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Enough of an agreement to ensure the politicians continue in the manner to which they have become accustomed, nothing of substance on parades, flags and the past. A committee here, a quango there, reports due back sometime in the far blue yonder. Twaddell probably wasn't even mentioned.

'Mon Rory!

http://www.rte.ie/sport/golf/2014/1220/668180-rory-mcilroy-on-playing-for-ireland/

(sounding more and more like George Best every week)

Will he turn up next week for the Irish one?

No chance of winning that either. Not 'proper' Irish enough for too many people in the 26. 

Myles did you go to the ulster club finals yesterday. Two cracking games. A brilliant advert for our games?

Missed those, but glad to hear they were good matches. Did you get to any of the Autumn Internationals? I was at the South Africa game, but I think the Australia one was the better match. Cracking advert for our game. 

why are you on this board when you never have anything to post about the GAA?

If you don't want posters who have nothing to say about the GAA, don't have a 'non GAA Discussion' section. It draws us in, like moths to a flame. 

Myles did you go to the ulster club finals yesterday. Two cracking games. A brilliant advert for our games?

Missed those, but glad to hear they were good matches. Did you get to any of the Autumn Internationals? I was at the South Africa game, but I think the Australia one was the better match. Cracking advert for our game. 

[not]

Probably only the idiotic, lunatic right wing, think that Delaney with a bit a luck will have to go because he sang and later tried to deny he sung, a song about Joe McDonnell, and in doing so  almost offended everybody.
What matters more to the FAI is Delaney's value and competence as a CEO and they appear to be quite content with him. Even the much derided FAI wouldn't feel pressurised into making such a stupid decision based on that cause.

I think you've got that completely the wrong way round: only the idiotic, lunatic, right wing think that Delaney has done nothing wrong. The man's an arse.

On the contrary, the complete opposite of what I said would be
'only the idiotic, lunatic right wing, think that Delaney with a bit a luck will not have to go because he sang  a song .....'.

And of course, the self righteous folk like your good self  would think I have got it completely wrong and then make a bollix of explaining why.

You are the one who expressed the hope that he should be forced to go because of the singing of this song.
You linked to 3 articles, one of which was just humorously sarcastic and the other 2 focussing not on the song but Delaney's attempt at a cover up.
None of the articles lend any weight to your professed hope. To cling to such a hope  would support the claim that you are a fanatic, ("an obsessive interest and enthusiasm for something")

Your subjective opinion about Delaney, that he was wrong to sing the song  and "with a bit of luck the bolix will have to go" is not supported by journalists, football folk or the population in general, apart from those people who hate any connection to republicanism.
The people who hate republicanism in that way are generally ultra right wing along with some extremist in Fine Gael perhaps.
Perhaps they want republicanism outlawed  and every book and song burned, literally speaking.
LOI fans have their opinions and reasons why Delaney should go,  then there are the Irish national team fans who have their reasons why Delaney should go, but singing this song would be bottom of their list of wrong doings, if indeed it is perceived as a wrong doing.
You have only been concerned here about Delaney singing this song  and that is your only professed gripe with Delaney.

Delaney's alcohol fuelled antics, of which this is just the latest, make him an inappropriate person to be CEO of a national sporting organisation, unless you're happy for someone like him, with a public profile, to perpetuate the caricature of the feckless, drunken Mick. Personally, I'm not.  I don't know much about his administrative abilities, but those articles and comments on various forums suggest that he's an overpaid fcuk up, quite happy to blame others for his own shortcomings. The latest incident carries the aggravating features of the cover up, where it appears that he's tried to lie his way out of trouble, and the offensive nature of the song itself. You use the word 'fanatic' to describe me, a poster on a message board, yet argue in defence of a song about men who murdered others - including police and prison officers of the state that provides funding to the FAI - and starved themselves to death in pursuit of an outdated political ideology. You might want to think about that a wee bit. As for being ultra right wing: if you look about the world you'll see that there is very little difference when it comes to people at either end of that political spectrum. Left wing or right wing, they all support the killing, imprisonment and 'disappearing' of those who oppose them. Serious stuff, but obviously not as serious as ultra right wing, fanatical message board posters. 

Probably only the idiotic, lunatic right wing, think that Delaney with a bit a luck will have to go because he sang and later tried to deny he sung, a song about Joe McDonnell, and in doing so  almost offended everybody.
What matters more to the FAI is Delaney's value and competence as a CEO and they appear to be quite content with him. Even the much derided FAI wouldn't feel pressurised into making such a stupid decision based on that cause.

I think you've got that completely the wrong way round: only the idiotic, lunatic, right wing think that Delaney has done nothing wrong. The man's an arse.

I don't think there's arrogance there - in most anyway. I would construe it as a bit paranoid to think like that to be honest.

