27th April, 2000
Man of the week has to be North of Ireland
snooker player, Joe Swail. Joe was playing former world champion
John Parrott for a place in the quarter-finals. The best of
twenty-five frames goes through. The score was 12-8 to John
Parrott. John only needed one more frame to go through, but Joe
had other plans and went on to win the 5 frames. The score was
Swail 13, Parrott 12. Well done Joe. The snooker commentators had
a discussion to nominate the most intelligent of all the snooker
players, and their choice was our own Ken Doherty. Another Dublin
man is also through to the next round, Fergal O' Brien. So, all
and all a great week for Irish snooker.
Have any of you noticed that Donnybrook Hill has not been
mentioned once during the traffic report on ''Morning Ireland''
for the past week. The reason for its absence from the radio news
can only be for one reason. That's right, School Holidays.
Councillor Peter Kelly came up last year with a very good
suggestion on ways to ease the traffic in Douglas every morning.
The ''walk to school'' bus. I thought it was a very good idea,
but the response seemed a trifle negative. With another 1,000
houses planned for Douglas perhaps it's time to take another look
at Peter Kelly's recommendation. We'll print it next week.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine who's involved in the music
business, asked me if I would become a Judge in a Karaoke singing
final. I obliged, and last night {Tuesday}in the Beer Garden,
Turners Cross, I sat with two other Judges to decide on the
winner and two runners up. 14 singers turned up on the night,
each singing 2 songs. The eventual winner was local girl Claire
Deasy, who is a superb singer and I predict a bright future for
Claire in the music business. The runners up were John Lombardi
and Reg Arnold. Well done to all the singers and organisers for a
great night. I've said it before, live entertainment, you can't
beat it.
They say a week is a long time in politics. I'd say some people
had wished they had never entered the political arena. More
scandals emerged during the Easter week. The politicians
remembered the patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice during
Easter week 84 years ago. The bible tells us that Judas sold his
master for 30 pieces of silver, and finally some of our own
elected politicians sold their votes for money. What did you make
of it? What did P.R Guru Frank Dunlop say about himself many
years ago? '' I have balls of steel'', well, as Frank shuffled
out from the tribunal last week the steel seemed to have melted.
The smile was gone; the spring was gone from his step. They say
the truth is a hard master. I don't believe it's going to stop
there.
Finally, we hope to see you all next Friday week, May 5th, at the
Rochestown Park Hotel for one of the biggest and best social
nights of the year. The selection of a young woman to represent
Douglas in the Rose of Tralee competition. This year is going to
be the bigger and better than last year. Don't Miss It!
See you then,
Bye for now,
Michael O'Hanlon.
