White collar boxing a huge success.

Last Saturday the rematch between ourselves and Trim took place in the Trim G.A.A.hall.Actually the Trim G.A.A.Club and trim Celtic were involved on the Trim side.
Personally I had severe doubts on whether the level of support would hold up in these strained times.I worried unnecessarily.The Dunderry people came up trumps again and supported it in droves.Take a bow all concerned.
It takes some guts to box in front of your peers and there is no hiding place in a boxing ring.These volunteers are the attraction and fair dues to them.
I was late for the contests involving Shane Maguire and Kevin Slattery but hear they put on a great show,with Maguire winning and Slatts giving it his all,as on the field of play.In no particular order I saw the bouts involving Bob Doherty,Alan Healy,Andy Coogan,John Prendergast,Killian Minogue.T.J.Garry,Aaron Scannell,and a number of lady boxers from Trim.
Good honest endeavour and great entertainment at short notice.
John Joe Nevin from Mullingar gave an exhibition match .Now there is a man that can box.
All in all it was a great effort and a most enjoyable night.

Dunderry V O Mahonys M.H.C.26/11/2011

Went to match purely to watch it and enjoy it.Did not record it.However I cannot let the occasion pass without saying that I thoroughly enjoyed it.It was a tough relentless match played by two teams neither of which was willing to concede defeat.It deserved a summer setting not a late November one.Really some effort will have to be made to run hurling competitions in weather that encourages the display of the gamut of skills that the art form deserves.
Both teams gave their all and no mercy was asked nor given.All within the rules of the game of course.In all fairness to the referee and his four umpires ,they did all they could to keep the game within the limits of decency and allow it to develop.A good test of the state of supporters hearts.
We won by a point and were delighted to do so.Navan were bitterly disappointed and well entitled to be.They missed a very scorable point with the last puck of the ball.Hard to take.
But take it we will.Hard luck Mahonys.
On a roll now.Bring on the final.

It really is a shitty country.

I meet a broad range of straight talking people.Without exception they are as decent as you can get.Not too many high fliers and no high net worth individuals.What could be termed the salt of the earth.Young married people trying to make ends meet,who are uneasy about the future of their kids.Young men who made a burst during the boom and gave it diddy,only to lose it all through no fault of their own.Bad enough to lose it all but to end up owing so much that if they live to a thousand they will still owe money.No mercy from the State to these people,just a determination to further humiliate and demean them,the more publicly the better.And older people who have struggled all their lives to make ends meet and who should be enjoying their golden years are living on the clippings of tins to try and help out their kids and grand kids.
The reality of life is that people are afraid to get sick if they have no medical card.They can't afford the price of doctors and chemists charges.And if they are short of food the Social Welfare will only help out if they fall within certain guidelines.Anyone who thinks that an emergency net is provided is in ga ga land.It is not.
And the politicians think it is fine to sneer insults at each other and score points in the Dail and grin like Cheshire cats when they impart a witty remark or get one over on their opponents.And the truth is a stranger to most of them and they are trained not to answer awkward questions.
And Millionaire media presenters and magnates and celebrity appointees to State boards ,who haven't a clue what it as like to live in fear lecture from their castles in the air to a populace living on the breadline ,not knowing where the next shilling is coming from.
The politicians are kicking their public servants and the public servants are passing it on to the public,who they are meant to serve.There are honourable exceptions of course and these stand out like beacons in a barren landscape.
And the State broadcaster,self important journalists  and the politicians feel free to berate decent catholics and destroy their targets.
And people leave in droves and Irish people belittle their own in front of the world world in pursuit of vendettas against those they dislike.
And Germany ,Italy and France decided today that Treaty changes are necessary.And Germany ,Italy and France decided that Changes were necessary in 1936.And what happened then.And the E.U. was set up to ensure that the big boys would never again bully the little guys.And who ensured that unelected people would govern Greece and Italy and that Governments could be changed as the mood changed,Go on .Guess.And that sure worked.
And who do you think will lead the posse to enact the Treaty changes and sell us further down the Swanee.Would it be those who have done so  well with State and E.U. pensions and jobs that neither they nor their descendants will ever see a poor day.
I have said before that it is time to clone the 1916 men and let them loose.It really is.
One man of few words summed it up better today than I ever could."We live in a shitty country."
And you know what,it needn't be.
As Bill Garry said a life time ago when he was waiting overlong outside a toilet door bursting with a crap ,while the occupant passed nothing only grunts "Will ya come out and let in a man that can shite."
Those in charge please note.

