Weeks of debacles and U-turns leave us all trína chéile

BATT O’KEEFFE could hardly have chosen a more ironic moment to speak about the longevity of people from the Sliabh Luachra region of north Cork from which he hails — just as chanting students outside the building in which he was speaking were closing in fast.

But for the intervention of security staff and gardaí, they might otherwise have had their noses and megaphones pressed against the window of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery at University College Cork, where the Education Minister was launching a seminar on great Cork writers as part of the Oireachtas na Gaeilge festival in the city.

Among those writers was SeánÓ Riordáin, whose famous poem Cúl an Tí is well remembered by most people who have sat Leaving Certificate Irish and opens with the line: “Tá Tír na nÓg ar cúl an tí, Tír álainn trína chéile.”