Cormac MacConnell: Miss Flanagan and Ban Garda O’Sullivan are still thriving

I will have ye know that when the last recession struck, at the end of the 1980s, and when the newspaper that had been my bread and butter for years upped and died simultaneously, I had to take drastic action.

I was a widower with four hungry kids, a dog, three cats, and a pair of squalling Chinese lovebird mandarin ducks calling loudly all night. Things were tough and tight. For sure, the pure truth.