Third Dunderry Exile Team

                                                    Aine Cook
                                                    (Australia)

                     Gordon Weldon                               Brian Mc Cormack
                     (Australia)                                             (England)
 Barry Conaty                          Martin Garry                    Davy Clarke
  (Australia)                                (Aus)                                (Aus)

                    Conor Moran                           Tracey Coogan
                    (Wales)                                      (U.S.A.)

Stephen Mitchell                      Sara Bligh                           Pat Conway
  (Aus )                                       (Aus)                                     (U.S.A.)
                Des Fagan.                                                      David Bray
               (England)                                                            (Australia)

I am claiming David Bray as his father and grandfather are Dunderry men.
These are only the people that I know about.There may be more.Let me know.
I am sure that the ranks of the economic emigrants from this Parish  will be swelled sooner rather than later.
this is the fourth team I have published from this small Parish and I believe it is much worse in other places in the County.

Cowen is well out of it.

I saw some of the television programme on the demise of the last Government,presided over by Brian Cowen.There is no doubt about it but the two Marys,the walking moustache and the former Minister for Report shelving ,have long lost any concept of the notion of loyalty and their rush to fillet their former leader is disgusting.Only Conor Lenihan's bizarre butchering of Cowan on a television programme prior to the last election compares for bitchiness.
These people were in a position to influence matters as senior members of the Government at the time,but did s.f.a and to now wring their hands at the events that unfolded is a bit rich.Nobody is fooled .
They are just as responsible as anyone else for selling the Country into financial servitude and should hang their heads in shame.
I would say that no Manager of even a Juvenile team would have them as selectors,as the Manager would know that if the team was beaten they would rubbish him to deflect blame.
Rodents and sinking ships come to mind.
I guess that Brian Cowen regularly thanks God that he has such friends.

Dunderry v Ballinabrackey u 21 F.C.

Well bet in the end.Report later.

Willie Penrose does not make Fear Brega list

As all in the blog consider the above to be man of honour he joins Dennis Naughton in not making the Fear Breaga list.See earlier blog on him.
Fair dues Willie.You were well reared.

It's over bar the severe shouting.

A few points to ponder.
1.The electorate took revenge on Fianna Fail/Greens/P.D.s in the last election.
2.Nobody is impressed when current Government members try to evade responsibility for their own actions by constantly referring to what the last lot did.We know what they did and have punished them for it.
Man (or woman )up and have the courage to take it on the chin for your own decisions.
3.Have the decency to stop playing the peasant to the Germans.Either you are a Sovereign Government or you are not.If you are not just say that it's all over,that the dream of sovereignty is dead and gone and we are just a slave nation.And that that is how the German Parliament has your VAT proposals before our own Dail has them.
On which issue, will the custodian of the Constitution ,our new President have anything to say on the sidelining of our elected representatives on the issue.
On to more general issues.
Anybody with an eye in their head can see the accelerated decline of rural and Provincial Ireland.The game is up for these areas as things are.Any attempt to increase VAT rates will just destroy it more completely and rapidly than heretofore.
The Government should consult its rural members before it even contemplates any such rises.
The consensus of the Drumbeat staff is that it's all over anyhow ,just that official figures have not yet picked it up.
AS grandfather of 10 young kids it kills me to admit to myself that it has come to this.
 

Tribute to Mossie and Health Bord.

I have had the luck to meet a genuinely inspirational person,who got a bad deal in the game of life when the cards were shuffled.I wouldn't even begin to understand the name of the medical conditions she labours under.She is confined to a wheelchair,an electronic one as it transpires,which she controls with a joystick.It is a fine machine ,it can climb and tips along at walking place or even better.She is a genius at the controls and can talk as good as most.
I met her first when I was called to the Health Bord Centre in Johnstown for physiotherapy following my stroke.I am well satisfied with the quality of the treatment I am getting from a first class physio .,but like most people  feel that  I could do  with more of it.
That said I encountered Mossie there .The Health Bord ,I assume, provides her with her own personal living space beside the complex in Johnstown,provides what assistance she needs to live as independently as possible and is convenient to her to keep a benevolent eye.
She is well able to do her own shopping and lots of other things and is inspirational in her approach to life. 
I met her again today and promised to mention her in my blog.which she is confident she can access.
So here is to you Mossie and I take my hat off to those who conceived the scheme that affords this lady the dignity she deserves.Fair dues.

