Yearly Archives: 2016

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This morning.

South Georges Street, Dublin

A new mural to mark International Women’s Day and 1916..

Darragh writes:

Irish artist Gearoid O’Dea has installed a 35 foot street art installation inspired by the Women of 1916. The installation is on the corner of South Great George’s Street, the same location as Joe Caslin’s iconic Marriage Equality mural.

The title of Gearoid’s piece is ‘Le Chéile I Ngruaig’, which translates as ‘Together in the hair’. It features three women who each played an important role in the Easter Rising: Countess Markievicz (left), Margaret Pearse (right) and Grace Gifford-Plunkett (bottom). The piece was drawn in full colour using the mediums of colouring pencil and gouache, with a focus on meticulous detail. It was then scanned and digitally reproduced on a large scale….

Gearóid O’Dea

Leah Farrell/Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

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Ah here.

Thanks Kathleen

 

This morning on the 77a, rocking this free world from Citywest to the Barn.

Seats are not for feet, still.

Context: Dublin Bus U-turn on Radio Ban Policy (98fm)

Thanks Anne-Marie Sexton

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Unconquered Darkness Fest
April 30th-May 2nd, The Voodoo Lounge, Dublin

What you may need to know…

01. A co-promotion of Irish metal staple Invictus Productions and Colorado-based label Dark Descent Records, Unconquered Darkness Fest is a death-metal/black-metal weekender happening in Dubland’s Voodoo Lounge from April 30 to May 2.

02. Headlining are American death-metal veterans Morpheus Descends, Canada’s Adversarial, and Belgian blackened death-metallers Possession. Lining the undercard is a mix of Irish and international bands, including Invictus and Dark Descent signees.

03.  Heading up the complement of Irish artists are sonic anti-matter manipulators ZOM and Dublin five-piece Vircolac. Also on the bill are Maveth, Lantern and new Invictus signees Malokarpatan.

04. Dark Descent will have a stand on hand with merch and label wares. Tickets are available from Invictus’ webshop, and advance tickets allow for free-in to the Friday night preshow, making it three nights of heaviosity from around the world for fifty beans.

Verdict: The line-out is shaping up to be a seriously weighty weekend, looking well worth the price of admission for genre devotees. *horn sign*

Unconquered Darkness

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Former Galway Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh

Via The Sunday Times Ireland:

While [Fine Gael TD] Brian Walsh, 43, announced he would not be standing for re-election in his Galway seat last November, he told a local radio station that he would “most certainly” see out his term until election day.

Walsh resigned his seat on January 14, three weeks before President Michael D Higgins dissolved the Dail and the election was called.

On November 11, Walsh told the Keith Finnegan Show on Galway Bay FM he would not be getting a “gravy train” payout, or any pension until he was 66. The TD promised he would “most certainly” fulfil his mandate “right up until election date”.

However, on December 16, Walsh wrote to the Oireachtas to apply for “early retirement on grounds of ill health”. {Walsh said he had been admitted to hospital in 2013 “with acute diverticulitis” and spent nine days under a consultant’s care]

If his application is granted he can get his pension now instead of waiting 23 years until he is 66.

The decision will be made by Labour’s Brendan Howlin, the ceann comhairle Seán Barrett and the Seanad cathaoirleach Paddy Burke, who are trustees of the Oireachtas pension scheme.

They could grant Walsh a notional extra five years’ service if they assume he would have been re-elected were it not for his illness.

The total benefit before retirement age could be worth almost €500,000 over 23 years.

Good times.

Walsh vowed to forgo TD pension (Mark Tighe, Sunday Times)

Rollingnews

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.06863

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada --- Men hold Alexander Graham Bell's kite glider, The Frost King. --- Image by © National Geographic Creative/Corbis

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Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada --- An Alexander Graham Bell experimental kite flies above a field. --- Image by © Bell Collection/National Geographic Creative/Corbis

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada --- Alexander Graham Bell's tetrahedral kite is towed on the water. --- Image by © National Geographic Creative/Corbis

1904, St. Louis, Missouri, USA --- Alexander Graham Bell, the Scotsman who invented the telephone, experimented with giant man-carrying kites during the first decade of the 20th Century. --- Image by © Corbis

In 1899, Scottish American engineer Alexander Graham Bell, the man best known as the inventor of the telephone, began investigating the possibility of powered flight. To wit:

Inspired by the box kites of Australian [aeronautical pioneer] Laurence Hargrave, Bell began to multiply the lift-providing cells, creating compound structures of multiple kites.The basic problem of creating flying objects is that as a body’s surface area is squared, its weight is cubed, limiting the maximum size and lifting capability. Over the course of years experimenting at his Nova Scotia laboratory, Bell discovered that a tetrahedron — a three-dimensional prism of four triangular sides — could be useful.

READ ON: Bell’s Tetrahedral Kites (Mashable)

thisisntahappiness

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Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Brussels this morning

In Brussels.

Several Irish journalists asked Taoiseach Enda Kenny questions as he arrived for a meeting between Turkey and the EU’s heads of states or government – to discuss the numbers of refugees reaching Europe.

It’s being reported that Turkey is now seeking €20billion in return for Turkey taking back all non-Syrian refugees from Europe.

In addition, Turkey wants faster accession talks and quicker visa-free travel for its citizens within Europe.

Readers may wish to note that Ireland’s naval service rescued more than 8,000 people from Italy-bound boats off the coast of Libya and haven’t been present in the Aegean Sea to date, where boats of refugees, leaving Turkey, are bound for the Greek islands.

Ann Cahill (Irish Examiner): “Can Ireland not do any more? In terms of helping the situation. I mean we have very few of the EU’s first-time asylum-seekers last year and I know we’re taking some but could we not do more?

Enda Kenny: “The problem is not only on the Irish side, we’re actually not, as you know, part of the protocol, Ann, but the thing is that we’ve taken some from resettlement and relocation. We’re committed to taking 4,000 and we’re working towards that with the personnel that we have, from Ireland, coming to both Greece and to Italy and with the hotspots and the personnel working there.”

Cahill: “Can we not take more from Turkey?”

Kenny: “Well I think we should first of all be able to deal with what we’ve got with the commitment that we’ve entered into. I might say, I spoke this morning as well to the Minister for Defence [Simon Coveney], I expect that it’s our intention to send one of our vessels down to the Mediterranean again, in order to help with the situation there, in so far as humanitarian assistance is concerned whether that be as part of the formally, of the European response or on a bi-lateral basis will be worked out. But it’s our intention to send a further vessel down.”

Cahill: “And will they take people back to Turkey if…”

Kenny: “Well that has to be worked out in respect of sending them down first of all and in what role they’ll play there either as part of a formal European, humanitarian response or as a bi-lateral arrangement as we had before.”

Cahill: “And would you favour that, would you..”

Kenny: “I’m fully in support of the call and the intention of sending a further vessel down, they did rescue 8,000 people on the last occasion.”

Watch in full here

Previously: Cannon Fodder

Ireland And The Turkey Refugee Facility

‘We Can Bus The Refugees To Greece’

Choice Would Be A Fine Thing

Related: EU migration summit stalls as Turkey ups demands – live (The Guardian)