AT the entrance you’re greeted by two young, blonde girls wearing fake tan and seductive eyes. They sit drinking bottles of Miller while the noise grows inside. It could be a school disco where the adults have been allowed to drink and the djs been given licence to turn the volume up to the max. [...]

By now everyone has formed an opinion on Roy Keane. It could be argued that it already happened when he left the Ireland team at the 2002 World Cup or when he parted ways with Manchester United four years ago.
Now, there can be no housewife or grandmother left who hasn’t registered some feeling towards him. [...]

A crisis tends to change the way we speak, if only because previously unheard words and phrases such as sub-prime, recession and future yields become so widespread that it’s only financial and political junkies that use them. The taxi driver knows a boom from a bust as much as the local publican knows how the [...]

When Roy Keane walked out of the Irish squad at the 2002 World Cup, some applauded as loudly as others booed. He had either sacrificed himself for a bigger cause or he had been unable to hold his counsel for the good of the team. Where you stood on the issue depended on your proximity [...]

The comments of the various parties concerned make for interesting reading though in the rush to condemn Rody Molloy for his resignation people seem to forget that when you resign in a storm of controversy the attending media coverage forms part of the punishment. Molloy is the only so far to have lost his job [...]

Since we’re used to reccession - every generation previous to the current one didn’t even know there could be a lesser form of depression called recession - it’s always been easy for Irish people to find scapegoats. When you wallow in self pity for many lifetimes there are plenty of reasons and people to find [...]

Blood Brothers by Michael Moynihan
 
You’d think that a book documenting the last 10 years of the Cork hurlers at the time of the latest impasse between the county’s hurling team and the county board would benefit from time.
You’d think that it would benefit from time the way last year’s book about the rich history of [...]

A year with the Dubs – Daire Whelan
The title could suggest a lot of things. Me, I thought I was going to be riding shotgun with a fly on the wall in Paul Caffrey’s dressing room.
I hoped the title referred to the Dubs that matter to the ever growing GAA media - the players [...]

No matter how bad things get there’s always something to smile about.
When news of the current economic recession began to concretise in the minds of everyone there was a large degree of panic because for a long time people had been in denial about the sorry state of the country’s finances. All those firms that [...]

IT was a summer evening a few years ago. Nothing significant about it, just a fine evening to play hurling and our group were strung out across the half of the field that housed our games of backs and forwards.
Except I was out in the middle, one of three that weren’t picked among the 12 [...]