Author Archives: Admin

Marina Engels writes:

BlueFire Street Fest returns to Smithfield Square [Dublin 7] on September 16th for a FREE and family-friendly celebration of Dublin’s cultural diversity.

The multidisciplinary music and arts festival, which is celebrating its 5th birthday, promises to transport festival-goers “Around the World in 80 Steps” with feel-good performances from all corners of the globe.

The festival will run from 2 – 8pm with an exciting program that includes interactive workshops, street performances, live art installations, youth​ ​talks,​ ​a​ ​teen​ ​zone,​ ​kids​ ​area,​ ​craft​ ​&​ ​food​ ​markets​ ​and​ ​more!

Bluefire Street Fest

Top: Oscar Brennan and Shane Supple, of Bohemians Football Club; members of Bohemian FC playing football with prisoners in Mountjoy Prison

Luke O’Riordan, of Bohemian Football Club, writes:

The Bohemian Foundation will lead the Ireland representation at an international 7-a-side football competition for reformed prisoners in the Netherlands next week.

The trip to Veenhuizen is the result of an evolving five-year relationship between Bohemians and Mountjoy Prison organised through the Foundation.

Bohs have been conducting regular training sessions for prisoners in Mountjoy since 2012.

Thomas Hynes, Community Director at Bohemians and co-founder of the Bohemian Foundation, explains how the relationship started.

Hynes said: “I was working with the Simon Community with St Pat’s (Institution for young offenders, which has since been amalgamated into the Mountjoy Prison Complex) in the area of alcohol and drug rehabilitation.

“They found out I was involved with Bohemians and asked if the club could help out with bringing in players.

“I said we would see what we could do and over the last five years, it’s grown and grown. We’re in twice a week now.

“Through sport, they’re all on first-name terms, enjoying each other’s company. They can’t wait for Tuesdays and Thursdays to come.

“It relieves a lot of tension around the place and it helps show them there’s light at the end of the tunnel for them when they get out.

“We don’t just play football in the prison and leave it at that. We try to get them involved in local football when they are released – playing and coaching.

“The team that’s representing the Foundation and Ireland at next week’s competition are all people we’ve worked with over the past five years.

“We have nine guys travelling with us to the Netherlands – prisoners who have been released and who have not re-offended for a minimum of two years.”

Donnacha Walsh, Deputy Governor of Mounjoy Prison, adds: “I met Tommy five years ago and told him I’m an avid Cork City supporter.

“He told me about his involvement with Bohs and it started from there.

“It has had a very positive effect. Lads have left here and taken up playing football when they leave and have reintegrated into the community.

“Most importantly, they haven’t returned here. Anybody who doesn’t return to Mountjoy is a job well done.”

This season, it has been the turn of Bohemians first-team players Shane Supple and Oscar Brennan to volunteer their time on behalf of the Foundation.

They have conducted training sessions twice a week – on Tuesdays and Thursdays – for the past 3½ months.

Supple said: “It’s been good craic. We go in every week and we just try to let the lads play.

“They don’t get much time in the yard. They do have other bits to keep them going – work in the kitchen and stuff like that – but the lads say to us that it’s only really when we come in that they get an opportunity to go out and play.

“The more time they have out there is beneficial to them and their mental well-being. It’s a two-way thing too. They’ve taken an interest in us.

“They see our games on the telly, they see us on Soccer Republic.

“Every time time you come in on a Tuesday, they’re either praising you or slagging you: ‘Jaysus Shane, that was some save’ or ‘Oscar, what were you doing there?’

“We all know these lads have done something bad. But maybe they’ve just made mistakes and want to rehabilitate themselves.”

“The dynamic is interesting, there hasn’t been a bad tackle!

“Hopefully we can play a small part in how they view where they want to be when they get out.

“It’s been going for a number of years now – the lads going over to the tournament in Holland haven’t re-offended.

“In two years’ time, if some of the lads we’ve been involved with in training and coaching this year are in the same position, then it’s been a success.

“It’s small margins, but that’s what it’s all about.”

…now the prisoners are looking forward to going one step further – playing under lights at Dalymount Park for the Foundation Cup.

Hynes added: “At the end of Bohs’ season, we bring up about 15 prisoners who are on day-release to play a football game against a Foundation team for the Foundation Cup…

“We play at 5 o’clock so they get to play under the floodlights.

“How that came about was because when I used to come into the prison first, the lads would say to me ‘that sounded like a great match on Friday’ and I couldn’t understand how they knew.

“But from some of the cells, they could see the floodlights on from Dalymount and hear the roar of the crowd.

“It’d nearly break your heart. So I thought we had to do something, so when some of these guys were on day release I said ‘would you like to come up to Dalymount?’

“Through the Prison Service and through Governor Walsh, we organise for the day-release of 15 prisoners, under escort, up to Dalymount.

