God Save The Queen

Congrats to Donal 'Poppy' Counihan, the Rt. Hon. Lord Mayor of Cork.  There he was, proudly sporting the symbol of British military exploits at the Lest We Forget monument on the Grand Parade, honouring the British soldiers who fought and died for freedom since 1914. With the Right Hon. were representatives of the British Armed Forces and, to our great delight, assorted ossifers from Victoria Barracks  (or is that now Collins Barracks?) who clearly had nothing to do with those republican gougers -that  murderous bunch who  carried out dastardly deeds against the men (as the ballad puts it) 'Who carried history's can/who dodged Tom Barry and Dan Breen/ The gentle Black and Tan'.

Our loyal Lord Mayor has been criticised for wearing the poppy but why shouldn't he celebrate the Empire's exploits and commemorate its 'glorious' dead, now lying in the far flung fields of Flanders, India, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, Suez, the Malvinas (sorry, the Falklands), Iraq, Afghanistan  -and the Six Counties which, thankfully, still belong to the Mother Country?

They gave their lives in the cause of Peace as a former Irish Defence Minister, Michael Smith, famously said.  They fought the good fight, imperiously aggressive as it as it was, and ignorant and all as the unemployed Irish who participated in it were.

So down your drink, you Fenian begrudgers, and let's have another blast of that beautiful ballad, 'The Gentle Black and Tan' (it can be sung to the air of the double-jig, "Coinnigh do Th˜in leis na Driseacha"):

 'The burning of Cork City
Was indeed a mighty blaze.
The jewellers' shops were gutted
Not before the spoils were shared.
Gold and silver ornaments,
Rings and watches for each man,
'But I only struck the matches,'
Said the gentle Black and Tan'.

A Kerry Joke

FΩilte Ireland is currently running a television campaign with spectacular images of mountains, valleys and lakes.  The narrator announces in a voice tinged with wonder:  'They call Kerry a kingdom because of all its crown jewels', but the pictures that accompany his breathless wonder are not of Kerry at all.  They're of West Cork!

The introductory image is of Glengarriff's Coomerkane Valley, with the Caha Mountains and Glengarriff Ridge Walk in the background.  The second is a panorama of Gengarriff Harbour with Garnish Island and the Sugarloaf mountain in the background.  Brilliant!

Let It Alone!

The City Council wants to put a water fountain with 'attractive' lighting on the Wilton Roundabout.  They say it will 'give the existing work of art on the roundabout fuller prominence'.  Hey! Stall the digger, please.  John Burke's (may he rest in peace) structure is not everyone's cup of tea -and clearly not that of the politicos either.

But would the sculptor have agreed to have his internationally acclaimed piece erected on the roundabout if he knew a fountain and 'attractive lighting' were going to be placed there as well?  Was a water construction part of his original design? Is there a danger the Corpo contraption will serve only to make a mockery of what he intended?

Precedents already exist of how meddling politicos can make a balls of a work of art because they're too thick to understand it.  The undulating wave structure on the quay in Kinsale is a case in point.  Thanks to political vandalism with protective barriers the result is now so ghastly that the artist has disowned it.

Shock Horror

Danish brewers Carlsberg and its rival Heineken are involved in a joint venture to buy British drinks group, Scottish and Newcastle.  The upshot is the likely sale of one of Cork's iconic breweries, Beamish or Murphy's, to help finance the deal.  It's time for Alf Smiddy to tell us what's going on!

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