My parents' generation was taught in catechism classes 'outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation'. They were also brought up with the Ne Temere decree, which taught that only marriages in a Catholic church were valid and that children in mixed marriages had to be brought up as Catholics. I think that left a legacy in many minds that 'non Catholics' (i.e most of the world) were slightly less than equal in the belief stakes, to be viewed with some pity for not belonging to the one truth faith. Over many years, I've heard elderly relatives say words to the effect: 'She / he's a Protestant, but she's a very religious person', as if being Protestant and being religious were mutually exclusive things. Even recently, in a conversation with a relative in her 80s, I mentioned the fact Muslims use prayer beads much like Catholics use rosary beads. 'Why do they do that?' she asked. 'Dunno' sez me. 'Maybe they're counting out their prayers too.' 'Sure what prayers would they be saying?' she replied. In her head, only Catholics have prayers worth counting.

It is actually quite odd armaghniac that quite a number of protestants describe themselves as christian though I've never heard a catholic say it.

Christian and good living are two things you seem to hear certain denominations of the protestant faith say. It seems to be those of the presbyterian persuasion from what I have seen.

People from the protestant-unionist-loyalist (PUL) community who aren't particularly religious or church-going, will often describe themselves as 'Prods'. It's almost more of an ethnic description than a religious one. These same people will describe other PUL people who do attend church or who are religious as 'Christian' or 'good-living'. The church going types themselves may use the generic term 'Christian' if you ask them about their beliefs. Others may be more specific and give you their denomination: CoI, Methodist, etc. Free P types or some of the evangelical nutters don't regard anyone as proper Christian except their own sect, but most ordinary protestant people would regard Catholics as fellow Christians. Oddly enough, it's Catholics themselves who hesitate before describing themselves as Christians. I think there's a sub conscious arrogance in there somewhere, in that Catholics see their own denomination as the true faith, with other Christian groups being, at best, well meaning but slightly misguided believers with whom Catholics don't want to be linked.

Good to see that some media outlets are applying a bit of pressure on Delaney. With a bit of luck the bolix will have to go.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/michael-clifford/why-delaney-brings-tears-to-my-eyes-300136.html
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/irish/2014/1129/663581-john-delaney-richard-sadlier/
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/international-soccer/john-delaneys-team-denied-fai-boss-appeared-in-video-30785134.html

[Joe McDonnell is not a sectarian song, the sash and Billy's boys are.]

For what Joe McDonnell would have or not have done no one can predict, what we can say for certain is that he was a Republican, one who gave up his life for his beliefs. I'm in a band and I see on the circuit in Northern England. I have only mind singing Joe McDonnell once in last 6 months because I know the people we sing to don't want to hear it so we stick to folk tunes. We actual sung joe McDonnell in that time in Denmark to a rapturous  applause and it is my favourite ballad to sing, but I rarely get the chance because of my location. I love Republican ballads and it is my favourite genre but we can't get away with it here, so we do the Dubliners set. We are for Cork next weekend for three gigs so looking forward to a few more rebel tunes, yet again depending on the audience.

Now Delaney has made an absolute tool of himself here by retracting the fact that it was him singing.

If you don't have the balls to put your name to it , ye can go and take a walk.

Joe McDonnell is not a sectarian song, the sash and Billy's boys are.

So a song glorifying the actions of a member of an organisation which carried out the massacre of 10 Protestant civilians at Kingsmill isn't sectarian, while a song about an Orange sash is? You're some boy!

Delaney is a complete knob. He's far too much of a knob to do the decent thing and resign, so his organisation should sack him for bringing it into disrepute.

People who join football clubs tend to do so because they want to play in a football team. Most football teams I know of don't have club houses or licensed premises. Rugby and GAA clubs, on the other hand, tend to be bigger, better organised and with better facilities, so there are other reasons for people to join - for the bar / social club aspect, or to make sure they're in with a shout of getting tickets for big games. Comparing clu membership stats to ascertain which is the most popular sport, therefore, is to compare apples with pears.

Strachan has Scotland attempting to play football, while even Michael O'Neill has Norn Iron playing a better passing game than the republic. Don't know what Martin's attempting to do, but at the moment it's ugly and ineffective. To borrow a line from Gary Lineker, the best way of watching this Ireland team is on teletext.

Northern Ireland has spent the guts of 100 years now an entity of it's own. No matter how much each one tries to deny it Loyalists and Republicans are more alike than there Scottish and Southern cousins respectively. The struggle on both sides has made them almost indistinguishable.

It doesn't matter at all whether northerners are 'like' southerners, or Scots, or anybody else. We're born and bred on the island of Ireland for hundreds or thousands of years: that means we're Irish. It's not a franchise held by people from the south of the island, to be dispensed by them to citizens who pass the 'just like us' test.