Roy Keane’s passage and Ireland’s angriest man!

 

Great artwork as always from Allan Cavanagh at caricatures-ireland.com

(The final collection of clips from the DV archive never before seen online - 2005-2007)

July 2006.
Roy Keane’s passage. 

Alongside all football comes humour, and Ireland has in George Hamilton the greatest exponent of the Colemanball since the eponymous David Coleman started talking nonsense decades ago. 

The following gems are all Hamilton’s own:

“And Hyypia rises like a giraffe to head the ball clear!”

“The midfield are like a chef, trying to prise open a stubborn oyster to get at the fleshy meat inside!”

“He's pulling him off! The Spanish manager is pulling his captain off!”

And my personal fave:

“Redondo is blocking Roy Keane's passage!”

*

April 2005.
"When I was your age, I could flyyyy…!"

It’s the Cheltenham Festival, so I’m on my way to the bookies at the Westside when I stop in my tracks.

A young woman is helping an older lady out of the back door of a small silver hatchback parked next to mine. She appears to be having some trouble, so I hang back.

Gradually she emerges, clutching an extravagant wad of €50 euro notes.

For a moment she stands like a statue, her body pointed toward the shops as a gun dog at a kill, her eyes slowly moving along, scanning her prey.

“It’s over there, Ma, the blue building on the far right!”

Assimilating her daughter’s directions, yer wan marches at high speed towards the bookies, hand with cash held high above her head. A more confident stride I’ve never seen.

How great it is to be living in Ireland, where an older lady can feel safe waving her dosh around like that.

The front door of the same Nissan opens to reveal an older gentleman, who looks like he stepped out of an Irish Tourist Board advertisement.

Impeccably dressed with tweed jacket, flat hat and blackthorn cane, he turns his freckled lined face to me, and I smile back. 

As he talks, his eyes betray the weariness of age, although they shine too, with humour and a sparkle of gentle wit.

“Ye’ll have to be patient young man!”

“Oh, absolutely!” says I, not feeling particularly young, and eager to put him at his ease. “There’s no rush,” I offer, “It’s a lovely day, and the races don’t start for another hour!”

By now he has swung his legs out of the car, and I hesitate to offer a helping hand, because he has about him an air of individuality and independence.

He stretches out his arms in well-practiced manner, and assuredly lifts himself out and up onto his feet.

“Ah, yes, everything takes a little longer than it used to … ” he explains, as he turns back into the car to reach for his cane, “… and on occasion, that can be a very good thing!”

The septuagenarian’s double entendre surprises me a little.
He walks right up to me, and engages me eye to eye.

“Mind you …” he intones, somewhere between a wistful whisper and a challenge, his breath on my chin, “… mind you, when I was your age, I could flyyyyyyyyy!”

As he says ’fly’ he lifts his voice and raises his hand high to the sky, and for a second or two, I believe he could.

We both laugh and wish each other good luck on the gee gees. I’m delighted to be living in Ireland, where a gentle encounter with a perfect stranger leaves me enthralled, charmed and inspired.

*

March 2006.
“He’s my God, not yours!” 

Last week I was attending a training course in a Galway hotel. When tea break time came around, there were three tables laid out with cups, coffee and tea urns.

On top of each table lay a piece of paper clearly stating the different company names for whom these cuppas were allocated.

A small group of women arrived, and much to the consternation of the young Polish lad running things, they started to lay into another company’s coffee.

He turned to them, waving his hands in the air.

“Sorry sorry no! No please no! This is not for you! This is not your coffee. Please to wait five minutes! I have your coffee then! Thank you!”

Even in less than perfect English he made his point politely and impressively. Everyone backed off, save for three older ladies who carried on as if he didn’t exist.

“Please no! Please no!” he repeated, “Then there is not enough for others! Please just wait two more minutes.”

The women completely ignored him and as he walked away, frustrated and upset, he muttered under his breath

“Jesus Christ!” 

Immediately, one of the older ladies turned, waving her finger at him:

“Don’t you go cussin’! He’s my god, not yours!”

However much I think I understand our species, ye lot can still knock me backwards.

Never mind the fact that yer man was very likely a Catholic too, the utter crassness, bigotry and blind ignorance of her comment sent my head reeling.

My god, not yours. My god, not yours.

Having tried it out for size a couple of times, I decided that her simple sentence summed up perfectly the situation in the world today.

What better way to describe a crusade than: ‘My god, not yours!’

Ever since the Cold War ended, the West needed a new official enemy.
Islam and Christianity have been exploited by those with vested financial interests to be the colours of our new war. 

Make no mistake: it is a crusade.

*

June 2007.
Gee it’s good to be back home!  

When I return from England I’m so knackered I can function only after a long self-indulgent soak in a lovely hot bath.

 Ahhhhhhh blisssss... now a flick of the radio, catch up with what’s going on in Ireland ... 

