COLUMN: Midges eating people alive at Semple Stadium in Tipperary

The entire midge population of Tipperary was in Semple Stadium on Friday evening, or so it seemed at least. 

On the field of play, Senan Butler was the man of the hour for Tipperary in their thumping defeat of reigning Munster and All-Ireland champions Cork with the result putting Tipp in pole position to reach a Munster final later this month.

Corner forward Butler was in sensational form as he bagged three goals in 40 minutes to help Tipperary to a resounding and impressive win over the Rebels.

But up in the stand, the crowd was dealing with an infestation and swarm of midges. 

Midges bite just like the mosquitos, hence the itchiness we all feel. 

But lucky for us, they do not carry any type of serious disease.

Still, they are annoying and there are a lot of them in Thurles it seems, well, Semple Stadium at least. 

In Ireland, we have up to 80 different biting midges and those are just the ones we know about. 

The Irish Times reports that climate change and increased movement globally in goods, animals and even humans will introduce more of the thousands of species of biting midge worldwide. Lovely...

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I'm not sure what type of midges were in Thurles on Friday evening, but it was irritating to say the least while trying to watch the game and with reports coming back that we were appearing on TG4 after every one of Senan Butler's goals, we had enough going on. 

But seriously, can someone (a professional pest control expert) drop a couple of smoke grenades in there or something?

Is there even a way the midges can be dealt with? 

It's a head scratcher of a problem!