Wikileaks from Cork

8th Dec 2010

In recent weeks stacks of classified confidential communications between U.S. embassies have been published on the now infamous wikileaks.org website causing international rage, shame and embarrassment around the world as the private and often forthright opinions of government officials and institutions have become public.

Much of the diplomatic traffic regarding Cork controversies however has been kept under wraps as governments from North Korea to Argentina strive to keep their cards close to their chest on everything from the November floods to the hurling strikes. Wouldn't we all love to uncover some of the real opinions hiding behind the controversies that have kept us bantering for the last few years….

Semple Stadium July 19th 2008 4:15pm
Whatever Donal Óg Cusack said in the dressing room at half time when he was sent off against Galway that day is now the stuff of legend and the value of its contents are up there with any dossier on weapons of mass destruction.
 

Sully, are you taking me seriously?

However, to this day those who witnessed the fire and brimstone speech that provoked one of the best halves of hurling ever seen by a Cork team, have dared not repeat it as it is believed to have been so powerful that it may herald the second-coming itself. And nobody feels that Christy Ring should have to tog out for Cork again. Maybe some day the exact contents of Donal's speech will be revealed.

Why it took Prendergate two weeks to come out?
It's a long time in football as they say. And it's a long time in hurling too. The world needs to know why Aer Lingus took such a long time to decide that DJ Prendeville had been inappropriately busy with a copy of Cara magazine on board one of their flights back from London on October 19th. The traffic on our website crashed it twice that day with almost 12,000 people logging on in the space of three hours so interest in any leaks would be sensational.

Who wouldn't love to get their, ahem, hands, on a copy of the final juicy correspondence that eventually sent shockwaves through Leeside?

What the DAA say about Cork airport
Any travelbug who likes to go abroad just to remind themselves of how good Cork is, will know that Ryanair's list of destinations from D'airport is pitifully small. Michael O'Leary wants to lease the old terminal and if he gets it he says that list will get much longer. Seems to make good business sense to this airport bar stool economist.

Unfortunately while the board of Cork Airport do their best, it is the Dubs and the notorious Dublin Airport Authority that really control it. We suspect its all about keeping Cork in its place - the lonely planet accolade must have rattled them to their very core.

As well as the Cork question there must be some juicy correspondence between the Ryanair chief executive and the Dublin Airport Authority that would give weary Cork travellers some glorious second city satisfaction.
 

O'Leary laments: €1.2 billion for an unnecessary terminal in Dublin airport. Money that would have been better spent in Cork.

UN Diplomats on GAA Strikes
Wouldn't you love to see the correspondence between Kofi Annan and the Cork county board during the football and hurling strikes over the last few years?

Although it looked like a local dispute to many, Corkonians suspect otherwise as even RTE covered the events (and usually they only do Cork news when CNN and Al-Jazeera have covered it first).

Often, what may seem like petty disagreements between big nations over apparently tiny issues, turn out to be boisterous states flexing their muscles. The hurling strike was most likely creating waves of diplomatic traffic from the White House to the Kremlin as the old order at Pairc Úi Chaoimh was threatened and risked dragging down other long standing regimes around the world in a wave of revolutions.

Who wouldn't love to see UN secretary general Kofi Annan's proposals for Gerald McCarthy's development squad or his successor Ban Ki Moon's reaction to Teddy Holland's short-lived appointment as football banisteoir? Not to mind Barack Obama's opinion on the recent retirement of Seán Óg Ó hAilpín. Come on wikileaks, don't mind this Chinese embassy drivel, just give us the good stuff.
 

Kofi is updated on ridding All Ireland medalists from the current team by a county board official

Kerry Rage 2010
We would gladly pay a heavy bribe to be furnished with a secret brief revealing exchanges between Kerry county board officials when Cork won the All-Ireland.

Oh wouldn't you love to have heard them! They thought they had Cork ousted down the Pairc in July when they shaded the Munster semi-final by a point in extra time (after a replay and some unwelcome dental treatment on Eoin Cadogan) but Conor Counihan's charges came the long way round through the back door and up the steps of the Hogan stand to collect Sam Maguire in September while Kerry had been slaughtered weeks previous in the quarter final by yet another Ulster minnow.

Kerry hurlers have never and will never put one over Cork, but our footballers have trumped the county that considers itself the gold (and green) standard in big ball September shakedowns. The private but barely concealed rage among Kerrymen at being overshadowed by their neighbour would make any Italian gangster movie blowout look like a pansy's schmozzle in the English Premiership.
 

This Kerry man held the fate of the euro in his hands. What did he get in return for supporting Fianna Fáil?

Kerry Healy Rae
With the fate of the entire euro currency in his back pocket at the negotiating table what has Jackie Healy Rae leveraged for South Kerry to help Fianna Fáil pass the budget? The roads around Killorglin have been gleaming with fresh tar for several years and you've more chance of seeing a hurler in a Kerry jersey than a pothole so speculation as to what the publican-turned-political-operator has secured for his constituency may only become apparent over the next few years.

Will the EU suddenly and mysteriously shift their headquarters from Brussels to a disused hotel on the twisty old road to out to Kenmare? Will all fields in south Kerry be furnished with toasty under-bog heating systems? Will dairy herds receive French manicures for their hooves or have their sheds done out like Finnish saunas? Rule nothing out until it leaks. The story that is, not the saunas.

All these documents must exist. We just have to get our hands on them!