‘... he claimed that he had been falsely accused of being molested by priests when he was a boy ...’ 

Accused of being abused?
How does that work? 

Ahh, yes, back in Ireland.

*

August 2007.
Ireland’s angriest man wants the Irish to apologise to the English! 

Climbing into a Galway city taxi yesterday, I encountered the most abusive and angry person I have ever met in my life.

A local man of slight build, he started hissing and spitting as he turned his car around, temporarily blocking the traffic emerging from Cross Street. 

At first I took his torrent of ‘effs’ and ‘cees’ to be nowt but a burst of road rage, the like of which I suffer from myself, but it continued throughout the journey. 

“Fucking bastards can’t bloody drive. Stupid fucking fuckers. Look at the way he’s parked, bastard. Who does that cunt think he is?” 

For a moment, as we drove down Dominick Street, silence dwelt briefly and happily inside the cab.

 And then I went and spoiled it all by thinking perchance a little light conversation might ease our journey. 

“Well, at least it’s stopped raining. Looks like we’re going to have a lovely afternoon.” 

“Don’t talk to me about the fucking weather. I am so fed up to the back teeth with this bollocks country and its fucking weather, God almighty. And look at the state of those grass verges. That fucking council of ours, they make me sick. Lazy fucking pigs. Fat bloody pigs getting rich while we wallow in the muck they leave for us. Look at those grass verges. All fucking weeds and bloody litter. Really, makes me sick. How dare they sit up there in their bloody council chamber talking bollocks and taking fucking bonuses while they leave the city to rot? Cunts. Pigs and cunts the lot of ‘em. And look at this abomination. Tell me now, what bright fucking spark decided to paint the Prom yellow? And were we asked? Were we fuck! And did we even know until it was done? Did we fuck. Ruined Salthill they have, the pigs. And the city. Lovely it was, and now it’s gone to shit. Shitty fucking Galway run by a chamber of pigs, ignorant cunts and filthy fucking liars. I tell you. I fucking tell you. And look at the state of the grass by the car park. Ignorant pricks. What did they expect with 100,000 people watching the Air Show? Did not one of them think that might fuck up the grass? Makes me sick. I have had it with this fucking country. And yes, we have the Big Wheel now, but only after they had to fight the fucking council for the right to power. Yes, huh. I’ll tell you one thing I know. There’s not much I know for sure, but some things I do know, and this thing I know for fucking sure. Oh god yes, that I do. They wouldn’t listen, but if they had, I can tell you, this fucking mess of a country wouldn’t be in the fucking mess it’s in. One thing I know. Old Garrett was right. Oh yes, you might laugh, but let me tell you, old Garret was right with what he said back in the ‘80s. If only we’d have listened to Garret.” 

Clearly the man was fishing for a question. I was worried that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he might have a heart attack, or worse, I might be considered a filthy fucking ignorant cunt-prick myself. 

“So what did Garret FitzGerald say back in the ‘80s?” 

“I’ll tell you what he fucking said. He said that we should go cap in hand to the English, and apologise! Yes, that’s what he said, and that’s exactly what we should fucking do. Go cap in hand to the English, apologise, and ask them if they wouldn’t mind taking the country back, and maybe please make it better again.” 

Was I really going to take him on?  

Nearly home, exhausted by his tirade of abusive language, I was feeling a better, more wholesome human being with each disgusting phrase and tortured clause that hammered into my ears. 

“Wow! Did old Garret FitzGerald really say that? He - I - wow! Well, bugger me!” 

“Yes he did. And he said a lot more besides. Fucking pigs. Lazy fucking pigs and stupid fucking cunts. That’s what we have become!” 

“Keep the change!” 

“Why, sir, you’re a gentleman and a scholar!”


©Charlie Adley
24.05.2026

10,000 Galway Howyas, Curried Wisdom and Freedom Fries!

(clips from the DV archive never before seen online - here's come 2004!)

March 2004.

Freedom Fries and a Justice Burger! 

It’s late as I stumble out of Taylor’s Bar, and follow my tipsy chin over the road to Vinnie’s Takeaway. While I wait for my chicken, I’m entertained by the Dominick Street late night show.

Over by the wall, two 20something American tourists are chatting, flirting, cavorting with the lads behind the counter.

One of the girls is quieter, hanging back, while her friend appears to want to embody the image we have of her Mother Country: she’s loud, proud, and wants everybody to know it, standing out like a beautiful sore thumb.

She's the one everybody is watching, and not only is she evidently aware of this, she seems to like it.

Standing centre stage, she yells

“Can I come behind the counter and see your kitchen? Do you have ketchup over here? Do you put beef in your burgers?”

Not USDA baby, I think to myself, but say nothing.

By now the air is thickening with the need for some kind of response, and sure enough, it comes, in a European way that contrasts with the brazen abrasion of yer one from across the pond.

