90362202

Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou Mc Donald TD and Aengus O’ Snodaigh outside Leinster House this afternoon.

Ms McDonald returns following a sit-in the Dáil chamber last week in protest at her expulsion by the Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett. The party intends to put down a motion of no confidence in the Fine Gael stalwart.

Bold.

Few deputies can escape Seán Barrett’s tongue or temper in Dáil (Fiach kelly, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

Update:

90362196

Ms McDonald and a Leinster House usher this afternoon.

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 10.24.53 Ched Evans and his partner, Natasha

e3abbb54edaa1da9adae8fe08c9ce3ebStuart Gilhooly

A lawyer for a body representing footballers has likened convicted rapist Ched Evans to the Guildford Four as a fourth high-profile Sheffield United patron resigned over the ongoing row.

The Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland defended Evans on their official website, claiming he could be innocent and that even if guilty, he deserves a chance of redemption.

The article written by solicitor Stuart Gilhooly has been removed from the PFAI website but you can read it in full here.

The difficult element of this discussion, though, is the part about the scale of the crime. There are people who will say rape is rape and degrees shouldn’t come into it but in sentencing these issues matter. This crime, as alleged, was at the bottom end. There was no violence and thankfully the victim has no recollection of it. This, I hasten to add, does not make it right, or anything close to it, but it is nonetheless a mitigating factor.

From Jessica Ennis-Hill to Charlie Webster and pretty much every media commentator who has waded into this mire, the horses most of these pundits have mounted are so high, they’ll need a parachute to get down. When sanctimony takes over, there is rarely any real room for serious debate.

It’s not easy to muster up too much sympathy for Evans but there is surely nothing worse than being accused of a crime which you genuinely believe you didn’t commit.
The argument against that is that a jury convicted him of the crime. That’s right. And the same applied to the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. They got no public sympathy either.
Maybe he is guilty or perhaps he’s innocent, none of us knows for sure. Surely, either way, he deserves a chance at redemption. Don’t we all?

Stuart Gilhooly is the solicitor to the PFA Ireland. He is also a journalist and has recently been shortlisted, for the fifth year in succession, a Journalist of the Year at the Irish Magazine Awards.

 

Mr Gilhooly had also tweeted support of Ched Evans during the trial.

Update:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/177485007″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

William Crawley spoke to Stuart Gilhooly on BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback earlier.

So it wasn’t rape-rape?


Evans ‘has Guildford Four dilemma’ (Irish Examiner)

protest-1024x563

By gallantly kneeing me in the lughole.

*swoon*

“I actually believed that the Taoiseach was in the first car that had left and I didn’t actually really see the other car coming out. So I slowly went to march, not to march, but to walk across the road because I thought that the cars were gone and I was going to go over to where all the other protesters were.

And as, you can even hear me in the video saying, ‘excuse me’ to one of the guards. As I walked slowly out onto the road, someone kind of shouted, ‘Kenny, Kenny, Kenny’ and I turned around and I could see him in the car and he kind of smiled a bit and I just automatically, knee-jerk reaction, banged on the bonnet, ‘Out, out, out’.

And that was it, next thing I knew, I was on the ground, being hurled to the ground. The car could have just pulled out, very easily. You know, all them guards had to do was hold me back. They did not have to pick me up and throw me to the side of the road or throw me onto the path.”

“I was thrown from the road over to the path, narrowly missed a bollard. And I actually believe that it’s thanks to, one of the guards, one of the guards in the black, he bent down at the end of it but you can clearly hear his knee, now that’s his knee hitting the bollard. And he saved my life, that one did. The tall guard in the black, he saved my life because he pushed my head out of the way with his knee. I actually thought I had hurt my neck but it turns out it wasn’t, it was his knee that was actually pushing into my neck to turn it away from the bollard.

My hip is quite badly bruised. It’s quite sore underneath… I’m out on the streets every morning, helping to stop the installations but doing it peacefully. I’ve never been arrested, I’ve never been injuncted. You know, I do, I’m a peaceful protester, I’m only doing this for my son. I need to have a future for my son and the way I see it is our country is being sold off, bit by bit, to the highest bidder.”

Fiona Healy who was removed by gardaí from the path of Enda Kenny’s car outside the Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin on Sunday speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland

Very sinister.

Listen back here

Previously: Everyone Stay Cool

 

90095161

Sir Anth Tony O’Reilly

Does my IN&M look big in this?

Chris Whitfield, a former senior editor with Independent News & Media writes:

Tony O’Reilly was angry… very angry. At the time – a few years ago – he was the proprietor of Independent News & Media, which owned the Cape Argus. I was editor of the Argus.

‘Sir Anthony’, as the Irish media baron preferred to be called, had let it be known that he was not happy about a photograph we had used in the newspaper that day. The story was something or other about his plans for Independent Newspapers.

The picture, a smallish mugshot, was of him. He didn’t like it because he looked fat. O’Reilly had apparently shared his anger with the company’s CEO, Tony Howard, with such vigour that the latter felt it necessary to phone me, late at night, and tell me to remove all the pictures from our digital library in which the chairman looked fat.

I worked for the Irish for the more than 20 years, during which they owned the company and, as far as editorial interference was concerned, that was about it.

Watch Tony O’Reilly in ‘The Real Deal’ here.

The sad tale of Independent Media (Chris Whitfield, The Media Online)

Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

bandaid

The clanging chimes of doom like you’ve never heard them before.

All the ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ singles [1984, 1989, 2004, 2014] spliced together for your aural pleasure

Paul Trainer writes:

Supercut of all the Band Aid singles [Band Aid, Band II, Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30] alongside each other. Jason Donovan got to be Bono for Band Aid II. I did not know this…

Earlier: A Limerick A Day

By John Harvey via Us and Them

profile

Entertainment choices that should appeal to viewers of Love/Hate.

According to YouGov, the world’s largest ‘opinion database’.

Carolos the Demographic writes:

“Hat tip to David O’Doherty for tipping me off to this website last night –  Love /Hate viewers love the movie Moonstruck? Is it a compound words thing? I don’t understand these statistics!! Their shiny website entices me to believe but my brain says it’s nonsense…Hellp!

Anyone?

Love/Hate Viewer Profile (YouGov)

Marmalade?

Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 02.33.43Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 12.24.52

The screechy, clucky, brain-liquefying, Ylvissy/Psy-esque viral single by Chinese pop star Wang Rong, to wit:

(via Google Translate) Wang Rong latest Divine Comedy “chick chick” MV premiere! In the creation of this song, the song of the concert, there is a very daring stunt, lyrics melody part from start to finish no more than five words, chickens, hens, rooster, cuckoo day. Singing subversive uses a variety of sounds were imitating animals, listening to really feel the joy when the farm and see the animals in the song and dance group.”

Expect to see and hear it everywhere.

Everywhere.

likecool

dopepsa

http://vimeo.com/112085315

As part of the Irish Sports Council’s anti doping campaign ‘#blackmark’, sports creative Atomic Sports produced a literally slick awareness video.

Hugh Curran writes:

The discipline, talent and sheer effort that elite athletes put into their work is mind-blowing. That’s why it’s so crushing to fellow athletes, the sporting industry and the public when a doping scandal is uncovered. If the playing field isn’t fair, what’s the point in playing or even being a spectator? The Irish Sports Council work tirelessly to ensure Irish sport is clean.

True or anabolics?

Only you can decide.

Atomic Sport

Broadsheet.ie