“Their families aren’t even told when we’re having it.

“It’s fully behind closed doors but we get a Foundation team out to play them and hopefully give them something to aspire to.”

Read Luke’s post in full here

Broadcaster George Hook

“We the undersigned wish to express our utter repudiation of the views expressed by George Hook on High Noon last Friday.

We also wish to express our profound disappointment with management in Communicorp at their failure to deal with this issue swiftly and decisively.

The longer George Hook remains on air, the more reputational damage this station will suffer: damage that will unfairly reflect on the hardworking and professional staff at Newstalk.

Misogyny should never be normalised, and we call upon management at Communicorp to defend the reputation of the station and the reputation of the staff at Newstalk by removing Mr Hook.”

The text of a letter signed by ‘up to 20 members of staff’ at Newstalk

Update:

Sharon O’Halloran, CEO of Safe Ireland, which works with women and children affected by domestic violence,  told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland:

“George Hook doesn’t stand alone in his opinions and what we have in this country is about 10% of women who experience sexual violence are reporting it so they’re afraid to come forward because they feel that they won’t be believed or that their needs won’t be met when they do that so we have a problem and, you know, George Hook doesn’t stand alone in this and we have to work much harder to change culture in this country to address this issue.

I think you can hear over the comment the last week, since this story broke in the first place, there’s a lot of people, you know, agreeing with George Hook, but I think what I want to say is, there’s an awful lot of people that don’t agree with George Hook. And what I can see is change has already happened in this country.

Ten years ago, if George Hook made these comments, there probably wouldn’t be any reaction at all. Today there’s huge reaction.

“There’s a huge mass of people saying ‘this is unacceptable, we don’t want this on our watch’. We want to ensure that there is not victim blaming in this country and that we take the issues of rape and sexual assault seriously.

So this is hopeful, that doesn’t mean that we haven’t got an awful lot more to do. We do and we need leadership around this.

And I do commend the Dalata Hotel Group for actually taking that leadership.

“It’s leadership like that that enables the rest of us to have the courage to stay with saying ‘this is unacceptable and not on our watch’.

“And there are other sponsors as well, on Newstalk, that really need to reflect on where they’re at in this position and it would do them no harm to act with the Dalata Group and stand for what they want to see in society which is a society that is safe for women and children.

His apology is welcome but, you know, you could ask if it’s too late. I mean I do think that it’s coming to a point where I think his position is untenable within Newstalk.

But that’s, also, within Newstalk, in terms of their own leadership around this issue, have a lot to answer for.

They’re a news station that from 7am to 7pm in the day have no female voices on the radio. So in terms of leadership and in terms around equality and human rights, I think they have a few questions to answer themselves.

So I do welcome his apology but, you know, there’s been damage done as a result of a key leader on a national broadcast saying what he did say last Friday.”

‘Anon Tenant’ writes:

I saw your post about the tiny bedsit in D8 and I decided to check if it was registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB)..

It turned out that the property was registered in 2013. Registrations lasts for four years, so it is expired right now.

Following the expiration of registration, the RTB will send a letter to the landlord reminding them to renew it, if they intended to rent the property out again.

When I asked the RTB person what could be done about this, he said that unless I was the tenant, I couldn’t raise an enforcement claim through the RTB.

And if I was a tenant, would I raise this issue? I don’t think so. Especially when I could be given 28 days notice to quit for any reason in the first 6 months of tenancy.

I have checked other properties listed on Daft before, and they too were not listed with the RTB, but it seems crazy to me that properties can be advertised without meeting the minimum of being a registered property. (Never mind meeting minimum standards, but sin scéal eile.)

No wonder the Government can’t give accurate housing figures when they don’t even know what’s being rented.

Earlier: Crying Plans

‘sup?

Jonny O’Malley writes:

This October 10-17, challenge yourself, your friends, your family and your work colleagues to give up meat for a week and raise funds for a great cause, Dogs Trust …

No Meat Week is an annual campaign about making the choice to eat less meat, care more for the environment, help animals and feel better too.

Our main goals are to raise money to help animals, eat less of them, change our diets and help the environment in the process.

We have teamed up with Dogs Trust and all money raised will go directly to them to keep up the good fight in rescuing and re-homing dogs.

No Meat Week (Facebook)

No Meat Week

The Jaguar E-Type Zero – lighter and faster than the 1968 Series 1.5 Roadster on which it is modelled – has an all-electric (zero-emissions) engine capable of 0-100km/h in 5.5 seconds.

Other modifications by Jaguar Land Rover Classic include LED headlamps and revised instrumentation based on the original 1968 layout.

The prototype was unveiled in London last weekend to gauge interest in production and, presumably, remind customers that after 2020, Jaguar Land Rover will cease making petrol and diesel engined cars altogether.

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