A FAIRLY routine medical procedure went wrong and I had to go to the Accident and Emergency at Tralee General Hospital last week. I immediately realised the agony that one would have to endure if there were no local hospital.

FIANNA Fáil has essentially ousted its last five party leaders while serving Taoisigh. Recently, Vincent Browne was asking on TV3 whether this is indicative of something radically wrong within Fianna Fáil.

IN politics, as in life, one does not make friends by insulting people.

NOBODY seems to have asked what Brian Cowen was doing in Vietnam around St Patrick’s Day 2008.

NORMALLY anyone using the National Archives is looking for specific information, but when the State Papers are released to journalists each year, it is a different matter. Most do not know what they are looking for; they just plough through the files looking for anything of likely interest.

THE idea that the opposition could have negotiated a better interest rate from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the recent bailout is “laughable,” according to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.

LAST week David McWilliams had his one-man show, Outsiders, in Tralee. I have never been much of a theatre-goer and the idea of spending an hour and a half listening to one person was not particularly appealing, especially when I tend to become decidedly restless, if the priest goes on even for 10 minutes with a Sunday sermon.

IN going into government Green Party Leader John Gormley suggested that he and his colleagues could aptly be compared to voluntarily putting themselves in straitjackets. “Because when you are entering government,” he said, “you are entering an asylum.”

SINCE I began writing a regular column I can only remember being called by the editor to justify two of them.