‘Anxious Brian’ leads in search for top Google doodle

IT’S not an image he will like, but Google — the world’s most popular internet search engine — could be displaying a “doodle” showing “an anxious” Brain Cowen and forlorn Celtic Tiger this St Patrick’s Day.

The image is riding high in an internet poll to select the winner in a Doodle 4 Google competition, which will be displayed on the search engine’s Irish, British, Australian, Canadian and American home pages on March 17.

Drawn by 18-year-old Aoife O’Leary, the picture is one of more than 100 drawings by school students selected for a public vote to decide who will be crowned Ireland’s champion Google doodler.

The Mount Mercy College Cork student has entitled her “doodle” — “Slán go deo, Tíogar beo.”

She describes its theme as: “My Ireland today is overshadowed by the doom and gloom of the recession. I wanted to bring a humorous aspect to this. I drew a caricature of our Taoiseach looking anxious. I included a cartoon of a tiger appearing sad with a duffel bag to represent the end of the Celtic Tiger.”

As Mr Cowen strives to prove himself to be the most inspiring Irishman since Barack Obama there are fears Ms O’Leary’s image could undo the FF spin machine’s last 48 hours of good work.

Some concerned posters on chat site politics.ie even fear it will finally push the international credit markets into downgrading Ireland’s triple A rating.

One poster stated: “Jesus lads, don’t vote for this. Millions (if not billions) are going to look at this on 17 March, vote for something decent that might encourage some interest in Ireland.”

Fear not, in the best democratic tradition, the image which will grace millions of computer screens on Ireland’s national festival will be chosen from the most popular entries by Google Doodler-in-chief Dennis Hwang. Other images, showing The Cliffs of Moher, dancing cailíns and leprechauns, may well get the nod of approval.

However the expert judging panel of the National Gallery, Fionnuala Croke, psychologist Michael Drumm, RTÉ presenter Gráinne Ryan, and Trinity’s Michael John Gorman, who selected Ms O’Leary’s doodle from among thousands of entries, can probably kiss goodbye to any cushy state board appointments if the image is selected.

We say please Mr Hwang, stick to Google’s unofficial corporate motto of “Don’t be evil” and let the people decide.