You have to remember I was a member of the F C A, ( secret service division )

Yes, It is true, I used to love being out on the range near Athlone with the FCA, hefting our heavy Lee Enfield, Mark 111, 3o3 rifles down to the firing line, 300 yards, being issued with the coveted rounds, shiny brass cylinders, topped with so-sharp too-pretty bullets, waiting your turn to shoot. Then, you are up, safety on, loading the rounds into the z-sprung magazine, unlocking and locking the bolt onto the first round, safety off, lying prone as the officer barks out the command, 'Gasrai, gasrai, aire, at your targets in front, in your own, time, 5 rounds, rapid fire.'

I have 2 trophies for winning western division gunnery competitions, from a long way back, but the memory, is just like yesterday....that gun, my gun, the worn stock, polished mahogany nestled against your jaw and mouth, your nose smelling traces of trench-smells in exotic killing grounds like the Somme and Ypres, waiting for the mist to clear, peering over the parapet through the raised sights, sensing the wind, easing the trigger back at the end of an expelled breath, the accurate tight grouping on the dim silouhette target, second pressure, BANG!

Jeez, you'd be deaf as a post afterwards and the bruise on your clavicle, and the weight of the thing, the physicality, the smell of cordite in your nostrils and the metallic taste in your mouth, and the piercing hammer-bells in your ears, and then, afterwards, the ritual comfort of pouring 8 pints of boiling water through the barrell. 'Same amount of boiling water as blood in your body, Private', wondering how they did that in 1917 in a filthy trench with no electric kettle and afterwards, the oiled pull-through string and wad, stowed in your tunic pocket, like a scapular!

And then the feed, in Kinsellas Hotel, awkward in our uniforms, snake-guard high boots, laced to the top, air eagla na h-eagla agus na peist, the never ending laces drooping like anacondas below our football socks, hardly camoflage colours but stopped the chaffing, our appetites too young to join Eamon and Tom in topping up the bill with Guinness. Imagine looking forward to sharing two weeks in a tent full of over-sexed cadets, amid the sand-dunes at Finner, just so we could fire the Gustav Machine, the Bren Gun and the Energa Grenade. 17 year old Boys playing WW1 soldiers, with real 1918 rifles and real bullets in Ireland in the 1970's.

Y'know....watching all the bang bang movies, you know that the action is fake...there is no way that anyone can function with the bells ringing in your ears and the recoil...then one day we had to cover the Butts...resetting the targets and pasting the holes over them...real rounds buffeting the sand-hill over your heads...the ping and poof...and the absolute knowlege that you would never hear the offending shot were you the target...just the carnage...puts those 2 unfortunate British soldiers and the Polish Pizza delivery men in Antrim in stark perspective...something our kids sadly lack with the TV and movies de-personalising violence.

Curlews call

We celebrated (if thats the right word) my sister Sheila's first anniversary on Sunday last, January 18, 2009, in Sligo, and Joe her husband did us, and Sheila proud. There was a fair scattering, if that's the right term, of her diverse friends there, indeed they came from all over and we all enjoyed the occasion, albeit that it had to be sad to be real, and despite the levity and the conviviality, it was indeed sad. The melting snow glistened down Ben Bulben's face reflecting our tears as we paid our respects to Sheila at the quiet hillside cemetary in Rosses Point, with only the calling of the curlews and seabirds in the long grass of the dunes and rythmic dunta of the atlantic waves on her favourite beach as accompanyment to our soft prayers. The crispness of the air made the fresh, blooming flowers all the more poignant on her grave. Sheila, our rose, is gone but never forgotten, especially with family and friends remembering her constantly as they do, visiting with her year round in her little spot overlooking the Rosses and Sligo Bay.

Co-incidentally, just last Friday, on a similarly frosty morning, I found a dead Curlew on my doorstep in Barna. I opened the front door and there it was, on my doorstep, cold and stiff, yet dignified and proud, noble I suppose. It surprised me, the arbitrary oddness of finding it there in the first place, not on the grass, not on the driveway, on my doorstep. Not just the stark finality, but also the beauty of this very private bird, that I'd often heard, glimpsed, though never actually seen, the long curved beak and the extraordinary rich, though muted, understated, ordinary-looking brown plumage, and the realisation of the mystery of the bird, dead now, no longer the living spirit of the bog and hills round my house, overlooking Galway bay and the Burren, gone, but not gone, still living, replaced by another curlew, and then another, as nature continues the cycle of life.

