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Sarsfields Newsletter

November 8, 2018

THE SASH

4-12-2007

The Weekly Online Newsletter of Sarsfields GAA Club

 

Sarsfields Appoint New Manager.

 

Paul Doyle was officially appointed Sarsfields new manager last Thursday after days of speculation linking the former player to the position. His selectors will be former players Dave Clancy, Noel McHugh and Martin McIntyre. Good luck to the new managememnt.

            Sarsfields minor girls will play Moorefield in the county final this Sunday at a venue yet to be announced.

 

GPA whinges wipe out goodwill factor

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/gpa-whinges-wipe-out-goodwill-factor-1222429.html

Author Unknown.

WHEN it was founded, I thought the Gaelic Players’ Association was an admirable idea whose time had come. When the Cork hurlers went on strike, I fully supported them and wrote fiercely partisan articles to that effect. I believed in the Orwellian mantra of the contemporary GAA journalist: ‘Players Good. Officials Bad.’

These days I find it hard to work up the same enthusiasm for the GPA. I’ve been trying to work out why but it wasn’t till last week that the eureka moment arrived. Now I realise that my opinion has changed because, increasingly, the behaviour of those connected with the organisation displays a level of arrogance, illogic and boorish bad manners which brings the causes it promotes into disrepute.

Take Eddie Brennan’s reaction last week to a few lines in a new book on Kerry footballers in which Dara Cinn ide expressed a mild agnosticism about the notion that inter-county players should seek to extract as many perks as possible from the game.

The Kilkenny corner-forward launched into a full-scale attack on Cinn ide and decided to slag off Joe Brolly while he was at it. But there are a few points which should be made about Brennan’s broadside, not least that in some respects it was spectacularly witless.

There was, for example, his comment that, ‘the likes of Dara Cinn ide and Joe Brolly are forgetting where they came from and how they got there.’ It’s unlikely that Cinn ide, a man who is unusually proud of his native hearth even by the standards of the GAA, will have appreciated a comment like that. He is, as is Brolly, still involved at club level. And club level is where all players come from, something the GPA seems to forget on occasion.

And what can we make of Eddie’s assertion that, ‘ever since Dara left the Kerry panel, Kerry training methods have changed a lot.’ Cinn ide left the Kerry panel after the 2005 Championship. The notion that in two seasons the Kingdom management has suddenly demanded a completely different order of commitment from players is bizarre to say the least.

Intemperate Eddie had a few more epithets to fling around, aiming at the target with a kind of careless abandon which would get him dropped if he replicated it on the field. He suggested Cinn ide was pursuing an ‘agenda’ and that unless Brolly and Cinn ide agreed with the GPA’s line on player welfare, they were ‘stupid.’ All I’ll say is that the word ‘stupid’ did enter my mind when I read these extraordinary comments but not in association with Joe Brolly or Dara Cinn ide.

Brennan also suggested that Cinn ide was in some way disqualified from making any comment because he earns money as a GAA analyst. In doing this he breaks a fundamental rule which usually governs Gaelic games discourse. That rule is that you don’t bring people’s jobs into it. Cinn ide is a journalist by trade. Comment is one way in which he makes his living. Casting aspersions on that is crossing a line. This wasn’t the first personalised attack of the week by the GPA. Donal g Cusack took it upon himself to whinge about Brolly at the press conference announcing the strike. The implication, again, was that Brolly is a hypocrite because he favours the retention of the GAA’s amateur ethos but earns a few bob as a match analyst on RTE.

Well, for a start, Brolly’s money has nothing to do with the GAA, it comes from RTE. And, secondly, the notion that nobody who makes any money from commentating on Gaelic games has the right to criticise the GPA is beneath contempt. Cusack came up with more of the same oul’ nonsense at the conference when he suggested that journalists who didn’t agree with him should cover GAA matches on a Sunday and then do another job during the week. Does he not realise that if they didn’t cover the GAA during the week, they wouldn’t have the joy of covering GPA press conferences?

There is no greater bollocks than the man who presumes to tell someone else how to do their job on the grounds that they are somehow beholden to him. Prime examples are the drunk telling the publican that it’s his money that built this new bar, the obstreperous motorist telling the cop that he should be out catching murderers instead of enforcing the road traffic laws, the abusive Iarnr d ireann passenger telling the ticket collector, ‘I pay your wages, you know.’ To this list can be added the GPA activist giving career guidance advice to journalists, some of whom were doing their job when he was still in short trousers every day of the week and not just on Sundays.

Nobody can match a young man in his twenties when it comes to self-pity, self-aggrandisement and self-absorption (I know, I’ve been one). The GPA, which represents this particular turbulent demographic, is currently exhibiting all the faults you might expect from an association powered almost entirely by callow male egotism. They don’t seem to appreciate that other people, even Joe Brolly, have the right to disagree with them. And this attitude is alienating erstwhile supporters by the new time. (I know, I used to be one).

To top it all off, the Association has now decided to back a strike threat by the Cork football and hurling panel aimed at reversing the decision of the County Board there to take away the right to appoint selectors from county managers.

I think the Cork County Board’s decision is wrong but it happens to be the democratic decision of the clubs which voted it in by a huge majority. By trying to overturn that, the GPA are positioning themselves as being more important than GAA democracy. Should they succeed, the doomsday scenario of county trumping club will finally have come true.

This time round, I’m with Frank Murphy. It’s only a few months since the media was accused of having an anti-Frank Murphy bias by the same players so portraying him now as the villain will hardly hold water. That’s not an ‘agenda’ by the way. It’s an opinion.

thephotograph@hotmail.com

A funny old year!

By Brian Murphy

http://www.setantasports.com/en/Blogs/A-to-Z-of-Bloggers/Brian-Murphy/2007/11/A-funny-old-year/?facets/blog-space/

For a season that delivered two iconic moments at its conclusion – Henry Shefflin hobbling up the Croke Park steps to accept the Liam MacCarthy Cup in such emotional circumstances, and Declan O’Sullivan stamping the seal of greatness on the Kingdom’s young team after a second All Ireland win in succession, 2007 – for a myriad of reasons, will always be remembered for the series of controversies that dogged the Association and simply refused to go away.

It was the year of the strike and the year that the word discipline – or the lack of it – seeped into our vernacular by osmosis. We all became experts on the disciplinary procedures of the GAA overnight. Paddy Bradley’s suspension was the harbinger of a summer so fraught with tension that matters on the pitch, at times, became a sideshow. The previous year, the GAA had promised a streamlined disciplinary system, but what they delivered was an alphabet soup of committees, authorities and God only knows what else.

The brawl at the start of the Munster Championship match between Cork and Clare in the first flushes of the summer that never was lit the touch paper for the pyrotechnics to come. The incident will now forever be known as ‘Semplegate’ and the public was in its thrall for that curious month of June. Discipline became the buzz word as the radio phone-in shows teased the matter out with varying degrees of righteous indignation.

The GAA assured us that the great unwashed couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of their unique system, warning that they had their best men on the case. But an Association that is founded on men that find great pleasure in navigating through the catacombs of red tape and rules, almost inevitably a few managed to slither through loopholes that had never been properly fastened.

The GAA’s disciplinary system unravelled when cases like that of Dublin under-21 hurler Peadar Carton proved that the men meting out the punishments didn’t understand the system themselves. A system designed to make things clearer and to deliver justice quicker served only to encourage every county board to challenge punishments, even when all the evidence proved that their men were justly suspended.

At least GAA President Nickey Brennan had the good sense to deal with the matter at a Special Congress in October. Brennan’s conciliatory tones suggested that his henchmen had engaged in a little naval gazing and concluded that the blame lay at their feet – a little anyway. As always, the GAA insisted that a great responsibility lay with managers and county board representatives to interpret the rules in the spirit in which they were cast. Yeah right!

And so to the strike – the subject of great swathes of the Amazon worth of newspaper print. The spectre of an all-out players’ strike looms over Gaelic games for the first time in history and the ticking time-bomb is nudging inexorably towards a disastrous outcome. The Minister for Sport, the GAA and the GPA will sit down over the next few weeks and, be in little doubt, the matter will be resolved. There will be casualties, and the GPA could be about to take a big hit.

Curiously, it wasn’t the only strike to ferment over the year. The aptly named Rebels, those of the blood and bandage persuasion down south, are threatening to withdraw their services from the start of next year because those notorious curmudgeons in the Cork county board want to get their spoke in over whom managers can have as members of their backroom team.

The Cork players are a stubborn, tightly-bonded unit, under the stewardship of perennial pot-stirrer D nal Og Cusack and trying to figure out a potential resolution to that impasse is as easy as bailing water with a fork.

