Monthly Archives: April 2012

“I will not exaggerate our achievements, nor will I underestimate what is yet to be done.  Neither will I ignore what has been left undone, or done badly, but in difficult times we can report progress.
The economy is growing again. Small growth, but the first growth we have seen for almost 4 years.”

Eamon Gilmore, at the Labour Party conference in Galway.

Ireland’s economy probably shrank for a third consecutive quarter in the first three months of this year, said Michael Saunders, head of European economics at Citigroup Inc. in London. He expects the Irish economy to contract this year and that missed fiscal targets and weaker growth may require the country to seek a second bailout.

Irish May Need More Cuts to Reach Fiscal Target, OECD Says (Bloomberg, April 13)

“We have renegotiated the EU/IMF deal; got the interest rate reduced and replaced the crippling Anglo Promissory note this year with a long term bond.”

Eamon Gilmore, tonight.

Because the ECB have fully achieved their goal — getting a full €3.1 billion ELA repayment — calling this “a deal” with the ECB is hardly appropriate. Rather, it represents an arrangement with a privately-owned Irish bank that maintains the appearance of some sort of deal having been agreed with the ECB.

Promissory Note “Deal” Fails to Meet Low Expectations (Karl Whelan, March 29)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwh3LthX2Es

Long before James Cameron’s version of Titanic, there was a Nazi propaganda film made in 1943 about the ill-fated voyage. Both share the dubious honour of being the most expensive films of their era, but only one of them was banned.

The whole film is now on YouTube if you’re up to watching a skewed view of the disaster.

Wikipedia: Titanic (1943)

[via @sineadgleeson]


Protestors and Garda and private security staff scuffle – amid reports of pepper spray being used – outside the Labour party conference in NUI, Galway this afternoon. The photos – taken in sequence – record the moments protestors broke through a police cordon to get close to the main entrance of the conference venue, the Bailey Allen Hall.

Video here and here

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dU7rW2kv7U&feature=player_embedded

A small twister/waterspout spotted at “around 7am” this morning by Aoife McNulty at Bray Head, Co Wicklow.

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Update: Another view, via James Kelleher:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MwRjG7ZiC8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Nice to see old school craftsmanship alive and well on Lower Baggot Street. Broadsheet’s ‘man on the street’ sez:

It’s one of Dublin’s iconic pubs, so when I noticed they were getting the sign repainted, I wanted to see how it went. ‘Done properly’ according to one of the signwriters, and ‘at great cost’ – a three day job with the original board sanded right down to the wood and repainted from scratch. Finished on Friday.

Photographer Guido Mocafico (like Mark Laita, whose work we’ve featured before) likes to take pictures of snakes.

Here, in his Serpens series, he places them in black cardboard boxes, waits for them to get comfortable and then takes these beautiful, Zen-like portraits of, well, rectangularly configured serpents.

colossal/supersonicelectronic