Oh, goody! We get to go through all that again. Gee whizz, terrific. Me, I'd made extensive preparations for the budget. Cartons of smokes, a bottle of this, a bottle of that. Heard a rumour that newspaper prices were inncreasing so I began hoarding a stock of the Irish Times. Time for one last night with the elbows down in O'Donoghues before they start taxing barstools.
The battle for the IFA presidency is complicated by the personel finances of one of the contenders and allegations of political bias. By Pat Brennan
Des O'Malley was choosing his words the way Steve Davis choooses the angle off the side cushion into the corner pocket. Very carefully, deliberately.
When performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony were given in England towards the end of the nineteenth century, the final movement, the Ode to Joy, was often accompanied to a rousing finale by four military brass bands. Victorian culture with its bawdy music halls and tawdry ballads was often so far over the top that even the more extravagant Ken Russell might seem tame in comparison. Victorian England was not iust the era of the straight-laced, its culture represented a curious .ble nd of the sentimental and the pompous.
When the evening started the whiskey shelf was groaning. Now it was purring contentedly and I was purring back at it - always glad to help relieve a burden.
The road from Charlestown to Kilkelly rises, swoops, twists and turns with all the whimsy of a starling's flight. The sun reflects from the countless million snowwflakes carpeting the Mayo countryside. Suddenly, rising from the hills and trees, like a tightly woven white net cast skyward by a giant hand, a mist makes a mockery of the sun, reduces the road to a stretch of tarmacadam that peters out twenty yards ahead, and sucks the colour and substance from all it leaves visible.
In their six years as the National Film Studios of Ireland, Ardmore Studios have proved to be a commercial disaster. Is Ardmore about the development of the Irish film industry or is it merely a "Government Showcase"? By Paddy Agnew
When August Rodin exhibited his first freestanding figure "The Bronze Age" in 1877, it caused a furious controversy. Faced with the precision of its anatomical detail and its uncannily lifelike sense of moveement, many spectators claimed that it was almost certainly cast from a live model. It wasn't. They were simply unprepared for the shock of encounntering the work of the greatest sculpptor since Michelangelo.
The Fianna Fail leader is immobilized on his front bench on policy and on the future of his party. Like an arthritic vulture he sits poised on the opposition benches waiting for government to fall down dead. By Olivia O'Leary.
Five weeks on the picket line, three days occupying the factory, one night in jail — and finally something had broken. And it wasn't the Ault & Wiborg strikers. They came out of the High Court on Tuesday November 10 wearing wide smiles. “Thumbs up!”, said the photographer from the Independent, and five of the six obligingly raised their thumbs. The sixth striker, Bryan O'Duffy, gave a mischievous smile and raised two fingers in a victory sign. By Gene Kerrigan.