EVERY now and again, the past rises up to smite the present, and last week presented once such prime example.

Wherefore the halos, oh how they slip so lightly.

HAVE you heard about the ‘Chinese walls’ in hospitals? These walls separate tranches of money gathered for the functioning and upkeep of the hospitals, it was revealed last week.

The embers of the past sparked into flames over the last few days, as tales of ordinary madness reminded us, once more, of just how demented were the bubble years.

The bishops were quick out of the blocks last week to smite the proposed referendum on same-sex marriage.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL was in Dublin last week, flogging a book, revisiting the past, and standing by an old pal.

THE resolution of the scandal over Roma children being removed from their families can be foretold. The internal inquiry being conducted by An Garda Síochána into the case of the 7-year-old girl in Tallaght will conclude that the officers who took the children into care made a poor judgment call.

FREE stuff is great. Back in the day, when I was allegedly a student, free drink was the big thing. An alcohol company would sponsor some college event, and throw in a few barrels. That beer went down really smooth. While knocking it back, myself and a friend might catch each other’s eye across the room, raise our glasses and exchange conspiratorial grins to acknowledge that we were on the pig’s back.

ONE line defined the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar, when the story emerged last November. “This is a Catholic country,” a midwife, later identified as Anne Maria Burke, had told Ms Halappanavar when explaining why a termination of her pregnancy wasn’t possible.

THE whistleblower’s lot can be lonely. Remember Sheena McMahon? She was a young mother, who, in the mid-1990s, told of madness in sections of the gardaí in Donegal.