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

The local Photographer was lining them up: the local party activists, the councillors, the two TDs and the Taoiseach. It was Friday November 9 and Garret FitzGerald was beginning his tour of the country to explain the National Plan to the people of Ireland.

LAST MONTH THE PUBLICITY Club organised a function to present an award to Douglas Gageby , editor of the Irish Times. Ted Nealon, now a Junior Minister, once a working journalist, was lined up to make the speech and presentation. And some of Gageby 's friends wondered if the editor would bother turning up for the occasion.

WHAT WOULD CHARLIE HAVE DONE" WAS THE QUESTION ONE CABINET minister posed whenever preparations for the National Plan ran up against a problem. And the plan produced was Charlie-shaped, guaranteed to float any government past the rocky waters of immediate electoral crisis. The Great Survivor paid it its greatest compliment when after a stinging attack on its lack of purpose, he admitted it would keep them in office for the next eighteen months, and more important, keep him out.

Colm Toibin at the Wexford Opera Festival

THAT WAS THE YEAR THEY DID "THE PEARL FISHERS" at the Wexford Opera Festival. And if you wanted to go down from the school to the opera you had to go to the music room each afternoon and listen to the opera on record. From the window you could see the church spires and the grey slate roofs of Wexford. And down there beyond the town was the sea. By late October in the hour after class you could look down at the sea as it darkened to the colour of slate.

THE PHOTO ON THE RIGHT shows two photographers and a spectator standing outside Bailieboro courthouse. The photographers are watching the gate at the side of the courthouse. They have been watching it for hours. It is about 1O.15pm on Friday October 19.

The following are some of the Major points from the "National Plan" drawn up and published last month by the executive of the Spontaneous Aggravation Party (SAP). The plan was unveiled in the midst of great pomp and ceremony in the lounge of The Oasis before an invited audience.

I JOINED FINE GAEL BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT to beat the green tambourine," said the young Fine Gael activist. He was bewildered by the more strident nationalist tone which has marked government stateements on Northern Ireland over the last eighteen months.

To install one phone line it costs the consumer £180 plus an average of one year's rental £118. But the cost to Telecom Eireann of putting that line in is in excess of £1,500.