Villa11

“Denis O’Brien, the billionaire Irish owner of Digicel Group Ltd., said he wants to bring the Ryder Cup to his golf course in Spain, as buyers pay as much as $3 million for homes at the resort.”

“O’Brien sold about 28 properties last year in his PGA Catalunya Resort in Girona, and he expects to sell between 40 and 45 this year, according to an interview with Bloomberg Television. The buyers include Germans, French, Swiss, Russians and Kazakhs, O’Brien said.”

“We have a boatload” of customers, said O’Brien. “These would be high-end properties anywhere from $1 million up to $3 million.”

Friday, September 27, 2013 – Bloomberg

“The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), which includes the rump of the failed Anglo Irish Bank, last year tightened its grip on the PGA Golf Catalunya, one of the courses owned by O’Brien’s golf holding company, Murrayhill.”

“The deal gave the IBRC a claim over shares in the club as part of a refinancing. The loss-making resort has struggled to shift high-priced villas in recession-hit Spain.”


Sunday, January 15, 2012 – Sunday Times

Careful Denis.

Smells like a bubble.

Previously: Denis O’Brien: Dividends, Debt And Paying Back Anglo 

Irish Billionaire Has ‘Boatload’ of Customers for Spanish ( Donal Griffin & Stephanie Ruhle, Bloomberg)

Pic: Villa in PGA Catalunya Resort

brothers

‪

“We Are Brothers” by Baddy Paris and Rufus Starlight – a krautrocky message to their older sibling, who had asked them to be best men at his wedding and got this – possibly the most fabulous best-man speech ever – in response. They sez:‬

At his wedding we pleaded for our brother not to leave us, in the only way we knew how to say it; through the the medium of 80s music and video. We thought we’d done ok, but he left us anyway.

reddit/highdefinite

90315386(From left: Stephanie O’Connor, Anto Wolfe, Dairne Black and Kieva Ryan in Sinnott’s Bar, Dublin last night)

They said that a day full of stout,
Would attract every gouger and lout,
But this year was limper,
No bang, just a whimper,
When the pubs threw their customers out.

John Moynes

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

janis

The latest animated interview from the PBS Blank On Blank webseries features Janis Joplin in conversation over the phone with Howard Smith just four days before her death in 1970.

laugingsquid

wf1wf4

Loyalist activist Willie Frazer arriving at court in Belfast earlier dressed as Muslim cleric Abu Hamza with a ‘hook-hand’ fashioned out of a wire coat hanger and Sellotape.

Jamie Bryson is sporting a wig while Jim Dowson wears a veil.

Frazer appears in court as ‘Abu Hamza’ (UTV Live News)

In Pictures: Willie Frazer wears Abu Hamza outfit to court (Belfast Telegraph)

Previously: The Right Hook

Anything Good In The Irish News?

A Marie Stopes Protestor

Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Dublin

Enjoying the Indian summer?

Well.

“The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has taken years to produce and involved hundreds of scientists, was published this morning. It is meant to guide governments in dealing with rising temperatures. “Delegates said the report raised the probability that most global warming was manmade to 95%, from 90% in its previous report in 2007. “The report concludes that many of the observed changes in climate are unprecedented not just over decades but over millennia. It says oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea levels have risen and concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. “It found each of the past three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than in any preceding decade since 1850.”
…
“It predicts that by the end of the century, global surface temperatures are likely to increase by at least 1.5C at minimum and over 2C at the higher end. It warns heat waves will occur more frequently and last longer.”

 

IPCC report finds 95% probability most global warming manmade (RTÉ)

Previously: Free Tomorrow?

Broadsheet.ie