One of the lads by the window calls out (in a thick and chewy Dublin accent)

“Err, couldja change moy orda to a portion of Freedom Froize … yez, oid loik some Freedom Froize and … and … and … a Josstiss Burrga, tanks!”

The place erupts with laughter, a sense of relief and camaraderie spreading throughout the non-American munchers.

I cannot help myself, and laugh alongside them.

The quieter American girl looks up, aware that not all in da Hemmarold Hile are the dingly-dell-leprechaun-luvvin’ folk we’re supposed to be.

Trouble is, I feel unsettled and displeased with myself for mocking the young lass. It’s not fair to exploit her naïveté, just so that we can vent our collective spleens over Dubya’s imperialist ambitions.

May 2004.
More Sligo curry than Tubbercurry.

Just south of Sligo I see a vision of my new Ireland.

We take sanctuary from the wind and rain in the warm glow of a pub, where an Indian gentleman behind the bar is chatting to two older farmers on barstools.

We’re excited to find a comprehensive curry menu, and as we peruse, I sit back and enjoy eavesdropping on the banter between the landlord and his customers.

“Yez cannot be sheerious!”

“But yes I am. I am being very serious.”

“Ye’d seerioushly prefer to have the Hin-glish back than have yer own independence?”

“I am being very serious. With the English yes, we had suffering, but we knew where we were. Now there is much fear. There is sometimes chaos and always there is fear. Fear of a war with Pakistan. Fear of many religions.”

“But but but to be free! Jaaayyyzus chroisht man, what can be more important? How can you shtand there and tell me dat dat’s not the foinest feeling?”

“Free yes, freedom is a wonderful thing, yes it is. But freedom is not about who rules you. It is about how you rule yourself.”

“Sure, and tell that to the millions who starved to death!”

“You are right, and I was wrong, but I am meaning no offence. I think what I am saying is that the country was much more organised with the English. Now it is a mess, yes, messy, and there is not an order to things as there was before.”

“So why are you opening a restaurant here?”

“Because I am not a good cook!”

Flash of toothy smile and all three men laugh together.

Our curry arrives, and it tastes really good, washed down by pints of Guinness.

I am in heaven.

April 2004.
In off the wall genius.

Big Ron Atkinson has taken the football cliché and turned it on its head.

No time has he for the ubiquitous ‘sick as a parrot!’ or the execrable ‘It’s a game of two ‘alves!’

Not a bit of it.

“Zola’s split the defence with a birthday ball. Candles, the bumps, and a sloppy kiss off his Auntie Rita. The lot.”

and

“Blanc’s been caught by the quick ball over the top. He was expecting The Troggs and they’ve gone and hit him with a right Frank Zappa.”

or my personal favourite

“You’ve got to blame the defence there. The left-back came home early for his tea and got jam in his eye.”

April 2004.
We raised the flag of Hollow Strangers on Mount Howya! 

Walking from Nimmo’s - Seeya! Seeya!- through the Spanish Arch and onto Buckfast Plaza - Howya! - over the road to Quay Street - Howya! - Howya!- up to Cross Street - Howzit goin’? - Howya! - Howya!

If I was being watched by a tourist, they’d think I was the best-known person in the country.

But then again, if they watched any Galwegian, they’d see the same thing.

Galway is the Capital City of Howya Culture. There’s 10,000 faces out there that you recognise, and seemingly more that recognise you, and when it suits, when you’re in the mood, or have da hin-inclinayyyshun, you smile and raise an eyebrow, or even go mad and wave a hand to embellish your gesture.

At this time of year, before the tourist madness starts, it’s still possible to spot Howyas in the crowd. Sadly, most of us have lost just too many brain cells to remember who on earth all those Howyas are.

Maybe you chatted her up one night. Possibly you were the friend of a friend six months ago. Perchance he crashed your party, and you made a mental note to avoid him like the pendulous drop of snot hanging from a cavorting child’s nose. 

Some Howyas you wish you knew better. Some you wish you’d never met, but every single one of them is part of this city.

Depending on your mood, your 10,000 Howyas can either be a wonderful phenomenon or a source of horror. If you’re on the up, they create within you a warm spreading glow of community and belonging; feelings of identity as part of the whole; a sense of place, time and history mixed up into a heady brew of humanity.

When you’re feeling down, they seem pointless, hollow and the worst possible representation of how false and fickle Galway life can be.

Sure, you say hello, but you don’t give a damn about any of them. The darkness within you asks ‘What’s the point?’

You don’t know their names, or where they live. You don’t care and they don’t care and yet you pretend to be a part of each other’s lives on some shallow and insincere plane.

More often, it’s neither one extreme nor the other. Most of the time, your 10,000 Howyas are a benign and relatively pleasant part of everyday life.

