http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7887430.stm
I suppose that this will not ring any bells to those of you who have never lived in Ireland.
Hugh Leonard was a great talent and his weekly column in the Sunday Independant was the reason that a whole lot of people got up out of bed on a Sunday morning and went down to the shop.
I can remember coming home in the early hours of Sunday morning, having done a gig in some godforsaken place out in the bog somewhere, and seeing a bunch of newspapers dropped outside a shop somewhere.. I would demand that the van be stopped so that I could go over and open the parcel and grab an Independant. On getting back into the Van there would be questions asked me not grabbing a tabloid.
There was at the time about four or five Sunday papers but Leonards column was the only one worth having.
A cold cruel wit that restored my faith in Irish journalism.
Ireland, and her newspapers, are poorer today.
Slan,
D.