When Frankeen met Enda by The Dirty Ould Canals

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

City Mayor, Frank Fahy was flat out visiting places with An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny on Monday. Frankeen, and 12 other middle-aged men including two priests, was pictured at Knock Airport with An Taoiseach.

Presumably he was there to sign over Galway City Council’s financial ‘investment’ in the Mayo airport.

The Fine Gael mayor and his chain – he doesn’t go anywhere without the chain, even the bath and bed – then visited Kylemore Abbey with Enda, who was unveiling a cornerstone of its new building for Notre Dame University.

Mayor Fahy then accompanied An Taoiseach to NUIG, where he was photographed with one woman, and more than half a dozen middle-aged men, including university president Jim Browne. It was, apparently, the launch of the Lambe Institute for Translational Research Facility.

Mayor Fahy then visited Corrib Rowing and Yachting Club where he brought the bould Enda to meet its members.

He was pictured at the club with seven middle aged men.

Fahy tells us he “invited An Taoiseach to view first hand the problems with Galway’s canals, silting and weed growth and impressed on him the need to clean up the canals and make them navigable and turn them into the Venice of the West.”

Yes, people, you read that right. Our First Citizen invited the most powerful politician in the country, our Prime Minister, to have a look at silting and a few weeds growing on the canal.

And, while he was at it, Mayor Fahy “impressed on him (Taoiseach) the need to clean up the canals”. We’re not making this up. Seriously. This actually happened.

Have you ever heard so much horse manure in all your days listening to politicians spew out horse manure?

Was Frankeen expecting An Taoiseach perhaps to put on a pair of wellington boots, and rubber gloves and start fishing out the discarded shopping trolleys and Buckfast bottles from the canals?

But our great leader can’t really complain. Ever since Enda Kenny took time out of his busy schedule earlier this year to officially open a bottle bank in Mayo, his party colleagues have been itching to find even more menial things to do with An Taoiseach’s time when he’s taking a break from running the country.

Maybe next time Frankeen could bring Enda to the Promenade in Salthill and invite him to pick up dog sh*t.

Non-election-election-posters

You know the General Election really is fast approaching when non-election election posters start appearing on our lampposts.

Election hopefuls aren’t allowed to put up election posters advertising themselves until the campaign gets underway.

To circumvent this law, election candidates put up non-election election posters which advertise something else and at the same time advertise the candidacy of the election candidate who is promoting that something else.

Fine Gael Senator Hildegarde Naughton is the latest to succumb to this trick. Hildegarde last night hosted a pre-Budget public meeting on childcare in the Salthill Hotel.

Her posters advertising the meeting are on lampposts throughout the Galway West constituency.

Three quarters of the posters comprise a photograph of Hildegarde and “SENATOR HILDEGARDE NAUGHTON” in capital letters.

Less easy to read is the name of the guest speaker, Teresa Heeney, CEO of Early Childhood Ireland, which is in small print at the bottom of the posters.

In fact, you’d crash the car you’d be squinting so hard to try and read the small print about who the guest speaker is.

If the non-election election posters were really about childcare and not Hildegarde, don’t you think that the name of the expert on childcare, Teresa Heeney, would be more prominent than the election candidate who is organising the meeting?

But then again, Teresa isn’t looking for votes in Galway West.

Expect more of the same non-election election posters advertising “public meetings” and not election candidates, to pop-up between now and the campaign start date.

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