Sometimes, however, you stray from the path, and all of a sudden, you’re forced to break all the unwritten ways of the Howya.

As I stroll along Mainguard Street, I walk past a tall lad in a grey greatcoat, long grey hair sweeping over his shoulder.

We ‘Howya!’ and walk on, but for some reason, I double take, and look back over my shoulder as he passes me. He is a good five paces away, yet just as I have done, he too has looked back.

We stare into each others eyes.

Had we been old friends, this would be a moment of joyful reunion. We might jump in the air, and run toward each other, clapping manly hands on each others’ backs in that macho hug thing, both talking at the same time as we excitedly pour forth question after question.

But we do nothing of the kind, because we are mere Howyas. Trouble is, we have now strayed across a boundary. We have stopped walking, faced each other, engaged in something more.

A simple single salutation will no longer suffice. One of us has to have the balls, the cojones, to ‘fess up pronto, to admit we thought the other was someone else entirely, but we’re both social cowards.

Now we are condemned to cross into an unknown and slightly terrifying netherworld; a place that lurks way beneath the heights of real friendship, and yet outside the safety of the Howya.

I’m by Pound City, himself by Myles Lee. Slowly we shuffle toward the middle of the street, standing by the cycle racks, each shifting from one foot to another.

This is dangerous territory. One false move and there’s terminal embarrassment to be endured. Too invasive an approach, and the emotional wounding might be severe.

I have not a clue who he is, where he’s from, or what his name is. I do not know if he has led a happy or miserable life; whether he is a teetotaller or a happy drinker. I do not know if he’s straight or gay, whether he has kids; maybe a wife?

For a few moments I am silenced by fear. What if I ask about the kids but should know only too well that tragically he lost one years back?

In his deep blue eyes I see a similar nervousness, but by now we are two men physically facing each other, and so we must walk the high tightrope of Howya.

Without ever looking down, we must engage in conversation.

Stare neither to the left nor to the right. Just ask and acknowledge. Search not for details, specifics or facts.

Let’s test our Galway City skills, push our Howya abilities to the limit.

“So how’s life?”

“Moity!”

“Same here I have to say! Just moved back from the country.”

“Oh, were you out there long?”

“Three years.”

“Oh really!”

“And how about yourself?”

“Can’t complain, life's pretty good. How’s the house?”

“House is fine, same as ever, d'j'yaknow.”

“Oh yes, same as ever. And what about the ...errrm... social life?”

“Not bad. Can’t complain. I get out once or twice a week, not as much as I used to.”

“No no me too, can’t take it like I used to, not at all. So how’s your work?”

“Well, coming along, spend too much time not making enough money.”

“Yeh yeh tell me about it, seems never-ending, really doesn’t it? What about the ol’ love life, eh eh?”

“Well, not much happening there, and yourself?”

“Well, still with herself, so that’s not going to change.”

“Good good, can’t be bad. City’s gone bananas hasn't it?”

“Jaize you’re right there, can hardly hear myself think these days.”

“Ah well, great to seeya!”

“Yeh! All the best now, now so, now, so ... now! Good to see you too buddy!”

Pheeee-yeeeew! We pulled it off. Both of us walked away none the wiser, but with integrity and emotions intact.

Ironically, we now truly have a bond.

We made it!

Together, we raised the flag of Hollow Strangers on the summit of Mount Howya!


©Charlie Adley
12.05.2026

I'm so not super excited that I said 'Super excited!'

 

Great artwork from Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures Ireland.ie

I can remember neither what I was talking about, nor to whom I was talking.

Maybe the horror of the moment blew a few neuronic fuses.

What I know for sure is that I said

“…super excited…”

to somebody about something.
I'm unsurprised yet sorrowful.

I know all that ‘language is a liquid’ stuff and I’ve had fun observing how my spoken idiom and vernacular have wobbled and whimpered as I moved around the world.

After three months of working in a garage in Melbourne, doing B-Hits with my Work Mates during Smoko, a city taxi driver said

“Chroist, ye dant sowned loik a Pom.”

Let me tell you, as a Pom speaking here: taxi drivers don’t like losing the chance to deliver a good slagging, so I must’ve talked pure Aussie after only 12 weeks.

Here in Ireland my accent wanders from full Mitchell Brother to Plastic Paddy, but errs mostly towards the Home Counties, as we privileged few from the Home Counties like to call the Home Counties.

I know I’ve been culturally colonised by the USA. I drink coke and wear jeans, eat burgers and watch movies. I love American writers and remember when people started saying “No Way!” in our suburban London lives in the early 80s. Might’ve been the 70s.

Who knows?
Who cares?

Do I sound American yet?

Point being, we all loudly cried “No Way!” with smiles on our faces, to get a laugh, because to us, back then, it sounded aggressive, impolite and over-assertive.

Yet now it sounds so weak that’s hard to believe.