And later, having buried the dead bird in the bog behind my house, I thought of Sheila and of her own love of nature, her understanding of it, her derived wisdom, her faith and her spirit, now at peace on the little isthmus of Rosses Point, nestled between Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, her haven of mystery and spirituality, and now eternity, punctuated by the plaintive cry of the curlew from the dunes.

Yeats, no stranger to Rosses Point, wrote 'O Curlew cry no more in the air, or only to the waters in the West...', but that is too sad, so instead, I thought I would share this beautiful and reassuring piece from the American poet, Robert Frost. Frost was so in touch with nature, the cycles and the nuances of it and he wrote this beautiful piece about his wife, after she had died, and how her voice was now part of the symphony of birdsong, in that he subscribed to the the theory that birds are believed to absorb some subleties of what they hear and incorporate a minute part of that into their own vocabulary, or repertoire. I like to think of Sheila's spirit being incorporated in our own wild birds' song or in the beauty of the bog cotton, or the movement of the winds that blows constantly on the western shores of Ireland, for I sense her here, on occasions, unbidden, welcomed always.

Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.

Robert Frost

Apropos, given the day that was in it... and then the next day watching Obama's inauguration as 44th President it is perhaps a timely coincidence...Frost was 86 when he spoke and performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20th, 1961. He died 2 years later on January 29th, 1963.

Fortuna Favours the Brave

A little story from the west of Ireland to chase the recession blues away!
My brother Paul's dog, (or rather bitch), Fortuna just won the Oaks at the National Coursing Finals in Clonmel last Wednesday (February 4, 2009). Paul shares ownership of Fortuna with Brigid Frank and Donie Reidy, two great friends of our family, and yes, you've guessed it, they are all three stark raving mad into Greyhounds.

In keeping with her name, (taken from the Roman Goddess of Luck, who is usually represented by a beggar-woman), Fortuna was an out-and-out rank outsider. She wasn't rated at all, weighing in as she did at only 65lbs, (tiny for a coursing greyhound). For good luck, the unassuming trio backed Fortuna on the opening day, Monday, with a tenner each way @ 100/1, with the bookies, (you do the math). They backed her, just so she wouldn't feel unloved!!...and that was only the icing on the cake.

They had bred Fortuna themselves in Loughrea, using my late dad's old kennels and from a pup she was reared out in Dalystown yard, just as was Dad's uber-dog, Knockash Rover. (He won the Derby in Clonmel in 1981). A great tradition continued and now our family and our town have been blessed to have captured both Classics, albeit in nearly 70 years of trying. I think Dad would have been pleased, as indeed would our late uncle Michael Bourke from Kilrush, who passed away at this same meeting, just 2 years ago, a coursing man to his boots.

A whole coach-load of Loughrea Coursing fans made the trip down to Clonmel to support Fortuna and their cheers, when she raised the final flag, could probably have been heard all the way back in Loughrea. Another Loughrea dog owned by the Mahonys was beaten in the Derby quarter final, so the travelling support had plenty to cheer for. They all travelled back in convoy and finally arrived home very late last night, having celebrated earlier in Hotel Minella in Clonmel and in Stapletons in Borrisoleigh.

A bar-full of coursing supporters had been waiting all night for them in Connollys pub and many there were crying with the emotion of the win when Brigid finally raised the winners jacket. It was quite an occasion, very moving. Happy Days. Something at least to chase away the gloom and doom for a moment!

Take a minute to read this beautifully written article by Diarmuid O'Flynn and share the moment. (My thanks to The Examiner, who always give great coverage to Coursing). http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/idmhqlmhsn/#mon

Willie O'Dea and the Irish Submarine, Asgard 2

In 1896, at the age of 53, having himself emigrated on a 'Coffin Ship' from Liscannor in county Clare, the Irish inventor, John P. Holland presented the US navy with a working submarine capable of spending hours underwater and of making 7 knots when travelling on the surface. It was called, ironically enough, 'The Plunger'.

Mind you, 'The Plunger' was following on the duck-steps of two other submersible vessels, 'The Intelligent Whale' and 'The Alligator', both of which 'boats' sank during trials, with the loss of all aboard. Holland was a visionary, effectively seeing off the challenges of another submarine inventor, the aptly named, Simon Lake, and also being the first to conceive of employing electric motors and the internal combustion engine to power a submarine. Holland also invented several torpedoes, employing the use of gyroscopes and pendulums for guidance.

However, the inventors lot proved not to be a happy one, and John was to see his own company sink into oblivion owing to the reticience of the US Navy to invest in such 'dastardly and ungentlemanly' technology, before he died, penniless, in 1914, a year that saw Germany, using a modified version one of Hollands rejected designs, launch a fleet of powerful U-Boats on the helpless Lusitania and the British merchant marine in general.



