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Well I'm off to Rome on Sunday to celebrate my wedding anniversary so it'll last for a few days anyway

Popular demand? Last time I checked it was 25 for 16 against this daft proposal.

Just thinking of the load of dosh I'm gonna make from my inheritance! I might even treat myself to a private jet or buy Spurs from ENIC

I would remind you that the attendance at the Ireland V Unionist 6 Counties team in 1999 in aid of the Omagh Fund  was 7,000, the lowest in Lansdowne ever for an international match.

These fixtures will be end of season affairs, with an Ireland squad minus its top players (much like the one that goes to the USA every summer), and used by the managers of Ireland and Scotland to have a look at fringe lads etc. In otherwords a total farce and about as competitive as the Masters Five a side. Why do you think Engalnd pulled out of the British and Irish Championship all those years ago? Also it will mean a Love Ulster like mob, complete with unionist versions of the Ulster Flag and Union Jack descending upon Dublin every two years. That will please the population of Ballsbridge no end

This Celtic cup is a farcical proposition. It will have no spectator appeal, outside possibly the Real Ireland V Scotland match (even though nearly 70,000 attended the recent Ireland V Wales game at Croker) and will die a quick death. The FAI should follow the highly successful policy of high profile friendlies which have seen both Brazil and Italy playing in Dublin in recent years

For the record he indicated that he would have no problem attending a GAA event, but not on a Sunday (which means he will have to wait to see Tyrone in the qualifiers next year ). Actions will however, speak louder, than honeyed words

If I'm not seriously mistaken, Wallace Brown, a DUP Lord Mayor of Belfast, attended the final of a professional snooker tournament at the Waterfront Hall, on a Sunday night, so that argument doesn't wash.

Did the esteemed nobel peace laureate Mr Trimble not also have one or two secret rendezvous's with Billy?

. You don't undertand why anyone hasn't the details? How many people have nothing better to do at 10.30am each morning other than listen to inane chatter between Stephen Nolan and Gerry Anderson (who was apparently a rock musician before entering broadcasting and famously looked down upon by the Bachelors, for which he has never forgiven them)

Jim

Up here those who have "turned" or married "one of the other sort" or have any tenuous family connection with "the other sort" tend to get it hot and heavy from all sides. "Their own" for being a traitor and "the other side" who don't regard the person as really belonging to their tribe. Young Graham seems to fit the bill here, sadly

Tonight, on SixCountiesTV Live at 6pm. In a series of interviews with (a fawning, if last night's was anything to go by) Adrian Logan, Sports Minister Edwin Poots (whose supposed to be Sports Minister for all of us) reveals his personal views on the GAA and declares if he would attend a GAA event or not. Now I'm guessing that he will reveal that he would not attend a GAA event, in which case surely his position as Sports Minister is untenable, if he cannot bring himself to attend an event organised by the most popular (in terms of spectator volume) sporting organisation in Ulster?

I didn't realise Richard was still touring. I thought he'd packed it in after Karen died

I always thought Anderson was a smarmy little twat, not Jones, and I can well understand how offence could be taken from his utterings, even though none was probably intended.

I suppose its all to do with pecking orders at any given time, and it sounds like he sees a better chance in getting a place in a defence where his main rivals are Chris Baird, Aaron Hughes etc rather than Steve Finnan, Richard Dunne and John O'Shea. Can hardly blame him!

Was that true, that only for him studying for the Priesthood in 1955 (and hence he wasn't allowed to play by the Church) that he would have been on the Dublin team that year for the AI Final with Kerry? I remember a few months ago, TG4 broadcast the AI Final in 1977, and the bold Mick was standing,fag in mouth, in what would then have been Croke Park's VIP section, right behind Tony Hanahoe as he made his speech.

Also saw him in action in Galway Cathedral, way back one night in the late 80s, and he sure could keep the attention of the congregation. A hugely entertaining and gregarious individual, he claimed that night in Galway that he was painfully shy as a young priest and had to ask God to help him overcome thsi shyness. Hard to imagine him being shy at any time