Hyperrealistic pencil drawings by Texas-based graffiti artist Redosking.
More here.
Yearly Archives: 2014
Covers to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie
Easter Magic
at
Cazamaline writes:
They don’t grow on trees… Do they?
Oh.
Barry writes:
Unfortunate ad placement from the Irish Times today…
Planning could hold key to disappearance of Malaysia flight (Irish Times)
[Senator Susan O’Keeffe]
A letter signed by several Labour TDs and Senators appeared in last Saturday’s Irish Times calling for a greater debate on Garda accountability and oversight, claiming the current system is not working.
It also expressed the politicians’ concerns about how Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan is only held to account by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter in ‘private’.
The letter was signed by Labour’s Robert Dowds TD, Anne Ferris TD, Sean Kenny TD, Gerald Nash TD, Derek Nolan TD, Senator Ivana Bacik, and Senator Susan O’Keeffe.
Further to the publication of the letter, Senator O’Keeffe spoke to Colm Ó Mongáin on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week yesterday afternoon
During their conversation Mr Ó Mongáin reminded Ms O’Keeffe that several weeks ago, before the Government announced Sean Guerin, SC, would be carrying out an investigation into the allegations made by Garda whistleblowers Sgt Maurice McCabe and John Wilson, she told RTÉ News at One that she didn’t believe there was a need for a public inquiry.
Colm Ó Mongáin: “What has happened over the recent past that has made you now very concerned about this level of privacy that exists in the interaction between the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice that you weren’t concerned about prior to the blow-up of recent issues over the whistleblowers and GSOC?”
Susan O’Keeffe: “Well, certainly, for myself, as part of, one of the signatories of this letter, I didn’t suddenly get out of bed last Thursday and say, you know, this has really exploded. It has really been a cumulative effect of watching and seeing all manner of events occurring and I think I’ve been saying from the start that oversight needed to be stronger, in particular in relation to the Garda Commissioner’s office and I accept that, and I’ve always believed that. I didn’t have, certainly, a blow-up moment, and I’m not aware that my colleagues did either when we talked about putting this letter in or talked about bringing our, you know, the members of the Justice Committee and the Oversight Committee together to do this. We did not come in and have a blow-up moment. I think it is, for me certainly, watching the debate going on now over a number of weeks about accountability and about the Garda Commissioner, about the Minister for Justice, about the closeness between all of these, yes I do believe that we do need to give greater independence to the oversight commission.”
Ó Mongáin: “OK, well what do you want to know specifically. What has gone on between the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice in that case that you want to know about? Why is this scrutiny specifically needed that you have said: this is too private? What is it that you want to know? What questions do you have specifically for the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice?”
O’Keeffe: “Well I don’t have, well I mean I have any number of questions, if you like, through the Oversight Committee relating to GSOC and the whole bugging affair but that’s a different matter. What we’re talking here about, is saying that the Garda Commissioner’s office needs to be under the, if you like, the scrutiny of an Ombudsman Commission or, you know, in the future. As it stands at the moment, any Garda Commissioner is exempt from that and that strikes me as allowing, therefore, a relationship between any Minister for Justice and any Ombudsman Commission to be too close. If they are the only way in which they can, the Garda Commissioner can report is back to the Minister for Justice that then allows it to be too close. And I, personally, don’t think that’s healthy for any situation and I think that in the future, in terms of strengthening the Garda Ombudsman’s office and looking really at better oversight across the police, that’s what I’m interested in, that’s why I signed this letter cause that’s what I want to see.”
Listen back in full here
Garda Síochána and oversight (Irish Times letters, Saturday, March 15, 2014)
(Labour.ie)
‘Queers can march in Cork, why can’t queers march in New York?’
Protestors at yesterday’s St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York voice their concern at the banning of LGBT groups from the parade.
Unsettling ‘banshee’ @1.06
Yesterday: Walk Of Shame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTKn_TC0Aek
Oh you know.
The usual.
Kevin Sammon writes:
“Irish rugby fans celebrating [Jonathan] Sexton’s second try [for Ireland] against France on Saturday.”
Previously: We’ll Always Have Paris
From 1982, an ad for Lyons Tea.
Blackface and a fleeting glimpse of Dublin Bus Porn.
Good tea times.
[From top: Secretary General at the Department of the Taoiseach, Martin Fraser, and Ambassador of Ireland to the US Anne Anderson with US President Barack Obama in September 2013]
Senan Molony, of the Irish Daily Mail, reports this morning that a public row broke out between Ms Anderson and Mr Fraser in the lobby of the Fitzpatrick Hotel in Manhattan, New York, at around 12.10am on St Patrick’s Day.
Mr Molony, who witnessed the argument, said it lasted for about ten minutes, with both parties pointing their fingers at each other, and that it continued from the lobby to the lifts, in front of about a dozen people.
Mr Molony writes [not online]:
At one point, she said: ‘You are calling me a liar, Martin. I am not a liar. It was a misunderstanding.’ At another juncture, she raised her voice and said: ‘If I had known what the Taoiseach wanted, of course I would have done what he wanted.‘ The origins of the row are unclear.
Crikey.
Anyone?
Pics: Merrion Street and Wikipedia
[from left: Ingrid Kvale, Emily Blagden, Laura Kennington and Aoife Ni Mhaoileoin
From Monterey, California to Honolulu, Hawaii.
In a rowing boat!
“We have been training intensely, as well as taking courses in sea survival and navigation. Beyond the physical and psychological training, there are also a huge number of practical considerations. We need to ensure that our boat is race ready and that we have reliable water-purifying equipment and plenty of food — we’ll need to consume 5,000-6,000 calories a day!”
Aoife Ni Mhaoileoin.
Team Boatylicious writes:
On June 7, a doctor from Castleknock in Dublin will set off on a 2,400 mile rowing expedition from Monterey, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. Aoife Ní Mhaoileoin and her teammates, Emily Blagden, Laura Kennington and Ingrid Kvale, will be the first all-female four to complete the row, which will take over forty days. ‘Team Boatylicious’ is one of 15 crews participating in the inaugural Great Pacific Race, which the organisers describe as the “biggest, baddest human endurance challenge on the planet”.