Today the Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea, announced that he would not spend €2 million of the insurers money in salvaging the Irish sail-training yacht, 'The Asgard', which having sank in September 2008, off the NW coast of France, now lies in wait on the ocean floor, 83 metres below the surface, yet another Irish submarine, denied a future by an uncaring government and navy. John Holland would not be proud of this decision to leave a perfectly good, Tyrell/Arklow-built wooden-traditional yacht on the bottom of the Bay of Biscay.



The Asgard 1, named for the Norse god of the sea, was ownedby Erskine Childers, who after years of research published in 1913, but only on a spying mission on the Germans celebrated in the book, 'The Riddle of the Sands'. Later on, in a gun smuggkling opoeration, The Asgard landed weapons destined for the war againset colonial Britain.

Top Ten Tips to Improve the Economy - My part in our downfall

I thought I would share some ideas for a better Ireland with you, ideas that I have distilled from the deafening twitter that is universal across all media. These ideas are not comprehensive, nor do they offer any instant panacea for our economic malaise, but they are in my opinion, sound, sensible and workable measures that would ease some of the current pain. Perhaps the Dail might debate and evaluate these and several other of the many sensible economic issues that I have heard voiced, so we will know that the Government is really serious about trying to improve our economy. Why not encourage the public to submit ideas to a cross-party committee. Then have each of say the top 100 ideas roughly costed and then published and debated in the Dail. Prevent the 'vested interests' (Unions, Departments, Industry experts etc ) from nay-saying any idea unless in a transparent and public forum. You might be surprised how supportive the public would be:Here goes my ideas;

My Top Ten

1. Immediately reduce VAT on food and clothes to 15%, until Jan 2010. That would slow the cross border shopping and maintain jobs in Retail in the Republic.

2. Charge all OAP's with Free Travel Passes €2 for any trip on bus or train over 10 miles in duration. The extra €'s generated would save over 200 drivers jobs.

3. Introduce a €4-per-week child bus pass in all urban areas. This would encourage school-goers bus use and reduce car use, while savin g the average parent €5 - €6 per week to boot. (95cents per trip on city buses)

4. Pay Bus, Train, Dart and Luas Drivers 38 hours pay for only 30 hours work. Pay no overtime. Take on additional drivers to do the additional hours. Increase employment without costing the tax-payer.

5. Force ESB to lower electricity prices for manufacturing industries and reflect the true lower cost of Oil and Gas while making Ireland more competitive. (did you see the adverts where ESB are giving us a 1%(?) reduction 'cause they sold off some old plant recently...no mention of the cost of an oil barrell plummeting from $150 to $45 in the last 6 months though).

6. Force ESB to take in electricity onto it's grid from all Eco producers, even from small ones and thus reduce our reliance on Oil and Gas. Pay a small premium to such small suppliers.

7. Have Green Party encourage Government immediately to make all Insulation, Eco-heat and Solar and Electric generator products rated at Zero VAT. Encourage us to invest in our cold but expensive homes and offices, and in the meantime help keep more building industry workers employed.

8. Have ESB take on additional staff to work the overtime hours that the ESB workers consider their entitlement. Most ESB power station workers make double or triple the average industrial wage with this overtime. Increase employment and reduce electricity cost.

9. If the Green party are so keen to have us use CFC Bulbs, then why are the y not being manufactured here. Set up a PPP company to make the new 'better bulb' here in Ireland, not in China. then the Government could appeal to our sense of patriotism to have us buy them.

10. Re-open the Greencore plant in Carlow to process beet again, this time for bio-fuel. Tell Greencore it is in the national interest to do so, and keep the farmers busy and employ our workers in producing bio-fuel from a natural Irish product. Tell Greencore it is not in the national interest for them to re-develop Carlow into another useless housing estste full of the unemployed. Have CIE convert all busses and trains from imported Diesel to use home-grown Bio-Fuel thus creating an immediate market for this renewable and lower carbon-footprint fuel.

....and Finally...on a lighter note;

Having listened to Brian Cowen's address to the Dail this evening, I am convinced something about him has to change. I don't believe he even believed his rhetoric. Perhaps he could attend a make-over class, kit himself out in bright new clothes and deliver one 'happy' speech each week, on any topic....on each Sunday morning, so that the Monday morning papers news wouldn't all be so darned blue. If he lightens up a bit, maybe we might follow.