Penrose a man of honour.

I listened attentively to the electronic media on the resignation of Willie Penrose.One thing that stood out for me was the inability of national  media commentators to comprehend that people of principle still exist in political life.Nearly every question posed was from the angle that he would be better served swallowing his principles for personal gain in other aspects of his career.It is as though these journalists have become so divorced from decency that they cannot recognise it when they see it.
This is no surprise to me ,as the way they clambered to the gutter to undermine people who had the liathroidi to run for Presidency ,( many of them lack the courage to offer themselves for election because they well know the depths to which their colleagues will sink to discredit them if they do) totally discredits their profession ,as far as I am concerned.
The casual disregard with which  Pat Kenny and Brian Hayes dismissed the issue of the capricious withdrawal of the Irish ambassador to The Holy See on last nights Frontline, will I predict ,come back to haunt both.The inability of Hayes in particular to see beyond the  strictures of economic gain  as a reason for doing any thing is nonsense.The day will come when he realises that there are no pockets in a shrowd .Material goods are a poor bargaining counter when death is imminent.I know.
Some people have lost the ability to do something because it is the right thing to do,because they have lost the ability to recognise what the right thing is.  
Willie Penrose hasn't lost that ability.He did the right thing.A true democrat espousing the laudable values of "Old " Labour ,which is nearly smothered by the glibspeak of those now in control.
He is more than welcome to join my "Reclaim your Country " movement.

November 2011 Dunderry G.A.A.News.

This morning our U 21 Football Team beat our nearest neighbours Clanna Gael in a thriller in Simonstown.Report later.
Afterwards our lads went to Rathcarn to receive the medals due for participating in the Stefan Mellet Cup,where they were feted in style and extended every hospitality.
Stefan is the son of Mairtin,one of the Mellet Clan so well known to and respected by the GAA fraternity of  Dunderry and further afield.He was killed in a tragic car accident on the cusp of manhood a number of years ago.He played with our Club and Rathcairn.The perpetual Cup was set up to celebrate a life well spent and  tragically cut short.
This celebrates the essence of sport and healthy rivalry.Just after trying to best each other on the field of play the mutual celebration of the life of a true Gael crystallises the essence of true friendship and respect.
Last night we celebrated the entrance of Jack Devine into the Meath GAA Hall of Fame in the premises of our longest sponsors Horans.No man deserved it better.
Another man synonymous with Dunderry GAA was presented with the Paddy Kelly Club man of the Year award by Cellie Bennet ,his sister ,who was accompanied by her clone and niece Josie Travers (nee Conaty) on the occasion.As last year's winner I had the honour of  making the presentation to a man who put more young players through his GAA  hands than an orphanage.No man deserved it better than Billy Bligh.
Cellie explained that the name that her brother Paddy was better known as "The Hanny"was short for Handsom ,which he certainly was and clears up a mystery for me.
The name survives in the Parish in the guise of a cousin of mine Mickey Mac Cormack.
Hanny will be well remembered for his Honda 50,which he seemed welded to.
The forthcoming White Collar Boxing rematch between ourselves and Trim will take place on Saturday week in Trim GAA Hall.
Tickets are Adults a score,Minors a tenner and Family a nifty (50) to cover two parents and offspring.
Pugilists include Joey Martin, Alan Healy,Swiss Clarke,Kevin Slattery,Killian Minogue,John Prendergast ,Paddy Gorey and a host of others who I will name later.
We have bought more ground and badly need money,so come out and support us.
Personally I had a mixed day GAA wise.Dunderry won,Erin go Brath lost and my former club Brigids of Blanchardstown ,beat Summerhill in Navan.I suppose two out of three isn't bad.
I always try and identify a Dunderry connection to events GAA.
In Brigids case I am a former Chairman and I understand that Kevin Kilmurray's aunt had land in Churchtown.I think his mother was from Trim.One son started and another came on a sub.
Aside from my brothers's involvement (sons of a Dunderry woman) in Erin go Brath ,Junior Cahill is a former trainer and manager.

