Irish Politics, Current Affairs and Magazine Archive - Politico.ie

For most people Ronnie Drew does not generate awe, more a warmth. People think they know him, they are easy with him. And when the story broke some weeks back that he had cancer, many who never met him in person were shocked. He is part of our cultural furniture. Whenever he dies there will be outpourings not just of appreciation but of affection. There is a raspish quality to his voice, not to his personality. He is gentle, modest, kind.
 

The tenor of Dermot Desmond's defiant statement on 20 December, in response to the Moriarty tribunal report, was that he had been vindicated by the tribunal. This is less than the full import of the Tribunal's conclusions concerning Dermot Desmond. The following are some of the conclusions of the Tribunal.

The next year is likely to be important for Ireland. Two elections take place that will decide much about our politics and possibly our society on both parts of the island for a while.

The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) has written to the HSE to tell it that “major deficits exist” in relation to the implementation of part two of the Mental Health Act, 2001 which came in on 1 November.

Local residents in Limerick are campaigning to save four large trees on the site of a new aparthotel in Highfield, Limerick city. Two of the trees – Monterey Cypress tress – are estimated to be 150-200 years old. The other two are a Giant Redwood and a Turkey Oak tree.

An eye for an iPod: For people who want to believe in the potential for new media technology to create democratic and occasionally corporate-evading outcomes, there was depressing news under the Christmas tree. Ditto for the far-louder chorus who keep telling us that capitalist markets create diverse products of great excellence at keen prices. (You know who you are, ye talking heads on health insurance, mobile phones, electricity, transport, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)

Christmas is a special time for the Irish Daily Mail. Not only does the holiday provide plenty of opportunities to trumpet the nostalgic, conservative, narrow-minded views beloved by the paper, but it also plays directly into the Mail's unique selling points – the nurturing of a generalised state of anxiety about health and the identification of people to blame for stuff.

It's a time for family, to remember loved ones no longer with us, a time when families are coming home from abroad, a time for children, for pantomimes, for Grafton Street lights. Bertie Ahern can't remember who enjoyed it more, him or his children. So he told the nation in his ‘Christmas thoughts' slot on Drivetime with Mary Wilson (Weekdays 5-6.30pm, RTÉ Radio 1).

^^ After serving up an embarrassing diet of terrible Christmas television, it's time for RTÉ to reflect on its current schedules and make big changes. Tired Late Late Show, Prime Time, and Questions and Answers formats will need to be replaced with something fresh ahead of the upcoming general election

The ‘upside-down church'

Sean South was killed on New Year's day during the most famous raid of the IRA's Border Campaign. That offensive is underestimated in terms of its impact on subsequent events in the North, says Ruan O'Donnell

I grew up in what was a theocracy in all but name. Hell and heaven and purgatory were places real and certain we would go to after death, dependent on the Judgement. Churches in my part of Ireland were so crowded that children and old people who were fasting to receive Communion would regularly pass out in the bad air and have to be carried outside. Not to attend Sunday Mass was to court social ostracism, to be seen as mad or consorting with the devil, or, at best, to be seriously eccentric.

Many of the billions raised in aid of victims of the tsunami in South East Asia two years ago have been lost to corruption and mismanagement. By Seth Mydans in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Leo Enright on the first in a series of European Space Agency (ESA) town hall meetings early next month to discuss European involvement in America's plan to establish a permanent human outpost near the south pole of the Moon.

Sixty five on New Year's Eve, Alex Ferguson has done it all at Manchester United with a reign so epic it demands comparison outside football. And he dismisses any suggestion that he retire as ‘scandalous'. By Ken Early

Tom Rowe and Darragh O'Donoghue with more from the CES 2007 Innovations Awards: Playstation 3, Casio G'oZone Phone and Krell Cast

In 1900 Henry Vaughan bequeathed a number of pictures to the National Gallery of Ireland. These watercolour paintings and drawings are one of the finest collections of works by JMW Turner ever assembled. Turner belongs to a class of artists whose work grows steadily more significant as each new generation comes to recognise his genius. Every year the Turners of the Henry Vaughan collection are given a special showing and on 1 January 2007 the latest of these exhibitions, Turner and the Tradition

Socialist Ségolène Royale is not the only obstacle between Nicolas Sarkozy and the French Presidency. Jacques Chirac wants to derail his campaign too, says Patrice de Beer

Looking at the year that was, at least in literary terms, I come back again –  as we all will, for generations to come – on what was sung, and what was said, and what was suggested, then brought to life, by the late, great John McGahern. 

Letters 

Strictly confined to coastal areas, never occurring more than a few hundred metres away from the sea, the Rock Pipit is nevertheless a common and successful species in Ireland, resident in all coastal counties. Its plumage blends in well with the colour of the tideline rocks which it frequents, and this, coupled with its reluctance to fly away when people approach, means that it is often overlooked,

Find out what you've been stuffing yourself with for the last few days: Éanna Ní Lamhna on the history of this strange-looking birds, which were even more tasty in the time of the settlers

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer compensates for a lack of smell by giving the audience a lavish visual extravaganza while Miss Potter, a biopic of writer Beatrix, is just too sweet to hit the spot. By Declan Burke 

The detail of Victoria Glendinning's eminently readable biography of Leonard Woolf gives the reader the measure of the man – accomplished, passionate, reserved, stoical. By Claire Messud

2006 will be remembered as the year when major novelists produced minor novels. A new direction is something a writer should always look for, but many didn't seem to know where they were going. Some went nowhere at all. Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, Roddy Doyle's Paula Spencer as well as Patrick McCabe's Winterwood were nothing new and smelt unmistakably of the re-cycling of tired old material.