Pearce’s nod to butchery at office Christmas party

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Pragmatica, the business owned by Pearce Flannery, the Galway City Councillor, held its Christmas party in Connemara last week.

We’re sure there was much merriment at the ‘do’. That is, until founder of Pragmatica, the main man, Pearce, gave an impromptu rendition of Carrickfergus.

In fairness, Fine Gael in Galway has a good record of elected representatives who can hold a tune: Galway East TD, Ciaran Cannon, the former junior minister, and Galway West TD, Hildegarde Naughton, the tenor, are concert-standard singers.

Pearce? Not so much.

He recently shared the recording of his version of Carrickfergus from his Christmas party with his Twitter followers.

And – even allowing for the fact that at times, like the lyrics of the song, we too wish he was far, far away in County Antrim – it wasn’t very pleasing on the ears.

Let’s just say, there are butchers in Galway City who should be fearing for their jobs because he well and truly butchered the song.

It was so bad, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of those performances on X Factor, when they bring back all the rejected acts and cringe-inducing novelty acts that didn’t make the cut.

But at least Pearce knows his limitations.

“Thankfully most people were well beyond caring about quality when I took to the stage,” he conceded of his Christmas party antics.

Press PLAY ► above to listen to Pearce’s rendition of Carrickfergus.

Treacy’s long speech a sure bet

Noel Treacy, the former Fianna Fáil Galway East TD, and government minister, is well able to talk.

He is renowned for his oratory skills, and particularly the length of time it takes him to make a speech.

There was no surprise, then, that his last official speech as county chairman of Galway GAA ran to 15 pages.

One of the main planks of his speech at the Salthill Hotel on Monday was a warning of the dangers of gambling addiction in the GAA.

He said two club teams in Galway made bets on key games they were participating in during the past year.

The revelation of the connection between gambling addiction and sport will have come as no surprise to some of the delegates at the Galway GAA annual convention, particularly not the delegates who were taking bets on whether or not Noel Treacy’s speech would last for an hour or more. For the record, he spoke for 51 minutes.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.