There I was all ready to celebrate, glass of wine in hand as the results began pouring in for the 2016 presidential election on November 8th.
I even had a special bottle of wine for the occasion, worth $200 than a friend had gifted me some months before.
What better way to celebrate I thought. I cleared the wife, the child and the cat out of the room and settled down for my night of nights. Only the cat seemed bothered.
Then came the deluge. The celebratory wine turned into drowning my sorrows, my disbelief total. As I spluttered into my wine glass it became apparent every poll, every pundit, every paper covering the election was wrong.
I should have relied on our poll in July which defied odds and showed Trump up by four.
I haven't turned on a pundit's show since. I see they have all dusted themselves off and began pontificating about their inside knowledge again. Spoofers all.
They should be ashamed of themselves, consumed as they were with insider cheek to cheek gossip and missing one of the biggest stories of the new century.
There were one or two exceptions. Jake Tapper on CNN was a fearless questioner, so too was Megyn Kelly on Fox. Sean Hannity was laughing all the way to the White House.
As for me, committed Clintons fan, it felt like the last dance in an emptying ballroom with cigarette stubs and empty beer bottles for company. My only consolation was I didn't go to the Javits Center in Manhattan as I had intended to witness the history of the first woman president.
We have since learned of course that our new National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn himself gave classified information to foreign leaders while in Iraq. That is the same Flynn who led the cheerleading to lock up Hillary for the alleged same offense.
Then of course there were the Russians and the alleged rapist Julian Assange of Wikileaks, wanted in Sweden for sex assault. We hardly read an investigative piece about those issues with the media fixated on the Hillary non-scandals. How Vladimir must have laughed as he shaped this new Amerika.
But enough sourness and sorrow. How about the 1916 Commemoration on a glorious Easter Sunday in Dublin’s O’Connell Street outside the GPO?
I was lucky enough to have a ringside seat as the pride of the Irish military passed by on land and air. an army with a direct line to the men and women of 1916 who gave their lives . It was a spectacular occasion and never have I heard the Irish national anthem sung with more brio. Bliss was it to be there and be Irish in heart and soul.
And come with me to Croke Park on All Ireland hurling day in September, again a clear azure sky and watch the gladiators of Kilkenny and Tipperary do battle.
Kilkenny, as dominant in recent times as any sports franchise in history, were at last upended as the men of Tipperary tore into them with a passion and energy I have never seen in a sporting contest.
When it was over and a famous win for Tipperary secured it turned out one of their players was so exhausted he had to be rushed to hospital for oxygen. Talk about leaving it all on the pitch!
Don't let anyone tell you there is a better game to watch in the world at it’s best.
There were other low and highlights, a stunning performance of Hamilton on “Broadway’ I went to, expecting the hype was probably too much but being utterly proven wrong, a wonderful day at Aras an Uachtarain, home of the Irish president, with everyone present speaking only Irish, a sadness as the greatest, Muhammad Ali, a king of my childhood died, the list could go on but I won’t. Hope 2017 is good for all of you, dear readers.
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