When Oirish eyes are weeping

What a rollercoaster ride for Ireland. Just days after the high of beating "the Brits" in rugby, Tuesday was truly calamitous. Let's work from the end. The Republic's favourite soccer team, Manchester United, was eliminated from the Champions League this evening by Portugese side Porto. That exit will rob Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of valuable campaign appearances at the Theatre of Dreams between now and the local elections in June.

But this cruel blow merely followed up the news that homegrown boy band Westlife is breaking up, or is at least losing a member, Bryan McFadden, leaving the four remaining members to claim that they will carry on. Bryan is leaving with the very politician-like excuse of "spending more time with the family," which is sort of right because as with other famous bands (e.g. The Beatles, Spinal Tap), to explain the breakup, cherchez la femme. In this case la femme would be wife Kerry, former member of English girl band Atomic Kitten and vanquisher of Johnny Rotten (amongst others) in the most recent verion of the reality show I'm a Celebrity..Get Me Out of Here.

The assumption of most observers is that Bryan sees a bigger future working in a duo with his once-again high-profile wife, whereas the pipeline in Westlife may not have that much left -- after you've had UK #1 hits with covers of Mandy and Seasons in the Sun, where else can you go?