Dunderry V Kilmessan.Div.2. Hurling League Filnal 29/10/2011

 Played in Trim on a sunny.nippy day,in competition with the count for the Meath West Presidential ballot,which was concurrently being executed in the Clubhouse.
There were more at the match.

The team.
                                                        Conor Farrell
Brendan Wright                               Davy  Stephens                            Damian Bruton

Darren Callaghan                            Ivan Mc Cormack                        Dylan Keenan
                              Conor O Shea                         Ted Dowd
Killian Minogue                             Bob Doherty                                Jordan Martin                           

Paddy Gorey                                   Evan Stephens                              Davy Gilkinson.

Davy Mc Cormack,team captain was sidelined having broken bones in his hand in the last match.Would the lads cope in his absence?
From the throw in we work the ball to Finn,who shoots wide under pressure from Miley Donnelly ,the ageless and wily Kilmessan full back.A mouth watering battle in prospect.Neither will back down.The heavens burst and play is held up for about three minutes.Must compliment Messieurs. Gaynor and Mc Gee from Trim,who looked after yours truly during downpour and kept me dry and comfortable.
KiIlmessan hit wide from play.Against a strong wind our puck out is short and we concede  a line ball.Play develops ,both sides playing strong and Kilmessan score a point from play.Scrappy play in our back line ,where Bruton and Sprog get down and dirty is relieved by a Keenan clearance to Martin,who passes to Gorey .who is fouled.Gilky converts.  Martin pulls on ball ,Finn pulls hard and ball breaks to Minogue,who uncharacteristically takes the wrong option,ignoring the obvious free man,and tries the impossible shot.Ball works to Finn ,thence to O Shea and Kilmessan clear at expense of a line ball to us.We are competing well but not scoring.Doc hits it well but ball cleared and Minogue retrieves it.Pass goes astray and we concede line ball.Farrell relieves an under pressure Bruton and finds Martin,who is bested,but ball breaks to Gorey and back to Martin ,who delivers to Gilky ,who parts to Finn.Good point.Kilmessan attack halted by a magnificent Bruton catch,passes to Sprog ,whose clearance is intercepted by KIlmessan,but Minogue makes brave retrieval  and passes to Gilky,who just fails to reach it and we concede a line ball.Dowd wins ball,to Finn to Gilky to Martin,who loses control.Ball works to Dowd who mishits it and KIlmessan clear only for Ted to regain possession after a throw in and a Kilmessan clearance.Ted to Red to Ivan to Minogue ,but attack peters out.Kilmessan attack is repelled and KIlmessan attacker finds that Doc is a man you ought not run into.Kilmessan hit a wide from play.KIlmessan win the puckout and the resulting attack culminates in a well taken goal.The pressure is on.Under pressure Sprog is hit on the hand by a Kilmessan Hurley when clearing the ball.Ivan's free finds Gorey ,then O Shea ,who is growing in stature and influence as the game goes on.He takes a fine point.Dylan Keenan's clearance goes to Kilmessan ,who gratefully take their point.1-2 to 0-3 to KIlmessan.Ted rolls back the years with a catch that Mick O Connell would be proud of but we  don't capitalise.A top class Dunderry move involving Ted,Red,Minogue ,Gilky,Minogue and Ivan ends in Finn being fouled by Miley.Gilky convertts the tricky free.We are not lying down.Good defending ending with a Sprog clearance  and exemplary persistence by Minogue works the ball to Martin ,who produces a goal from the top drawer.We are on a roll.Paddy Gorey Senior ,who is beside me forgot his glasses and can see little.
He roars approval.Paddy is following this team a long time now,through thick and thin.He thinks a lot of Paddy Junior .And why wouldn't he.Both teams commence hard hurling.No quarter given .A foul on Doc..free by Ivan to Minogue,who in the vernacular ,scores a "fatherly "point.We own the ball for a while,but defensive excellence involving Wright ,Sprog,O Shea and Keenan is necessary to work the ball to Gorey ,who catches the ball in the clouds and takes a first class point.We lead 1-6 to 1-2.Attack and counterattack ends with a Dunderry free for over carrying by Kilmessan.Gilky converts.Half time whistle blows.
We have wind in backs for second half.We get first wide from Martin.Anton O Neill comes on for Kilmessan.Kilmessan rattle off three points in succession.We have taken the foot off the pedal.Gilky misses a scorable free awarded for a foul on Minogue.Wright is fouled.Ivan's free ends up with Gilky ,who atones for previous miss with a fine point.Kilmessan changes are working.They score a minor from play.Keenan is fouled and Ivan converts from 80 yards.That's more like it.Minogue hits wide from play.Keenan catches in the clouds and parts to Doc.,whose shot is collected by the goalkeeper.Gilky gains possession and passes to Gorey ,who points.Harrow and Coogan come on and Doc.registers a minor from play.Finn passes to Gorey.Wide.KIlmessan take point from free.Score 1-11 to 1-7 in our favour.Finn scores a good point following a fine Dowd pass.Doc. scores following good O Shea lead up.KIlmessan player had thrown hurl at Doc.,who threw hurl over the line.He is booked for this.Sloppy play from both sides ends with a 21 yard free for KIlmessan.O Neill opts for point.Gilky points from play.Kilmessan attack terminated by Bruton who parts to Keenan,whose shot goes wide. Kilmessan get free of sympathy kind and take point.Sprog clears a ball ,Kilmessan gather and hit wide.Gilky scores point from a free.Keith Callaghan comes on.Fin goes midfield,Sprog clears to Ted ,who is fouled.Ivo misses free.Tom Doc.gets a run for red Callaghan.Keenan takes masterful line ball to Finn ,who gives sweet pass to Gilky who misses .Pity ,some move.
Full time.We win 1-15 to 1-9.Well deserved.
Ted Murtagh presents the first adult hurling silverware won in a long time.A sizable Dunderry contingent materialise on the pitch for the presentation,headed by the ever enthusiastic Vince Rattigan ,with grand daughter Sarah in tow.You would get hard to imagine where they came from.
This is a good Dunderry team.They are physically strong and skillful.The older man have nothing to prove and the younger lads are strong and skillful to boot.
They blend well together and with a bit of luck will make a serious assault on all competitions next year.All played well and O Shea opened his shoulders and showed a glimpse of the promise we always knew he has in abundance.

