I SUPPOSE one of my claims to fame, from now on, is that I’m not like my beloved Irish rugby team.

SINN Féin will decide who the next President of Ireland will be.

“THE real function of a fiscal council is to speak truth to power, to remind governments of harsh economic facts they may not want to hear, when they least want to hear them — at budget and election time. How will the Coalition Government respond in deed to the bold advice given by the newly established Irish Fiscal Advisory Council?”

WHEN I sat down to write this column, it was intended to be about Mary Davis — and most of it will be.

TWO phrases that I heard recently have been going around and around in my head.

IT’S not often the death of an elderly man, someone you barely knew, pulls you up short.

WHAT a historic weekend.

DEAR Eamon, I’ve been half-wondering when it would happen.

THE gimlet eye of a canon lawyer. Read the “Response of the Holy See to the Government of Ireland” — the Vatican’s response to the criticism levelled at them by Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore — and that’s all you’ll see.

WE all know Charles Edward Trevelyan, created a Baronet in 1874 for his services to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.