Surprise proposal: Italian tourist couple Michael and Fererica

Yesterday.

Galway city.

Eamonn writes:

Michael Torregrossa chose his moment to propose to Fererica Lombino in front of the famous Neactains Pub in the city’s Latin Quarter. After eating Connemara Oysters from The Galway Oyster House, Mr. Terregrossa slipped away and then on the pretex of asking Ms. Lombino to listen to a street musician dropped to his knee and produced a Claddagh Ring and proposed.
Ms. Lombino accepted to the loud applause of thrilled onlookers…

Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews

Devin Reardon – Ireland Song

We need to talk about Devin.

The honey-voiced Floridian indie folkster (top) crossed the Atlantic just before the first lockdown hit to connect with his family in County Wicklow.

Devin used the time to record a 5-song EP The Untangling Of Things, and the debut single Ireland Song is accompanied by a cleverly shot video with a heartwarming message.

Devin writes:

“This land has a magic in it that I can’t fully explain. Lockdown has kind of switched that up now, and being stuck home, connecting to that has been hard. I had a lot of hard days and night up until 4am just doing nothing again and again. I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons in this time, and I’m excited to come out on the other side with those things close to my chest.

“I just want to share my own lessons and the joy of discovering positives on the other side with other people. Just giving something to people as we emerge from this mad time. I think music can really help people, and I think this song can do that. I’m happy to share that.

“I just want to make some real art and music out of this madness, and I think this song does just that.”

Amen.

Nick says: Knockin’ on Devin’s door.

Devin Reardon

Leo Varadkar with then British Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels, Belgium on September 17, 2018

Kevin writes:

My poem ‘Island’ in response to Sunday’s episode of Reeling In The Years. A major theme that year was the continuation of Theresa May’s Brexit stalemate.

Island

(after Wislawa Szymborska)

Where men with shiny scalps
fight for the right to dye
hair they no longer have
any colour they want.

Here, garbage can by magicked
into its opposite by the mere act
of attaching to it the word: Great.

Proud nation that pays
redundant assembly-line operatives
to sell photo-shopped versions of itself
to tourists from its former colonies.

Raised voices in its cathedral city tea rooms.
So shrill a cup gets chipped
in the course of the argument
and a scone is left behind on the plate.

The roses around its cottage gates try to forget.
But, elsewhere, the dead factory remembers.

And the disgraced estate agent tries to secure the door
on what was once British Home Stores
but can’t fathom the lock.

Kevin Higgins

Reeling in the Years: 2018 (RTE)

RollingNews

Rob Cross tweetz:

My restored photo of the 1925 Owencarrow Viaduct Disaster when winds of up to 120 mph derailed carriages of the train off the viaduct. The roof of a carriage was ripped off throwing four people to their deaths.


People whose sleep pattern goes against their natural body clock are more likely to have depression and lower levels of wellbeing, experts say

Boffins say people who keep
A habit of regular sleep
And leave the bed early
Don’t tend to be surly
And are far less likely to weep

John Moynes

Alamy

Broadsheet.ie