The West's Awake
by Cormac MacConnellRSS 
Recent Posts
- An open letter to President Obama - some handy local tips for his visit to Ireland
- Some wonderful discoveries - relishing Irish trad session, The Gathering visitors and more
- The swallows return, beard competition, historic crimes and other musings
- A new taste of spring in Ireland- Tayto crisp’s cheese and onion chocolate bar
- Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth and the two Marys - Now it the time for a woman Prime Minister in Ireland
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This is still one mighty little country.
Somehow I was glad that my darkest secret was out at last, even though eldest son Cuan blanched and almost fell off his bar stool when I confessed to him in the Honk the other night.
How many times now have I informed ye with the greatest of joy that the swallows have returned to Ireland after their long winter in Africa?
It is a couple of decades, is it not, because I've been writing for the Irish Voice with pleasure since the very beginning, more than 20 years ago.
It is not just in the west where there are good pubs and good craic and good yarns.
On the last Saturday of March our clocks went formally forward into summer time by one hour. The weather was brilliant, and son Dara and myself hit the road for Wexford at noon.
The reason for the trip was that my lovely musician brother Cathal was getting a major award for his music at a ceremony in the Wexford Opera House that evening. It was the perfect excuse for father and son to absent themselves for a night from two wives who are both studying furiously at the moment for higher academic honors.
(DEARLY beloved, please have pity on this poor divil as we approach the holy season of Easter. It is his job to discover witty and whimsical elements of rural Ireland for your weekly delectation.
That was joyous and easy up until 18 months ago. Times have changed for the worse since. The economy has crashed, failed bankers are being arrested every day, bishops are resigning because of horrific clerical child abuse revelations which they never dealt with, unemployment and crime levels are soaring, the government is wobbling and ministers are dropping out of it like flies.
