I was at Ruairi Ó Bradaigh’s funeral ceremony at the Sacred Heart Church in Roscommon.

I would have thought that something called ‘the Haddington Road agreement’ would be deeply esoteric, and about the past meeting of minds between Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan.

The Teachers Union of Ireland should get its own act together and not call for an academic boycott of Israel.

Perhaps Tom Cruise will affirm his Roscommon roots with a cameo role in the third series of the British TV sitcom, from Sky1, Moone Boy, due to be partly filmed on location in Boyle, Ireland, later in the year.

The low-budget 1930s film serial, Flash Gordon, with its arch villain, Ming the Merciless, ruler of Mongo, is far more interesting than the ersatz Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, of Castlerea, County Roscommon.

If the USA had stringent gun laws, and school massacres were happening here or in Europe because we had an American-style gun culture, the USA would now be bombarding the world’s airwaves lecturing us on how and why we should get our act together.

Now that the Pope has dampened our Christmas spirits by telling us there were no animals at the Bethlehem manger, will he also reveal how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

My abiding memory of Larry Hagman was when, at the height of his Dallas fame and fortune in the early 1980s, one of Dublin’s great “Madmen”, Don O’Connell of Doherty Advertising, which had the Health Education Bureau account at the time, persuaded Mr Hagman to appear in one of the most memorable and effective anti-smoking commercials of that era.

The principal reasons there has been a drop in British visitors here are that family members are already residing here and that most of the main streets of our cities and town centres now resemble English 'high streets'.

Is it time for the display and misuse of our tricolour over coffins to be made illegal unless it has been sanctioned by the State?

That well-worn saying “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”, does not seem to apply in Ireland.

If ever an author and individual can be described as ‘best loved’, Maeve Binchy was.

Rather than using the Central Bank building for another purpose, may I suggest that it is demolished and turned into a memorial garden for all those who lost their lives and the others who are suffering from the recklessness and incompetence of the regulator and banking system during the Bertie years!

Once again we hear the old codswallop about the great fans and all the singing and partying.

Normally he would be too readily available everywhere to comment about local government legislation and taxing matters but Deputy Luke Flanagan seems to have gone very quiet on fellow TD Mick Wallace.

We, the people, are paying Mick Wallace while he is away for a few weeks watching soccer in Poland while we, the people, have been cheated out of €2.1m while we, the people, are enduring more unemployment statistics while we, the people, are continuing paying inflated salaries and pensions to we, the people, while we, the people, continue not to revolt!

Once again we have a chance to see French arrogance and ineptitude in action.

WHEN I heard what Aviva was doing to its operations in Ireland, I decided not to renew any of my policies.

TAOISEACH Kenny says the new household charge is only €2 a week.

AS one of those who voted against giving politicians potential “big brother” powers I find Mr Howlin’s remarks about voter confusion befuddling.

I HEAR that Aviva are moving their headquarters to the “mainland”.

I NOTE that former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern thinks Gay Mitchell will win the Presidential election.

I HAVE never read so many patronising and sometimes uninformed articles about the effects of the forthcoming demise of Bank of America in Carrick-on-Shannon from a mainly Dublin-based national media.

DOES Gay Byrne not understand that it was the “mad people” in Fianna Fáil, PDs and Greens that did all the damage, not the suits in Brussels?

IN a week that the ever popular Inland Waterways Association of Ireland’s 51st Shannon Boat Rally is underway, it is a timely to publicise two major industrial undertakings that could grossly affect the majestic Shannon river system.

NOW that that the international domain naming organisation (ICANN) is expanding domain suffixes, can I suggest that failed developers, bankers, politicians, etc, are only given a .nama domain so that we can be forewarned of any possible future dealings with them!

ENDA KENNY’S performance at College Green was heartening.

DURING the tiger years we had celebrities aplenty.

I BELIEVE that presidential hopeful David Norris has expressed a preference for rejoining the British Commonwealth.

IT has now been revealed that the Ahern and Cowen administrations constantly ignored the advice and warnings from the Department of Finance about the Cabinet’s budget decisions, taxation intentions and social partnership deals.

DOES Fine Gael’s reform of the HSE on the Dutch model mean two in a bed?

AS an avid science fiction fan, I just love when the commander of a space station or ship puts it into auto-destruct mode during a crisis.

IVAN YATES should go back into politics. He Is now very much aware of how the real world works.

THE writer Frank McCourt did far more damage to Limerick’s reputation than the Rubberbandits.

WHY is the corporate rate tax untouchable?