The summer is being folded up and put away around me as I write this. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the routine again. There’s a cool autumnal breeze in Dublin this morning and I don’t mind it one bit.

The summer of ‘26 will be one to remember - warm stretches that lasted longer than we’re used to, a hop over to France, a few nights under canvas up on The Mountain, a bank-run style panic over eclipse glasses… When you set aside all the terrifying forest fires and clearly creeping effects of climate change, it was a fine old time! Now the timetables are being set for the term ahead, after school classes are being booked up and we’re already eyeing the Halloween break for the next bit of fun. Meanwhile, it’s nose to the grindstone and, you know what, sometimes that’s a good thing.

Our dutiful representatives in Dáil Éireann had to go back to school early this year, of course, which is a rare thing. Maybe they needed the bit of routine as well? They’re returning early to pass a financial resolution putting off the excise increases due on September 1st, nine cent on petrol and ten on diesel, which would be unpalatable to say the least.

A Dáil recall usually means something has gone badly wrong somewhere. That’s not the case this time, unless you count what’s going on in the Middle East, and Trump’s spiralling disaster in Iran. Peter Burke has been saying the reductions can’t go on forever, and he’s right, and he knows well that petrol over two euro a litre before a budget is nobody’s idea of a good autumn. Aren’t we lucky we’re fairly flush and the multinational taps are gushing?

Blood, sweat and flat caps

I watched the excellent Healy-Rae documentary Blood, Sweat & Tears last week with what felt like the entire country. It’s on the RTÉ Player if you haven’t seen it and, as hard as it is for a Cork man to say anything complimentary about anything even Kerry-adjacent, I have to say it’s well worth a look.

It tracks the rise of the dynasty from Jackie Healy Rae’s sax-wielding grip on power all the way through to the current era which sees his sons Michael and Danny as TDs, while grandchildren Maura, Jackie Jr and Johnny Healy-Rae work as councillors. It’s a 50-year reign of flat caps. Jackie was co-opted onto Kerry County Council in 1973, a good six years before the ayatollahs got Iran, which makes the Islamic Republic look like a flash in the pan.

They’ve always been box office, as we all know, but a recent falling out between the brothers has pushed it from Glenroe into John B. Keane territory. Michael describes his brother’s defection as a ‘scud missile’. Danny calmly reports that he saw ‘no bombs or no missiles or anything like that’, and goes on to accuse the Taoiseach of smirking at him. It’s partly heartbreaking with moments of Father Ted surrealism thrown in.

Of course, it’s hard to tell when you are being sold a tall tale or when things are being pitched to keep the legend alive, often an issue when operating in or around The Kingdom.

Are they actually fighting or are they showrunning the whole thing from a snug in Kilgarvan? When you see footage of Michael whitewashing a wall and tales of Danny installing a parking bay outside a shop with his own tin of paint, it’s hard not to view it with scepticism. But then you see footage of the famous cataract bus to Northern Ireland where their roll-up-your-sleeves attitude to getting the job done makes them look like superheroes.

Ultimately, of course, what it comes down to is that they are very hard to dislike. It’s parish pump politics with the Caps Lock on, and we can all argue how this hyper-localism is the enemy of any real progress on a national level. But it’s hard to take your eyes off it, and you know the story doesn’t end here.

Cat in the Hat hysteria

And finally, to the news that An Garda Síochána in Wexford were obliged this week to issue a public statement confirming that the Cat in the Hat is not real.

It all started on TikTok back in June, when creepy images were circulated of the Cat in the Hat himself. The images showed him standing in driveways in Wexford, Waterford and Carlow and these were accompanied by warnings to ‘lock your doors’. Things got out of hand as a small bit of panic began to take hold online. Spooked locals took to TikTok, Reddit and Facebook for reassurance - surely he can’t be real? It got so bad that the guards decided to intervene and issued a statement that included the following.

‘The Cat in the Hat was not in your driveway while you were out and he is not currently hiding out in Curracloe.’

Fair play to them for having a sense of humour. It turns out some messer in America was generating the images on AI back in June, and it took until August to start a small bit of mass hysteria in the sunny southeast.

Halloween is starting early this year, it seems