Category Archives: Misc

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Inchicore Road, Dublin 8 yesterday

New look cycle friendly Dublin?

Not so fast.

Via Cian Ginty at IrishCycling.com:

The Kilmainham Civic Space project, led by [Dublin City Council] City Architects Division, redesigned the street space in front of Kilmainham Gaol and the offices, cafe, homes and hotel across from it…

…The project team ignored feedback requesting dedicated space for cycling in the project and ignored years of complaints to the council from people using the cycle route that taxis waiting and vans loading was common place on the previous two-way cycle lane outside the hotel and offices.

The new design includes mixing walking and cycling on footpaths and crossings; an unprotected contra-flow cycle lane already prone to parking and loading on it; car parking spaces inside the contra-flow cycle lane which motorists must cross to use the spaces; and mixing bicycles with tourist buses in a shared traffic lane.

A call from the NCBI, the national sight loss charity, not to mix walking and cycling on a section of the project were also ignored.

Cycle Lanes Concerns Ignored By Dublin City Council Leads To Predictable Results (IrishCycle.com)

saintsister

Friday, January 8: Therapy Sessions: We Cut Corners, Saint Sister, Jennifer Evans @ The Workman’s Club, 10 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2 (€5)

Nialler9 writes:

As part of First Fortnight, the mental health-focused festival that happens in the first two weeks of January every year, a night of music, poetry and performance under the name Therapy Sessions has been lined up this Friday. Curated by Dublin duo We Cut Corners, it will feature music from rising “atmosfolk” band Saint Sister (Gemma Doherty and Morgan MacIntyre, top and performing ‘Virtual Hate’ on the Two Tube above), singer-songwriter Jennifer Evans along with poetry from Dee Campbell, South London spoken word artist Molly Case and Ryan Mangan.

Nialler9’s Gig Guide January 4-11 (Nialler9)

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From left: Cabinet members Alex White, Simon Coveney, Enda Kenny, Joan Burton, Alan Kelly and Simon Harris this lunchtime

Relax.

Help is on its way (should this kind of thing happen again).

The set up of a Flood Management Co-Ordination and Implementation Group is among the matters discussed at a crisis summit at Government Buildings this afternoon

The new group would co-ordinate the local flood management plans for 66 different towns and settlements along the Shannon which are vulnerable to flooding.

Junior minister Simon Harris says other measures being discussed today include funding for a long-term weather forecasting system.

Glug.

#hometofloat

Govt discuss setting up national flood forecasting system to avoid future floods along Shannon (Irish Examiner)

Earlier: I Love Rain

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Ann Doherty with a picture of, from left, her twin Mary Boyle, brother Patrick and Ann

Gemma O’Doherty reported last month that Ann Doherty believed she had identified a new location in Donegal where she suspects her twin sister Mary Boyle – who vanished in 1977 – may have been buried.

Ms Doherty wrote to Garda Commissoner Noirin O’Sullivan requesting the area to be examined, on foot of new evidence she received last month.

Further to this…

Previously: Mary Boyle case on Broadsheet

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Amelia Gentleman, in The Guardian, reports:

Medical staff in Northern Ireland are operating in a “climate of fear”, worried about the threat of imprisonment if they offer advice to women seeking an abortion, healthcare leaders have said.

The number of legal abortions being carried out in Northern Ireland has halved in the past two years because doctors and midwives have been so alarmed by punitive draft guidelines, which state that healthcare workers risk life imprisonment for performing an unlawful abortion.

…

Hospital doctors, midwives and GPs all said they found it particularly difficult when women who were having a miscarriage after taking abortion pills bought online came to seek their advice, because of pressure to report anyone who has illegally procured an abortion.

One doctor (who asked not to be named because of the uncertain legal situation) recounted the unease he felt when a woman told him she had taken these pills. “It put me in an illegal position because, in the letter of the law, I should report. Obviously, I’m not going to do that, but this is the sort of problem you get,” he said.

Northern Ireland medics fear prison over abortion advice (Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian)

Previously: Illegal Abortion In Ireland