roscommon

Published: Irish Times, February 27 2012

‘Eoin Butler has been driving for as long as he can remember, but has failed the test more times than he can count.’

GROWING UP IN rural Ireland, I don’t recall a time when I didn’t know how to drive. As a child, I would race my father’s car up and down the driveway, sneak it over the cattle grid, and peek out on to the road beyond. In my mid-teens, I traversed the back roads of east Mayo to collect my grandmother for her dinner every Sunday.

At 17, I applied for my first provisional driver’s licence. To put that event in an historic context, on one of my earliest (official) jaunts, my friends and I were questioned by gardaí hunting for the IRA killers of Jerry McCabe. We’d just been swimming in Errit Lake, near Gorthaganny. The lads were wearing wet Bermuda shorts. I was driving in my bare feet. Read the rest of this entry »

“I bailed out and landed in the sea. The other pilot… didn’t make it”

Both aircraft were critically damaged. The Irishman managed to save himself by gaining enough altitude before his aircraft disintegrated to parachute safely. In dramatic footage that’s available to access on the internet, his parachute can be seen opening a split second before he hits the water. The Swede, meanwhile, plummeted to his death in the Mediterranean Sea. Read the rest of this article here.

You’re not a clever man, are you Mr Larkin?

Gotta don my Snopes cap and call bullshit on this one, I’m afraid. This story has done the rounds of virtually all the bulletin boards today. It’s funny, it involves someone pissing in SuperValu and it casts a Roscommon person in the role of national idiot. Of course, I’d fucking love if it were true. But upon cursory examination, it’s hard to see how anyone ever fell for it. Read the rest of this entry »

THIS IS FUNNY(-ISH)

You may not find it funny if you’re not from the Wesht. But I laughed my leg off. Muchas gracias to Rob.

WILLIE JOE GOES OFF MESSAGE…

Sacrilege! Regular commenter Massey sent this my way yesterday. I originally intended to post it with a witty photoshopped reply of my own. But I’m afraid “Up the Rossies” is just such a profoundly tragic slogan, there was really nowhere funny I could take it. Read the rest of this entry »

A CUP OF TEA…

A bowl of corn flakes. Two slices of brown toast with margarine and honey… If someone had asked me on the tarmac what I ate for breakfast this morning, I doubt I’d have been able to recall. Hurling through a bank of clouds at 250 miles per hour upside down, however, I can recount every tiny detail, from the brand name of the margarine, to the expiration date on the milk… Read the rest of this article.

THE GREEN AND RED OF MAYO

My friends Samir and Dee are getting married today and I’m sure its going to be a wonderful occasion. But come 5pm, I know that my thoughts will turn to McHale Park in Castlebar and the person I’ll wish that I was there with.