Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness takes a selfie with party leader Gerry Adams, deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson, who is contesting the Northern Ireland constituency, and the party’s Dublin MEP candidate, Lynn Boylan in Belfast this morning.
Frank O’Dea, from Balla Bán Art Gallery in Westbury Mall, Dublin 2
Dear Donald
I would like to congratulate you on your recent acquisition with the purchase of the five-star Doonbeg Golf Resort in Co. Clare, Ireland. I have a little gift that I will be posting on to you at your head office in New York. It is a little present of a golf ball to you to mark the occasion of your recent purchase in Doonbeg. However, this isn’t any ordinary golf ball. This is an Anglo Irish Bank golf ball. Let me explain.
I see that you will be renaming it “The Trump International Golf Links, Ireland”. That is grand and it is nothing new to us here in Ireland because we have a habit of renaming venues to things like ‘02’ or ‘Bord Gais’. However, Donald, this might come across a bit strange to you but in Ireland we have had a problem with a particular new name but we all just remember it as the old name. It’s now called the ‘Irish Banking Resolution Corporation’ but we all still call it by its original name – “Anglo Irish Bank”. You see the idea was that if the name was changed we all thought it would help us forget the mess that this bank made on our nation! It is a long story Donald but without going into detail, this bank made a ‘balls’ of our country and we can’t get that name out of our heads. So Donald, this Anglo Irish Bank golf ball has lots of significance.
In some way it is a bit ironic because, just like your new golf club in Clare where the previous owners had to call in the receivers due to their unsustainable debts, the same thing kind of happened with this ‘Anglo Irish Bank’ but millions time worse! Anyway, the government here decided to step in and take over Anglo Irish Bank as they thought that it was better for the whole country to live in unsustainable debt instead of this bank.
But Donald, that’s not why I’m writing to you. I want you to have this golf ball because I wish you lots of success with this new golf club of yours and we welcome you to Ireland and your visit to ‘Trump International Golf Links, Ireland’. To be honest with you your timing has not been great with the bad weather we are having. We’ve been having lots of rain and it’s also been very windy. I’m sure that the wind farmers in Clare and elsewhere are delighted with all this wind but I think it is probably best if I don’t go into that subject with you as I know you have been having a bit of a problem in that department.
Donald, it’s only a small gift but at the same time I have to tell you that it’s a very rare one and you won’t find it anywhere – not even on eBay! These Anglo Irish Bank golf balls are becoming a collector’s item and the one I’m giving you is the deluxe model.
I had read a few years ago in one of our national newspapers, that during the ‘Celtic Tiger’, Anglo Irish Bank had spent over €208,000 on their personalised golf balls as well as €218,000 on ‘Anglo Irish Bank’ umbrellas and that there was only about 1,000 golf balls that still hadn’t been accounted for. I was flabbergasted to read in the same newspaper that at the time, the Anglo Irish Bank chief executive, Mike Aynsley, was still searching for these missing golf balls! Imagine that! I don’t play golf myself but Donald, it got me thinking that if the chief executive of the bank was looking for these golf balls then there must be something to this. Maybe he knew something I didn’t know. Donald, no joking, but it’s almost impossible to buy these original golf balls because they are so rare. I must admit I used to play a bit of golf myself but hadn’t a clue how to swing a club. I was always losing my golf balls and ended up spending half my time looking in the rough for them. Without bragging, I think I’ve become a bit of an expert at finding lost golf balls so I thought I would use my golf ball searching skills to make a bit of money now.
We had a big thing here in Ireland last year called “The Gathering” to encourage people to come to visit Ireland and loads of people got involved in so many different ways. While all that was going on, I did a bit of my own gathering and, just like the Anglo Irish Bank chief executive, Mike Aynsley, I’ve been looking for these ‘Anglo Irish Bank’ golf balls. Donald, you won’t believe it I have found loads of them. Without giving too much away, the trick to finding them is to go into the golf courses where you think that is where the property developers and speculators and senior bankers might be playing their golf and you have a great chance of finding them in the rough.