Controversy also poked its head into our consciousness when the debate over the future structure of the All Ireland hurling championship reached almost hysterical levels. The eventual scrapping of the Munster championship is as inevitable as the falling of the leaves, but, given the extraordinary nature of that particular competition this year, it may have been spared the hangman’s noose for another few years after the epic clashes between Cork and Waterford and the edifying saga between Limerick and Tipperary.

The lopsidedness of the hurling championship was exposed again this year and the changes passed at Special Congress – designed ostensibly at least to give the weaker counties a chance – seem only to have made the lot of Antrim all the more difficult. The Saffron County threatened legal action such were their levels of pique at the perceived slight.

It was a funny old year that should be remembered for the brilliance of Colm Cooper and the storybook revival enjoyed by Limerick. Richie Bennis and his cartoonish grin should be the little vignettes we have locked away in our minds, but controversy reared its ugly head and ensured that, as ever, the bad is always easier to recall than the good.

 

 

Freaney: player abuse scaring off young refs.

 

Sarsfields’ Pierce Freaney in his role as Match Officials Coordinator in an interview with the Irish Examiner

By Brendan O’Brien

UNACCEPTABLE levels of abuse from players, managers and spectators are having a crippling affect on the amount of young referees making it as far as the inter-county scene, according to the GAA’s match officials coordinator, Pearce Freaney.

The Kildare man believes that there should be at least a dozen referees under the age of 30 operating at inter-county in hurling and football but, such is the level of hardship associated with the position, that he can think of only a couple.

One way of curbing the problem, he believes, it to introduce a “one strike and you’re out” system of punishment for anyone deemed guilty of abusing referees — but more important is a radical change of culture.

“I’m involved a lot with recruiting referees and if you ask them what their biggest fear is, they will say it is being abused. At national level we have a few referees in their 20s but people seem to think they have a God-given right to abuse a young fella.

“We’ve got to change that some way. It will be a difficult task. Players and coaches have to buy into this too. If they can make mistakes, then surely the poor auld referee is human as well. If we keep ignoring the abuse, fellas won’t be interested in becoming referees.”

Steps have been taken to address the problem, with a Young Whistlers programme being introduced for 12 and 13-year-olds in an attempt to engender respect for officials from an early age. However, Freaney accepts that it is a long-term project.

“It won’t happen in my own term here but we have to make start on it. We would be very jealous of the respect a rugby referee gets, whether he is right or wrong. They make mistakes, some of them are horrific calls and nobody says a word to them on the field.

“If that was our lads they would be right up in his face telling him what they thought of them. Then again, we are in competition with other sports on television where young fellas don’t see respect being given. They all follow a team across the water.”

The onus isn’t just on players, officials and spectators, however. Referees themselves have a part to play, according to Michael Curley, who took charge of the 1999 All-Ireland football final.

“What everyone wants, whether it’s managers, players or supporters, is consistency. Consistency within a game and consistency from referee to referee in game to game.

“If we can bring about that level of consistency, we’ve gone a long way to bringing about a culture of discipline and respect on the field — for the referee himself, for his colleagues and for the rules of the game in general.”

New proposals aimed at streamlining the referees’ job will include a suggestion that a player receiving two yellow cards is sent off for the game but replaced by a substitute, and Curley is all in favour of any return to something like the sin bin that was introduced so briefly in 2005.

“I would reintroduce the sin bin in the morning. It was a cooling off (mechanism). That is the effect it has, regardless of what the person was sent off for. I have never seen a player sent to the sin bin twice in the space of a game.”

Leinster Club Championships Results & Fixtures

 The Leinster Council has postponed the semi –final between Moorefield and Tyrrelspass until its investigation into the violent incidents towards the end of the Quarter final replay between Moorefield and Dromard have been completed.

 

Final: New date to be announced.  Live on TG4 AIB Leinster Club Football Championship Final   Throw-

in: 2:00pm. Coverage 1.45

 

Coaches Corner

Tips for managers, coaches and intending coaches

 

Coaching U8s
“I have been asked to help out with our club U8s this year. Any pointers?”

 

 This question was put to Monaghan senior footballer Dermot McArdle (www.gaelicperformance.com) who runs the country’s only Gaelic residential summer camps in Gormanston College, Co. Meath (July 8th to 13th.)

“New coaches are often ‘thrown in’ with the U8s at a club. The new coach has little experience, and often doesn’t know what to coach, or how to coach it.

As with any learning task, it is important to lay the foundations at an early age. We should lay the foundations for our kids in terms of their future Gaelic games development.

These foundations lie in what we call the FUNdamental movement skills: Agility, Balance, Co-ordination, Running, Jumping, Turning, Striking, Catching, Kicking, and Passing.

