My Trip to the High Court

''The most enjoyable part of my life in Athlone was when, aged about seven, I was taken on as helper by the (to me) enormous Mr Molloy, our milkman, who delivered milk in his donkey cart to his customers at a decidedly leisurely pace every morning. The poor donkey, heavily laden, could not be blamed for taking its time... Mr Molloy, who was a quiet, redfaced moustached nan - he had been a rowing man in his youth but had badly 'gone to seed' - would take a ritual mid-morning pint. I minded the donkey. After I had 'served my time' and learned how to drive, to regulate the tap and to fill the measure (once or twice according to the customer's needs with always the small extra drop for luck or for the cat) it became Mr Molloy's practice to dismount slowly and solemnly outside the pub, enter a sweet shop, and bring me out a small twist of brown paper, filled with a pennyworth of sweets. We never said anything to one another. I knew real happiness for the firs...

The Stalinist tendencies of the regime governing the various Athlone Town FCs have not yet led to a Great Terror or a famine. But  Ol' Uncle Joe would certainly tip the hat to seeing a bit of history being rewritten, a bit of whitewashing.  And this is where we are today.  The 2024 accounts of Athlone Town AFC CLG were released last September. You wouldn't have known it from looking at the website of the Companies Registration Office. There they languished at the end (pre-2015), not at the beginning (post-2024) where they should have been. They have since disappeared from the site in that form, been re-registered and placed in the front section three days ago. A resolution made on January 5th however remains in the end section. So, what is going on and why is the CRO the latest national institution to be playing silly buggers with the public? The big news (assuming nobody is surprised that 'loans' attributed to Messrs. O'Connor, Hayden and Dully for the year are giv...

 Viewed in a certain light, Catherine Connolly may make a good president. She comes from an unprivileged background, has a sense of humour and lacks the pomposity we've come to expect from presidents. Unlike many of her lieutenants, she does not seem to be a genuine idealist. Which is good, I guess. She is undoubtedly on the right side of the neutrality debate and will probably be allowed a victory on that issue, as Michael D. Higgins was, for the simple reason that it doesn't matter a damn. We don't have a military and we don't have resources.  A president has one job, to prevent any government from pulling the wool over the people's eyes. If the coalition government had tried to stop her getting elected, then there would be reason to think she might deliver on this duty to the people. They didn't though. The three branches of government in a Republic are the Legislative (politicians), the Judicial (judges) and the Executive (key politicians and bureaucrats). T...

                                            An Open Letter to Nick Giannotti, Chairman of ?  ''I promise to be honest, transparent, thoughtful, and open with you all'' - Nick Giannotti, July 4th Dear Nick,                                                                                                                                                                        I'm not sure if welcoming you to Athlone is appropriate, since we're here and you're there. W...