Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

echo

The Bishop of Cork and Ross has distanced himself from comments made by a priest who asked mourners at a funeral to pray that former lord mayor of Cork, John Murray (above), would be found not guilty of sex assault charges.

Murray, 83, of Gregg Rd, Cork, was found guilty by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court last Friday of sexually assaulting a teenager in 1996. The former Labour city councillor is due to be sentenced by Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin next Monday.

However, it has emerged a visiting Augustinian priest who was celebrating a funeral Mass in a church on the southside of Cork City last Thursday asked mourners during the prayers of intercession to pray that Murray would be found not guilty. The priest knew the deceased and it is also understood he is a friend of the Murray family.


Bishop: Friar’s comments on former lord mayor Murray ‘inappropriate’ (Eoin English, Irish Examiner)

pootsybear(DUP’s Edwin Poots)

Some 40% of DUP activists believe that creationism should be taught in science classes, a Belfast Telegraph survey has found. Creationism is the belief that the world, animals and plants were created “by a supernatural being less than 10,000 years ago”.

Mainstream science holds that the earth is four and a half billion years old and that life evolved from one-celled organisms. Some 50% of DUP respondents believed creationism shouldn’t be taught in science class, with 10% not knowing and 40% believing it should be there as well as, or instead of, mainstream science.

 

Won’t someone think of the dinosaurs?

Party conference: Teach creationism in science class – 40% of DUP (Liam Clarke, Belfast Telegraph)

Previously: There’s Poots As Queer As Folk

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NI First Minister Peter Robinson claims his party [DUP] represents Catholic values better than Sinn Fein or SDLP do and that “many from the Catholic community…will be voting for the DUP.”

He says his party’s stance on moral issues would also appeal to many conservative Catholics.

Hmm.

Robinson: DUP serves Catholics better than Nationalist parties (John Manley, Irish News) (behind paywall)

 

 

Warning over possibility of further bank capitalisations (Ciarán Hancock, Irish Times)

Banks are ‘unlikely to require further capital’ (John Walsh, Irish Examiner)

Blurred-lines

Robin Thicke’s controversial chart-topping hit Blurred Lines has become the first song in the 113-year history of Queen’s University Belfast’s Students’ Union to be banned.

The student representative council set a new precedent when it voted by 26-22 in favour of a motion to ban the song from being played in the union, in an effort to promote a safe space for students, as enshrined in its constitution.

The successful motion to ban the song at QUBSU was proposed by vice president of equality and diversity, Caoimhe MacNeill.

Caoimhe said there were no Blurred Lines when it comes to consent and that the language used in the song can be interpreted as rape apologetics.

 

 

No Blurred Lines at all as Queen’s University students ban Robin Thicke’s hit song (Amanda Ferguson, Belfast Telegraph)