Once these skills are developed, it makes the task of learning the sports-specific skills a little easier. Once upon a time kids played outside for hours at a time, climbing trees, knocking on doors and running away, walking walls, and many other activities that allowed them to develop the FUNdamental skills in a natural way.

Unfortunately, due to changes in society, this is no longer always the case. So how do we get kids to learn these skills now? The key word is FUN.

Kids want to have fun above anything else when they initially begin playing sport. Games such as chasing games, team games, running around cones of different colour, activities involving picking up different objects and placing them down, or throwing them, and catching them.

We should train speed and quickness, but in a less formal way, bursts of 5 seconds running as fast as they can. Get kids to be as creative as they can. CHALLENGE them to do things quicker, score more, do activities on one foot, etc.

This will allow them to build their fundamental skills. Ensure that they are achieving SUCCESS, and then give them the CONFIDENCE through verbal recognition or other means. This will allow your next generation to emerge with rock-solid foundations, therefore increasing the chances of success at higher levels.

Sample one-hour Session:

5-10 mins: Warm up

15-20 mins: Work on technical skills, including Agility, Balance, Co-ordination, etc.

25-30 mins: Modified games or activities with simple rules and tactics

5 mins: Cool Down

Give your team the edge

Mickey Harte has credited Bart McEnroe (bartmcoptio@eircom.net) with giving Tyrone a substantial edge.

McEnroe describes himself as ‘coach to the coach.’ He works with team, and business, managers to help them get the best results out of their people.

Here’s three tips for managers from McEnroe.

 

Tip 1: Focus on the process

It’s not about setting out to win particular titles. If you do that, you’re only focussing on the outcome.

You should focus on the process – the things that, done right by the players, give the team a better chance of winning the title. Create the environment that lets players be the best that they can be.

 

Tip 2: Change your style

You must improve your engagement style to create the best opportunities for your team.

We were reared on managers who roared and shouted. And if we didn’t do what they told us to do, we’d lose.

That is a redundant form of communication. Players don’t respond out of fear or being shouted at.

Strike a balance between ‘asking’ and ‘telling.’ Develop a new awareness of communication. Inter-act with the players in a mature fashion, and bring the best out of them.

 

Tip 3: Re-define success

For many, success is just ‘we’ll win the cup.’

But that’s too broad. You must be able to measure success much easier than that. For example, ask a player ‘John, how would I know you’re playing well?’

This has a powerful impact. John will come back and say that it will be obvious he’s playing well if, say, he wins three out of every five balls that come into his corner, if he scores with two of the three, and if he stops the corner-back from coming out with the ball.

Once that’s agreed for every player, you have a framework for success. And because players are involved in devising the framework, they own it. And when they own it, they will do their best to fulfil it on the field.

Players and management come up with new approaches. They are not afraid to talk things through.

With roles clarified, constructive feedback can take place. This leads to further growth for the player and the team when done properly.

 

If  any Sarsfields players, Managers, coaches would like a question answered in Coaches Corner, email pro@locallotto.ie.

 

 

Ten issues for the GAA to tackle

By Gaelic Games

 

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/1-the-players-1229596.html

 

 

PARAIC Duffy’s hands aren’t tied behind his back but there will be times when he signs off on something with his right hand while his left elbow is nudging him in the ribs telling him it’s wrong.

That’s the strength and weakness of a democratic organisation which takes its instructions from the bottom up. Unlike company chief-executives who, together with senior management, devise policy, the director-general of the GAA is charged with putting into practice decisions made by others. Congress delegates have always been keen to recognise the work of the director-general, thanking him profusely for his annual report which actually is part of his brief anyway.

There must have been times when Liam Mulvihill would have preferred less thanks and more debate on his suggestions, many of which were ignored in the rush to complete the Friday night business and meet old acquaintances in the bar.

Stopped short

For all the back-slapping of the DG, Central Council stopped short of changing his title to chief-executive as recommended by the Strategic Review Committee. Presumably, they thought it might bestow too much power on him.

So, while there’s a changing of the DG guard, the basic terms of reference remain the same. However, there is likely to be change of emphasis. Mulvihill was never short of new ideas — as espoused in his annual report — but took the view that his responsibilities involved suggesting the way forward and then leaving others to decide if it were appropriate.

It was an interpretation endorsed by Central Council. However, in an ever-changing situation — not least among Central Council where the personnel are changing at a rapid rate — Duffy is likely to have more autonomy than Mulvihill.

