Passed a protest, small, tangled, poorly postered, outside Dail Eireann yesterday en route to try to see the Bog body exhibit (closed), the protest was a mixed up affair against the Green Party and the right to shoot whatever is shootable in rural Ireland. (Dog? Badger? your neighbour? My mother’s chicken thieving fox hopefully — somebody take that beggar out pls)

One sign read “I want to be like my brother but John Gormley won’t let me”

I had this image of John Gormley pulling the packet of Club Milks out of the child’s mouth and mobile phone from his grasp  through the window of a 4 x4. Waving his hunting rifle naturally.

When we passed, a friend remarked that the country was bankrupt and what with the litany of problems she was astonished people would be gathering their britches over the right to shoot pigeon.

Jackie Healy-Rae was on the news later that night giving out about new drink driving legislation destroying the “Rural way of life.”