This afternoon.

Government Buildings, Dublin 2

A COVID-19 (Coronavirus) with above, from left: Deirdre Watters, Head of Communications, Department of Health; Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Irish Department of Health; Acting Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Elizabeth Canavan, Assistant Secretary General at Department of the Taoiseach.

Elective surgeries, appointments cancelled at UL hospitals (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Um.

Care to share the joke?

Seeing as we’re all going to DIE.

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews/Pool

Michael Weston, General Manager Slieve Donard Hotel with his dog Atticus.

‘sup?

This afternoon.

Slieve Donard Hotel, Newcastle, County Down.

The centenary of the death of Percy French was commemorated with the unveiling of an installation in his honour.

Darren Hughes writes:

One of Ireland’s greatest songwriters, composers and entertainers French is best known as a writer of humorous songs such as Phil The Fluther’s Ball, Slattery’s Mounted Foot, Are You Right There Michael, Come Back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff and, most famously, The Mountains of Mourne.

The €230,000 installation consists of the words of the latter song interwoven in three metal panels and was unveiled by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, a renowned French fan.

Commissioned by Hastings Hotels, who own the Slieve Donard Hotel, the installation is designed by Andrew Todd of Tandem Design, who has worked on Titanic Belfast and King John’s Castle in Limerick, and is produced by local craftspeople.

Slieve Donard Hotel

Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye

 

Behold: the slow, slow dance of galaxies NGC 5394 and NGC 5395. How slow? Each turn takes several hundred million years. To wit:

NGC 5394 and NGC 5395, slowly whirl about each other in a gravitational interaction that sets off a flourish of sparks in the form of new stars. The featured image, taken with the Gemini North 8-meter telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, USA, combines four different colours. Emission from hydrogen gas, coloured red, marks stellar nurseries where new stars drive the evolution of the galaxies. Also visible are dark dust lanes that mark gas that will eventually become stellar nurseries. If you look carefully you will see many more galaxies in the background, some involved in their own slow cosmic dances.

(Image: Gemini, NSF, OIR Lab, AURA; Text: Ryan Tanner (NASA/USRA))

apod

Staying in St Patrick’s night?

National treasure John Sheahan‘s 80th Birthday Concert on TG4.

Deirdre Ní Choistín writes:

To mark his 80th birthday, John performed a very special concert in Vicar Street accompanied by a host of Ireland’s finest singers, songwriters and musicians.

John brought the audience, including guest of honour President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on a magical musical journey filled with songs, music, stories and craic.

Special guest musicians included Oscar winning singer song writer, Glen Hansard, Ralph McTell, and Dublin singer songwriter Declan O’Rourke, who performed his hit single “Galileo”. Imelda May even made a surprise appearance on stage presenting John with a special birthday cake

Throughout the night John was accompanied by world class musicians including saxophonist Richie Buckley, jazz guitarist Drazen Derek, classical guitarist Michael Howard, violinists Colm Mac Con Iomaire, accordionist Danny O’Mahony and conductor and concert pianist Gavin Murphy. Members of John’s own family also took to the stage for some of John’s own compositions including the Marino Waltz (above).

On TG4, St. Patrick’s Day at 9:30pm.

Pics: TG4

Yikes.

Rollingnews

Earlier: Small Gathering

Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny (second left) and former Minister for Finance Michael Noonan (right) and  Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottle (second right) and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Coca Cola Company, Neville Isdel in Barbados on June 20, 2019

Well for some.

Meanwhile…

Um.

Meanwhile…

Gulp.

Public trust and consultation critical (Barbados Today, June 20, 2019)

Right To Know

Ken Foxe

Broadsheet.ie