It Occurs To Me: A weekend of great football from Donegal to Kerry

Wow! What a weekend of great football! Donegal win the McKenna Cup very convincingly, Mark McHugh’s Westmeath win the O’Byrne Cup and the Senior Club Final between Dingle and St Bridget’s must go down as one of the best games in decades.

My good friend from Dingle – who accompanied us to last year’s All-Ireland Final – and someone who has witnessed many great victories from his beloved Kingdom said this was the greatest moment of all.

“My heart is bursting with pride,” he told me. Coming after the Intermediate and Junior Club Finals successes for An Ghaeltacht and Ballymacelligot, it’s been an amazing achievement.

However, the enmity between Dingle and An Ghaeltacht is such that An Daingean supporters were not all rooting for their neighbours.

I was surprised at this, with all the intermarriage between the parishes – for example, Paul Geaney is married to Siun O’Shea, the legendary Paidi’s daughter.

As you can see from the attached photo, I met Padraig, Siun’s brother at the pub in Ventry some time ago, and I was delighted for him when I read the headline: “Páidí Ó Sé’s Son Adds Missing Piece To Family Medal Haul After Kerry Club Triumph.”

Frank Galligan with Padraig O’Shea in Ventry

He said:“I’m sure my dad would be very proud looking down, and I’m sure he’d have really soaked up the atmosphere that was in Dublin, and tonight as well, he’d be loving it. But obviously, yeah, it’s special to bring one back… To win this is absolutely unbelievable for our club. It is the first line of conversation wherever you go, and obviously this year, with two teams five miles apart [on All-Ireland runs], you couldn’t go anywhere around the peninsula without football being the first talking point and the games coming up.”

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My Dingle friend claimed that An Ghaeltacht supporters were sneaking into their town and hanging club flags to taunt their neighbours after their Intermediate triumph! Such is the rivalry.

The only downside of all the triumphs is that it gives Pat Spillthebeans another opportunity to rant about the demise of Ulster football. Yerra Pat… watch this space!

Water under the bridge?

Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has ‘tapped’ into a problem that is endemic in far too many semi-state and semi-comatose organisations.

Pádraig was speaking of his frustration in trying to speak to a human being in Uisce Éireann.

He said that dealing with Uisce Éireann is next to impossible in light of recent events in his local town of Buncrana.

“I’ll give you one example of my home area of Buncrana over the last number of weeks. There was a water supply issue that knocked out most of the town from the water connection. I can’t get speaking to an actual human being to get an update. I have to send an email and I wait days for a response.

"Back in the day, I’d lift the phone to a member of Donegal County Council, we’d have a good conversation and he’d give a proper update. I can’t get answers from Uisce Éireann to these questions. The organisation is not fit for purpose. I believe that is by design rather than accident.”

That’s a very interesting observation and I agree… the inability to speak to a human being in far too many organisations is definitely by design. They know that a third of people will give up in exhaustion. Cynical and uncaring in the extreme.

Anyone for eggnog?

I can’t say that I have an ounce of sympathy for Enoch Burke… he’s made a spectacle of himself and lies about the reason he’s jailed again! It’s contempt of court not transgenderism and I laughed at the supporter chanting outside Wilson’s School last week.

It sounded like “Support Eggnog Burke!” Some eggnog recipes call for the eggs to be separated so that the egg whites can be whipped until they are thick! Ha Ha! My sentiments exactly.

Naoi dtóin reoite

I had a good laugh at John Downing’s piece about the farmer’s revolt in 1966.

“As politicians learnt from the Nine Frozen Arses in 1966, ignore rural Ireland at your peril – and Mercosur is just another example. In the early days, it was called the National Farmers Association, or NFA, but when leader Rickard Deasy and eight others sat on the Agriculture Department steps for 21 protest days in the winter of 1966, Dublin wags dubbed them ‘Nine Frozen Arses’.

The then Minister for Agriculture Charlie Haughey stubbornly refused to meet the freezing NFA militants. But he was later forced into concessions.”