I’m delighted to say that I have loads of them now and even selling them in my shop. So I wanted to give you one to mark the occasion of your new golf course in Co. Clare.
Can I just say one other thing Donald and it probably goes without saying with anything you get from the bank: make sure that you read the small print on these golf ball.*
Yours sincerely,
Frank O’Dea
Yikes.
FOUR! FIGHT!
Previously: He Is Among Us
Danish architects Gilfberg+Lykke’s concept art and location shots of ‘skatecity’ – a 4500 sq metre facility currently under construction in Haderslev, Denmark. At the heart of the skatepark, which features all manner of rideable terrain from verts and half pipes to platforms, rails and open space, is streetdome – an igloo-like structure with more bowls, a basketball court and audience seating.
Related Dane Skating: Rain Activated Advertising
Wicklownews.net reports:
Traffic came to a standstill in Aughrim [on Saturday] afternoon while a wedding was taking place in the local church. It is understood the Opel Corsa had been parked in the church grounds with the handbrake left off, rolled on to the grass and on to a parked Audi.
Traffic comes to a standstill at Aughrim wedding (WicklowNews.net)
Thanks John Cashman
Pic: WicklowNews.net
Meanwhile…
Johnny Cox writes:
In Stoneybatter this morning… Not sure what’s going on here, but at least they won’t get clamped!
Derdiedas writes:
Spotted in the Asia Market on Drury Street in Dublin 2 – fruity!
But doesn’t it look gonomnomnomnomnom…
A 21-minute documentary about internet addiction by 18-year-old filmmaker, Eoin Corbett.
Eoin lived without the internet for 30 days.
He also got some of his mates to go offline for a time.
He writes:
This is the second documentary I have made. I came up with the idea for this in December last year. I wanted to challenge myself and see if I was really as addicted to the internet as I thought I was. I planned the documentary and began my month without the internet in January of this year. I made the film over 4 months on a very part time basis (when I wasn’t in school or working). I had no budget and the only money I ended up spending was on transport. I’m proud of it and it’s the best thing I’ve made so far but there is a lot I could improve on.
Thanks Jack Corbett
Annie Byrne, Don Bailey, Aaron Abbey and Dermot Walsh, from the Disability Federation of Ireland, with posters encouraging people to ask three questions regarding the rights of people with disabilities during the current local and European elections campaigns.
The DFI says almost 600,000 people in Ireland have a disability, or 13% of the population, and that people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty as the rest of the population.
DFI Local and European Election Campaign 2014
Previously: While I Have You There
Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
President Michael D Higgins and Sabina Higgins in Illinois, Chicago and Bloomington, Indiana at the weekend.
From top, President Higgins visits the Gaelic Park in Chicago, meeting children at the Gaelic Park with President of the Gaelic Park, John Devitt, yesterday; President Higgins and Sabina at his alma mater Indiana University in Bloomington with President of Indiana University, President Michael McRobbie on Saturday before he received an Honorary Degree.
President Higgins graduated from Indiana University in 1967 with a Masters of Arts Degree in Sociology.
Squee
Previously: Squeezing Everything In
Photocall Ireland
Ten-year-old Niall Kehoe [above] released his first game last week, Kehoes Crazy War of the Worlds which he created using Game Salad.
Dermot Daly of Tapadoo (who Niall got in touch with for some advice) says:
[Niall] e-mailed us out of the blue to help him upload his app to the store.
His problems were in the process of submission – getting certificates, bundling the app correctly and so forth. Problems that any developer could run into. He was quite a dab hand at getting around the keyboard; seemed super-smart.
It’s great to see that people as young as 10 show an interest in software development. I started young myself, and always like to see movements like App Camp for Girls and Coder Dojo. Meeting enthusiastic young developers tells me that the future of software is in safe hands.
It’s fantastic to see someone so young be motivated enough to develop skills still not taught in schools despite all the lip service given to the Smart/Knowledge Economy given by politicians.
Kehoes Crazy War of the Worlds available on the Apple app store now. Why don’t you download and review it to give this budding young developer some encouragement?
Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie
