No joke for Down but laughter the best medicine

DOWN’S All-Ireland final banquet in the City West Hotel had the potential to be the toughest gig of Paddy Kielty’s lucrative career.

On Sunday night, he stood on a stage staring at 1600 guests. And they stared back at him, each person nursing a gnawing emptiness in the cradle of their stomach that neither beef nor salmon could nourish.

The guest of honour, a gentleman by the name of Sam, had failed to arrive. It was like a papal visitwithout the Pope.