Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, the president of Dublin City University, wrote to Charles Haughey in 2004 asking if the former taoiseach would donate his papers; the letter has now been released under Freedom of Information rules.
"Dear Dr Haughey," the president began, a salutation presumably based on the honorary degree DCU itself gave Haughey. "I am of the emphatic view that the development and growth of DCU was due to your support and leadership. Your willingness to support university status for us, and to direct your government accordingly, was the decisive moment in our history. I consider you to be one of the major benefactors of DCU."
As if that tongue bath wasn't enough, von Prondzynski also told Haughey that his government of 1987-89 "paved the way for Ireland's later phenomenal economic growth [and] it seems appropriate to link the development of DCU with your own visionary politics". Haughey handed over the papers. Clearly, sycophancy is a matter of degree.
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All for one and one for all as RSF celebrates victory
Ruairi O Bradaigh, the president of Republican Sinn Fein (RSF), was so chuffed with his party's performance in the local elections that he issued a press release. "It can be done," he purred, hailing the victory of Tomas O Curraoin in Connemara. "That outstanding success proves that RSF candidates are electable," he said.
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O Bradaigh didn't mention that every other RSF candidate who stood in the elections failed dismally. Particular mention must go to Peter Fitzsimons, the RSF candidate for Kells town council, who secured just five votes (the quota was 255).
Then there was Des Dalton, the party's vice-president, who stood in Athy. Dalton refused to register RSF as a party in the south, with the result he and the other candidates were described as "independent" on the ballot papers. Dalton explained that he would have no truck with "the Leinster House assembly", as he disparagingly calls the Dail. The voters of Athy showed what they thought of his patronising attitude - treating Dalton to a mere 95 votes.
Alive! lost for words over Ryan's findings
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Alive!, the far-right ultra-Catholic freesheet, has an editorial in its June edition about a "crisis" affecting the Catholic church. That'll be the Ryan Commission report on child abuse, then? Wrong. The "crisis" that Alive! is fretting about is in third-level education, which is too liberal. Apparently, universities should be opening students' minds "to the wonder of the world and the goodness of its Creator". Instead, these dastardly colleges are "producing cogs for the machinery of the economy and the state". The fiends.
So is there comprehensive coverage elsewhere in Alive! about the Ryan findings, the biggest "crisis" to affect the Catholic church in a decade? Nope, there's not a word in its 16 pages about the report, which was published on May 20, surely in plenty of time for the June edition. However, that does leave room for, inter alia, a bizarre attack on singer Ronan Keating for saying that he prefers sitting on his own in the church talking to God to going to mass.
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Camille Paglia comes to an understanding with Bono
In her column on Salon.com, Camille Paglia, the author and feminist, reveals that it's been 20 years since she bought her last U2 album. "The peripatetic Bono's messianic do-gooder complex plumb wore me out," she complains. "Then two weeks ago Magnificent, a song from U2's latest album, came blasting out of my car radio. I was soon in Best Buy at record speed to snag the CD." Paglia reckons it's a "fascinatingly oblique plea for peace and mutual understanding". We understand you, Bono, now can we have some peace?
I'm not O'Toole of oppression
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Ruairi Quinn's suggestion in the Dail last week that the Department of Education may be staffed by members of the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei has been supported by Senator Joe O'Toole. "Ten years ago there certainly were people in the department who were members of secretive Catholic groups," he said yesterday. "Decisions made by the department I believe were influenced by these secretive groups." He cites the opposition to the Stay Safe sex-education programme as an example.
Zealots even picketed O'Toole's house due to his support for Stay Safe, "bearing placards saying I was a pornographer, and all sorts".
The future's bright. The future's eco-Orange
Orangemen will be going green this marching season. Five loyalist bonfires in Belfast are to burn carbon-neutral willow bark in beacons, instead of the traditional polluting pyramids of wooden pallets and car tyres. It's an initiative by Belfast city council to take some of the menace and mess out of the 11th night.
Some in City Hall hope that eco-friendly loyalist celebration beacons will eventually cross the border and become standard issue at Hallowe'en bonfires in the republic.
Belfast council officials are even offering advice on how to make conflagrations in the republic every bit as eco-friendly as those in the black north.
Grass roots
A 47-year-old man was found growing cannabis plants in a wardrobe, Westport district court heard. Robert Grocock said after he'd got drunk one night he'd ordered the seeds over the internet. Garda Michelle Sweeney discovered 11 plants, with a street value of 220. Judge Mary Devins was told that Grocock had worked as a landscape gardener. "And being a landscape gardener, I assume [the plants] flourished for you," quipped Judge Devins. She imposed a three-month suspended sentence and a 1,000 fine.
- Mayo News
After turning up almost half an hour late for court, a judge spent 23 minutes issuing a rambling diatribe of advice to a group of primary-school children visiting the courtroom, before having to adjourn 25 cases for a fortnight at the end of business. Judge John Neilan proffered his wisdom on the lost art of conversation, TV, drugs, drink, the EU and how to apply to be a barrister to the 11-year-olds.
The judge, who regularly criticises the Department of Justice and Courts Service from the bench on account of his workload, did not offer any sympathy to the two dozen people who had to spend all day in court only to be told to come back another day.
- Athlone Advertiser