Yearly Archives: 2014

southall-sham-n[Brendan Doherty with sudents from Feartherstone High School, Southall, London]

The Southall Shamrocks.

Made up of FOREIGNERS.

Southall Shamrocks was established after Irish geography teacher Brendan Doherty ran several football sessions last summer as part of National Sports Week at Featherstone High School in West London, where almost 99 per cent of its 1,500 pupils are from an ethnic minority. Now, the team are braving the cold winter evenings twice a week as they train ahead of their three-day tour of Ireland’s GAA hotspots during the school’s half-term break.

Is this a first for the illuminati GAA anyone?

Meet the all Asian, Somali and Pakistani London GAA team (Nemesha Balasundaram, Irish Post)

Picture: Malcolm McNally

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Fearless Russian nutjobs Vitaliy Raskalov and Vadim Makharov ascend the tower crane working on the as yet unfinished world’s second tallest building.

They’ve since posted pictures and a full account of their adventure (in Russian) on LiveJournal.

Related: Long Way Down

laughingsquid/dpaf

(H/T: Noel)

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[Rory O’Neill/Miss Panti on Channel 4 News last week]

And they’re magnificent.

But that’s not important right now.

What’s it been like out and about?

…What is also enjoyable about the last week though is the fact that regular Dubliners are making their support for him known on the street. Between being stopped for conversations with “Dublin blokes” who have gay children or by those who just want to lend their support and pose for a photo, O’Neill firmly believes that ordinary people are on his side; “in the first few weeks, unless you had seen the broadcast people probably thought ‘there’s no smoke without fire, he must have said something awful’. But now they’re being super nice and that’s lovely”.

“They’re trying to paint a picture that it’s some Dublin 4 media concern, which is total bullshit because I know from walking on the streets and into Tescos that ordinary people do care, ordinary people have a sense of justice about it and ordinary people know gay people in their families. Ordinary decent Irish people are not ideologues and they saw my side of the story as a real human story that affects real human people.”
Rory O’Neill in conversation with Matthew Mulligan of Trinity News.

PantiGate: An Interview With Rory O’Neill (Trinity News)

Why the world is talking about this Irish drag queen (Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press)

 

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Sea Orbiter is a 200 foot (60m) tall aquatic exploration platform designed by French architect Jacques Rougerie on which construction begins this Spring. Capable of accommodating a team of up to 22 researchers, who will live and work underwater 24 hours a day, half the eight-story structure (which will cost €35 million to construct) is submerged with a variety of labs and living quarters for crew.

The underside features dive pits, pressurized living quarters and underwater garages. Regular divers will descend to 50 meters below the surface, while “saturation divers” living in pressurised chambers will be able to reach 100 meters. Below this depth, Sea Orbiter will deploy exploration vehicles down to 1,000 meters and an advanced diving drone that can descend to 6,000 meters.

likecool

Violence-citizenship-and-virility-The-making-of-an-irish-fascist-1[Eoin O’Duffy, Garda Commissioner, 1922-33]

The guards, eh?

Where did they get all that hatt-itude?

“The chaos of the administration of law, rectified by 1924, was marked in its settling down phase by barristers who had acted as republican justices during the War of Independence and had been loyal to the Treaty side. the police force, particularly its detective branch, remained, in the words of David Fitzpatrick, ‘all too obviously the tools of political parties.”

The first recruit to the Gardai was officially attested in February 1922, and most of the initial recruits came from the ranks of the pro-Treaty IRA, with ex-Royal Irish Constabulary and ex-Irish Republican Police represented as well, causing certain tensions on account of former RIC men being promoted to higher ranks.

An initial mutiny on these grounds failed, and a subsequent commission of inquiry mapped out a role for the new force which was at variance with that of its predecessor, the RIC. The Civic Guard was to be the servant of the people – not militaristic or coercive. The Commission envisaged a greatly enhanced civilian role for the new police force, this meant disarming was essential.

This was one of the reasons for the Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy’s emphasis of sobriety and clean living (which his own private life was later to make a mockery of); he emphasised that the force was on trial and moral probity essential. As well as bringing a party of 250 guards to visit the Pope in 1928, O’Duffy thundered against alcohol abuse:-

‘A police officer who has developed a taste for spirituous liquors is always a corrupt official… the stolen visits to the public houses are noted with an even greater care than the open violation… the disease is infectious. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and the drunkard, a scourge in every walk of life, is particularly obnoxious in the uniform of a public servant… no man of any rank who is addicted to drink will be permitted to remain a member of the Civic Guard. This is a penalty which will be rigidly enforced.‘

In July 1923 the name of the force was changed to An Garda Siochana (‘Guardians of the Peace) and between 1922 and 1952 10,135 men joined, with the sons of farmers strongly favoured over their urban counterparts, and recruits from the western counties preferred to those from the east. It had been important to O’Duffy that ‘the son of the peasant is the backbone of the force’.

During this era, 50 per cent of the police force were former farmers or landworkers, and over 98 per cent Catholic…”

Good times.

From The Transformation Of ireland 1900-2000 by Diarmuid Ferriter

Thanks Sibling of Daedalus

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How much?

Carlos writes:

Saw The Lego Movie with the kids. They loved it, I really enjoyed it too (probably a conversation to be had another day  about it being about a 90-minute commercial but…). Smyths [Toys] are selling the movie-related minifigs for €2.89. There are 16 different minifigs.They also, it seems, are selling cartons of all 16 for… €159.99 Doesn’t 16 x 2.89 = 46.24?? I appreciate the carton-purchase gives you the whole set, but a 345% markup?

Anyone?