BRIAN Purcell has taken a bullet for the State twice in his career. Once, when he was near the bottom of the pile, as a young official in the Department of Social Welfare, he refused payment to an applicant for the dole. That claimant was the notorious Dublin gangster, The General. Purcell was kneecapped for his troubles.

How do we restore trust in and credibility to our institutions, asks Gerard Howlin?

SODDEN, wet feet in smelly socks and squelching shoes remind me of secondary school.

IN A media-obsessing today about a government reshuffle, it is worth remembering that policy not personality matters most. There are exceptions. Some personalities are so strong that for good or bad they become the policy issue.

SUNNY DAYS, a World Cup, Gay Pride, and Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie have come together to melt the national mood. Nothing much — let alone anything fundamental — has changed, but the public spirit has lightened a little, for now.

BRIAN Crowley, MEP, emerged as Europe’s most popular and improbable liberal in recent European Parliament elections. Among the minority of countries where European Parliament members are elected by constituency, as distinct from a list system or a combination of both, Crowley amassed more votes than any other ‘liberal’.

IT’S very odd how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

IN Ireland there are particular circumstances feeding the recurring frenzies of first using nuns as guardians of female sexuality, and then turning on them for doing just that.

THERE are some things you can say for sure about Enda Kenny. He is a survivor, as tough as nails and not nearly as happy-go-lucky as he wants you to think. Part-actor, part-chameleon, part-huckster and dealer, and if we are lucky part-prodigy as well.

THERE is a symmetry to the departure of Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, the highest-ranking alumni of the former Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party, The Workers’ Party, Democratic Left tradition, after a devastating defeat at the hands of Sinn Féin at the polls.