This morning.
Nassau Street, Dublin 2
Preparations underway at the Kilkenny Group Store ahead of ‘Green Friday’ on November 29 – intended to replace the US shopping construct, Black Friday, in Ireland.
More than €50 million is spent in Ireland over the Black Friday weekend and Green Friday is “a powerful and passionate drive to reawaken people to the significance of buying Irish, and the wealth of talent and innovation Irish businesses represent”.
Fight!
Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland
Large scale photographs installed in line with their surroundings – the trompe l’oeil, mise en abîme illusions of Olivier Lovey.
David Rooney – Home
Wait for it…
Sung and drawn by Wicklow-based illustrator and musician David Rooney, who writes:
I am better known as a visual artist but have in recent years released my debut album produced by Declan O’Rourke and now I’m working with God is an Astronaut’s Torsten Kinsella.
This is the first single with Torsten as producer and features Susan O’Neill on harmony vocals and Floriane Blancke on harp.
Watch to the end for a surprise ending!
Nick says: I’m strangely drawn.
Niall Tóibín
This morning.
Via RTÉ:
The death has been announced of the actor and comedian Niall Tóibín.
He died in Dublin early today after a long illness.
RIP.
Actor and comedian Niall Tóibín dies, aged 89 (RTÉ)
Meanwhile…
Gay Byrne interviews Niall Toibin on The Late Late Show
Via RTE:
RTÉ previously announced a new documentary on Niall Tóibín, which is due to air as part of the forthcoming Christmas schedule. With exclusive access to rare family archive and countless excerpts from his TV shows, movies and stand-up performances, the documentary will offer a rare insight into one of Ireland’s greatest comical minds. It will feature interviews with all of Niall’s children, as well as Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne and Jim Sheridan.
Any excuse.
Pic: RTÉ
How the ‘monster sewage plant’ in Clonshaugh will look
This morning.
Plans for a €500 million waste water treatment plant in north Dublin have been given the go ahead by An Bord Pleanála.
The facility which local residents labelled a “monster sewage plant” provoked 14,000 objections…
…The permission allows for a 12km outfall pipeline to bring the treated wastewater from there to Baldoyle and out to sea for discharge around 1km north east of Ireland’s Eye.
…Local residents, farmers, water sport clubs and environmentalists had opposed the plan fearing the effect on the local land and the sea.
In particular they questioned the effect on Dublin Bay’s UNESCO designation and in particular Ireland’s Eye which will be near the outfall.
Good times.
€500m ‘monster sewage plant’ gets go ahead in Dublin (RTÉ)
Earlier: Sewer Would You Get It?
This morning.
Printworks, Dublin Castle, Dublin 2.
Minister for Health Simon Harris TD speaking at the launch of a new HSE patient advocacy service.
To wit:
The new service offers a confidential helpline with experienced advocates on-hand to provide information and support to patients who want to make a formal complaint to the HSE about the care they experienced in a public hospital.
Hmm.
New advocacy service to provide support for concerned patients (Irish Examiner)
Free tomorrow?
At 7pm in The Big Romance, Parnell Street, Dublin 1.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett will launch ‘Working for the Clampdown: The Clash, the Dawn of Neoliberalism and the Political Promise of Punk‘ edited by Colin Coulter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Maynooth University.
Colin says:
“Few bands can match the enduring influence and appeal of The Clash. The Clash broadened the cultural and political horizons of their audience and, for many, came to exemplify the power of music as a force for radical social change. Their musical tastes becoming ever more eclectic and their political field of vision ever more global…”
The dozen essays include those by Irish authors Coulter, Harry Browne, Kieran Cashell and Conrad Brunström.
Working for the Clampdown, published by Manchester University Press, costs £19.99 sterling and is now available in Irish bookshops.
And in Limerick?
Gabriela Avram tweetz:
We can’t let this happen! Let’s join forces and find solutions!
Meanwhile…
Yesterday, in the Seanad…
Senator Maria Byrne, from Limerick, told the Minister for Communication Richard Bruton:
“My biggest concern is that the University of Limerick wrote to RTÉ two months ago, as well as previously, but has not had the courtesy of a reply.
“The university authorities offered a space on the campus. There are many proposals out there. So many people want to see Lyric FM kept in Limerick. The cultural aspect is so important. Lyric FM has become the meat in the sandwich. There is to be a 100% staff cut.
“The workers are not sure whether they will be offered jobs in Cork or Dublin. This is supposed to be voluntary redundancy but the studio is being closed.
“My understanding is that a kiosk-type facility will be built for the regional correspondent. A studio will not be available if RTÉ, 2FM or anyone else comes to Limerick. That will be a huge disadvantage for Limerick and the region.”
Senator Kieran O’Donnell, also from Limerick, told the minister:
“They have been there since 1999. The studio is the best state-of-the-art facility outside of Donnybrook. It is in the heart of Limerick city and houses the RTÉ regional studio and Lyric FM.
“Lyric FM has the lowest cost per hour of any RTÉ station. I would make the counterbalancing case that there is a strong argument for the decentralisation of other arms of RTÉ, such as 2FM, to the Lyric FM studio in Limerick.
“A large amount of capacity is available and the livelihoods of 23 people are at stake.”
Transcript via Oirechtas.ie
Previously: Moya’s Merry Dance
Tonight.
On RTÉ One, at 9.35pm, RTÉ Investigates will broadcast a programme examining the repeated failures of the former Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland and the Scouting Association of Ireland in relation to sex abuse allegations.
The broadcast of Scouts Dishonour comes as Scouting Ireland, set up in 2003, continues to carry out its own historic review of how sex abuse allegations have been handled, with a report due out next February.
Reporter Oonagh Smyth told Audrey Carville, on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, that tonight’s documentary includes the case of one man who was first reported in 1987 and again in 1996.
However, the man wasn’t removed from the scouts until last year – when he was arrested.
She also referred to a briefing note prepared for the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone last year by Scouting Ireland’s CEO John Lawlor – that Ms Smyth and her team got under the Freedom of Information Act.
She said this states many records went missing in the 1990s from both the former Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland and the Scouting Association of Ireland and that there were people in the organisations who were prepared to facilitate the abuse and prevent cases from coming to light.
Ms Smyth said survivors are calling for a more independent inquiry than the review being currently undertaken by Scouting Ireland.
She also said the most recent figures indicate that 247 alleged perpetrators of abuse and 401 alleged cases of sexual abuse within the scouts have been identified.
Public inquiry urged into Scouting Ireland’s handling of abuse claims (Oonagh Smyth, RTÉ)
Listen back in full here