The hyperbole that started way back with freedom, contraception and The Beatles, that’s all ended up as meaningless vacuous iconic super excited sick super great crap.

And it’s not going away, but it will morph into something else.

And I said “Super excited” and a part of me hates that I’m so weak.

And the other part of me knows that has nothing to do with it.

I’m just assimilating.

Grunt by grunt, inflection by verbal twitch, blow-ins like me start to osmose the Irish way of speaking English.
 
Despite Howya! sounding so similar to the English ‘How are you?’, the Irish person saying it requires no response, or one of three answers.

Back in England it would be perfectly acceptable to reply
 
“Bloody terrible actually. The dog bit me, I got burgled and then the bloody car broke down.”
 
But here in my adopted country, the only acceptable responses must be either

Grand! 

Mighty! 

or

Not a bother on me!
spoken as one word.
 
It’s tough on depressives, especially during periods when your voice doesn’t sound as convincing as it might.

At those times so as not to draw attention to your pathetic human neediness, it’s best to string all three responses together, and utter them at speed (for the more advanced class):

Mighty grand not a bother on me!
 
Then there’s the shopkeepers’ masterpiece of enigma. Now! fired across the counter.

Now what?
Now who?
Should I do something?

Takes you by surprise at first, alongside the So! and that much-beloved double whammy 

So now! and Now so!
 
Next out of your mouth comes the positively effervescent Thanks A Million!

Such hyperbolic gratitude for buying a single postage stamp in England would sadly be seen as taking the piss, but here it offers a delightful alternative to the bland English Ta very much!

The wonderful Why Wouldn’t I? now tumbles out of my mouth alongside all variations of Yer Wan, Yer Man and the splendid No Finer Man.
 
Sometimes my assimilation can take me by surprise. Never thought I’d become a Day That’s In It person, but now that’s there, and on at least one occasion I’ve been deeply shocked to hear myself go

Lookit!
in public.

I had to take a moment.
What next? 

I Do Be?

Now in the latter stages of my assimilation, I play arpeggios of my adopted lingo.

String together C’mere to me!, add a little Now! and a smidge of So! and all of a sudden I’m inviting Dalooney to

C’mere to me now, so! and it all feels right and good.

The first time I felt fully assimilated was actually a non-verbal experience.

From the moment I arrived in Galway, I noticed how people here sometimes offered agreement by sucking a sharp intake of breath onto the roof of their mouths, loud enough to be heard, yet too soft to be spelled.

Far from that dreaded disapproving flared nostril sniff, this hissy breath is used to offer some kind of guiltily-agreed censure, such as when your friend offers:

“Oh he’s an awful man, so he is!”you respond with the inward hiss.

Gathering words and picking up accents are understandable but this sharp inward breath is a physical phenomenon, so I was shocked to find myself unthinkingly doing the intake response.

My time in Ireland has changed my breathing patterns. That’s a different level of assimilation altogether, so it is now.

Behave, Adley.

Be respectful.

And while we’re at it, while this Grumpy Old Colyoomist is on a roll, I can’t be doing with any TV or movies that describe themselves as any of the below.

Madcap. Romp. Cringe. Caper.

What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?

Nothing, but it felt so fine dumping it out of me and dropping it here.

Caper, indeed.


 

 

©Charlie Adley
09.05.2026

Bertie, blaming and bar craic in Ballina - it's 2002!

       Thanks to caricatures-ireland.com

(More from the DV archive never before seen online - these clips are from 2002.)

October 2002.
Switch off your Irish blame reflex - sometimes life just go wrong! 

In their ability to find blame, the Irish are united: in all 32 counties, you blame as one.

When colonised, the Irish naturally blamed the English for all ills.
Ireland still does, and probably forever will blame the English for anything and everything that doesn’t have a visible blame label on it from somewhere else.

In the Irish Dark Ages between Independence and joining the EEC, when it seemed like everyone else had what the Irish wanted. Ireland became the land of begrudgery.

Then, after 1973, Ireland behaved like a petulant teenager, pleading

“Leave me alone!” to the world, all the while enjoying substantial handouts from EuroMum on the side.

Now EuroMum has cut the allowance, and worse, those Bureaucratic Belgo-Bastards say they want Irish contributions. 

Broke? Blame the EU.
Blame a loss of sovereignty.
Blame electronic voting.

So the boom didn’t last forever? Oh really? You poor sweet nation, that’s such a shame, because look, everybody else’s booms last forever.

Get real.

Rich becomes poor like life becomes death.
It’s nobody’s fault, it just happens.

Lost your job? Hey look, there’s a Romanian.
Bloody Romanian. Lost me my job.

I was in Ballina the other day, cold and hungry, in search of a small portion of chips. In my pocket sat the grand sum of €1.50. That must be good for a small chips in North Mayo, I said to myself.
But no, small chips were €1.85. I asked yer wan what was the story with the price?