A Little Christmas Innocence

I was in the process of taking the Christmas tree down on Little Christmas (6 January), packing away all the baubles and ornaments that help make Christmas so 'magic and make believe'. It's the saddest part of every Christmas I think...but my last piece of magic every year is the way the Christmas stuff always seems to fit back perfectly into the two card-board boxes I have stored it in, ever since the girls were little, despite the constant addition of new bits and pieces each year.

My young son had just inadvertently caught me out...he came in from the garden and wondered where the squeaky toy Santa had brought to the dog, might have gotten to. I said, 'You mean the yellow cracker I bought in the pet shop?'...Oh-oh!...silence...then a small little voice said...'You bought that!?'

Realising my mistake I added...'Y'know Santa doesn't really come to dogs, only to kids'...but it was already too late, the cat was out of the bag and half way up the tree. He went back outside playing with the dog and I was left with a miserably shedding tree to consider my faux pas. I was taken aback at how easily I had just surrendered our 19-year subterfuge. The soot on the fire-grate, the half-eaten cake, the empty whiskey tumbler, the bulging stockings on the mantle-piece, all fading to memories now. Loose lips swallows reindeer indeed!

Poor boy. That's a big reality check for him...he's nearly 10, not quite a suspension of total belief just yet, but it's the beginning of the end...and it struck me hard, right in the pit of my stomach, like hitting the brakes on an icy road, sensing the first shimmering slide before the realisation hits you that you are not going to be able to stop, as you luge towards that big slidey bend up ahead.

Soon he will be a young man, no longer interested in helping me set up the train tracks around the tree in the corner...and we won't have any innocent babies to nurture, nor ply with time-worn traditional tales of fantasy and expectancy and the baby Jesus...and Christmas, and the tree with all the shiny ornaments that had survived all of our moves and our constant exposure to commercialism, will have lost some of it's lustre...it's quite sad actually!

But then again...what did I expect, it's January, the roads really are icy. Nothing will ever be as it was again. Bethelhem is burning, the wise men have feet of clay and the whole world is coming to grips with a new reality! It seems we may have all lost a bit of innocence this Christmas.

Recession My Arse

Well here we are, in the depths of a recession, so deep in it in fact, that it's like being in a bungee freefall, without the bungee cord. So entirely fantastic and in-credible is it that it's probable that nobody could have predicted it, not even Nostradamus. Well, nobody, y'know, nobody that is...unless you exclude the new cross between Houdini and PT Barnum, aka, Bertie Aherne..yes, that nice man from the Northside, who comes up smelling of roses no matter what pile of shoite he emerges from...try this for prodnostications and procrastinations... as Juno was wont to say!
'Hey when I grow up, I'm gonna be a politician and take brown bag bribes and then become 'Taoiseach' or Prime Minister of Ireland...and no tribunal will ever convict me'.
'Hey, and if they do question me about the bribe money, I'll just say that I won it on a horse, whose name I disremember, and I was paid out in cash, and no one will raise an eyebrow'.
Hey, I'll leave me house, me car, me bank accounts, me wife and me 2 young girls..and yes, in Ireland, yes holier than thou .mother-effin oireland., I'll take on a very public mistress and bring her places with other lads and their wives and mistresses...and no one will even say boo..'!
'Hey, and when me girls grow up, one of them will marry a millionaire popstar...and Hello Magazine will pay me for their wedding photos, and the other one, me favourite, will become a best selling chic-lit writer, making millions on her drivel'!!!
'Hey, I will run the country in times of unprecedented 'Boom'...(I love that word, usually follows a bang)...and I'll make lots of dosh for me and especially for my buddies, and I'll spend everything the country has made in de decade of decadence, on poor investments and jobs for deboys, and just when they think 'it cannot get any better than this' I'll prove then right and pull out of office, just right before the shoite hits the fan, but only to wild and exuberant praise and applause'.
'Hey, when I do retire, em' I mean resign, I will hand over the running of the country to an otherwise smart and nice guy, a suckling pillock from down de country, who will completely fall flat on his face, before he even gets off the starting blocks, poor bollix'!
Oh, and my last prediction;
'Hey, when I'm done with all of that, and having done the country some service, I believe I am going to be appointed President of Ireland, hmm, maybe in 3 years time. Arais ins an Aras, Aris!
Any Bets?
Watch this space!
Recession...what recession...a tour company just went bust in Dublin today...with 1200 paid bookings for people (with way too much money obviously, duh), to visit Santa...in ..wait for it...the North Pole, in Lapland @ €1,000+ per person...!
And tell me...ye well educated jung people of Ireland, since when did the feckin' North Pole sink south to shanggin' Lapland. Gimme a break!
Aah, I suppose if you swallowed the Bertie Fairy tale, you are entitled to still believe in Santa!
Recession my arse!