My mother died on May 31st 2011; her body was removed from the house on June 1st. I had the Over The Edge Galway City Council arts grant filled out the previous week and ready to go, though the deadline was a couple of weeks away. I knew Mom was dying and that I needed to have the form filled out before that happened because, otherwise, it mightn't get done. I watched the hearse take Mom around the Seamus Quirke Road roundabout one last time on Wednesday, June 1st 2011 and then picked up our completed application form and walked to City Hall to deliver it to the Arts Office. Despite the pressure we were under we still got it in more than a week before the deadline.
If you didn't get you application in on time this year, the sympathy I have for you is very, very small. And Councillors shouldn't be pandering to you by putting back the decision on this year's Arts Grants, just because they're afraid you might write whiney auld letters to the local newspapers.
No one should get an Arts Grant, or more of a grant, because they make representations to Councillors and follow those representations up by writing mad letters to the City Tribune. There is a silent majority out here and any member of Galway City Council who panders to wasters and whiners won't get so much as a number 12 from me next year.
Here is a relevant poem.