“Oh I know, terrible isn’t it! Everything’s gone mad since the Euro came in!”

Want to put up your prices?
Blame the Euro.

Pissed of with inflation?
Blame the Government.

It was England and the Empire.
Then it became Europe and the Euro.
Now, it’s Mick McCarthy.

Never mind the fact that Mick took you out of a World Cup qualifying group including Portugal and Holland.

Blame Mick.
Love Keano.
Irish good.
English bad.

As if to prove it, there’s Dunphy on RTE’s ‘The Premiership’, claiming the English press are racist against Keane.

Give me a break. It wasn’t England that screwed up your World Cup. 

It was your very own beloved captain, forsaking his team mates in their hour of need.

Roy Keane: diva and blamer supreme.
Eamon Dunphy: blame on the end of a glass.

Make like the Nazarene: check out your faults before you point your national blaming fingers elsewhere.

Sometimes life just dumps pooh on your parquet, and there’s simply no point in blaming anyone.

October 2002.
At least I wasn’t wearing a hat. 

Arriving in Galway from my home in North Mayo, I say “Howya!” to the Guru at his market stall, and stray into the middle of Shop Street, my jaw dropping at the sight of the Saturday afternoon crowds.

Evidently, my transformation from cynical streetwise urban guerrilla to wide-eyed clueless culchie is more complete than I realised.

When I lived in Galway City, I never went out at the weekend: that was when the country folk came in, with mud on their boots and eager smiles on their ruddy faces, bursting to drink pints of ‘Special’ and enjoy the mad craic.

And now I am one of them.

           Gone but not forgotten: Paddy Jordans in Ballina 

December 2002.
Ballina: No better place to wait for a bus! 

Opposite the bus station is a pub, red carpet brass rails, with a coal fire and a cluster of auld fellas.

I have an hour to kill, so I order a Jamie, approach the Observer crossword, and sigh with contentment.

The lads down the far end of the bar have had a fine day, are well oiled and good humoured, ripping the proverbial out of each other with the cruel sharpness of men who have drunk together for years.

The young barmaid hums happily, well able to handle her regulars.

“I love you Aoife!” exclaims bald rakey-thin oldie, as she hands him his ‘pointa spesh.' 

“I’m glad somebody does!” she returns, leaving himself with a gaping toothless smile, mumbling “Ahh, but I do! I do, I really do do do...” as his mouth sinks towards his beer.

Chunky beetroot-faced flat-hat boy turns to his mates.

“Here’s one! Here’s one, I tellya! Tink of a number. Go on!”

“Oh, hmm, yesh, I have one.”

“Double it!”

“Ohhhh, jusht a second now. Hmm. Okay.”

“Now, times it boy ... boy ... boy shix!”

“Ohhh jeezze Mikey, what’re ye feckin’ at?”

“Just do it man. For feck’s sake, it’s not dat hard izzit? And now ... now add ten ... divoide by two, and take away the .. cof cof cof wheeze oh feckin’ jeezus mary and jo jo jo ... cof cof ... take away shix, and you have da nomber ye firsht tort of!”

“No ... no, I don’t. I have terteen, and I shtarted wid sheven!”

“No you don’t!”

“Yes oy do, ye old bollox!”

“Well, ye got it wrong den, dincha? Can ye not add and shubtract? I feckin’ said double it and add 22!”

“Ye never shed nuttin’ like dat, not a bit of it, oh no not a bit of it!”

“Ah well, try it again!”

“I will not. ‘Tis borin’ and you got it wrong anywayze. Here, I have one for you now. Listen to dis one. Hey, Aoife, c’mere and lissen to dis one! Now, if it takes me a week to walk a fortnight, how long will I walk in a day?”

“Eh? What da cof cof wheeze cof what da fock was that?”

“Oh, maybe I got him wrong, now ... lemme tink ... or is it a fortnight to walk a week?”

“I love you Aoife!”

“Like I said, thanks, I’m glad someone does!”

“I do I love you Aoife.”

“Thanks, and by the way, I’m Deirdre!”

Much roaring laughter from all, followed by some reassuring backslapping, and finally, from somewhere deep in the huddle:

“Ahh, a bit of auld craic, dats wha’ ye want! A drop of liquid in yer glass, and a bit of auld craic!”

Time for me to head off. I wish them well, and leave them to their lives. Outside the weather has cleared, stars peaking out of the night sky.

If there is a finer country in which to wait for a bus, I’m in no need of it!

May 2002.
Free ice cream anyone? 

Of course Bertie will win, and lead his Fianna Fail into another long government, escaping the voter’s natural urge to go with the swing of the pendulum.

His main opponent, Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan, graduated with honours from the University of Bland Slaphead Opposition Leaders, in the class that gave us William Hague and Ian Duncan Smith.

