I might be about to retire from milking cows, but I’ve no intention of becoming ‘a former farmer’. No, opportunity knocks and I’m looking at my options.
We’re not far from Fota, so I might start rearing young lions, tigers, kangaroos, wallabies, flamingos, and monkeys – a kind of animal nursery. What about ostriches – I’d get a fair kick from them and I couldn’t bury my head in the sand!
I ate some venison last week and while the deer was dear, the meat was mighty – another possibility!
A neighbour shouted over the ditch the other day, ‘Hey, John, have you hay?’ We were finished the baling and failing to sell was not an option – my neighbour had seen my add on de Paper, ‘Hay for sale, no rain, plenty pain, but with financial gain’. So, next year I might save and sell – as the late Joe Dolan used to sing, ‘More and more and more’ hay to pay for a day in Galway Bay.
But a lot of readers and writers, texters, and thick-tockers must have taken pity on my plight, thinking with the cows gone, I’d be bone idle!
Ye mightn’t believe this, but on Tuesday last – yes, just two days ago, didn’t I kinda get three ‘job offers’? Well, maybe not exactly offers, but suggestions in triplicate as to where I should turn for to keep my mind occupied.
On Tuesday, as the Angelus rang out from St Augustine’s Church on Cork’s Washington Street, there we were walking along, minding nobody’s business but our own, when a friendly voice shouted out, ‘Talk to John’ – well, I was taken aback as this friend of mine pointed out that tomorrow, Friday, Joe Duffy will end his Liveline career after nearly four decades on RTÉ Radio 1.
The catch-cry of the afternoon show was ‘Talk to Joe’, and now that would be no more. Could it be ‘Talk to John’? Straight up, he suggested -even instructed – me to send in my CV (Cool Visionary?) to Montrose and look for an interview as soon as possible.
Initially, it seemed a cracked idea -that never stopped me before, in fairness! But, as we stood talking of times that will come, and the whole population of Cork looked on, I reconsidered my initial hesitancy.
God knows how many times I was on the wireless with Joe about closing post offices, opening up Croke Park, the Civil War, the intelligence of dogs, picking blackberries, the shaming and naming of Pairc Pádraig Ó Caoimh, and a myriad of other topics.
In fairness, I’m never slow to express my opinion and will allow everyone else to express theirs. But when I’m not for turning on a subject – well, that’s it. Stubbornness? No, not really, but I know deep down I’m a conservative – many will say ‘an eccentric conservative’ – a fair summary of my demeanour.
But would I be able to have the confessor’s ear of Joe – listening, listening, ‘yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, that’s right, yeah, yeah’, and so on?
I don’t suffer fools gladly and maybe my refusal to sheepishly ‘follow the leader’ might be seen as a contrary trait – what about it!
My friend said that with modern technology I could present the LiveLine programme from the kitchen at home. Sure, we have our own BBC hereabouts – Bartlemy Broadcasting Cork.
Well, I was half-thinking seriously of applying for the job until I got a phone call on the way home from Cork. Would I be interested in working near a herd of deer? Bingo, says I – sure, we had the venison last week and ’twas grand!
“No, not that” says he, “but what about the job in Áras an Uachtaráin -the President of Ireland!”?
I wasn’t driving – just as well as I’d have had a conniption or an audible combustion.
“Sure, aren’t you a published poet, like Michael D? And you have the good Irish, and after seven years you’d have a tidy pension.”
Apparently, a cabal of political party hacks, hangers-on, gerrymanderers, canvassers, and tallymen and tallywomen too, with a few tally-ho’s thrown in, had met near Garryvoe over the weekend to select a Presidential candidate.
On Sunday, they walked the greenway from Youghal to Mogeely in solemn silence and then, in a Sistine Chapel kind of vote, my name apparently drew huge plumes of white smoke.
They acted quickly, if secretly, over the last few days. They are confident I’d get nominated by Leitrim, Carlow, Fermanagh, Sligo, Antrim and Westmeath County Councils.
With heaps of other possible, prospective candidates sitting on the fence, I thought of the very old Chinese proverb: ‘If you sit too long on the ditch, only Confucius knows where you will get the itch’.
Twice ever I was in the Áras, meeting with Presidents Mary McAleese and Michal D, and in fairness I loved the place. Built as the Vice Regal Lodge at a time when the Vice Regal had to lodge somewhere, I’m mad about the sense of history and Irishness about the building.
You know what, with the free travel I have, living in the Áras wouldn’t be a bad gig at all.
With a name like mine, starting with ‘A’, I’d be one of the first on the ballot paper – unless Bertie decides to run.
The more I thought about it, the more I warmed to it – maybe I’d be unopposed? One way or another, once I’d get my feet under the presidential table, I’d be home and hosed. No more worries about getting tickets for concerts and the like.
If a John Arnold could become Archbishop of Westminster, and if John Arnold from Dallas could become the world’s youngest billionaire back in 2007 – aged 33 – well, why couldn’t John Arnold from Cork become President of Ireland?
With thoughts such as these, I was pondering the future when another ‘job opportunity’ beckoned on the horizon.
Next February, the GAA will be electing a new President who will assume office in early 2027. The present man, Jarlath Burns, is a good friend of mine – though we often have theologically opposing views on the direction the Association is going.
I’d really love that job – but hold on a minute now, my Gaelic conscience reminded me – I was never a chairman of a County Board or a Provincial Council and I was never on the Central Council.
There is kind of hierarchy within the GAA, a ‘royalty’, and in that scenario I’d be classed as a ‘commoner’ – and, of course, my playing career never reached any dizzy heights, never took off really, so I never got to wear the County jersey.
The present incumbent has reformed Gaelic football as he promised he would, and fair play for that imaginative initiative. If I was going to become the 42nd GAA President, I’d have to have a kind of manifesto ’cause others might have the temerity to oppose me.
My priorities would be ‘the Restoration’ of All-Ireland finals to September, using our grounds for hurling and football – what they were intended for – scrapping penalties and extra time in major matches, playing Minor finals with Seniors, banning the so-called handpass in hurling, making the sliotar a nice bit heavier – well, that should be enough for my first year in office.
After that, promote, promote, promote our national treasure – hurling.
Why haven’t we in the GAA got our very own TV and radio stations?
To get the top GAA job, I must get nominated by County Boards, so, if ye’ve any ‘pull’ or contacts in Connacht, Leinster or Munster, get onto them straight away – I think I’m OK in Ulster.
The future never looked so bright.