed to one cause of another. I encounter lots of people who strongly believe in a cause or a campaign and I lay the resources of my pages at their disposal and I admire them. But I’m not one of them. And because I’m afflicted with a latent lack of sincerity, I tend to get that little twitch in my nose when I detect similar insincerity, when I resist the temptation to have an almighty yawn and say to someone ‘save the bullshit for someone else.”

E-paper

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