Noonan’s dull droning monotone radio voice actually became life-threatening the other day, forcing me to wind down my car window, so that I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

Away from Treaty politics, Mary Harney’s boat race peers down at me from a million posters on the N17. On each is posed the question of what her PD’s might do with 8 seats in the Daíl.

God knows, and god help us if we have to find out.

Meanwhile Ruari Quinn and his Labour Party are offering more Bank Holidays and free ice cream for Senior Citizens and schoolchildren on the third Thursday of each month.

People don’t vote for holidays. They vote for ideology or money.

With no attractive political ideologies kicking about these days, those lucky winners with more money will vote for the status quo.

Bertie will win for just the same reason that Maggie Thatcher and John Major kept on winning: to borrow James Carville’s well-worn political maxim: it’s the economy, stupid.

But what of us, the bottom feeders who live west of the Shannon?

What of us poor folk who have only read and heard of this ‘boom’, yet never seen a penny of it?

We will do what the English did back in those Thatcher years.

We’ll vote for the dream too, in the hope that wealth might spread west, where so far the Celtic Tiger has looked more like a paper moon.

June 2002.
Come on ye boys in Green, stop reminding me of the English!

There’s a part of me that’s happy Ireland is out of the World Cup.

Whassdat?
Sacrilege!
Treachery!
Treason and unbelievable effrontery, from an Englishman of all things!

It would be impossible for the English to see any England defeat as a reason to celebrate. In Ireland, the celebration of brave (perennially losing) heroes is reason to party through the night, set fire to tyres, down gallons of Buckfast, inflate giant plastic hammers and most of all, feel oh so very proud to be Irish.

Well, that’s how it used to be.

Nowadays that Ireland only exists on postcards showing redheaded girls, donkeys and baskets of cut turf.

Above all I am an England fan, but I know that what you get out of a country is directly related to what you put in.

I cheer for the boys in green, the girls in green, and however scandalous it may be, I cheer for both Galway and Mayo GAA teams.

Last Summer, while the late afternoon sun shone bright, the locals in my village paid no heed to the efforts of their national team.

I though was to be found skulking in pubs, watching the Irish team play qualifying group games against Andorra and equally obscure opposition. I didn’t miss one Ireland game in the last couple of years; friendlies, the lot.

Without turning my back on my Englishness and Jewishness, I am totally committed to this country and its people.

Over the past few weeks, I have huffed, puffed, supped and screamed for the Irish lads, happy to watch the team that Mick built evolve from Saint Jack’s block and hoof into a mature modern outfit that likes to go forward.

As the national World Cup hysteria built up, a predictable ABE (Anyone But England) element grew in Ireland’s pubs. That in itself was no big deal. I’d never be happy in Ireland if I couldn’t take shtick.

I love the cut and thrust of Irish repartee. Each time a local gives me a hard time over being English, I in turn take the opportunity to offload back and everybody’s happy.

Recently however there’s been precious little wit in these exchanges.

It’s perfectly reasonable and even desirable that the successful 21st century Irish should see themselves and their country on a level playing field with other countries, but alongside their new affluence and confidence there has come an aggression that reminds me why I left England in 1992.

Being a mensch among men, I braved my local village pub to watch the England v Argentina game. Naturally, I was expecting and easily handled the hard time I got from the villagers.

Indeed, in some kind of weird masochistic way, I went down there so that they could have their go at me, and I was not disappointed.

However nothing could ready me for the reception I received when I turned up to shout for Ireland in the big game against Spain last Sunday.

I’d been looking forward to it; as excited and nervous as a native all week, but as I walked into the packed village pub I was greeted by a local lad pointing his finger at me, yelling

“Fuck off you!”

Over the long wet Mayo winter this lad and I had on many occasions sat watching Old Firm games at this very bar, himself clad in his Hoops jersey.

We had shared pints and a bit of craic, but now he’s infected with ABE, and I’m just not up to it. If he’d said something rude that made me laugh, I’d have been encouraged to enter.

“Fuck off you and go away!” he persists.

Don’t need it.
Fed up with it.
Not up to it; not today.

“Fuck you too!” comes my equally lucid intellectual retort, and I turn dejected and forlorn, heading home to watch the game alone.

If you’re going to slag, do it well. ‘Fuck off and go away’ hardly makes it to the group stage of the Wit Cup.

For the first time in my sojourn in this country I feel truly deeply weary of this Irish attitude. Now that Ireland is doing well, good old-fashioned patriotism could so easily have become internationalism, but no, instead they turn to wretched nationalism.

Such hostility is pathetic, especially given the level of goodwill and support that the English offered the Irish team.

The BBC, in the shape of Gary Lineker, described the Irish participation thus:

“It was a brave and bold effort by Mick McCarthy’s men. The World Cup will miss them, and so will we!”

This was followed by a montage of Irish goals and hysterical fans set to a soundtrack of Have I told you lately that I love you?




