Council Affairs: Mayor drops the dart

ANOTHER week, another measure of antiquated quackery down at City Hall. You love to see it.

The Admiral of Limerick City and County Council (LCCC), Mayor John Moran, took his naval fleet out onto the majestic waters of the River Shannon last Friday ahead of the Metropolitan District’s AGM for a performance that was sure to put Phil Taylor quivering in his comfortable shoes.

Dinghies and rowing boats, in all their splendour, tethered off Merchant’s Quay, where no breakers roar, as our magnificent Admiral fired a silver dart into the choppy waters below.

Why, you ask?

The motley hoard hadn’t been at the Mayor’s rum. No grog had passed the lips of lofty councillors, supreme management, or even exalted guests as they watched this archaic pageant play out with gusto.

Doth our new incumbent look too much the past? And not, from the helm of his impressive schooner, gaze out over the clamorous waves to chase a brighter future and its vast spectrum of possibilities?

Hath Moran lost the run of himself and already stirred mutiny in the veins of his scurrilous lackeys in City Hall?

Hath the good people of Limerick voted for a dart-touting pirate and not the progressive, forward-thinking man of action they thought? Well, consider my timbers shivvered if the answer wasn’t staring me straight in my lily-livered face!

Tradition.

These landlubbers love their centuries old traditions. There’s nothing these peg-legged sons of biscuit eaters enjoy more than a time-honoured ritual that is as exuberant as a harpy three sheets to the wind.

Sink me, if Mayor Moran isn’t only the ruddy Admiral of the River Shannon too.

Thankfully, me hearties in City Hall had not already been made walk the plank, but were instead upholding the ancient maritime tradition of ‘dropping the dart’ into the River Shannon.

Cleave me to the brisket, if this sight didn’t actually symbolise the Mayor’s authority as the Admiral of the Shannon in a tradition that dates back to 1765.

Time will tell if we are going to need a bigger boat, or if our new skipper will take us all down to the briney deep with him. For now, let’s not blow this scallywag down, but row in behind him.

Ahoy! All hands hoay!

Let us remember too, the wise words of that old seadog Van Morrison.

”Hark, now hear the sailors cry. Smell the sea, and feel the sky, Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.”