All rise.
Jesus, or a possible false idol from Monsterevenin, Co Kildare (we may never know) milling about Dublin on Saturday.
Do the thing with the wine, etc.
The Capuchin Day centre
Stuck for a roof this Xmas?
Lisa Kelleher, at Dublin City Council, writes:
Throughout the Christmas period, the work of the four Dublin local authorities and state-funded services will continue to provide emergency accommodation and support services for over 3,500 adults and children , every night, right across the Dublin region. This is a 71% increase in adults and children using our services, since November 2014.
If you are at risk of sleeping rough:
Contact the Housing First Service on 086 813 9015 from 7am until 11am This service is the official on-street response team to assist you if you are at risk of rough sleeping. Please contact the service immediately and be aware that if you are outside the city centre area, transport will be available to bring you to accommodation if you need it.
We would also like to appeal to members of the public to contact the service on www.homelessdublin.ie if they meet a person who is rough sleeping. The website provides a quick link to be completed, that will immediately alert the Housing First Service to the location of the person who might be sleeping rough.
If you are in need of emergency accommodation:
If your tenancy has ended and you are in need of emergency accommodation over the Christmas period from December 25th 2015 until January 3rd 2016 please contact Dublin City Council’s Homeless FREEPHONE on 1800 707 707. This service will be available everyday from 10am until 2am.
If you are in a family and accomodated in a commercial hotel:
The four Dublin local authorities have been contingency planning since October 2015 to ensure that the placements for households that are currently accommodated in commercial hotels can be extended through the Christmas period into early January 2016, whilst daily local authority placement offices are not open.Where hotels are closing for the Christmas period, alternative placements have been put in place.This information has been communicated to all relevant families, however we would appeal again to families to contact 1800 707 707 if they are concerned about their placement.
If you are renting and worried about losing your home:
If you are worried about your lease ending before Christmas or early in the new year, the Dublin local authorities would urge you to contact their dedicated Tenancy Protection Service, provided by Threshold on 1800 454 454 as soon as you feel your tenancy is at risk.
Annual Christmas Day dinner
The Knights of Columbanus continue to host the annual Christmas Day Dinner in the RDS, Ballsbridge, Anglesea Road Entrance. A free bus service is provide to and from the RDS every 20 minutes from 9.30am from three pick up points; Mansion House -Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Four Courts – Inns Quay, Dublin 1 and Clery’s Clock – O’ Connell Street, Dublin 1
Day services
There are a range of day services that are available and open throughout the Christmas period including;Capuchin Day Centre – 29 Bow Street, Dublin 7; Merchants Quay Day Service and Night Café – Riverbank, 4 Merchants Quay, Dublin 8 and Focus Ireland Coffee Shop – 15 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Give It Away
at
Presents.
For everyone.
Keith writes:
Limerick Self Storage celebrated 100 years in business this year and to mark the occasion we travelled around Limerick giving away 100 gifts. Over four days we met everyone from a 1 year old baby to a 103 year old woman, in all giving away €10,000, and we created this heart-warming video, capturing everyone’s reactions.
Fair play/Fight!
High court refuses to order PR company to disclose client who commissioned dossier re Denis O’Brien. @rtenews
— Orla O’Donnell (@Orlaodo) December 21, 2015
High court says no proof of publication so no defamation and no proof of wrongdoing or harm to Denis O’Brien. @rtenews — Orla O’Donnell (@Orlaodo) December 21, 2015
Vexatious litigant is vexatious.
Previously: They All Have It Infamy
This afternoon
Odean Cinema, Charlestown, Finglas, Dublin 11
Gavin Warren (in Darth mask) conducts the Finglas Concert Marching Band as the Odeon cinema annouce that 90% of sales at its cinemas this weekend were for Star Wars:The Force Awakens.
Ninety per cent.
Thanks Aislinn.
(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)
Robyn writes:
Rascal posed just long enough for this picture to be taken. The hat was disintegrated seconds later.
Kaye writes:
Trixie the Pit [Bull] is dressed and ready for her first Xmas…
Lee writes:
Indy wishes everyone a happy Xmas…
Aoife writes:
Stella has decided not to knock down this card in the hope that Christmas Wishes really means treats.
Colette writes:
Jack (top) outraged by the indignity of it all. Sam (above) getting his Christmas on.
Frilly Keane writes:
The real Queen of Ireland Jessie Cooper. With reindeer buttie…
My pet at Xmas to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘My Pet At Xmas’ A present for every pet posted.
Earlier: Come Let us Adorn Them
Distressing
at
Saoirsely?
at
Actress Saoirse Ronan
I fail to understand the furore on social media this side of the Irish Sea because the London Film Critics Circle made reference to Irish actress Saoirse Ronan being shortlisted for the “Young British Performer of the Year”. It is not just the British that display a blurred sense of identity when dealing with Irish issues; we have mastered that trait ourselves.
The British sporting and entertainment industries routinely categorise Irish successes as British achievements and act accordingly by awarding titles of nobility to leading Irish notables as if they were British subjects.
Historically, one of the options open to a major power wishing to absorb or annex a smaller country over a prolonged period of time would have been to integrate gradually the elite and notables of the smaller country into the social and political establishment of the major imperial power.
Sooner, rather than later, society in the Irish State must make fundamental decisions regarding its political identity, ethos and future policy directions. Will we continue along the path of nation-building, slowly trying to assert a distinct postcolonial Irish identity in alliance with the nations of Europe, or do we now instead see ourselves as part of the “Anglosphere”, realigning ourselves ever more closely towards Great Britain?
This is a serious question, and it is being posed because recent Government actions and trends suggest that the State is involved in a significant shift away from the type of political identity that has been projected since the establishment of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.Tom Cooper,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.
FIGHT!
British honours and Irish citizens (Irish Times letters page)
Related: And the best British actor is . . . Saoirse Ronan? Really? (Donald Clarke, Irish Times)
Leah Farrell/RollingNews
No Escape
at
Port Tunnel, Dublin
Hot Press reports:
“Dublin music radio station Radio Nova is preparing to take legal action against Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the operator of the Dublin Port Tunnel. The legal action will challenge TII in relation to the fact Nova’s programmes cannot be heard in the Tunnel. Only seven radio stations are broadcast in the Port Tunnel due to limitations in its current system. Radio Nova is not one of them.”
“Radio Nova claims the restriction is in breach of EU competition regulations and the 2002 Competition Act and that it is “inherently unfair and damaging” to its business.”
“… In what may prove to be a controversial view, Nova is also claiming that the Port Tunnel’s system for communicating with motorists in the event of emergency is “fundamentally flawed” and that it has shown favouritism to Denis O’ Brien’s Communicorp in the broadcasting of his radio stations within the Tunnel.”
“…The Port Tunnel carries RTE Radio 1, Today FM, Newstalk, FM104, 98FM, Spin 1038 and Q102.”
Radio Nova Challenge Port Tunnel Over Alleged Denis O’Brien Bias (Hot Press)
Had enough Star Wars?
Never.
Shannon Lawless writes:
With all the attention on the release of the latest Star Wars film, everyone in [Dublin-based] One Productions feared that all the hype (and Darth Vader) make take over Christmas. For such an event we created a Star Wars vs Christmas video to see what Christmas in the Galactic Empire would look like.