©Charlie Adley
01.05.2026.

The Winter of Burning Cars.

Photo courtesy of LA Fire Department.

 More from the DV archive never before seen online. This is from September 2002.

The Winter of Burning Cars. 

As that Autumn of 2002 came around, we had no idea what lay ahead. 

No idea that the war would be over without a shot fired. No idea that we would lose.

September came and went in a blaze of sunshine.

October gales plucked leaves from the trees, scattering them over the earth.

Talk of war seemed almost safe, remote.

‘Everything’s going to be alright’ I told myself.

We’d heard it all before. Same old macho politicians posturing and pratting around the planet, desperate to try out some strategic nuclear weapons in the field of battle.

Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice droned on and on, just like Daddy Bush back in ‘92.

“Blah blah U.N. resolutions, blah blah weapons inspectors, blah blah Saddam must go.”

Same-old same-old.

With the coming of a cold November, my first coal fire of the season was lit. More talk on the news about the protection of freedoms, limited strikes, and somehow, there’d been so many far-off wars I’d grown immune.

Of course it was a terrible thing and all that, but rain was still going to fall on Ireland’s fields. Still does.

Now I know how complacent I was.

This is the Winter of Burning Cars.

It happened so quickly. That was what shocked everyone.

We all felt so deep-down secure in our western civilisation. Whatever atrocities were visited upon distant villagers in crumbling stone desert huts, it wouldn’t really stop us living our day-to-day lives.

How could it?

One interview, that was what did it in the end.

The US and UK forces were building up on the Iraqi borders, trying their best to provoke Saddam into attacking first. They desperately wanted war, but all they got was entrenched defiance, and then Condoleeza Rice gave ‘that’ interview to CNN.

“So Condie, can I call you Condie? So, Condie, how is this war on Iraq going to help the USA’s war on terrorism?”

“Well, I see this chapter as part of a greater book. George Bush is a great man, a good man, and his policies will make the world a safer place. After the Taliban and Saddam’s regime have been replaced by democracies, the US can turn its attention to Iran, and then Saudi Arabia.”

“But the Saudis are our allies. Does this mean a shift in policy toward the Saudis?”

“Well, it has to be said that theirs is not a very attractive society.”

“So is it now US policy to gradually replace all Middle-Eastern regimes with the American-Israeli democratic model?”

“If you put it like that, yes, that’s a dream I hold dear. What’s so bad about a world where elections give everyone the leaders they want?”

“But what if they elect leaders who are anti-American?”

I missed Condie’s answer. My spuds had to come to the boil.

As I ate my dinner, reports were coming in about the beginning of the end. Condoleeza’s interview had provoked an immediate and massive response from a belt of countries from Libya to Pakistan. Sunni and Shia together for the first time: a consensus of outrage and direction.

No more oil. That’s what they decided.

Rather than sit and watch their own civilisations fall foul of the infidel predator, the western war machine was going to be starved of oil.

Middle-Eastern populations were already living with the threat of a costly deadly war with the US, which would leave their countries destroyed, the survivors condemned to slow deaths from depleted uranium.

The prospect of abject poverty was not too hard a sacrifice.

The US had stockpiled their Texan oil, and started to intercept (pirate) any tankers that sailed the Atlantic from the Venezuelan oil-fields.

The Russians managed to secure supplies from Azerbaijan, but for Western Europe, the brakes came on unbelievably quickly.

By the time European governments realised what was going on, it was too late.

The Americans shut up shop, becoming instantly uncooperative. They were plain doolally terrified that their combustion-engined world was going to dry up, and when your back’s up against the wall, you don’t look out for your mates.

Well, they didn’t, anyway.

Petrol stations and civil liberties are, naturally, the first to go.

All Ireland’s manufacturing industries are shut down in the first two weeks, but it doesn’t matter. People can’t get to work even if their jobs still exist, because their cars don’t run on air.

They turn our electricity off at 22:00 each night, while the military convoys escort road tankers from the docks to oil depots. 

Riots swarm over Europe’s capitals as mould on an old loaf.

After a month, income as we know it is a thing of the past. We cycle, walk, beg, borrow and steal to get through this fierce cold winter.

And finally, as an expression of our pain, We The People push our cars out into the city streets. We build huge towers of our wrecked, impotent, pointless cars.

Tens of thousands of angry Celtic Tiger Cubs, who'd seen their brand new 99 and 00 reg cars as shiny proud membership badges of the club of new-found affluence: now nothing more than pathetic lumps of metal, as cheap as the 'high-flying economy' in which they were built.

We pile them high, and they burn beautifully; massive bonfires all over the land.

Drifting into the freedom of anarchy, the people of Europe finally grasp our chance to stand as one.

We stand together as we watch the flames of our burning cars.




©Charlie Adley 24.04.2026