The media on sharks and shemozzles

On Saturday, the Sun did a great job of turning a British non-story into an Irish non-story when telling readers that a great white shark has been spotted off Irish waters. Brilliant stuff, except for the trifling fact that it probably wasn’t a great white. And it was 200 yards off the Cornish coast.

Today, Morning Ireland treated the Carrick-On-Suir fight with a mixture of “what about the children” tut-tutting, and a bizarre nostalgia for a time when you get in a drunken brawl but only get beaten up instead of stabbed. Plus, the FF councillor twice suggested that the legal age for buying alcohol be raised to 23 “like in America”. When being plain daft, you might as well be factually incorrect as well.