It seems that that the Merriman Summer School, currently running in Ennistymon, is now better known than Brian Merriman himself, the poet who gave his name to it.

A survey carried out among Clare people revealed that 60 per cent of those surveyed knew more about the school's activities than they did about Merriman himself.

It also turned out that 74 per cent of those surveyed think the Midnight Court was a peculiar form of rural male/female relationship current in the early years of the century.

All right, the latter statement is a lie. I merely wish to politely suggest that many of the Clare people surveyed might have diplomatically pretended to know less of Brian Merriman and his work than they actually do. Familiarity with the Midnight Court is not something a respectable Clare person would necessarily boast of, even in these permissive times. Close on 200 years after its publication, it remains a scandalous and bawdy poem, and is among other things a ribald condemnation of male inadequacy, a treatise on priestly hypocrisy, a condemnation of marriage and a tribute to the superiority of bastards.

Such attitudes may well be fashionable east of the Shannon, but they have not yet caught on in Clare, where the old decencies prevail.

Meanwhile the theme of this year's school, "Thomond and Clare: A Mirror of Ireland" apparently suggests different ways of representing Clare and Ireland. According to the school's director, Prof Willie Smyth of UCC, the theme stretches the possibilities of seeing Clare from many angles, and not just, presumably, from the top of the Cliffs of Moher, the spectacular yet misleading and limited vertical view which is the usual one afforded to most tourists.

Clare is in fact a very much "on the ground" county, most of the ground being the stony surface of the Burren, which, in the manner of the Merriman School and Merriman himself, is better known than Clare.

This is the kind of geographical synecdoche peculiar to the county, with the whole suggested by the part.

Clare has of course been very much in the news recently, specifically the GAA news, so it is appropriate that the county's hurling coach Ger Loughnane is to participate in a Merriman School symposium on Clare's hurling successes in the 1990s. "Video Recorders - The Camera and the Caman" is the tentative title, though "Hurling, Lies and Videotape" has also been suggested, with Colin Lynch the rapporteur for the evening. Referee Jimmy Cooney will speak on "Hurling in the Millenium, or Two Minutes Before It". Hugh Manerror will act as chairman. Proceedings are to conclude with a specially written one-act melodrama, "Fun and Games at the Limerick Inn".

All right, cheap shots, nowhere near goal. But regarding the Clare/ Offally hurling semi-final replay last Saturday, it must be said that while the timekeeping mistake was understandable, the measures being suggested to ensure such a mistake cannot happen again are just not good enough.

We do not want a large ugly digital clock obscuring the magnificent Dublin skyline as seen from Croke Park, and taking attention away from the fabulous new stand. We do not need enormous hooters drowning out the traditional exuberance of the ordinary supporter. We must not blindly put our faith in new technology, which is far more susceptible to malfunction and breakdown than the old-fashioned stopwatch, and not half as easy to repair.

No. A more imaginative approach is required. One solution might be to have injury time, agreed by both teams, played at the start of the match. Injuries subsequently sustained would just have to be endured. Or perhaps Clare, for example, might be allowed score points only in the first half, and Offaly in the second, thus providing as much focus on defence skills as on the more glamorous attacking talents.

It might also be worth while co-ordinating match times (starting and finishing) with nationwide match traffic to and from Croke Park, with particular reference to the infamous Enfield-Kinnegad-Rochfortbridge nexus.

Perhaps the Merriman Summer School might turn its attention to these matters and map a way forward that will not be derivative, but visionary, joyous, spiritual and unique.