Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
The brothers who failed to build a solid relationship
LET’S be honest; there’s not one amongst us who – in a fit of pique – hasn’t traded insults or said some not-so-savoury things to and about our nearest and dearest.
But multimillionaire builder brothers Greg and Hugh Kavanagh not only take the biscuit; they take the entire packet of Hobnobs.
The Kavanagh brothers, who were former business partners in a number of lucrative construction firms, are embroiled in a bitter High Court battle – one so acrimonious it makes the war between Princes Harry and William look positively dignified.
The full extent of their animus was laid bare in the High Court this week when a series of insult-laden text exchanges were revealed.
In one of these messages, from August 2020, Hugh Kavanagh allegedly refers to Greg as a ‘washed-up fat lump of s***’. Sticks and stones.
In other messages shown to the court, Greg alleged he was referred to by his brother variously as a ‘thief’, ‘conman’, ‘fat rat boy’, ‘a bastard,’ and a ‘c***’.
Fat-boy, rat-boy. What age are these two pairs of planks?
While sticks and stones do indeed break bones, names can very much hurt; if not feelings, they can do serious damage to reputation.
And while I’ve no desire to bodyshame both brothers, Hugh doesn’t appear averse to a jumbo breakfast roll – the builders’ Breakfast of Champions – himself.
The Arklow-born Kavanagh brothers would have served themselves far better if instead of serving High Court writs, they had heeded the words of the late Queen Elizabeth II to ‘never complain, never explain’.
Especially when doing so exposes you both as – to put it politely – a proper pair of bricks.
Give a boost to your f lower power
THE unintentional consequences of modern-day medicine strike again as it has been proven that popping a Viagra tablet in a vase of flowers stops them from drooping for two weeks while others wilt in days.
Puts a whole new spin on the old nursery rhyme ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?’. How indeed?
So remember now if you happen to spot Diarmuid Gavin or any of our other best-known gardeners looking somewhat shifty queuing in Boots for the little magic men pill, it’s for their plants, not their pants. Honestly.
An empty gesture, easily exposed
I’M much heartened to see male politicians exposed over the bungled attempt to change the Constitution for what one feminist TD bluntly called ‘empty symbolic’ reasons.
Poor Minister Roderic O’Gorman was forced to sit through a devastating dissection of his pet project by TD Catherine Connolly on Wednesday who lambasted him for ‘focusing on empty symbolic change’ and ‘insulting women.’ ‘You’re changing it in a very pathetic manner that is an insult to women and doubly insulting by holding it on International Women’s Day,’ she thundered. When she spotted Roddy nodding his head in disagreement – like he always does when he’s cornered – she told him; ‘You can nod your head all you like and I’m not going to waste my time trying to un-nod it’.
You could almost see poor Roddy squirming in his seat as she went through, reason by reason, line by devastating line why she would have more hope with the current reference to women in Article 41.2 than this gender-neutral ‘empty symbolic gesture.’ Strong words from a feminist TD; just the kind of potential ally Roddy and his mates might have counted on for her support.
Yet, here she was systematically calling him out on the lack of clarity, ramming the legislation through on the nod and accusing the lot of them of not giving two figs about women – or men – who care for disabled kids or elderly relatives with no help from the State. It was a blistering critique which left Roddy looking a bit like the emperor with no clothes.
The knockout blow came when she said: ‘Given a choice with what’s there and what you’re putting in I would take my chances with what’s there and leave it to the judiciary to interpret in a modern capacity’. Ouch.
Things got worse when he had to clarify that he’d said ‘throuples’ not ‘truffles’ when dissing the notion that threeway intimate relationships could be given Constitutional recognition. ‘Throuples throuples throuples!’ he said to the sound of sniggers in the chamber in a scene straight out of Father Ted. Lest anyone be in any doubt as to what this meaningless amendment is really about, you should look up the Oireachtas clips online. They’re sure to ruffle your truffles.
It’s the same old, same old in the US
AMERICA: The land of the free and the home of the brave, and given the two candidates for the office of President – Joe Biden and Donald Trump – the USA is also home to the mad, the bad and the distinctly doddery.
Seriously, the USA is the home of some of the most prestigious universities on earth; Harvard, Princeton and Yale. It is the birthplace of Silicon Valley and NASA.
And yet, despite these esteemed institutions of education and innovation, the only two people that the Democratic and Republican Parties can rustle up and wheel out to the American people for holder of the highest office in the free world are 81-year-old Biden and a well past-his-mid-70s Trump.
This choice between Biden and Trump reminded me of reading about the 1964 Presidential Campaign between Republican Barry Goldwater and then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat.
Goldwater’s campaign slogan buttons read: ‘Barry Goldwater: In Your Heart You Know He’s Right’.
Johnson then had his own buttons made up hitting back with the catchy slogan: ‘In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts’.
Now, 60 years on from the Johnson/Goldwater campaign I think only Johnson’s’ slogan stands the test of time – for both candidates.