Duffy made it clear on Thursday that he saw the DG’s role as being very much pro-active where policy would be initiated by him and his senior managers and where strong efforts would be made to convince management and Central Council of the benefit of such measures.

Significantly, all the Croke Park senior managers were lined up alongside Duffy for Thursday’s press conference, suggesting that he intends to make the day-to-day running of the GAA very much a team affair, using an integrated accountability mechanism.

He has just over two months to put his initial blueprint in place and, no doubt, he won’t be short of advice in the interim as to how he should proceed. Everybody will have their own ideas as to what they would do if they were in his position so by way of a starting point, here are ten key areas that require attention.

 

1. The Players

The most important asset of all, so a smooth relationship between them and the administrators is vital. Duffy will be in power for seven years in what will be a period of great change, certainly if the last seven are a reliable guide.

Duffy has promised to work on improving links with the players which presumably means the GAA will be constantly reviewing and updating players benefits, rather than playing catch-up under pressure. The GPA have unquestionably brought about an improvement in player welfare since 2000, but the reality is that they shouldn’t have had to.

The GAA should have taken the lead and gained kudos for their initiatives, rather than being reactive for so long. In fairness, they have improved in recent years but they conceded the early moral high ground and have found it hard to retrieve it.

2. Semi-professionalism

The GPA leadership insist that it’s not on the agenda at present but if the membership agitates for it in future years, then it will become a major issue. The GAA must prepare for that possibility, not merely by waving the rule on amateur status but by having a coherent response. It’s time to recruit outside experts to thoroughly investigate the impact that semi-professionalism would have on the GAA at all levels. The current debate, such as it is, relies far too heavily on emotion, on principle, on ideology. Good strategy demands that the GAA leadership have well-researched facts at their disposal if they are to face a war against any form of pay-for-play.

3. Population

imbalance/

urbanisation

It’s a big elephant in the GAA’s sitting-room. The GAA has a responsibility to offer as many players as possible the opportunity to aspire to playing at the highest level, yet the existing county system militates heavily against counties with large populations.

By the end of Duffy’s term in 2014, the population of Dublin is likely to be around 1.75 million, yet they will have one county team, similar to counties like Leitrim, Longford, Offaly and Laois which have small populations.

That seriously reduces the chances of many players from the larger population areas ever playing for their county. Given the rapidly-changing demographic trends, maintaining the current county structure doesn’t make sense.

It won’t change in the next seven years but an analysis of the impact of population imbalance needs to be undertaken. So too does the knock-on effect of sprawling urban areas where the GAA’s penetration is not nearly as high as it should be.

4. Clubs

Duffy has made it clear that the club will be very much to the forefront of his regime. He has already made it clear that he believes the inter-county scene — as it stands — is like a large oak tree denying light to smaller plants which are actually more important in the overall ecological balance.

He may well be right but the answer is not to cut back on inter-county activity. And even if it were, there’s an absolute requirement to do it in a streamlined way so as to maintain a programme for 9-10 months of the year, maximising promotional opportunities.

County Boards could run their club programmes much more efficiently if they were strong and brave; instead far too many prefer to blame the inter-county scene for their difficulties.

 

5. Inter-county competitions

It was a committee chaired by Duffy that proposed the opening of the ‘back door’ in football in 2001, so it’s obvious that he’s not afraid or bound by tradition.

It’s now time for a fundamental overhaul of the entire fixtures structure using three key headings: players, value-for-money and exposure.

Is it fair on senior inter-county footballers that while they are only guaranteed two competitive games between mid-April and the following February?

Is it fair on County Boards who have to invest so heavily for such a lop-sided programme?

As for exposure, the GAA are on a dangerous path from a promotional viewpoint by having no inter-county activity for the last 14 weeks of the year at a time when soccer and rugby dominate the media schedules.

6. Hurling

Its base is small enough without cutting Antrim adrift as is the shameful case arising from the Special Congress decision to hand them an impossible championship programme every summer. If that’s the way hurling people treat one of its proudest sons, what chance has the game of expanding?

The short term aim should be to ensure that hurling prospers in traditional areas, rather than investing heavily in counties where football always has — and probably always will be — dominant.

Is it time to separate hurling and football for administrative purposes? A five year experiment to that effect would be interesting.

