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James Reilly and Michelle Mulherin; both lost their seats at the General Election

The former TDs parachuted into Seanad Eireann include Dr James Reilly, former health and children’s minister, and Mr Kenny’s past constituency running mates Michelle Mulherrin and John O’Mahony. Ray Butler who has represented Meath West in the past and Paudie Coffey, a former junior minister.

Frank Feighan, is also nominated. He is a former Senator and TD from Roscommon who decided not to stand in the February election after facing deep voter anger at health cuts in the county.

Enda Kenny retains five colleagues who lost jobs after election (Belfast Telegraph)

Previously: In The Line Of Feighan

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

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Roy Greenslade, this afternoon

This afternoon.

Roy Greenslade , The Guardian’s media correspondent and former editor of the Daily Mirror, giving the keynote speech at at the launch of the 2015 Annual Report of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman.

Professor Greenslade’s theme was the future of print in Ireland and abroad.

So the UK is still blessed with a diverse press, but what of Ireland’s media and, just as significantly, what about the future for that media?

New Zealand is a country about to have a single media owner.

Could the same happen here?

Is there enough political will to prevent it?

And even if there was, would the free market triumph?

I think it fair to say that the rise of the internet was just a contributory factor to the fact that
one person has accumulated control of the country’s best-selling daily and Sunday newspapers, Dublin’s evening paper, a tabloid, half share in another tabloid, plus 14
regional papers and two national talk radio stations.

However, the digital revolution’s advance is putting his major rival newspaper owners in peril. As in many other countries where newspapers are going to the wall the market-leading owner could well end up being the last man standing.

Gulp.

Prof Greensalde added:

…That’s a very worrying scenario to imagine, although Ireland may benefit from UK-based
newspapers, at least in the short term. I also note that there have been some enterprising
online start-ups here.

I’ve no desire to rain on their parade, just as I admire news start-ups in the UK and the United States, but they have yet to gain the scale of audiences necessary to influence what we might call “the national conversation” and, in so doing, carry forward the journalistic mission on which democracy depends.

FIGHT!

Full text of speech here

Suddenly, national newspapers are heading for that print cliff fall (Roy Greenslade, The Guardian)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

"NO Castletown House

From top: Artist Richard Gorman; Castletown House

To celebrate the arrival of ‘CASA’ an exhibition by Italy-based Irish abstract artist Richard Gorman, at Castletown House, Celbridge, Co Kildare we have two (yes TWO) Office of Public Works (OPW) Family Heritage Cards to give away.

PLUS a free  lunch in the Castletown courtesy of the OPW team at Castletown.

Christina Mahon writes:

An OPW Family Heritage Card provides FREE admission for 2 Adults and 3 Children into fee paying state-managed sites  for one full year from the date of first use….

To enter, please complete this sentence:

‘Just give me the OPW Family Heritage Card as I desperately need to take my family (real or imagined) to…………………….[name of fee-paying, state managed site]’

Helpful list of sites here 

Lines MUST close Saturday morning 9.30am MIDDAY 6pm.

Castletown House

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The National Homeless and Housing Coalition is organising a protest.

Supporters will meet tomorrow at 2pm, outside the Custom House, Dublin 1 before marching to the GPO on O’Connell Street.

End the housing crisis – it’s an emergency (Facebook)

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 14.35.42

An interesting musical experiment by musician Steve-san ‘Samurai Guitarist’ Onotera.

What he’s done here is perform an incredibly slow instrumental cover of Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles, taking a full half hour (appropriately, either side of dawn) to pick all the notes. He then speeds up the recording by a factor of 20, approximating the speed of the original.

The result is a strange, not unpleasing modulated violin effect.

Steve-san discusses it in more detail here.

kottke

BorntoRum

This afternoon.

Flanagan’s,  O’Connell Street, Dublin 1

Sinead writes:

As a tribute to the Boss (playing Croke Park this evening) we’ve created a menu special: ‘The Hungry Heart’ – deliciously tender Texas Beef Short Ribs served up with Smoked Beans & Bacon, Red Cabbage, Slaw and Sweet Potato Fries ‘Born To Rum’ is the featured cocktail. A rock and roll concoction of Rum, honey, apple and lime juice (€10) created specially by the Flanagan’s mixologist.Both served up with a free pair of Stars and Stripes sunglasses!!

Any excuse

Meanwhile…

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Bruce with staff from the Flyefit Gym on Baggot St, Dublin 2, where he dropped in for a workout last night.

Flyefit/Rollingnews

Meanwhile….

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Frank O’Dea writes:

We’ve no Bruce Springsteen portrait prints but we do have these…For quick sale . Discretion assured. Balla Bàn Art Gallery Westbury Mall Dublin…

vincent

We were surprised and disappointed by the inaccuracies and suppositions contained in David McConnell’s letter (May 18th).

There are two points in particular that we would like to correct. First, David McConnell makes a serious allegation that “some years ago” a patient on life support in St Vincent’s hospital was transferred to Tallaght Hospital to facilitate withdrawal of life support.

Mr McConnell claims that this alleged incident occurred simply because the hospital “did not want to facilitate the courts or the relatives”.

We have been consultants in intensive care medicine since our appointments in 1993 and 1994. For the first 10 years of our tenure, we were the only consultant intensivists at St Vincent’s hospital and were responsible for the care of all patients on life support.

Our appointments predated the opening of Tallaght hospital and we can categorically state that no such incident ever arose during our tenure and nor have we ever refused to comply with a court order.

We are proud of the care we provide to critically ill patients in St Vincent’s, particularly since we now have an additional four new colleagues who are also highly trained here in Ireland and overseas.

End-of-life care is complicated and decision-making in intensive care is always taken with regard to the patient’s best interests. In addition, communication with relatives and families is of paramount importance. David McConnell’s inaccurate allegations impugn our professional reputations and the services which we provide and are wholly unfounded.

Second, David McConnell claims that in the past, newly appointed staff to St Vincent’s hospital were required to sign a form requiring them to adhere to Catholic ethics.

We commenced employment in October 1994 and May 1993 respectively and neither of us was required to sign such a form. If this was hospital policy at that time, then the hospital authorities must have made an omission in both of our cases. Alternatively, this policy did not exist at that time, or indeed since then.

Dr Patrick Benson,
Dr Kieran Crowley,
Consultants in Intensive,
Care Medicine,
St Vincent’s University Hospital,
Dublin 4.

National Maternity Hospital and ethics (Irish Times letters page)

Broadsheet.ie