Fr Sean Sheehy is in the news for his fire and brimstone homily in St Mary's Church in Listowel at the weekend, in which he condemned LGBTQI+ people, people who use condoms, people who have abortions, and "the promotion of sex between two men and two women". You may recall that in December 2008, Fr Sheehy was one of a group of some 50 people, mostly men, who queued in Tralee Circuit Criminal Court to shake the hand of convicted sex attacker Danny Foley, while Foley awaited sentencing. His victim had to sit and watch the display.

The Dragon of Shandon now.

Outside Westminster this morning, a Brexiteer told me Ireland’s biggest problem is “You have a man who’s adopted Ireland and he’s far fonder of the EU than he is of Ireland.”

When I asked who he meant, he confirmed he meant the Taoiseach.

“He’s as Irish as I am,” I said. “No he’s not,” said an older woman, in a “don’t be silly” voice. She was carrying a Leave Means Leave banner. “Verruca? He’s Not Irish, he’s an Indian, isn’t he?”

Day 1 of a challenge by @PhelanVicky to post seven covers of books I love. No reviews, just the covers. With each day, I will ask a friend to take up the challenge. Today I nominate @AkaPaulHoward Day 2 of a challenge by @PhelanVicky to post seven covers of books I love. No reviews, just the covers. With each day, I will ask a friend to take up the challenge. Today I nominate @rmcg2799.

When I was small I thought Stan Lee (born Stanley Leiber) must have been the greatest — or at least the most prolific — writer ever, given all the comics he wrote. Later lawsuits suggested things were a bit more complicated. A gifted self-publicist and judge of artistic talent, Lee was part of the “work-for-hire” system which saw young artists sign away their creations for a pittance. Stan would give an artist a sketchy plot and — once they’d finished drawing 20 pages of story — Stan added dialogue and claimed he wrote the whole thing.

It's Woody Guthrie's anniversary.

In 1950, Woody moved into the Beach Haven Apartment complex in Brooklyn, becoming a tenant of one Fred Trump.

Trump had availed of federal grants to build that complex, grants which were contingent upon his accommodating Black veterans of WWII Trump took the Government's money and then refused to allow any Black tenants in Beach Haven.

When Woody discovered this, he was incensed.

In a white heat of rage, he wrote:

On the morning of the 7th of June 1996 in the Co Limerick village of Adare, heroic Irish soldiers, acting under the authority of the legitimate Government of Ireland, attempted to liberate vital funding and – in the course of their duties – were forced to open fire upon cowardly agents of the traitorous Free State government, killing one.

My friend Dave "Rookie" Roche, who’s in his mid-nineties, tells a great story about the famous Fermoy poet and full-time alcoholic Jack Devine standing outside Tommy Baker's barber shop one Sunday morning long ago as the car with the loudhailer on the roof drove past. “COME TO FERMOY SHOW. THIS SUNDAY. FERMOY SHOW. THE CREAM OF THE COUNTRY WILL BE THERE."

"The cream of the country?" says Jack. "More like the cunts from the creamery."

Heard a story about a friend of mine, a Garda now retired. Almost universally liked, he was a notorious soft touch. Under pressure from the Super, he was sent out to the main road with the speed gun. Sure enough, everyone he caught turned out to be a friend with a sob story. Coming to the end of his shift, he had let off half the parish with cautions and still had no tickets issued. Around the bend came a D-reg car, absolutely bombing it.

“Well, said my friend once the car had stopped, “Amn’t I glad to see you. I’m waiting all day to catch you.”

I attended secondary school in the 1980s. In my first week, standing against a wall on the peripheries of a school concert, a boy said something to me and I replied to him. A teacher ran at me and punched me in the stomach. #liveline I remember sliding down the wall, the back of my head hitting off a radiator as I blacked out. That was my introduction to a place infected completely by a culture of bullying, a place where violence seemed to seep from the walls.

Tuam now. #tuambabies Katherine Zappone says she is in Tuam for “one more chance to hear your views”.

'(Daniel) O'Connell's method of receiving Americans, visiting his country, was rough on slaveholders,' (Frederick) Douglass recalled approvingly. ’A gentleman from this country being introduced to the Liberator, and about to extend his hand, was suddenly stopped, as O'Connell withdrew his hand, saying: "Pardon me, sir; but I make it a rule never to give my hand to an American without asking if he is a slaveholder."

Gabriel Byrne on Liam Neeson's comments that #MeToo movement is a "witchhunt" that has gone too far: "I love Liam, I've been a friend of his for many, many years... but I would say the movement hasn't gone far enough." #LateLateShow Gabriel Byrne: "And I think the pendulum has been so far in the opposite direction for so long, where you've had centuries and centuries of women silenced, discriminated...

Thread, I'm afraid.

This past fortnight, Down Syndrome Ireland has begged that those of us who have Down syndrome not be weaponised in the #repealthe8th debate and not be used as poster children by either side. Imagine how hurtful it must be to anyone with DS to be told repeatedly - by people whose defining trait is that they’re consumed with the Holy Spirit of certainty about everything – that they are unwanted and are only alive because their parents had no choice in the matter.

I interviewed the wonderful Sheila O'Byrne in her lovely house off Blarney Street. Sheila is a Magdalene survivor, 19 years of age when she was sent to St Patrick’s Magdalene Laundry on Dublin’s Navan Road in 1976 for the crime of being pregnant. #Magdalene Sheila hasn’t seen her son since he was a little baby, taken from her arms and sold by the nuns. He’d be 41 now, wherever he is. Sheila is desperate to know where her little boy is. She never married, never had any other kids. “Not after what was done to me,” she told me.