Post script.
The lads had a feed in the Lodge after.I was damp and headed home for a bit of drying and heat.Had no intention of moving out until Gerry Mc Loughlin,Whacko,Tommy Keenan and spouse and a few more landed over from Horans with a Naggin of bacardi ,a few cokes and a few pints of their own to celebrate.I was dragged ,shouting and screaming (not ) across to Nancy's where the celebrations were wild and prolonged.Any Dunderry person will know exactly what I mean.Great day lads.  

             

The penny has finally dropped.

Sinn Fein has done the State some service by placing on the public record the scandalous pensions being paid to ex ministers ,That any person should draw over E.100,000.00 per annum AND be paid another plum salary from Government coffers for appointment to government sponsored positions is nothing short of sinful.That some of the recipients are members of political parties that supposedly care for the poor and disadvantaged is at least hypocritical.
An ex chairman of the Revenue Commissioners,Dermot Quigley,who undoubtedly is on a good pension, has the decency to work for nothing for the Valuation Office. It is high time that others on good pensions from the state  took note and helped the State out in its moment of need.
Leo Varadkar made a pre election promise not to pay unsecured bondholders in Anglo a single penny.Of course weasel words were composed to renege on this promise.
In recent articles I have strongly criticised his constituency colleague Joan Burton for the failure of her Department to provide any funding whatsoever for native Irish people who have no money whatsoever,not even for food.It is absolutely appalling that this is allowed to happen.
But it now makes sense .What Leo may have  meant was that not a penny would be paid to Irish who had no security because their stamps had run out.
Of course you don't count these people in the unemployed statistics as they get no State assistance.If you could cut off  199,000 more people or force them to emigrate you could claim a corresponding decrease in unemployment.
They are not even a statistic and appeals take so long that they will be starved into emigrating,.
I thank God that I left Dublin West so long ago as the possibility of even encountering people who allow such misery to prevail sickens me to the core.

Brigids, Erin Go Brath double a cause for joy.