7. Stadiums

The GAA are rightly proud of Croke Park and of the magnificent infrastructure in every parish in the country. However, serious mistakes are being made in between. Munster has four stadiums with a capacity of 40,000 plus, which are rarely filled. Cork have plans to redevelop Pairc Ui Chaoimh as a 60,000 arena but for what?

Counties have shown great energy and resourcefulness in developing their major grounds but, in most cases, the capacity is too high while the comfort level is too low.

Each province needs one ‘centre of excellence,’ accompanied by a downsizing of other county grounds (maximum 20,000), with greater emphasis on spectator comfort. The days of large expensive vanity projects should be over.

8. Structures

There should be no independent republics in the GAA which is the case at present as neither County Boards nor Provincial Councils are answerable to anybody provided they adhere to general rules. Provincial Councils should be accountable to Central Council, certainly in matters which relate to national issues.

For instance, Munster decided some weeks ago to seed their football draw to keep Cork and Kerry apart until the final. It means that two of the strongest counties can time their training schedule to aim at a first peak in mid-July, a luxury not available to their rivals in the three other provinces.

Since the Munster decision impacts directly on others, they should have had to clear it at central level.

9. Promotion

Some weeks ago the fixtures for the 2008 Allianz Leagues, having been sent to counties for inspection, appeared on a website and were picked up by the national media. It may look like a small thing but in the closed inter-county season, surely the GAA could have made a whole lot more of the announcement.

And surely they could have planned the fixtures better, for example, pairing Dublin v Meath, who haven’t met in the league for over a decade, in a first round game.

When the GAA finally got to formally issuing the fixtures, they arrived ‘as Gaeilge.’ Contrast that with the newspaper-friendly format the fixtures for the English soccer leagues arrive every year. A little imagination would go a long way in terms of better GAA promotion.

10. Croke Park

Rule 42 has been suspended, not deleted, and is set to re-activate when Lansdowne Road is redeveloped. How daft is that? Croke Park has a capacity of 82,500, compared to Lansdowne Road’s 55,000 (maximum), yet major rugby and soccer games will return to the smaller venue, thereby depriving 27,500 an opportunity to attend major attractions.

In fairness to the GAA, it’s unclear whether the IRFU or FAI want to play games in Croke Park when Lansdowne Road is completed but they should be put to the test. If they refuse, they can be blamed for ignoring 27,500 people.

Just as they did two years ago, the GAA should again show a lead by deleting Rule 42 for good and declaring Croke Park available for all big events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Stories

A golfer stood over his tee shot for what seemed an eternity, looking up, looking down, measuring the distance, figuring the wind direction and speed… driving his partner nuts.
Finally his exasperated partner says, ‘What the hell is taking so long? Hit the ball!’
His friend answers, ‘My wife is up there watching me from the clubhouse. I want to make this a perfect shot.’
‘Give me a break! You don’t stand a snowball’s chance of hitting her from here.’

A priest was walking along the Old Head of Kinsale when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
‘That’s what I like to see’, said the priest, ‘A man helping his fellow man’.
As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, ‘Well, he sure doesn’t know the first thing about shark fishing.’

A man went to the doctor with a strange complaint.
‘Well it’s like this Doc, whenever I play golf, I fall in love with the beautiful, lush fairways and greens we are playing on, and I just burst into song.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ said the doc.
Well all I ever sing when we’re on the course is ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’ and it’s annoying my colleagues.
But there’s more …. When we get back to the clubhouse, in the bar is the lucky black cat that lives at the club, then at the top of my voice I start singing’ ‘What’s new, pussy cat?’ and all I get is a barrage of complaint from the other members in the bar.
‘Can’t you sing some different tunes?’ said the doctor.
‘Well no, I just can’t seem to sing anything else, but then it gets worse because when I get home, it continues and when I’m asleep and dreaming, I always sing ‘Delilah’, and my wife is increasingly getting really angry and suspicious. But I just can’t seem to stop singing these same tunes’
‘Ah, yes I see, I am beginning to suspect that you have the early symptoms of Tom Jones syndrome’.
‘Well I’ve never heard of that, is it common?’ asked the man.
‘It’s not unusual’, replied the doctor.

 

 

GAA Quotes

 

‘Its all over…No its not  Jeeeesus! The cigarettes are being lit here in the commentary box,. the lads are getting anxious, its a line ball down there to Clare and who’s to take it? Will ye put ’em out lads ye’ll feckin’ choke me.’
       – Matthew McMahon, Clare FM, Munster Final 95
.

‘Is the ref going to finally blow his whistle? …No, he’s going to blow his shaggin’ nose!’
        – Radio Kilkenny, Kilkenny v Wexford National League match.