Ah yes, Cathal Gleoite agus Naoi Dtóin Reoite.

The ‘Mar-A-Lago’ face’ farce!

The headline read: “The worrying rise of ‘baby Botox’ and ‘Kylie Jenner’ injections in Ireland.” One expert said: “We have kids coming in every day asking for fillers.”

Just before Christmas, the young girl serving the food in the Derry restaurant was very friendly and particularly attentive to my six-year-old twin grandchildren. That openness and warmth is not unusual in the city eateries and stores, but her particular problem was that she found it difficult to be ‘chatty’.

Quite literally, her lips were destroyed with ‘bee-sting’ filler thus reducing her attempts at articulate conversation to a kind of death-mask rictus spasm.

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I was saddened, to tell you the truth, because it’s very prevalent currently, and I was reminded of a remark my father made over thirty years ago as a heavily Botoxed and ‘whitened’ Michael Jackson strutted around the TV screen.

“That buck wouldn’t last five minutes beside a three-bar heater!” If you don’t know what that type of heater was, then you’re probably of the generation who think plastic wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

In the US of course, thanks to the Orange man in the White House, things have taken an altogether pathetic and sinister turn.

The term ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ is more often used to refer to the plastic surgery and fashion trend among American conservative and Republican individuals. It is described as excessive or uniform plastic surgery interventions such as lip augmentation, Botox and jaw contouring, coupled with heavy makeup, spray tans, fake eyelashes and dark smoky eyes.

The trend has been described as a status symbol among Donald Trump’s inner circle, signaling wealth, privilege and alignment with Trumpism, and called a “must-have accessory” for his inner circle. Think of Melania, Lara and Ivanka Trump, Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, Erika Kirk, Kimberley Guilfoyle… and Elon Musk.

The Washington Post described it as a “lacquered, petrified mask” and Juliet A Williams, Professor of Gender Studies at UCLA, said the face became political by signaling that the “value of women depends on their desirability to men”.

It is described as excessive or uniform plastic surgery interventions such as lip augmentation, Botox and jaw contouring, coupled with heavy makeup, spray tans, fake eyelashes and dark smoky eyes. The trend has been described as a status symbol among Donald Trump’s inner circle, signaling wealth, privilege and alignment with Trumpism, and costs upwards of $90,000.

Barnard College professor Anne Higonnet argues the move towards this particular aesthetic serves as “a sign of physical submission to Donald Trump”.

Even Marjorie Taylor Greene has attacked Trump women who “puff up their lips and enlarge their breasts”.

Now, even prominent plastic surgeons are balking at this latest gross phenomenon: “This new administration comes in, and for the first time in more than a dozen years I’ve been in practice in D.C, this is the first time I’ve seen this type of request that I’ve had to say no to,” says Dr. Anita Kulkarni.

“These women would come in and ask for more, when they already have product in their face.” She explained that it’s a “safety issue.”

She has worked in DC for roughly 15 years and said that the “Mar-a-Lago face” trend is a recent occurrence.
“There’s a point at which you can’t put anything else into your face,” said Kulkarni.

“And so that’s the real difference that we’ve seen this time is that the women that are in the extreme side of this administration aesthetic, they want you to know that they’ve had stuff done. And that is just – it’s such a departure from our normal aesthetic in D.C. and the type of patient that I normally see.”

Republican men, like Musk and Matt Gaetz, are also seeing an increase in the ‘look’ and as one observer noted: “There are a couple things going on here. On one level, there is a desperate need amongst these would-be fascists to fit in with the herd. In a profoundly perverse way, they’re signaling their fealty to Trump by mutilating their faces. The surgeries also serve as grotesque displays of wealth. These procedures are not cheap — even if they look atrocious.”

Cameron Diaz has said: “I’d rather see my face ageing than a face that doesn’t belong to me.”

Halloween in Washington must be dead handy, with all the false faces about. Mind you, Trump would need to ban three-bar heaters from the White House… even if they are gold-plated!