WHO?" ASKED THE PROTEST ANT SCHOOLchildren blankly as we asked directions to Bishop Cathal Daly's house on Somerton Road in Bellfast. "Oh, you mean the priest." The Catholic crozier still doesn't rate much in North Belfast. In Derry the stones in the street could have directed us to where Bishop Ned Daly, or Fr Daly as he's still known since his curate days, lives overlooking the Bogside and the Foyle. By Olivia O'Leary

ON 6 JULY 1979, WHILE HE WAS WORKING on the play Translations, Brian Friel wrote in his "sporadic diary": "One of the mistakes of the direction which the play is presently pulling is the almost wholly 'public' concern of the theme: how does the eradication of the Irish language and the subbstitution of English affect this particular society? How long can a society live without its tongue? Public questions; issues for politicians; and that's what is wrong with the play now.

YOu're going to Kerry, they say. Be God, and aren't you the lucky one, they say. Fell on your feet there, they say. Lakes of Killarney. The Ring. The mountains. The clear air. The fish. Dick Spring. Sure, you're landed, they say, you're landed.

The inside story of how two Gardai were punished for their honesty, by Gene Kerrigan

OFFICIALS AT THE NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE WERE excluded from the preparatory talks for the Anglo-Irish Summit - until ahnost six weeks before the meeting at Chequers. "It seems they don't trust the natives," was the comment from North of the Border. The decision to keep them at bay left the NIO hopping mad, and ensured that several pro-unionist spannners were determinedly thrown into the works in the vital final weeks before the Irish and British Prime Ministers met. Storrmont Castle knows all about the unionist veto.

IT'S IMPERIALISM OF THE WORST KIND, like the Roman Empire putting a fella into Syria to whip in the slaves." The priest was directing his anger at the arch-conservative Vatican, not at Archbishop-elect Kevin McNamara whom the Dublin clergy see as much the unhappy victim of Roman Imperialism as is the Dublin diocese itself.  By Olivia O' Leary

Our Man in London

It was a mess right from the start. Cock-up City. I didn't want to go to Chequers, in the first place, but bloody Jim bloody Dooge stuck his greasy finger in the pie and stirred things up. "Offer to go to Chequers, Garret," he said, "For security reasons, Garret," he said. "Put her under an obligation, Garret," he said, "Get you off on the right foot, Garret," he said. A real deep-dyed, spit in the cup, God I must be dreaming, cock-up.

Tonight there were several hundred people in the band. A very very big co-op for the last performance of the co-op band.

I AM delighted to note that the madly-gay champagne sparkle of nightlife in downtown Boyle, Roscommon, has not been affected by the rumoured recession.