Opinion
Tricks of the light as our dark days arrive
Country Living with Francis Farragher
We’re freewheeling towards Christmas at a frantic pace over recent weeks with the days seemingly slipping by like seconds and there is really very little we can do about it. ‘Go with the flow’ is probably the best policy to adopt but it seems to be quite impossible not to get caught in the stampede that precedes the biggest festival of the year in the western world.
While Christmas Day is the focal point of the season for nearly everyone, next Sunday, December 21, marks the very peak of the colder season when the winter solstice occurs and we have what we term the ‘shortest day of the year’.
If we enjoyed an absolutely clear day here in Galway, we would still only receive just about 7 hours and 30 minutes of sunshine with our great solar radiator not rising until around the 8.49 mark next Sunday morning, while it will disappear from our skies again just before 4.20 that evening.
The significance of this time of year was not lost on communities dating back through the centuries and even the millenniums as we can gauge from our own backdoor and the Newgrange site in Co. Meath, whose construction goes back to about 3,200BC, even predating places like Stonehenge in England and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
The Newbridge site has been classified as a passage tomb, but now many archaeologists and historians regard it as much more than that. Many people classify it as an ancient temple that has now acquired a mystique all of its own based on religious, ceremonial and spiritual factors.
However the real attraction of Newgrange is its roof-box that only allows the light from the rising sun of the winter solstice to light up the inner chamber during the period from December 19 to December 23.
Only when the angle of the sun is at its lowest will the chamber light up so 5,000 years ago, science and civilisation were obviously well advanced in Boyne Valley country. When the chamber lit up, the local elders knew that the deepest point of winter had been reached, with a new year of light ready to begin.
Of course our cloudy skies often spoil the fun for the lucky group of people who manage to get into the chamber but maybe some brighter interludes this weekend might coincide with the sunrises from Friday through to Sunday.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley
Galway Green Party Senator Pauline O’Reilly’s ears must have been burning last week.
City councillors didn’t mention her by name, but it was clear who they referred to. And they didn’t spare her.
Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind) attacked her as a “one-term senator”; a slur he withdrew after Mayor Clodagh Higgins (FG) rebuked him.
There was “no need for that”, she snapped. But Classy Clodagh was not happy with Pauline either.
Declan fumed that a certain Green Party senator had gone on national radio and social media, misrepresenting what councillors had agreed at the previous meeting.
“It’s a disgrace,” he squealed. The unnamed senator (Pauline O’Reilly) hadn’t been at the previous meeting and had interpreted their vote arse-ways, was the gist of his rant.
Classy Clodagh agreed. “We all know what we agreed but the public needs to know; Twitter doesn’t know, Twitter needs to know,” she thundered.
There was more righteous indignation from Cllr Alan Cheevers (FF). The Chief Executive, Brendan McGrat,h needed to unleash the might of City Hall’s Press Office and issue a statement. Set the record straight.
He moaned about “misinformation” and “false information” spouted on the Wild West of social media, Twitter.
Pauline, as is her wont, clearly got under the skin of councillors when she criticised them last month.
On April 18, she tweeted: “The end of the Renmore Ballyloughane cycle lane happened last night. It beggar’s belief that another cycle lane in Galway has been voted down by all but two councillors. It is claimed that it would ‘block off access’. What this really means is that it would reduce car parking.”
This referred to a motion at the April meeting, tabled by Cllr Terry O’Flaherty, seconded by Cllr MJ Crowe.
The motion that was passed, read: “We propose that Galway City Council reject the proposals set out in the Ballyloughane Road/Renmore Avenue Active Travel Scheme in its present format.”
It passed by 14-2, with one abstention. Both Green councillors, Martina O’Connor and Niall Murphy, opposed it.
Councillors at the latest meeting complained the vote was misrepresented. They were angered by Pauline’s tweet and the national media coverage it had garnered her on RTÉ Radio One.
Councillors argued that the phrase “in its current format” meant it was not “the end” of the scheme, as she’d claimed on social media. Instead, the Council executive could come back with more palatable proposals.
Brendan McGrath concurred. He “didn’t see the need” to issue a statement to articulate the decision they made. It was “wrong”, he said, if that decision had not been communicated or interpreted correctly. But it was “abundantly clear” to management what councillors had decided.
Meanwhile, Pauline’s ‘offending’ tweet remains up.
(Photo: Pauline O’Reilly at the Mayoral Ball with Green councillors, Niall Murphy and Martina O’Connor).
This is a shortened preview version of this column. For more Bradley Bytes, see the May 19 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.
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