The year just drawing to a close will go down as a bloody one and a bloody-minded one too. A couple of years ago the defining image was of the twin towers conflagrating and collapsing. Well, this year it’s the two fingers flouting and taunting. The most obvious gesture came from Limerick feudster Liam Keane as he walked away from the Central Criminal Court a free man, all prosecution witnesses having suffered a catastrophic bout of collective amnesia. It caused an industrial-scale outbreak of tut-tutting and fuming and prompted much angry debate and calls for hanging and flogging. It seemed so unambiguously contemptuous of the justice system and what passes for civil society. Irresistible, really. But Keane was simply more forthright than most. He wasn’t alone and, in truth, his photo encapsulates the whole year.

George Bush and Tony Blair gave the rest of the world the two fingers as they went marching off to war. Not to be outdone, the Israeli Government carried on building the biggest prison ever built, one to contain the Palestinians on the (much reduced) West Bank. Up yours, everyone.
And it was two fingers every which way but loose when the Taoiseach’s daughter got married in France behind a Hello-veil of secrecy. There was also two finger reciprocity between Health Minister Micheál Martin and the hospitality industry. And a few of his Cabinet colleagues as well. The DUP gave two fingers to the two Governments of these islands, but also and especially, to David Trimble. And don’t let’s even start on the bin protests, the road protests, the LUAS protests, the hospital protests…
And so on, and on and on. It’s been that kind of year. Very few have been happy. You could count them on two fingers.

Between Iraq and a hard place: "Portents of war came thick and fast. The US ordered 11,000 desert-trained troops to the Gulf region in January. Let the spin commence..."

Bertie's blues: "Having been returned triumphantly to office in 2002, Bertie Ahern might have expected things to rock gently along this year. But instead, he’s been through a mincer and it’s not over yet..."

All talk no action "The Great Chat-Show War didn’t quite turn out to be the promised Mother of All Battles. Although in some ways it did: like Saddam’s first war, it was all over in less than a 100 days."

It's grim up north "There are those who argue that the best that Northern Ireland can hope for is dreariness. They’ll have been disappointed this year, so. It’s been grim instead, and right from the off."

The selective 'war on terror' "The Coalition blitzkrieg on Iraq is part of a wider “war on terror.” says George Bush. To justify this claim, he and Tony Blair made one feeble attempt at being as hard on the causes of terror as on terror itself, when they collaborated with the UN, the EU and Russia to publish what they called the Middle East ‘road map’."

Comical Ali "One of the few people who might be happier at the end of the year than the beginning is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf who was the Iraqi regime’s spin-doctor and publicist during the war."

Where's Judge Roy Bean when you need him? "Back in the days of the Wild West, Judge Roy Bean presided over his court as ‘the law west of the Pecos’. Rough and ready, and largely self-taught, his constituency included chancers, fleeing miscreants, vagabonds, thieves, murderers as well as homesteaders and frontier entrepreneurs."

Luas Talk "This was the year that a lot of frustration boiled over, steaming and fuming and effing to high heaven. A major target was the LUAS, Dublin’s answer to a question that’s out of date and wasn’t being asked anyway, a white elephant generated by people who were besotted with the idea that trams are, to quote Frank McDonald of the Irish Times, ‘civilising'."

Great Summer Shame About The Heat "For once, and don’t hold your breath for the future, we had a really brilliant summer. Couldn’t have been better. What would ya be going to Spain for, sure isn’t this even better? It was just mighty."

Complete Control "How intolerant can we become? It’s a challenging question. We have already become one of the least tolerant and aggressive societies on earth. Few can compete. But 2003 witnessed an upsurge in control culture. This is especially the case in ‘official’ circles. There are six causes."