Extremely impressive single-purpose robots designed by Japanese high school students for RoboCon 2018.

Their function? To toss water-filled bottles onto platforms at various heights, landing them right-way up with preternatural accuracy. 

A thankless, pointless task which will eventually lead them to kill all humans,.

awesomer

Behold: the 1953 Jaguar XK120 roadster – the fastest car of its day, with sweeping aerodynamic styling unlike anything else on the road, powered by a 3.4l inline six engine that would remain in production until 1992. Fully restored and presented with its original black paint and red leather interior, it sold at auction this month for €103,500.

uncrate

Related: Trump could visit Ireland as early as June – Taoiseach (March 15, 2019, RTE)

If RTÉ won’t do it…

There has been a positive reaction to the recent launch of the Play Irish app – an internet radio station that plays exclusively Irish music all day and all of the night.

Currently the app offers a series of curated playlists featuring everyone from Horslips to Hozier, Snow Patrol to U2, but plans to introduce specialist shows created by some of Ireland’s best musicians, DJs and industry ‘movers’n’shakers’ are afoot.

The service is available globally online (at link below) or via the Radioplayer platform and mobile app.

Sinead Troy, one of the founders, said:

“Every serious music city or territory has its own small but cool radio station that champions new and exciting music. Play Irish will be ours to champion Irish music at home and internationally.”

Hear, hear!

FIGHT!

Play Irish

From top: Tuam; Fianna Fáil TD and spokesperson for Children and Youth Affairs Anne Rabbitte; yesterday’s Sunday Business Post

From the party that gave you the indemnity deal…

Journalist Michael Brennan, in yestersay’s Sunday Business Post reported that Fianna Fáil had called on the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone to stop her plans to excavate the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Mr Brennan reported:

Fianna Fáil children’s spokeswoman Anne Rabbitte said the estimated €13 million cost of excavating the Tuam site could not be justified when the money could be spent helping the children of today.

“There has to be a dose of reality and realism in all of this. Children living in hubs feel like they are prisoners. We will go down in history as the politicians that failed the children of the 21st century,” she said.

…“It’ll never be finished in her lifetime because no cabinet will approve a carte blanche cheque for an excavation if we don’t know where it will end. It’s a wilful waste of public money that could be spent on the children of today,” she said.

Rabbitte questioned if Zappone wanted to dig up every ‘cillín’ in the country (cilliní are traditional burial grounds for children who were stillborn or died before being baptised). She said that a better solution would be to agree a way of reverently remembering the children through commemorative plaques or gardens of remembrance.

Good times.


Meanwhile…

Yesterday, outside the office of Terry Prone’s Communications Clinic…

FF wants €13m Tuam cash diverted to homeless children (Sunday Business Post)

Previously: Death In Tuam

Reputable History

Our Worst Fears

UPDATE:

This morning.

On Galway Bay FM show Galway Talks With Keith Finnegan, Ms Rabbitte and historian Catherine Corless spoke about the matter.

Ms Corless asked Ms Rabbitte directly to explain her “bare turn around on her views on Tuam” as the TD previously said she was supporting excavation.

Ms Corless added that Ms Rabbitte had upset many survivors by saying excavating the site at Tuam would be a waste of money.

Ms Rabbitte told the show:

“I suppose where Anne Rabbitte is coming from, and what I’d like to say Catherine is, I’m looking for a timeframe, you can’t blame me for that.

“This can’t go on forever and interim report after interim report. It’s not fair on the survivors, it’s not fair on the good work that you and all your people have done.”

Mr Finnegan asked Ms Rabbitte:

“But did you use the words, money was squandered in the Tuam mother and baby situation?”

Ms Rabbitte said:

“A paper never refused ink and that is not what I said. I never, it would not come out of my mouth.” 

Ms Corless asked if Ms Rabbitte was misquoted, to which Ms Rabbitte said:

“I never said there was money squandered on the Tuam… and baby home. What I’m saying is we need to have accountability…”

Listen back in full here

From top: Whelan’s, Wexfor Street, Dublin 2; Joe Nicholson (right) with Townes Van Zandt and friend in Whelan’s in the 1990s; tweet last week

The great and the good of the Irish music industry packed Mount Jerome Chapel in Dublin last Saturday at the funeral of Joe Nicholson.

Joe was synonymous with Whelan’s bar, having worked as the gatekeeper of the Wexford St music venue for many years.

Previously, he had worked as a tour manager and a driver for innumerable visiting artists, including Bob Dylan, Al Green and Elvis Costello. A warm-hearted larger-than-life character with an encyclopaedic knowledge of rock’n’roll, Joe was unmistakable at the door usually in his trademark black fedora.

The musical tributes at the funeral service came from Leslie Dowdall, who sang the moving ‘Spirit In The Night’; Mundy, who delivered a fitting version of ‘If I Needed You’ written by one of Joe’s musical heroes Townes Van Zandt; and a rousing rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’ by Paddy Casey, Declan O’Rourke, Mundy, Alice Jago, Leslie Dowdall and Colm Mac Con Iomaire. Mundy also recited a poem ‘Goodbye Big Joe’ he wrote to honour his old friend’s memory.

RIP

Whelan’s

 

Seamus Dooley, of the National Union of Journalists, tweetz:

On eve of Lyra’s funeral the NUJ is hosting a vigil at Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin  at 6pm. All welcome.

Celebrate life & legacy of Lyra, take a stand for a better future. Music, song, reflections.

New IRA admits murder of journalist Lyra McKee and offers ‘sincere apologies’ (Connia Young, The Irish News)

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