It may have taken the bones of four years but, at long, long last, the kind of purge needed to bring real change to a section of our public life, change promised before the 2011 election, seems to have begun or at very least been put in train.

Hurling and Gaelic football may be our dominant, most popular national games but our real national obsession seems to be objecting.

The members of any representative political institution, elected or merely nominated, are entrusted with that body’s integrity and reputation, its sense of purpose and its sense of possibility.

Former Fianna Fáil junior minister Ivor Callely, who was sent to jail yesterday over fraudulent mobile phone expenses claims, came, maybe even unjustly, to epitomise the hubris and disdain a certain type of politician expressed so very freely for what most people consider decent, common-garden honesty. His arrogance was as unfettered and boundless as his character was transparent.

This weekend saw one of the first of many celebrations to mark the centenary of events that culminated in the Easter Rising of 1916.

Attempts to impose sanctions on Russia in the wake of the MH17 murders in Ukraine have been utterly ineffective and will remain so, because Europe is so dependent on Russian energy.

The Annual Report of the Courts Service makes disturbing reading in relation to rape cases. During 2013, the Central Criminal Court dealt with a total of 567 rape cases.

In the course of a strong attack on American businesses suspected of moving off shore to avoid taxes, US president Barrack Obama specifically mentioned Ireland as one of the havens during a television interview on the business network CNBC on Thursday.

As our bloody history shows, and as its legacy never allows us forget, our capacity to inflict atrocity after atrocity on each other is almost boundless.

Yesterday’s assertion by German MP and economic policy spokesman for Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU party, Dr Joachim Pfeiffer, that we have "no chance" of getting a deal on the €64bn used to rescue insolvent banks is at the very least chastening.