THE dating game is big business and yet genuine opportunities to meet the love of your life seem to be few and far between. Every second ad on the TV and radio is offering the chance to meet your perfect partner online, while the columns of many national newspapers have for years featured personal ads [...]
GONE is the time when everyone you met on the street on Ash Wednesday had, if not an ashen cross, at least a smudge of something burnt on their forehead. Blame it on the decline in religious observance or the increasingly busy lives people lead. And yet it is still common for people to say [...]
Bravo for the Tuam-Claremorris Greenway project Dear Editor, Congratulations to the new group in Tuam campaigning for a greenway on the section of abandoned rail line from Tuam to Claremorris. The Sligo Mayo Greenway Campaign, www.sligomayogreenway.com (also on facebook), welcome this Greenway initiative. It’s refreshing to hear a new voice on this issue. *****You need to [...]
WASN’T the visit by the Chinese Tánaiste a great success? Our own equivalent, Eamon Gilmore, nearly wet himself with excitement. This man has achieved his position without a vote being fired and, moreover, he’ll be China’s Taoiseach soon. Even Eamon’s old pals in North Korea couldn’t arrange it better — not for love, nor counterfeit [...]
THIS week’s Omnibus is a series of disparate anecdotes but with one theme. Last week I was at a conference in Cork on Racism and Education. It was thought provoking. Towards the end of the day the key speaker, Professor Máirtín Mac an Ghaill, said “Every teacher can make a difference”. It got me thinking [...]
WEARING high heels in snow should, in my humble opinion, be considered a legitimate sport at Olympic level. I haven’t quite figured out the finer details of my case for the International Olympic Committee, but after a Saturday night in downtown Manchester, where snow was of the sliding as opposed to crunching variety, I firmly [...]
THIS IS A YEAR of anniversaries. The Titanic is the big one, but there are lots of others. In Ireland there’s the signing of the Ulster Covenant in 1912, the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in 1972, and even the 50th anniversary of the founding of The Chieftains. One local anniversary which has just passed, but is worth [...]
A plaque to honour dead of all wars Dear Editor, I find it very hard to believe what I read in last week’s Tuam Herald regarding a plaque to commemorate all Tuam natives who died in all wars in the service of peace. This plaque is to remember our own people who gave their lives [...]
FOR A GOVERNMENT to publish a plan for job creation is hardly something new. Governments have been trying to help create jobs since the Pharaohs of Egypt encouraged workers to travel hundreds of miles to build the pyramids. So it is hardly surprising that the response to the latest initiatives announced in Dublin has been less than [...]
By Tony Galvin THESE are troubling times for us hacks. What with five of our Sun colleagues locked up for simply obeying orders, and the Revenue reluctant to accept bar receipts as proof of legitimate work expenses, there’s a chill wind running through our already beleaguered profession. And now, to cap it all, there are [...]
