“Virgin restored in Limerick,” scoffed a headline in a sniffy Brit newspaper, jeering at the Sacred Stump of Rathkeale, repaired following minor vandalism.

It is not widely known that I myself have been associated with a miracle quite similar to the appearance of the BVM and baby Jesus on a felled tree in the Limerick parish.
Two years ago, myself, Jimmy Kelly and others associated with fucking over the Raytheon arms company in Derry were wandering in southern Lebanon, inspecting the wreckage left by Israeli aggression the previous year. Unused to the broiling heat, we sat down for a rest and a roll-up on a lump of dead wood on the outskirts of the village of Beit Jbeil two miles from the border, whose people, hopelessly, as it seemed, outgunned, had with indomitable courage fought off the invaders over days of existential struggle.
Anyway. As we slouched on the arid husk of sun-whitened timber, Jimmy pulled out his tin whistle and idly played an ornamented version of ‘Siobhan Ni Dhuibhir’. A week later, back in Derry, news came from our pal Zeinab that – you’ve guessed it – the Beirut Star was running a story from Beit Jbeil about a chunk of dead wood suddenly sprouting a profusion of beauteous blossom and local people speculating that the fantastical happening had resulted from an Irish shaman playing an ancient air while seated upon it.
I reminded Jimmy of this when I chanced upon him outside Sandino’s amid a leathered clump of his fellow bikers and suggested we go into business offering farmers a new service – “Guaranteed miraculous growth! Let Kelly whistle you up a fortune!” That sort of thing.
“No wonder Hezbollah thought you were a headcase,” he responded, revving his Harley and roaring off, cool jacket emblazoned with the logo and legend, “The Devil’s Disciples”.

Oh, me of little faith.
Months now I have refused to believe the yarn about Gerry Adams having a large bottle of liquid confiscated by security at Belfast City Airport and the substance turning out to be anti-wrinkle face-cream.
Half the face is hidden by his beard. And the visible wrinkles surely lend him a Statesmanlike aura. Face-cream, indeed...
But I have just bumped into somebody well-positioned enough to know who tells me, and I believe her, that the strange tale is true!
Forget his association with the worst of the worst of the far-Right wackos of the USA. Can he smooth-talk his way out of this one?

“It’s no secret that I’m sports mad,” postured Bertie Ahern, announcing his piss-poor column in the News of the World.
No secret you’re money mad, either.
Apparently we can expect regular dithyrambic observations on the magnificence of Manchester United. No surprise, Ahern proclaiming commitment to the Old Trafford outfit. Wasn’t it on a trip to witness the overrated brats fouling their way to another fraudulent victory that fellas he hardly knew insisted for no apparent reason on thrusting wads of mazooma into his mit. Bertie was always meeting people like that. They followed him around.
Now it’s reported he’s again pocketing sizeable sums in return for no discernible service.
In the Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole took a prim view of Ahern trousering more than €100,000 a year, plus “generous” expenses, a gilt-edged pension and a car and chauffeur available 24/7, and having his Leinster House office refurbished at a cost to the taxpayer of €220,000. In return, he calls in at the Dail every few weeks if he can be bothered.
Why doesn’t he tie an anvil around his neck and buck-lep into the Liffey, asked Fintan. Well, that’s me actually. Fintan had a similar thought, though: “Why does he not resign?”
The reason is that these are the standards by which he operated through his years in office and nobody who mattered thought the worse of him. The country, like Bertie himself, was awash with money. Why spoil the party by asking whence it came and whose it rightfully was?
Bertie ran the economy the way he ran his personal finances. The biggest factor attracting financial service companies to the Republic during his tenure was confidence that there would be nobody checking up on the source of their riches and they’d be virtually exempt from taxation. Come to Ireland, live like Bertie.
Hence the continuing defiant defence of Ahern’s behaviour by media mouthpieces of fraudsters, parasites and thieves, aka the capitalist class.

I see that, despite everything, Catholic Church bosses haven’t given up dodging the truth about clerical child sex abuse.
And I haven’t given up pursuing them.
Opening the annual novena at the Knock Shrine on August 15th, top cleric Sean Brady urged Catholics to “pray constantly for the complete healing of victims of the shameful legacy of abuse within the Church.”
Pray? Fat lot of good that’ll do them.
Brady should be telling every diocese in Ireland to open its archives and publish in full all records of complaints of sex abuse, accounts of the response of the diocesan authorities and details of all communications with Rome in relation to the complaints and how they were handled.
If the Church authorities won’t do this, the secular authorities should kick their doors down.
Brady’s Knock intervention was probably intended as a pre-emptive strike before High Court proceedings next month arising from the pending report of Judge Yvonne Murphy.
Devious as ever.