These dark evenings, while there's nothing happening on the GAA playing front - and all the national GAA scribes seem to be hibernating - An Fear Rua got together with some of the brighter sparks of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds club in the back shnug of Ma Molloy's drinking emporium to discuss what exactly is bugging the GAA. Some of these lads know a thing or two about computers, having worked for a time in a couple of those new-fangled factories like Intel beyond in County Kildare, and there was much chat about Millennium 'bugs' and computer viruses. Anyway, after a few good pints of Phoenix ale, here's what we came up with...

• The Meath Virus: Throws you out of Windows.
• The Meath Virus #2: Resistance is futile as this virus is very difficult to beat
• The Martin Lynch Virus: Computer pretends to go down, but then boots back up and is OK.
• The Clare Virus: Memory forgets everything before 1995.
• The Tipperary Virus Family: Look like they may cause you problems for six months, but then fade away.
• The Dessie Farrell Virus: All drive privileges lost.
• The Martin McNamara Virus: You just can't save anything.
• The Mayo Virus Family: Always billed as harmful, but really are nothing to worry about.
• The Graham Geraghty Virus: Your PC repeats this loop, it works brilliantly for 20 minutes, then breaks down for 12 months.
• The Mick O'Dwyer Virus: Attempts to install lots of foreign programs to replace existing slow-running applications.
• The Kerry Virus: 5 years of hard work wiped out by undetected Offaly mail.
• The Waterford # 1 Virus: Not due to strike for another 40 years.
• The DJ Carey Virus: Your computer packs it in and then re-boots six months later and runs better than ever. The Colin Lynch Virus: Boots up some Waterford computers and carries on as if nothing happened.
• The Babs Keating Virus: Enters a PC, attempts to delete all existing programs and reformat hard drive; when detected and removed it generates weekly log files citing errors in bits 8 to 15.
• The John Leahy Virus: A particularly lethal Virus, users are advised to tie down the monitor as a precaution before approaching.
• The PJ 'Fingers' O'Connell Virus: Resources taken from applications without their knowledge.
• The Brian Mullins virus: System takes several years to recover from crash
• The John Maughan Virus: System crashes in September.
• The David Forde Virus: Hasn't been seen since the 'Michael Duignan Virus Killer' was invented.
• The Michael Donnellan Virus: Attacks operating system and timekeeper and then deletes all records of this ever occurring.
• The John O'Leary Virus: Virtually impossible to rid your PC of this one.
• The Ger Loughnane #1 Virus: A continuous whining sounds emitted from speakers, keeps generating data corruption messages, PC blows up but it won't accept any blame.
• The Marty Morrissey Virus: Spurious nonsense emitted from speakers, uninstall all sound drivers and install Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh sound files instead to rid yourself of this one.
• The Ger Canning virus: See Marty Morrissey Virus above.
• The Limerick Hurling Virus: Causes problems for 65 minutes then disappears, never to be seen again.
• The Dublin Virus: Manufacturers think is a vital component of all GAA applications but no evidence of this has yet been seen.
• The Michael Bond Virus.... only responds to DOS commands entered in Irish.
• The Seán Boylan Virus.... PC will make you a cup of herbal tea while it scans for other viruses.
• The Ger Loughnane Virus #2.... Desktop keeps hopping around and won't stay in the same place for more than 10 seconds.
• The Waterford Virus # 2... Creeps up on hardware when it least expects it. Predicted to strike again in the Summer of 2000.
• The Leitrim Virus... Exists in theory, but has never actually been seen in practice.
• The Kilkenny Gaelic Football Virus... Appears annually in Division 4 of NFL, then disappears entirely during the Championship.
• The Galway GAA Virus... Switched machines to AMD processors this year and system collapsed totally.
• The Ceannárus Virus... Computer constantly shows Dialog Box with the words "A Cháirde.... Fógra Speisialta... would the laptop owners on the Nally Stand please switch them off, as they may interfere with the electronic score board. Go Raibh Maith Agaibh..."
• The Safety Virus.... Computer refuses to allow any screen savers take effect, because they're not allowed invade the pitch.
• The Colin Lynch Virus # 2...Your fingers get lashed every time you try to use the keyboard.
• The Kerry # 2 Virus...Can't deal with data between the dates 1900 and 2000, so has to split everything into pre-1950 and post-1950.

Anyway, siné for now. We'll chat more in the New Year, Y2K bugs permitting...