By David McCullagh and Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Keeping cool in the long, hot Roman summer is a serious challenge for Irish diplomats based in the Eternal City.
However, keeping your cool when builders don’t deliver what they’ve promised might be even more of a test.
That was the situation facing the residents of the plush Villa Spada in the early 1990s when continuing problems with the swimming pool caused tempers to rise along with the summer temperatures.
The 17th-century villa, which looks down on the city from the Gianicolo Hill, was bought by the government in 1946 as the residence of the Ambassador to the Vatican (since 2012 it has been the home of…