Lurker and Paw: coming to a dressing room near you

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Paw lurking round the dressing room. Sounds like a weird animal/ GAA hybrid of a horror movie.

Except it’s non-fiction. It’s very, very real.

The dressing room around/outside of which The Lurker lurks is located anywhere Galway footballers or Galway hurlers happen to be playing.

The Lurker is none other than former Galway East Fianna Fáil TD Noel Treacy, and now chair of the County Board.

The Paw, which is always outstretched, looking for another paw to shake, is owned by said lurker.

Not a player, official, or Maor Uisce will make it past The Lurker into the dressing room without having to shake/dodge the outstretched Paw.

Once a politician, always a politician you say.

Lurking and Paw-outstretching is what they do. Mostly at funerals, not dressing rooms, but the principle is the same.

True. But the Paw of The Lurker is on outstretch-overtime mode the past few months that it has us wondering if a Dáil comeback is on The Lurker’s mind.

Unseat the handlers, Enda, and come to Ballybrit

We think it’s time An Taoiseach Enda Kenny came to Galway.

Not to cut the ribbon on a school or to dig a shovel load of earth to plant a tree to mark the opening of a clubhouse.

We think he needs to come to Galway for the Galway Races. He hasn’t been to Ballybrit for the summer highlight of the sporting calendar out west for the past couple of years. What a pity – he’s missing out.

He’s been to Punchestown and Leopardstown in the past year, where he did relaxed interviews on RTÉ television. He talked about the threats to the racing industry and its value to Ireland and the country’s economic recovery.

So why not come to Galway? It’s the biggest and best racing festival in the country.

Sources close to the Taoiseach tell us that Enda is mad to go racing in Galway, where he feels at home.

The overpaid handlers, however, have persuaded him otherwise.

The handlers and advisors and political gurus, you see, are apparently terrified that elements of the gutter press will send photographers down to get snaps of Enda having fun, possibly even having a pint while having fun, outside a tent at the Galway Races.

His handlers fear the following equation: A tent + Galway Races + Politician having fun + a pint + tabloid hacks = potential for bad public relations.

We disagree with the handlers, who must be right old dry balls altogether.

We reckon the PR of Enda eating a beef roll at Ballybrit, strolling among the populace – the great and the good and the rest of us unwashed mingle seamlessly at the Galway Races – and sticking a couple of Euro each way on an outsider at the Tote would do the World of good to the ‘man of the people’ image he likes to portray.

He’d be encouraging his Government’s ‘holiday at home’ mantra, too, which would do Galway’s economy no harm at all.

So come to the Galway Races, Enda. Ignore the handlers, Enda. Trust your instinct, Enda. You’ll love it and will wonder why you stayed away for so long.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.