Mattie Kiely's - Closed

I only found out about this from reading yesterday's Irish Examiner. Incase you're wondering what I'm on about, Mattie Kiely's is a delightfully grotty little chipper on Maylor Street, across the road from Smyth's Toy Shop. Given the dubiously dirty surroundings and menu consisting of only beef burgers, fish and chips, you'd have expected the place to have gone to the wall years ago. Not so. Not only that, but in an age of political correctness, Mattie Kiely was all too happy to taunt and jibe his customers. I'll always remember the first time going into Kiely's and asking for a chicken burger only to be told that if I wanted that sort of luxury, perhaps I'd be better off at the Victoria Hotel! Despite his waspish sense of humour, you never felt like a stranger whenever you stopped by. After being away from Cork for a year and returning for a lunch time feed, Kiely made mention of my absence, suggesting that a coronary from his chips was responsible as he prepared my usual order without needing to ask.

Enjoy the retirement Mattie, Cork will miss you sorely.

Sinn Féin Attack Harney on Suicide Strategy

Irish Examiner - Wednesday 31st 2007 - Suicide Strategy

"Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has described Health Minister Mary Harney's approach to tackling the issue of suicide as "disgraceful and indefensible".
His criticism comes after the minister's office announced the provision of €1.85 million a year for suicide prevention.
Yesterday Mr. Adams said Ireland has the second highest incidence of suicide in Europe."

I for one applaud Gerry Adams on his uncompromising stance to accept our current status. Let's put Ireland in our rightful position as number one!

The Honeydew II Trawler Disaster and Uninformed Opinion.

It's a tragedy when two men lose their lives while trying to earn a living for themselves and their families. I'm sure the relatives of Ger Bohan and Tomasz Jagla are grieving much at the loss of these two men. However, reading through the Irish Examiner on Tuesday the 23rd, I was aghast at the comments of a certain John O'Mahony, friend of one of the deceased fishermen. He claimed that the Navy search effort was "terrible" and derided the decision of the Navy not to send in divers (in bad weather) to aid the search effort claiming "A sports diver could go down in that".

Mr. O'Mahony must have a very short memory. It was only last year that in a similar search for a sunken vessel, Navy divers called off a dive citing dangerous weather conditions. Disregarding this, a "sports diver" as O'Mahony eloquently put it went into the water to try and retrieve the bodies. The episode ended in tragically, with the diver being pulled from the water and later dying.

I can understand Mr. O'Mahony's urgency to get the bodies out of the water. What I can't understand however is The Irish Examiner allowed his negative and uninformed comments about the Navy being published. Lazy journalism I suppose.