the minister for snow

Michael O Leary, former Irish government minister is dead at 70. “drowned in a swimming pool yesterday evening, and is to be buried in France” says the reports. Its strange , or maybe it isn’t, how certain politicians bring to mind stages in our lives. For me, Micheal O Leary is the early 1980s when I was a young man just about to move to Dublin. He is the “minister for snow” in the first months of 1982. Ireland had a rare prolonged snowfall and of course we were totally unprepared for it. A sort of a state of emergency was declared with Michael O Leary as the unofficial “minister for snow” I can still his face on the nine o clock news declaring that things were under control as the snow fell deep and crisp and even. He was a handsome man who obviously cared about his appearance in a time when most other Irish politicians looked like they fell into their clothes every morning.