SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

FIANNA Fáilers have rounded on Éamon Ó Cuív for his dalliance with the presidency. But frontbencher Barry Cowen is unflustered: ‘I have not had a single contact from a councillor or a party supporter saying we should run a candidate. I don’t wish, and FF don’t wish, to get involved in some protracted personality issue – with respect again, the political equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing.’

TIPPERARY Library Service says an overdue book had been returned to Thurles Library after 53 years. Theobald

Mathew, by Reverend Patrick Rogers, was overdue since May 30, 1965. The fine was calculated at €971.65. ‘But if they pay €950 we’ll say no more about it ’coz we’re sound like that...’ the library service joked on Twitter. It wasn’t the service’s latest return. In 2011 Constance Spry’s Flowers In The House And Garden was returned, having been overdue for 69 years.

AN EXCITABLE TD contacted Smokes to inform him that presidential candidate Gavin Duffy had made a controversial submission on the future of our post offices to the Dáil Communications Committee. Smokes found that in fact the submission came from Bobby Kerr,

about the only person from Dragons’ Den not running for the presidency…

WE received a fancy invitation this week to a talk entitled: ‘The Evolution of American Conservatism, the Presidency of Donald Trump and the Implications for US Foreign Policy.’ It is on tomorrow in the ballroom of the Gresham and the speaker is none other than Sean Spicer, pictured. It will, no doubt, have the largest audience ever to witness a speech, period.