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.

WHAT would President Michael D Higgins say to his 30-year-old self? “Well, kiddo, you’ll be glad to know that I’m still a socialist. Unlike most others who start out wanting to reshape the world, my idealism has survived the ravages of aging.

HERE are three vignettes from the frontline. The first involves a friend who works in ‘job activation’ in the greater Cork area. He said last week he’s frustrated at the attitude of some people, mainly young, when he proposes they accept a so-called pathway to work.

LET’S abolish the Dáil.

THE first move of a totalitarian regime is to lock up the writers and intellectuals. They came for John Waters in the dead of night. Well, they didn’t, but they might as well have.

What else can I be, all apologies?” Brian Cowen is hardly a fan of Kurt Cobain, but perhaps he empathises with the line from the Nirvana song, ‘All Apologies’.

THE past is rising up to meet the present right now but, maybe, that’s down to the future being so uncertain.

LAST week, the country was introduced to the Republic of Sums and Soundbites. The location was the annual gabfest up in Donegal, the MacGill Summer School.

WE don’t do corruption in this country.

During the trial which collapsed yesterday, questions were put to Frank Dunlop about whether he was revealing all he knew about corrupt payments to politicians, writes Michael Clifford.