Asks Morgan: “Conas is féidir leat a rá ‘Blood Stoney’ i nGaeilge?”

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Morgan and Jones

In the Observer, Dublin writer Paul Murray (above), author of Skippy Dies, recalled his first love (Guns ‘n’ Roses) and his time at quasi-thuggish Blackrock College.

AND brilliantly named and shamed the moronic bullies who made his life miserable and who, we assume, are currently working in “corporate banking”.

Yay.

Getting your own back: this is how you do it.

Our tormentors came in many shapes and sizes. Richard Black was what you might call the “classic” bully, thick of arm and low of intelligence. He had hit puberty at around eight years old and all through primary school, while the rest of us were figuring out how to transform our Transformers, he had towered above us like King Kong’s attitudinally maladjusted, Benson & Hedges smoking, compulsively masturbating younger brother. By 11, however, he had dramatically stopped growing, and now almost everyone was taller than him, which cruel twist of fate had, in a rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light type way, pushed him to new extremes of violence and terror.

More insidious and common were people like Liam Conboy, scion of a wealthy family, who had worked out that it didn’t matter what grades he got and so devoted himself instead to undermining the system and those pitiable chumps who tried to play by its rules. Apart from a freakishly large head, Liam Conboy didn’t have the physical presence of Richard Black, but he made up for these shortcomings in sadism and persistence and knowing just what buttons to push. Richard Black would strangle you with your own tie or throw you into the thorn-bushes; but Liam Conboy was the one who would spit down your back, pour Pot Noodle into your schoolbag, spread rumours about your mother.

Richard Black and Liam Conboy (and we do hope they are your names).

Ha Ha.

Once Upon A Life: Paul Murray (Observer)

UPDATE: The article though Tweeted today was published in June 2010 (FFS). We are very sorry. We have given Bodger two dead legs, a wedgie and stole his lunch money for messing up. The post will remain unless there are massive objections

It’s a long way from the Lakes Of Ponchartrain.

Fianna Fail’s Averil Power and Michael McGrath TD (with bust elevator) at the Fianna Fail think-in at the Maldron Hotel in Tallaght, West Dublin, literally within the last hour.

Meanwhile, also at the Maldron:

Michael Kitt TD, Eamon O’Cuiv TD and Robert Troy TD

Willie O’Dea TD. He is the press room.

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

“It was a bright, clear blue day and I was on Dollymount Strand. I got talking with this elderly lady, who asked me where had I been on September 11, 2001. I never expected to be asked the question and I still can’t believe it actually happened.”

Bodger, Dublin

Donna Air Puts Scandal Behind Her (Mail)

Thanks Scary Lady

“Rosemount, Moate, Co. Westmeath. Taken at the annual sports day at Rosemount GAA pitch.” (Thomas Collins)

Bleak Irish Holiday Snaps to: Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

It’s not just here.

Heinous as the accusations are, the most shocking – and significant – are those against the fifth defendant, Monsignor William Lynn (above). At 60, Lynn is portly and dignified, his thin lips pressed together and his double chin held high. In a dramatic fashion statement, he alone has chosen to wear his black clerical garb today, a startling reminder that this is a priest on trial, a revered representative of the Catholic Church, not to mention a high-ranking official in Philadelphia’s archdiocese.

Lynn, who reported directly to the cardinal, was the trusted custodian of a trove of documents known in the church as the “Secret Archives files.”

The files prove what many have long suspected: that officials in the upper echelons of the church not only tolerated the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests but conspired to hide the crimes and silence the victims.

Lynn is accused of having been the archdiocese’s sex-abuse fixer, the man who covered up for its priests. Incredibly, after a scandal that has rocked the church for a generation, he is the first Catholic official ever criminally charged for the cover-up.

 

The Catholic Church’s Secret Sex-Crime Files (Sabrina Rudin Ederly, Rolling Stone)

He’s “one of the few who can match the falsetto quality of Joe’s voice.”

We did not know that.

Ronan Collins Sings Joe Dolan (National Concert Hall)

Thanks FQ