At the Kildare Street gate there were four Public Gallery tickets waiting for Liam Skelly's supporters padmitting thirty supporters per ticket. The new Fine Gael TD was going to get a warm reception. Supporters and TDs enveloped Skelly as he arrived. Garret FitzGerald shook his hand near the front gate while the cameras clickked, and again on the steps and again near the door, while the cameras clickked again. "Lift him shoulder high," Jim Mitchell told a supporter, and it was done. The cameras clicked.

The three screws didn't know much about guns. They thought the big, dark automatic that Karl Crawley was pulling out was a Luger. But Kar7 didn't care whether the screws could recognise a Colt .45 when they saw one - just so long as they had enough cop to do what they were told. -Freeze, you bastards!

I Paid off the taxi, didn't wait for change, and gave the hinges on the pub door some rough exercise. Inside, it wasn't difficult to spot Fingers Kav~ anagh. He was the one in the corner with the five rugby types ranged arround him in a horseshoe formation and they weren't wishing him good luck. Lazy Pete Maguire was off to one side making placatory noises.

AnCo, business

An inoperable productivity deal has cost AnCo at least £200,000 - a result of bungled negotiations which date back to 1972. The Federaated Workers Union of Ireland negotiaated a lump sum payment of between £1,300 and £3,000 for 100 of its members in return for, as yet, nothing. AnCo management is currently and anxiously awaiting the trade union ressponse to a Labour Court recommendaation on the deal.

Saturday 17th

Mr Gay Byrne invites me to preside over his Late Late Show which is to consist of "the cream of Cork's talent". He apprehends outtrages. I take his point. This menage of harlequins may be relied upon to give frequent and matchless performances of all that is loutish and seedy, withhout provocation or pay.

Sometimes it all gets to be too much. Too many stones in the shoe of happiness, right? In an effort to improve my mood I spent a day wandering around the city, tearing up Wet Paint sings. The yelps of outrage from subsequently smudged gentlefolk should have helped raise the gloom there's nothing cheers me up like playying a particularly nasty trick on someeone - but, no, it needed more than that. Things have been closing in.

The Gregory deal brings real benefits to Dublin's inner city, but it is no substitute for a worked out plan to deal with urban blight.
By Pat Brennan

Monday 15th
Another Davitt book is brought. The hagiographers of this Lancastrian monster are inexhaustible.

Was a time when I knew all the words to How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life? And with a half decent guitar in my mitts and a strong wind at my back I can still do a fair enough job on John Hartford's I've Heard That Tear-Stained Monologue You Do There By The Door Before You Go. And before age withered my memory the drop of a hat would launch me into the late Johnny Mercer's first published song:

Gene Kerrigan reviews Maeve Binchy's latest book, DUBLIN4.

Dublin 4, by Maeve Binchy, is pubblished by Ward River Press at £2.50.

Maeve Binchy's new book of short stories, Dublin 4, used to cost £2,87 1/2p - until Ray McSharry turned nice guy and took V A T off books - and now it costs £2.50. With four stories, this works out at 62 1/2p a shot - not a bad deal. Perrsonally, I'd go up a quid each for two of the stories, the other two would then work out at 25p a piece, which is about right.