Hildegarde’s soccer match: Jimmies v Corrib Ranges

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

We don’t want to appear too pedantic. Nor do we wish to sound sexist. But might we suggest that those politicians who know nothing about sport refrain from commenting on sport.

The Government’s Sports Capital grants for 2014 were announced recently. Media organisations were bombarded with excited press statements welcoming the grants.

Local politicians were trampling over each other in a mad dash to get the good news out there.

In some cases, though, they really shouldn’t have bothered as they clearly hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.

Take city-based senator Hildegarde Naughton, for instance, who welcomed the fact that Galway clubs were to share in over €2 million of the funds. The general stuff, Hildegarde could handle. But the nitty gritty? Not so much.

In a statement, she said: “Galway City Council were allocated €119,000 to assist in developing land which it owns, but which is used by local soccer clubs. That sum is broken down as follows: €74,000 St. James’ Mervue and €45,000 Corrib Ranges.”

Two things about this statement clearly demonstrate Hildegarde’s ignorance of the local soccer scene and inform us that it is a subject she should refrain from commenting: St James’ is a GAA club, not a local soccer club; and there is no such soccer club as Corrib Ranges, it is of course, Corrib Rangers.

Good luck trying to explain the offside rule . . .

Reshuffle is a bit Irish . . .

A Blueshirt Taoiseach has appointed a Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs, who isn’t fluent in Irish.  Shock, horror.

Donegal’s Joe McHugh, and the senior minister in the department, Heather Humphreys – Heather who, says you – couldn’t even converse in our native tongue.

Why are you surprised? Fine Gael is just showing its West-Brit-apologies-for-being-Irish attitude to Gaeilge that it always possessed.

And sure didn’t Enda Kenny pull this stunt in opposition? Put in a cabbage, who can’t speak Irish, get him to enrol in an “improvers” course, and sit back and wait for the plaudits from the D4 media set who think the Connemara Gaeltacht is a theme park. Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.  For every Gaeilgeoir who is outraged by this insult to the language, there’s a blonde dolly bird and her dimwit husband driving an SUV in Donnybrook who thinks it’s great.

About the same time in opposition that Inda promoted a non-Irish speaking lackey as frontbench spokesperson on the Gaeltacht, he started floating the idea of abolishing Irish as a compulsory State examination subject. The mná tí were outraged. It went down well with the D4 heads, though. It’s a policy that elected ‘lovies’ in leafy Dublin suburbs, like Lucinda Creighton.

And we all know how that ended up, Enda . . .

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.