My only consolation was that I held Tomas Mannion (Galway’s corner back) scoreless.’
        – Joe Brolly recalls a dire performance against Galway

‘It wasn’t your fault. It was the feckin’ eejits that picked ya.’
        – Anonymous fan, giving some faint praise to a player

‘That referee must have no wipers on his glasses!’
        – Eddie Moroney, from his legendary 1992 commentary of Aherlow’s U21 Tipperary County Final.

‘If Offaly win the National League again this year it will be the greatest accident since the Titanic.’
        – Paul O’Kelly of Offaly

Did you have to explain to the English what hurling was about?’
‘No, but I have to explain it to the people of Wicklow.’
        – Des Cahill and Dara Briain, former Wicklow hurler

‘And Tom Chesty (Waterford) breaks through with Kilkenny defenders falling around him like dying wasps.’
        – Micheal O’Hehir.

‘Paidi O’Se is buttoned up like the most devout girl in the Amish community when it came to the pre-final interview.’
        – Tom Humphries.

‘Several broken sticks, two broken heads, and two bruised fingers were part of the afternoon’s play, for hurling, the Irish national game is the fastest and probably the most dangerous of sports. It is a combination of hockey, football, golf, baseball, battle and sudden death. It was a real Irish game.’
        – Daily Mail, reporting on a match held in London (1921)

 Fatal E – mail Error

A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida for a long weekend to thaw out during one particularly icy cold winter. They both had jobs, and had difficulty coordinating their travel schedules. It was decided the husband would fly to Florida on a Thursday, and his wife would follow him the next day. Upon arriving as planned, the husband checked into the hotel. There he decided to open his laptop and send his wife an e-mail back in Minneapolis. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address and sent the e-mail without noticing his error.

In the meantime:
In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband’s funeral. He was a minister of many years who had been ‘called home to glory’ following a heart attack (died and gone to report in heaven). The widow checked her e-mail, expecting messages from family and friends. Upon reading the first message, she fainted and fell to the floor. The widow’s son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My loving Wife
From: Your Departed Husband
Subject: I’ve arrived!

I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

Two heads are better than one

An American tourist travelling in County Clare came across a little antique shop in which he was lucky enough to pick up, for a mere 200 Irish punts, the skull of Brian Boru

Included in the price was a certificate of the skull’s authenticity, signed by Brian Boru himself.

Fifteen years later the tourist returned to Ireland and asked the man from Clare, who owned the antique shop, if he had any more bargains.

‘I’ve got the very thing for you, ‘said the shopkeeper, ‘It’s the genuine skull of Brian Boru.’

‘You cheat, ‘exploded the American, ‘You sold me that fifteen years ago, ‘and producing the skull added loudly, ‘Look, they’re not even the same size.’

‘You have got it wrong, ‘opined the seller, ” This is the skull of Brian Boru when he was a lad.’

 

Sarsfields Missouri Connection

Colm “Benny” Breen who is a member of the Sarsfields contingent including Ziggy McIntyre, Dennis McIntyre and Brian “sweeping brush guitar” Fogarty who travel abroad every year on a hunting week, mixed business with pleasure when the group were in Missouri last year. Colm did a deal with a local firm and was granted a franchise for a new product that will be on sale in specialist shops shortly. Speaking to the Newsletter Colm didn’t want to reveal the exact nature of the product yet as marketing strategies were still being formulated at the moment. He did say that there was a hole in the market that he had identified and that the hole would be plugged in the near future. The product will be launched in the New Year along with Benny’s website www. bbp.ie.

Conversations Overheard

Star Crossed

 Overheard in Temple bar

Man: ‘So, are you a taurus?’
Woman: ‘Excuse me?’
Man: ‘Are you a taurus?’
Woman: ‘No, I’m actually a saggitarius.’
Man: ‘Eh, I asked you if you were a tourist…’

 

Dead and Buried.

A man bumped into a friend in his local who he hadn’t seen for a while.

Man: ‘How it going Pete? Didn’t see you for ages.’

Pete: ‘Not too bad. Did you hear the news about me Father?’

Man: (Guessing by his tone)’Ah god no. He isn’t dead is he?’

Pete: ‘I hope so, cause we buried him last Thursday.’

 

Time Difference

Sitting at his desk a man could hear a colleague on the phone:

‘..yeah…I did send an e-mail just there, but if you are in Belgium, you might not get it for another hour or so, ’cause, you know..Belgium is an hour behind Ireland?

