Author Archives: Bodger

Dublin hurler Conal Keaney, John Treacy, CEO Sport Ireland, and Martina Blake, HSE lead for the Tobacco Free Ireland Programme

This morning.

Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.

The launch of a Smoke Free Initiative at the Sport Ireland Campus on National No Smoking Day. From today, smoking and vaping are banned in all public areas in the 500-acre Sport Ireland Campus, aside from a limited number of shelters.

Most literal PR shot set up of the year.

Only you can decide.

Pic: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Recent headlines and news reports about the launch of a drone food delivery service 

Next month a drone food delivery service will be launched at University College Dublin by Manna.

But not everyone is convinced…

Luke Nolan writes:

“Fake news has reached our shores with startling revelation that our Saturday night takeaways are to be delivered by none other than a drone.

To wake up this morning and have this as a headline on not one but two of my newspapers of choice had me panicking that I’d been in some kind of induced coma for a month and it was in fact April 1st.

Not only was a company claiming that this would become a reality in less than 3 months, but they were also boasting multi million investment and partners who were to be joined to this nonsensical idea.

Even RTE got in on the act, putting together a report on how it was all going to happen. As if they were under some kind of spell, neither RTE nor the national newspapers paused for a minute to ask the obvious question: how the hell could this ever work.

Why hasn’t someone grabbed hold of this like Marian Finucane did with Minister Joe Jacob when he came on daytime radio to explain how we’d all be saved by iodine tablets in the event of a nuclear war. Get a minute-by-minute explanation of how it’s supposed to work in real-life.

It’s Friday night and rather than cook, you decide to order from your local takeaway. I say ‘you’ in the singular form because the weight of more than one meal would have the arse of the drone dragging along the South Circular Road.

We’re led to believe that the meal will be cooked, placed in a box and then stowed in the drone which is then flown out the back of the takeaway arriving with the customer in less than three minutes.

Amazing, considering a scud missile being sent one side of Dublin to the other would take longer. Not to mention missing its target.

The drone is now taking off from somewhere out the back of a takeaway which normally has difficulty storing pizza boxes, but now accommodates a take-off and landing site, as well as a new member of staff, the Pilot.

After taking off and clearing the wheelie bins and cardboard boxes stacked against the back wall we’re then led to believe having avoided trees, lamp posts, road signs, tower cranes and various scaffolding towers that litter the city,

it hovers outside your front door waiting for you to press the ‘accept’ button on the app alert you’ve just received and step outside in the pouring rain and wind with open arms to accept the tasty parcel being lowered by organic compostable string.

That’s all assuming that you have a front door unlike half the city who live in apartments or flat complexes.

This notion of a flying chicken curry is not reality.

Early last year Amazon managed to create headlines around the world with the news that they were soon to begin parcel deliveries by drone.

It hasn’t happened and it won’t.

The closest I’ve ever come to this was seeing my neighbour’s dog carrying The Herald back from the shop in his mouth. Not a headline anywhere.”

Manna signs up Ben & Jerry’s and Camile Thai for flying food deliveries (RTÉ)

Manna

This morning.

Following the London audience ticket debacle, RTÉ have today announced that The Late Late Show is going back ‘on the road’ and will be broadcast from Limerick.

Via RTE:

Ryan Tubridy and The Late Late Show team are packing up and crossing West for what promises to be a spectacular show.

In the weekend leading up to St Patrick’s Day 2020, Fáilte Ireland have inspired The Late Late Show to hit the road and discover this beautiful country of ours.The Late Late Show Live in Limerick will showcase the best and brightest of Irish talent, celebrate Irishness and community spirit, and be broadcast live from the University Concert Hall on Friday March 13th on RTÉ One.

Previously: A Shabby Sense Of Entitlement

Comedian Joanne McNally tweetz:

“Reading an article in The Guardian about tourism in Essex. Not sure why the journo assumes the Irish tourists have never been out of Ireland before. We’re no longer reliant on an annual coffin ship to the Americas to get out and about.”

FIGHT!

At a protest against the homeless and housing crisis on Dublin’s O’Connell Street last November

Earlier.

