Cormac MacConnell: Worthy candidates to be our national bird

If any of you meet Fergus O’Leary of Passage West this morning, tell him that Cormac above in Clare is very grateful to him for triggering this week’s column, and will be delighted to stand him a pint or two whenever they meet, hopefully before Christmas.

All of this springs from Fergus’s splendidly apt proposal earlier this week on the letters page that we Irish should adopt the rook as our national bird.

I have not heard a better suggestion in a long time.