WHILE at the National Archives previewing the State papers, which were officially released yesterday, I happened to be sitting beside Prof Ronan Fanning when I came across a letter written to him by the Irish ambassador to the US in 1977.

LITTLE over a week before the current Dáil met for the first time a senior counsel who has worked on the staff of at least one tribunal was asked who was going to be the next Taoiseach.

THE Government was forced into a U-turn over the pay raises this week. Bertie Ahern was right to say they would get no credit for the gesture. They deserved none.

Most people probably do not realise that tea and coffee are drugs, or that nicotine or alcohol are in themselves even more dangerous drugs.

Indeed, should Cowen be worried? After all, Bertie anointed Albert Reynolds for the presidency in 1997.

The way conspiracy theories grow demonstrates the need for investigations to be seen to be thorough and impartial.

WE have never had it so good and we have a Taoiseach who has been in power for 10 years, gaining enormous experience, and we expect him to live like the poor relation of those leaders with whom he has to mix.

ONE of this week’s news spectaculars was Ian Paisley launching Dana Rosemary Scallon’s autobiography, All Kinds of Everything. Anywhere else, that would have been just another photo-op but in Northern Ireland it was an event of real significance.

Dev’s papers have been transferred to UCD, which plans to digitalise them and make them available on the internet.

NEWS coverage of the departure of Steve Staunton as manager of Ireland’s soccer team was quite a spectacle. RTÉ was scathing about the supposedly “shambolic” way in which things were handled at the end.