Was at Parnell Park last Sunday to witness two of the three Clubs I played with battle it out for the Senior Football Championship.
To explain,I was involved with Brigids for twenty five years as both player and administrator until 1986 ,when I moved to Dunderry.I played all grades of hurling and football with them up to and including Senior.Medals were scarce those years.The height of my playing achievements with them was to captain the team to the Intermediate Football Championship won in 1980 and to win Intermediate Hurling Championships with them in earlier years.
In my early teens there was no hurling in Brigids so I played with Eoghan Ruadh,which was based around Manor Street in Dublin ,and won an under 16 and a half champoinship with them about 1966.
Eoghan Ruadh no longer exists and have amalgamated with Plunkets.
I was cheering for Brigids and they were deserved victors.In my view by far the best man on the pitch was the pony tailled Brigids number 6 Sean Murray,who cleaned Bernard Brogan .
I am so long gone that many of the players weren't even born when I left,but do know the people of Graham Norton .whose first cousin is Trevor Brennan and Young Mullins ,whose father Terry was a fair footballer.
Maybe it is my imagination but Parnell Park seems smaller than it was in my day.Or maybe the players are just fitter.Certainly space was at a premium and the first half was brutal.The second half was more competitive and after Brigids repelled two goal chances the writing was on the wall for the opposition.The right team won.
After the parting of the ways with Brigids my brothers revived Erin Go Brath which is flowering in Littlepace and they won their way through to the Division 4 Junior Football Final for the first time ever.Cecil is as proud as punch and this is just as important to them as the Senior was to Brigids.
Phil (Junior ) Cahill of this Parish trained this team prior to his current sojourn in Sweden.He would be be entitled to share in the victory and the column wishes him,his partner and son Evan ,the best of luck.
Hope they win the final
As I write this I am listening to sickening auld one called Emer O Kelly belittling full time mothers on the television .What a mouthy old bag.Hope she gets here wish and grows a willy.Auld wans like her ,if they had their way ,would stop recreation as being beneath them.Too late for her now.She will never know the joy of motherhood and clearly has no taste for it.
Fair dues to the the mothers of all the men who gave us such entertainment week in week out.
There is always a Dunderry connection to matters GAA and Sunday was no different.Our physio Roy was running the line for the losers on Sunday.For once I was glad he was with the losing team.
As an ex Ruadh player Sean Og used say ,slan a "Chairde Gael".
Fair dues and congratulations on their second Senior success.I think that this generation of Plunketts players have missed the boat.

Shitty Pup bought hook,line and sinker.

The abandonment of Shane Mc Entee by his Government colleagues and his obvious impotence to deliver on his public committment to reverse the ban on stag hunting comes as no surprise.I am not cynical enough to consider the campaign organisers who were so active in this regard prior to the election a thinly disguised Fine Gael/Labour action front agitating an anti Fianna Fail /P.D./Green agenda ,with no intention of following through once the election was over.
I am certain that the organisers will now resume the campaign as publicly and vigorously as in days of yore .Yeah right.
No doubt Shane Mc Entee will resign.
My own view of the Dublin 4 set who hold such sway in Fine Garel and Labour is that if they have their way the horses will end up riding the jockeys ,rather than the other way around.Don't say you haven;t been warned.
I heard Damian English give a committment to set up a Government fund  to help those fighting the overland Eirgrid power lines.Maybe the fund was to put pensioners who refused to be bullied put in jail?Yeah that's it ,he got his (overground )lines crossed.I hear that he is a genuine good neighbour.
Bad and all as the last lot were,and they were bad,I am unaware of any deserving person being left without the price of food during their tenure,a practise that is unashamedely creeping in now.
The shite tax is official.
What have we come to?
It is time for R.I.S.E. to show that they eare more than a Fine Gael front and get back in the saddle.

Dunderry 2-12.Moynalvey 0-6.

In a bitterly cold Simonstown tonight an understrength Dunderry deservedly terminated the involvement of an equally understrength Movnalvey in the Under 21 Football Championship.THe winning margin was well deserved and a game opposition had no answer to a well drilled,committed,skillful and enthusiastic Dunderry outfit,who dominated from start to finish and were well worth the margin of victory.
That 25 players turned up is a tribute ,not only to the players and the Club but to the the management team of Ted Dowd,Swiss Clarke,Eddie Maguire,Paul Mc Govern and Donie Mooney ,who will realise that this is an important step on the journey to the laurels ,and won't get carried away.

