# 1949 - At midnight 26 counties officially leave the British Commonwealth. A 21-gun salute on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, ushers in the Republic of Ireland
02:36
Hitman and her.
09:00
1970 Lucky for some as Apollo 13 splashes down safely after crisis space voyage
09:59
If you're dying in this man's Free State, you can go fuck yourself. No beds. No training. No accommodation. No pain management standards.
10:00
Flights booked for five euro have been canceled go fuck yourself. Signed, Aer Swindleus.
10:08
Pat the Prefect: Aer Lingus should be brought to court.
10:10
Today's dubious trivia: If you holler for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you may produce enough energy to heat one cup of coffee.
10:49
Could spend the whole day flicking between the main radio stations listening to ads for plastic mortgages.
11:15
Flights booked on Scandinavian Airlines. Can get a refund within 24 hours. Can get 20kg on board. Get a clear indication of my costs. 182 easies. Civilised. Free wheelchairs if required. No whinge required.
11:40
Talk of the economy has come down to declarations of fate, without due reference to the globalised fuck up that is capitalism.
12:00
Hail the angels. Everything's alright as freewheelin' whiteyellow light bursts in the air.
13:21
Privatisations makes an economics expert out of all of us, deciding what way nurses get paid. You know when the radio news anchorman wants to move on to another story as the pages keep flicking over and rubbing off each other swishingly. Then he finishes with the banal "No doubt there'll be more on this."
13:23
The Ministry has decreed to set up an alternative health service with an alternative set of doctors. How will we explain two Unholy Health Systems to our grandkids? Pique? Arrogance? Delusion? Best for patients?
13:28
Heroes on the line:
It was hoped Mr Koresh would give himself up last week but he sent FBI agents a message saying he had not yet received his orders from God.13:44
They hate each other too:
A 29-year-old garda based in Wexford town has been found not guilty by a jury of assaulting two other gardai in a pub while on a night out.13:46
It's Easter Week in April and they're all ringing in about their grandfathers and what they got up to in 1916. I don't like to boast about my grandfathers' exploits in the struggle for independence. We were in the forsaí speisialta. So we weren't really there.
14:28
A gun is insurance against. People kill people. Guns save lives. Schools are soft spots. Criminal safe zones. Logical, really.
14:44
Aer Lingus are getting it in the ear from Joeradio and the Kicking Crew for welching on their contract. "If they put up the website then it's their mistake and they need to make good on it." Good news spreads faster than a virus especially if money is involved so basically the five-euro flight was booked by lunch in full. Weddings, funerals, bar mizvahs (emphasis on the 'bar') all going on Stateside so the Irish jumped in, called their cousins and everyone booked. Then Aer Lingus canceled the flight, told them all to stick it.
Complaining about it is like moaning because they hanged a dictator. There's not a blessed bit anyone can do about it.
20:01
What's that crunchy stepping sound? Football boots on the burly street.
20:02
It's a secret passed on from father to son. Be not mentioning it. The 12 Apostles were only on showboat for Micky "Keano" Collins. My grandfathers were the unsung heroes who never had anything to say about anything that happened. No mock heroics. No medals. No pensions neither - just ol' bits of shrapnel and missing fingers. Wouldn't want them. Didn't fight to liberate Ireland just so they could make a claim off the Rump State the whole rest of their lives. Their grandchildren are gatekeepers of the wartime secrets. They don't tell tittle-tattle tales on the radio or in the pub every anniversary. It's not safe. How long has it been? 100 years yet? Feelings still run high.
20:05
The motorbike booms like a cannon. I hear it bore the quays a second later like a dentist's drill.
20:48
It's like the bleedin' Yangtze River out there. Fellas are taking the piss. Literally. Fuck off and urinate on your own street.
21:29
Girlfriends come and go. Only capital lasts. Even though the value of that declines, often. Sometimes by overmuch.
23:17
Everyone in Ireland is exhausted from self-righteousness.
23:20
Do the spring-summer Gardai stab-proof pullovers come in argyle at all?
23:59
We are probably getting better at dealing with American trauma. This massacre was emailed. The next massacre will be realtime.