 

Mary Horney

My wife and myself were watching the news when an interview with the Minister for Health was followed by one about children sharing pornographic images on mobile phones and via websites like Bebo. Thinking she would spare herself from the usual questions (’what’s pornography’ etc.) my wife asked our seven year old daughter to get something upstairs. A couple of minutes later she re-entered the room behind us and declared ‘I’m horny!’. Stunned, we turned around to find her wearing a black wig and a smile and repeated ‘I’m Mary Horny’.

Miss Guided

Having presented some junior girl guides with their badges etc. at an investiture ceremony the guide leader was really warming to her theme. When it came to the award for the most senior of the girls the leader gushed on – ‘… and not only is she great at taking care of the girl guides, she’s well known for looking after the boy scouts around the village as well!’

Size doesn’t Matter

A man in one of the Spar shops in North County Dublin was ordering something from a cashier that wasn’t really listening to him;

Cashier: ‘What size do you want?’

Man(Confused and embarassed look on his face): ‘Excuse me?’

Cashier: ‘They come in different sizes!!’

Man: ‘Different sizes?’

Cashier: ‘Depending what you want to put them in…. are they for a remote or a camera or something? AA or AAA?’

Man (thinks for a second): ‘I said I wanted a pack of Durex not Duracell!!!’


 

Irish Lessons

An Irishman living in Germany and was talking to a friend who had just returned from three years of working as a translator in Dublin. During the conversation she mentioned that she’d learned some Irish while she was over there then , rattled off the numbers one to ten just to prove it.

I asked her how she got interested in Irish, ‘well you’s drop so many Irish words into English that I had to keep asking people what they meant’ she replied. ‘After that it was just the same as learning any other language, you watch what people do and listen to what they say’.

I asked her for an example, ‘Well, when someone opens the door and sees the weather outside, listening to them taught me how to say ‘It’s raining’ in Irish’.

After checking to make sure I could remember how to say it myself I said ‘go on then, how do you say it’. Without batting an eyelid she says ‘aah for fuck sake!’.

Horses for Courses

Overheard in Heuston station last week. There was a drunk man there pestering people for money. He spotted a very pretty girl went over to her and said’ I don’t want any money love, but I wouldn’t say no to a ride’ Without batting an eyelid she replied ‘Stick around, there’s a train to The Curragh along shortly’

Blind Drivers

An American tourist asks a member of staff at the Guinness Storehouse why do the traffic lights in Ireland beep. The obliging member of staff said that it was for blind people, so that they would know when the lights had turned green. The American tourist said in response: ‘You Irish are crazy, you let blind people drive in this Country?!?!?!’

Dah’s Great Value Wah!

Overhead in North Earl Street, Dublin.

Fundraiser: ‘Hiya, how’s it going? You couldn’t spare a minute for Concern please?’
Dub: ‘yeh gowan, make it bleedin’ quick wil yeh.’
Fundraiser: launches into speech … then she says ‘Did you know you can feed an entire family for a month for 21 euros in Darfur??’
Dub: ‘f**kin jazis, dahs greight value wah, I shud bleedin’ muave der!’

Americans Speaking Irish

A group of American students on a bus in Dublin

Student 1: ‘So like do people in Ireland speak Irish or English?’

Student 2: ‘They like speak Irish. But it’s like totally like English, just that it’s spelt differently. That’s like the reason why you can understand them.’

Student 3: ‘OMIGOD!! You are like so right. Look at that sign down there, the place sounds the same except it’s spelt differently. RATH-FARN-HAAAAAAAAM!’

Student 1: ‘OMIGOD! We’re speaking Irish. Totally hardcore!’

 Different Grannies

On the Luas one day to Tallaght with this wan and her two kids sitting opposite me. The kids are gawking out the window.

1st kid (pointing out the window): ‘look ma, that’s where me granny lives!’

2nd kid: ‘ma, where does my granny live?’

Bono Speaks

At the U2 concert in Croke Park, Bono asks the audience for some quiet. Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands.

Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone: ‘Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies’

A voice from near the front of the audience pierces the silence: ‘Fookin’ stop doin’ it, then!’

MP3

Elderly woman shuffles into electrical store, asks shop assistant: ‘I’m looking for an empy tree, my grandson wants one, and the garden centre told me to come here’
Baffled shop assistant: ‘well …emm we have some i-pods over there.’
Elderly woman: ‘and how do they grow????’

Contributors Required

 

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