Tag: Brendan Boylan
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Noel Coogan – A Tribute
Here we are again. Back at the same writer’s crossroads. To use his own phrase, the cursor flashing at you on an empty screen and you without the slightest idea of how to even begin to fill the acres of blank white screen space in front of you. In the first instance, this writer used…
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Praising little Jimmy or Julia isn’t in the job description – 20/1/24
A cursory scan down the list confirmed what was already known. One had become surplus to requirements at best, persona non grata at worst. Without as much as an explanation. The really annoying, disheartening thing was this road had been travelled before. But at least on the previous occasion it was down to a personality…
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One dream coming true keeps another one alive – 6/1/24
My niece Ciara graduated from university shortly before Christmas. As well as obviously being a very proud day, it brought back many memories. For it was nearly 21 years to the day yours truly rolled up the long hall in the RDS decked out in the usual gown (which kept getting caught under my wheels)…
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An eventful first year with Team Chronicle – 30/12/23
I was in the carpark of the Blanchardstown Centre when taking the call from the Sports Editor of this local institution. A call which, it will be openly admitted, had been yearned for for as long as the one typing finger here knew its way around a keyboard. So it took the sum total of…
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Decency doesn’t have ulterior motives – 23/12/23
As sure as the seagulls followed the trawler, the permanently offended were off the blocks quicker than Usain Bolt with their conspiracy theories. No such thing as acknowledging that John P. McManus is just a genuinely generous person. Decency doesn’t have ulterior motives. The knockers and begrudgers need to do their research. JP McManus has…
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Ignoring their own selling point – 9/12/23
“The GAA – Where We All Belong”. Really? It would be ventured the remarkable folk around Enfield and Baconstown might politely decline to concur. Liam Gaffney, director of operations in the Wheelchair Shed (I put that name on it myself as I was involved in the design of the viewing platform with Brendan Dempsey and…
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Local apprehension likely following Kenny departure – 2/12/23
Viewed through a certain lens, anybody winning 13 caps at international level, garnering multiple Heineken Cup souvenirs and rearing offspring who also went on to perform on the biggest stage would have had what would constitute a glorious career in rugby. Yet I often wonder does Trevor Brennan ponder what might have been. Warren Gatland’s…
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Time for the G. P. A. to put up or shut up – 18/11/23
It was always going to come down to who blinked first. And it would appear the fixture makers have called the GPA’s bluff. The divisive player representative body have been agitating for the pre-season competitions to be done away with, but they can hardly stir up anymore dung with fixtures and competition structure already in…
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The star pupil has taken over career guidance
In what I think was 2002, the notion landed to get da tickets for the Fairyhouse Easter Festival as a birthday present. Apart from the fact that the day we went was the coldest day I was ever at a sporting event anywhere, the other abiding memory is if Gordon Elliot taking a mount in…
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J. F. K’s famous words localised
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.The utterance of the above quote by John F. Kennedy is one of those occurrences in world history that,not only will you instantly recognise it,those who were around at the time will probably be able to tell you where…