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MICHAEL WOLSEY: Infection that is destroying sport for our children

By Kilkenny Now 13th November 2021 Post a comment

The referee said it was a foul but  Bruno Fernandes disagreed; he ran over to the official and wagged a finger in his face. Soon the midfielder was joined by most of his Manchester United team-mates and they surrounded the ref, waving and gesticulating in a fruitless effort to make him change his mind. Their […]

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MICHAEL WOLSEY: Want to be a soccer star? Get yourself a hyphen

By Kilkenny Now 6th November 2021 0

There was a time when you could safely assume that anyone with a double-barrelled name was a chinless wonder, an upper-class toff like Britain’s former prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home, or its would-be prime minister, Jacob Rees Mogg. Now he (or, indeed, she) is more likely to be a professional footballer. You can accelerate with the […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: It’s heresy, I know … but do we really need fathers in maternity wards?

By Kilkenny Now 30th October 2021 0

I was present for the birth of my third daughter but banned from the ward when the first two were born. At the time of the first birth,  the ban seemed perfectly normal to both me and my wife. Men, if they wished to be on the hospital premises at all, were confined to the […]

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MICHAEL WOLSEY: Vaccine certs aren’t much use if nobody looks at them

By Kilkenny Now 23rd October 2021 Post a comment

Before the second announcement, publicans and people who run nightclubs were queing up to criticise the Government’s plans for the re-opening of their businesses – or further opening, in the case of pubs. The publicans were complaining because they had to seat customers at tables before serving them and the nightclub owners were complaining for […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: The only deal that interests Boris is a good deal for himself

By Kilkenny Now 16th October 2021 0

The term Perfidious Albion has never been more richly deserved than now, because of the two-faced contortions of Boris Johnson’s government over Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol. Consistency is not a quality associated with politicians in general, but I cannot recall the leader of any other democracy ever threatening to renege on an international […]

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MICHAEL WOLSEY: Why Sláintecare is not a cure for all the ills of our health service 

By Kilkenny Now 9th October 2021 0

One good thing about Sláintecare is that it got all the big political parties to agree on a health policy that would survive a change of government. Unfortunately  the policy is a bad one. It is aimed at providing a hospital service similar to that operated in the UK. But the British system does not […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns

By Kilkenny Now 2nd October 2021 0

I worked on national newspapers for some 50 years and in all of them, always, there was a simmering hostility between the editorial and finance departments; the journalists thought the accountants had no soul and the accountants thought the journalists had no sense. The folk who held the purse strings never seemed like a load […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Smiling all the way to the bank

By Kilkenny Now 25th September 2021 0

An Irish university has conducted research into smiling. I’m not joking. It found there are three main categories of smile. A reward smile signals that a person is happy, a dominance smile reinforces superiority and an affiliation smile builds and maintains social bonds. Taxpayers funded this study and you may think that is no laughing […]

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MICHAEL WOLSEY: You might be waiting a while for that train, minister

By Kilkenny Now 18th September 2021 0

Eamon Ryan wants a high speed train from Cork to Letterkenny. I don’t want to worry the Environment Minister, but in this country you can wait an awfully long time for a train. While you’re waiting, minister, here are a few figures you might ponder. Japan’s  famous Bullet Train has achieved a top speed of […]

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MICHAEL WOLSEY: Through the smoke I spy a Healy-Rae

By Kilkenny Now 11th September 2021 0

People in Dublin were wearing face masks 35 years ago, but not to guard against a virus or infection. Shops had started to sell them as a means of protection against the smog that choked the city every winter. The worst days were those with light rain and no wind to disperse the pollution. On […]