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

Dr Geraldine Casey, from the HSE’s Department of Public Health in Limerick, spoke to Dr Gavin Jennings about new research she led into the long-term effect of homelessness on children in Limerick.

The most recent figures from the Department of Housing state there were 3,422 children living in homeless accommodation, as of the final week in December 2019.

Dr Casey said:

“The actual physical space that children are growing up in is affecting their development. So, if you think about a child living in a hotel room they can always have their hand to something at all times. So actually they don’t know if a lot of the children can walk independently or not.

“Or a child doesn’t have the chance to walk independently. So they’re seeing that children are delayed in their physical development because of the homeless situation that they’re in and the environment that they’re placed in.

“So last year 278 children in Limerick were housed in hotel rooms and another 250 in homeless hubs so it’s a significant number of children and a significant affect on them.”

“This study didn’t specifically look at that [the difference between family hubs and hotels]. We were just, I suppose this was an initial exercise and scoping, asking people what they thought the issues were. But I suppose a hotel room would be seen to be a worse environment than a homeless hub would be because hubs would provide much more space.

“Some of the hubs are actual apartments and other ones are rooms with shared and communal living.”

Dr Casey added:

“Another issue with the physical space is one service provider described a child having to do their homework on the toilet, sitting inside in the en suite because the younger children were asleep and so the lights needed to be turned off in the main room.

“And really I suppose there was a lot of issues with that, with affecting children’s education. So such is the trauma that children are experiencing they find it difficult to engage with education as well as the difficulties with just actually getting to school in the morning, if you’re placed in  hub which is placed far away from where you live [sic].”

“…we know that when children experience trauma in childhood that this will, can have an affect on their physical and mental health into the future.

“…that affect of the homelessness will last into the future and will impact on children’s health.”

“…there is growing research on adverse childhood experiences and homelessness for a young child is a traumatic experience so it absolutely would have affects. There are things that can mitigate those affects such as having strong relationships and having stability and obviously children who are placed in a homeless environment don’t have that stability.

“So we would have to, you know, look into helping them in the future with reducing those effects.”

Listen back in full here

Rollingnews

This evening.

In the Canal Court Hotel in Newry, Co Down.

Members of the public and supporters of Sinn Féin gather for a rally of the party, following similar rallies in Cork on Monday night and Dublin last night.

Meanwhile….

Previously: Meanwhile In Cork

Liberty Belle

Pics:  Michelle O’Neill and Ryan Carlin

UPDATE:

Meanwhile….

Tonight.

At the Grand Social in Dublin, People Before Profit held a public event called Fine Gael & Fianna Fáil Out: How The Left Can Win.

Speakers included Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Bríd Smith TD, Gino Kenny TD and Gerry Carroll MLA.

Fine Gael & Fianna Fáil Out: How The Left Can Win (Facebook)

This afternoon.

Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

Members of the Dublin Fire Brigade attend a call out to Leinster House.

Snickering Shinner with box of Maguire & Paterson ‘Safety Matches’ (out of picture).

More as we get it.

Rollingnews

How a millenial male gained confidence.

And you can too!

Rob writes:

This video is about one of the most exciting times of my life. I am now entering a stage with a more singular focus on my career, which will probably be fun too and last until I’m dead lol. It is good to be young.

Rob Reeves Films

This afternoon.

A new set of stamps celebrating the Irish Abroad designed by Dublin-based ZeroG is now available.

Via An Post:

Three of the stamps feature common themes of emigration: a photo of people gathering in ‘The Galtymore Dancehall’ in Cricklewood, London showing the importance of Irish Centres and Irish hubs to the emigrant community.

An image of suitcases at Dublin Airport (1969) capturing the common experience of people leaving Ireland.

A detail from the painting ‘Emigrants letter and envelope, 1988’ by Geraldine O’Reilly representing communication with home and the importance of staying in touch.

Two other ‘N’ stamps feature a gallery of Irish people who have made an impact on the world from the 1800s right up to the present, each of whom has emigrated and made a contribution in their own sphere of excellence: Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (Scientist), Richard Harris (Actor) and Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (Musician) and Edna O’Brien (Author), Fr. Michael J Kelly (Priest/Aid Worker) and Mary Elmes (Humanitarian) featuring on another stamp.

An Post