Observations. Satire. Politics. Interviews.
The first sign that omens for Conor McGregor 2.0 are good is in the media. All week, he has opened himself up to the broader international media outlets rather than a focus on his own Mac-life media production company and the obligatory Ariel Helwani set piece. In the run up to UFC 246 the bigger…
Watching Kerry people over the last 3 weeks has been a fascinating exercise. The modern age has been great for the sports fan. There are now a plethora of different platforms to consume GAA content on. Podcasts, blogs, youtube channels not to mention the more traditional avenues. The main take-away from everything I have watched…
Around 1987, I remember an old man in our village died. He was over the 80 mark so the wake was more of a carnival atmosphere than a morose affair. A celebration of a life well lived. The woman of the house, his daughter-in-law, recounted to each new visitor that he passed peacefully in his…
” Tyson didn’t bite Holyfield’s ear because he was this savage or hungry animal. Stop the crap. He was looking for a way to get himself out – because he knew he wasn’t that guy, he wasn’t a Warrior – or a Samurai – and when you’re not “That Guy” Guess what you have a…
This year, Galway celebrates 150 years of horse racing. You might be forgiven for assuming that the Galway Races, like many long running festivals, started from small beginnings. Eh….not exactly……..on August 17th 1869 there were at least 40,000 lunatics on hand to watch the first day’s proceedings. It’s amazing to reflect that this race meeting is…
I spend a good chunk of my working week on the N84. At this stage, I know the road arteries between Tuam and Westport like the back of my hand. On a good day, it’s about an hour’s commute, there’s little in the way of traffic but there is a trade-off in tarmac quality. It’s…
** Update Shane Lowry won the Open Championship by 6 shots. The heftiest and most raucous GAA crowd on the island was in Portrush rather than Croke Park yesterday. What they were treated to was a damn sight more entertaining too. Shane Lowry scythed his way through the field like a scalding hot bread-knife through…
Many people think that Mayo vs Donegal in two weeks time will be the crunch match in this Super 8’s group. Given the psychology of this Mayo team I think that’s probably wrong. Mayo play their fifth game in 4 weeks tomorrow. After the tonking they got in Fitzgerald Stadium last week it will be…
I suppose unless you are a Galway GAA fan you won’t remember the specifics of the second half of the 1998 All-Ireland final. Galway started the second half three points down. The short synopsis is that a number of Galway players stood up to the plate in the latter half and in the end Galway…
One of the many inconveniences of working at night is the sleep patterns. The nights you work aren’t the problem, it’s the nights you don’t that cause the trouble. Last night was one such night for me. Two attempts to hit the hay failed miserably and so I got up at about 5:30. Non- smokers…
When you get to a certain vintage only a select number of years in your life jump out in technicolor. For most of us that last year of school is one that is permanently scorched in our brains. A long, slow march to the inevitable examination of our Leaving Cert subjects. In our school there…
Just a little under a week ago – I wrote that Theresa May had but one option left. The only question I had was a simple one. Was she brazen enough to take it? All signals so far suggest she might well be. In the aftermath of the devastating defeat of her Brexit deal, all…
What a day! – May you live in interesting times as the Chinese would say. As almost everyone knows by now Theresa May’s Brexit deal has been torpedoed by a House of Commons vote of 432 to 202. Where to now? Regardless of which side of the Brexit debate you are on – we are…
Castlebar is a regional Irish town of about 15,000 people. A Provincial place, not unlike 10 or 15 more dotted around Ireland. On Friday 7th of December it was home to a big boxing event as Ray Moylette attempted to get his hands on the vacant WBC International belt. Unfortunately Ray lost out narrowly to…
So I was beavering away like a good worker bee yesterday – when a notification appeared on my phone from WordPress. For once it wasn’t a complaint about one of my cuckoo ideas or my grammatical incompetence. The reference is to a post I’d written in July 2018 which basically outlined some reasons why Brexit…