http://vimeo.com/104846650
An atmospheric stop motion short by John Eyre and Robin Heap in which a dark and foreboding world is crumbling. Trapped on an upper floor of a dilapidated office building, a boy must escape.
Root Less
at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6KZEUHx_s&feature=youtu.be
You may have seen Ireland’s Lost Babies, featuring Lily (top) last night…
“I am looking for my half sister who was born at St Peters Hospital Castlepollard Co Westmeath on 29/11/1957 to a Mary Patricia McDowell. She was taken away from the Sacred Heart Convent Castle Pollard for adoption to the USA, The placement agency was The Angel Guardian Home Long Island New York.The was also given the name Mary Patricia when born but was adopted by an American Couple with the surname O’Connell. Anybody with any information please email.” (John Donoher)
“Hi my name is una Stroud from Athlone co westmeath.myself and my family are looking for our sister, she was born on January 28th 1954 or 1955 she was adopted to a couple from America, my mother’s name was Una Dunleavy from Sligo, sadly my mother passed this year on January 29th and we are desperate for help.as it was my mother’s dying wish to find her daughter our sister.” (Una Stroud)
“I am looking for a micky Joe mulligan,or Michael Joseph Mulligan born at castlepollard 1955/6 adopted to an American couple any information would be appreciated” (Totty Maude)
“I am adopted from Ireland. I was born in Castlepollard on June 12, 1951. My birthname was Catherine Mary Flanagan, my mothers name was Margaret Flanagan (formerly Clara) as states on my birth certificate. I was born at a place called Manor House. I was adopted in December of 1951. I am looking for any family which may still be in the area, and looking for information on my parents. I have no information on my father. I was adopted through the ST. Patricks Guild. I need help in looking for for any living relatives. I was adopted by a family from California in the US.” (Cathy Filglas)
“I was adopted from Ireland. I was born in Castlepollard on December 16, 1955. Was adopted from Sacred Heart in Castlepollard. My birth name was Christina Mary Connolly and was adopted on December 22, 1957 to the USA. I now live in New York. If anyone has any info on Connolly who gave birth to a daughter on December 16, 1955, please e-mail me at mauraseanard@yahoo.com…would like to hear from any others adopted from Castlepollard and any info anyone has in tracing their birth parents and possible siblings…” (Mary Jean Connolly)
“My name is Kelly Little now. I was born at Sacred Heart Convent/St. Peter Hospital in Castlepollard on the 4th of April 1962. My mothers name was Josephine Kelly (maiden name). The name on my birth certificate was Grainne Anne Kelly. I was adopted by a couple in Kansas in 1964. Josephine would have been around 22 at the time of my birth. If anyone has any info I would appreciate hearing from you. Please email me at blittle@usd261.com. “ (Kelly Little)
A selection of messages from the Irish Roots website [readable in full here and here] following last night’s BBC Two documentary “Ireland’s Lost Babies” (repeated tonight at 10.15 pm. on RTÉ One and available to watch now on YouTube above), featuring the Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Home, Castlepollard, County Westmeath.
A key player in the Castlepollard adoptions was the local parish priest, Father PJ Regan, who was also chairman of the St Clare’s Adoption Society, run by the Franciscan sisters.
Journalist Mike Milotte, in his book “Banished Babies”, records that over 300 children from Castlepollard and over 130 children from St Clare’s, were adopted by American families during the 1940s, 50s and 60s.
The book also records how subsequent attempts by those children – and their mothers – to make contact – were frustrated by the deliberate provision of incorrect information by both Father Regan and the Sacred Heart nuns.
Pic via CastlePollard.ie
Thanks Sibling of Daedalus
So Deep
at
Miniscule, highly detailed illustrations by Cape Town based artist Lorraine Loots.
Rendered with fine tipped pencil, teensy paintbrush and magnifying glass, her series, 365 Postcards for Ants is the continuation of an illustration-a-day project, started in 2013.
Stop That
at
The secret place!?
*thud*
Ronan writes:
“A two foot lady part scrawled on a wall in Donnybrook [Dublin]…”
Pro Choice protestors outside Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin last night calling for the government to name a date for a referendum to repeal the Eight Amendment of the constitution
From second pic: Naomi and Keziah Keenan O Shea; Ciara Shorthall; Maria Mackay and Clare Foley.
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
Breaking Bad
at
RTÉ reporter Brian O’Connell spoke to several drug addicts in Dublin’s inner city – within two minutes’ walk from O’Connell Street – about a new drug that’s being sold as crystal meth but is, in fact, a drug called MDPV. It was formerly sold as bath salts in headshops and is generally snorted.
Mr O’Connell said for the last few weeks MDPV has been sold from two locations in Dublin and that 50 or 60 people are calling to these locations every day for the drug.
One man, who has been on heroin for the last 8 years on and off, told Mr O’Connell:
“I smoked three bags of heroin in a row to come down off it, it was that bad, I ended up throwing it away. But I’ve seen people who are strung out on it now, injecting it, smoking it, it’s just completely different. The way they go on, they’re paranoid 24/7, they think people are after them, they’re looking for things that aren’t there, crazy…
People are only on it a week or two and you can see their appearance, they’re tearing themselves, they’re like scratching themselves, there’s big scabs all over them, it’s like it’s eating them from the inside out…There’s been a big explosion of this in the city centre itself, do you know what I mean? So the police are really going to have their hands full when it really gets a grip of people…I
t’s not fair on the public, do you know what I mean like? Because they have to witness it swell. Like I’m on [heroin] eight years and I never once used a needle. And you see dirty needles all over the place. We had to tell a mother and father to pick their child up off the Boardwalk the other day instead of letting them crawl.”
Any excuse, in fairness.
Listen back here
Pic via Today With Sean O’Rourke Show
The launch yesterday of SuperValu’s ‘All Star’ line up for the National Ploughing Championships [in Stradbally, Co Laois September 23-25].
SuperValu is building an ENTIRE VILLAGE at the championships to showcase its “commitment to growing local communities and plans to celebrate the very best fresh food available from over 600 Irish, Signature Tastes and Food Academy producers over the three-day event”.
Participants will include telly’s Marty Morrissey and three mystery GAA stars ably impersonated above by, from left, Harley Smith, Noah Lynch and Rocco Kelly.
But can YOU NAME those stars?
Lines MUST close at 12.15 2pm
Thanks Emma Williams
Jaykers.
Dramatic flame retardant scenes involving a careless customer and an irate garage owner from tonight’s episode of Fair City on RTÉ One at 8pm.
‘Fuppin licence payers money going up in smoke’ comment in 1, 2, 3…
Pics: RTÉ
Thanks Melanie O’Connor
Gülp.
Three items among 800 for sale at ‘The Eclectic Collector’ auction at Whyte’s Auctioneers [Molesworth Street, Dublin] at 11am on Saturday.
With over 800 lots, the sale “will cater for collectors into campaign boxes and tribal art, tourist posters, movie posters, militaria, photographs, badges, medals, autographs, sporting memorabilia, coins and banknotes”.
And Nazi stuff.
From top: Waffen SS badge from World War II; a Nazi Commemorative Medal from the 1936 Berlin Olympics and a “very rare” Nazi War Order of The German Cross in gold from World War II.
Video of items on sale here.
(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)