And they're off as punters gather in Galway
This is no time to talk about escalating crime and ledgers that refuse to balance. No, this is a time for party faithful to scrawl on betting slips and pray the Government rides out the storm.
The Celtic Tiger may be hobbling like a nag that’s run it’s last race, but there are plenty of fit and sleek animals down in Galway to keep thoughts of the bad times away for one more week.
There was time when the Finance Minster could have brought the tiger down to Ballybrit and watched him complete the circuit with the ease of an Aidan O’Brien-tutored filly.
These days the great tiger would struggle to win a donkey derby even if the asses were pulling up and Bertie was cheering with gusto at the finish line. And the duped electorate, who gambled big on the tiger, would like to punish McCreevy and the rest of the stable boys.
A bare foot trek up Croagh Patrick might do. Instead the boys from Bertie’s yard have left those stifling offices in the big smoke to go into the west.
This is the last big party, a kind of short stay in Valhalla, before what George Lee might call the “gusty economic winds of change” blow up the bay. It may well be the final time exotic oysters and Kinvara crabs are sampled, before belts are tightened, and a staple diet of bacon and cabbage is back in vogue.
Maybe Enda Kenny will oil up the wagon and race to Ballybrit as the men in the blue shirts hope to erase memories of Baldy’s fall at the first. The ground couldn’t be more suited.