                                                                Kenny Patterson
                Eoin Dempsey                                                        Simon Carty
Conor O Shea                                     Conor Farrell                                   Damian Bruton
                         J.P.Kenneally                                      Liam Dempsey
Jordan Martin                                      Dylan Keenan                               Conor  Daly
                       Daragh Scannell                                   Stephen Coogan

and replacements Alan Garry,Paddy Kenneally,Andy MC Geogh,Davy Gilkinson and Shane Mooney were so in control that it would be churlish to single out anyone for praise over the other and it again demonstrates that all things being equal our lads are as good as can be got.In particular young Bruton.a late convert to the big ball game, showed that he is a match for anyone in a fair contest,which I understand he was denied in the recent past. 
The usual supporter suspects ,lead in order of seniority by Jack Devine,Shamin Cregan,Phil Fay,Phil Cahill,Vincie Rattigan and Benny Brien were well backed up by the sixty year olds led by Jim Newman who in withdrawal sympthoms for the sweets usually supplied by Phil Fay on these occassions ,was desperately seeking stray sweets from the previous batch.No luck.
Consensus was that this is a fair team and shows some promise.
Even the judge was silent,a tribute to theis quality of some of the  men he helped shape perhaps.
A good day at the Office.Roll on the Clans.
.

Humiliation of Irish Catholics continues apace.

Consistent with the anti Catholic bias displayed by this Government since ascending to power and to the undoubted glee of their present cheerleaders in the media,it comes as no surprise that a Labour Party dominated by individuals hostile to religion should lead from the front in closing the Irish Embassy to The Holy See.
That the decision was supposed to be on economic grounds merely demonstrates that this Government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Just as the European Union is anti religious in its ethos and anti democratic in its activities( as witnessed by the political mugging and overt bullying of the Greek Prime Minister by the schoolyard tactics of Sarkozee and Merkel and their groupies) the present Government has lost the basic qualities of compassion and the ability to love ourselves and our neighbours.
Government policy regarding its citizens is purely based on price not need .The rich and powerful prosper ,the poor and needy suffer and  emigrate and those on low or no income bail out the same rich and powerful'
The evictees and the needy are sacrificed and the main source of comfort to them,their Catholicism is slapped down at every opportunity.
No amount of weasel words can justify this petty closure.

Burton a disgrace.

Like most people I have been reared on the notion that Labour was the party of the poor and the working class.They are supposed to be the party of compassion.
Not a word about it.Ordinary and dispirited people who fall on hard times are being treated disgracefully by her Department,being left without any resources whatsoever,being put at risk of homelessness and with the full knowledge of her staff begging for basic foodstuffs from day to day.I am personally aware of a number of Irish citizens who have been reduced to despair by the dictates of her regime .I strongly suspect that at least one person I know was driven to suicide by the Dept.she presides over .
Some one should examine the suicide stats.and determine how many such people were reliant on Welfare at the time that tragedy struck.I guess that many were,just as a large number of people have died this last 10 years while under State care.
She and her Government colleagues should hang their heads in shame and beg forgiveness at the cruelty they are imposing on decent and helpless people.
If anybody reading this wishes to do something concrete about the situation,please contact me.

Democracy still alive,thank God.

Great to see that the citizens of Ireland voted  not to give politicians the right to act as judge ,jury and executioner over whomsoever they would have liked.Remember that all the parties favoured the defeated amendment.We still have enough true democrats outside Parliament to see through bullshit.
If the political classes are genuinely concerned about wrongdoing by the powewrful and think that Tribunals are an inefficient way to investigate them,the solution is simple.Let them enact laws that would make wrongdoing by the wealthy and powerful as amenable to scrutiny as the actions of the rest of us..And let them properly resource the investigation of these wrongdoings.With three thousand a week fleeing our shores and half the professionals in the County out of work there should be no problem in recruiting plenty of eminently suitable personnel at no great expense.
When push comes to shove you must hand it to the Greeks.Not for nothing is it called the home of democracy.Their Prime Minister is a graeat one .He trusts his people and has the manners to consult them on momentous decisions.Not one other Prime Minister has the courage to follow suit.Basically these leaders are terrified to let the citizens have their say.Watch now for the weasel words spouting forth ,most of which will be to the effect that these matters are too complex for citizens to understand and should be left in the hands of our betters.
Let us raise our glass to the Greeks.