A member of the Irish Defence Forces bomb disposal unit walks towards a ‘suspicious device’ at Sinn Fein vice president Mary Lou McDonald’s office on North Strand Road. Dublin.

Literally minutes later. False alarm. Back to the hurt locker.
Existential bomb dude is existential.

Earlier: That Ironic Bomb Scare in Full

(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)


Rome-based artist Giacomo Miceli presents a high-speed polargraphic projection road trip across five continents and four seasons. Sez he:

Chemin Vert is the result of a slow process of maturation spanning a few years. Different techniques were employed in the beginning, involving long trips on the road across Europe while shooting time lapse videos on the go. Back then the scope of the project was substantially different, concentrating more on the augmentation (as in augmented-reality) of landscapes. At a certain point the accent was moved on the aesthetic qualities of the landscapes themselves and on the immersive factor. In the final version of Chemin Vert the original footage comes from Google Street View, without which this project wouldn’t have been possible.

Music: A Ghost Train

Related: Eye Candy: Polar Panoramas

colossal

 

A top tip from Fianna Fail Cork City councillor Ken O’Flynn.

Thanks Denis O’Regan

From left: Mike Murphy and Pat Doherty (of Harcourt developments) with Bertie Ahern and a model of the Park West complex in West Dublin, in 1999.

Yesterday it was reported in the Irish Times how Fine Gael and Labour did not declare a single political donation from last year, based on new figures from the  Standards in Public Office Commission.

Parties do not have need to reveal political handouts unless the sum surpasses a threshold of €5,078.95.

Last year the combined total spent by the Coalition on the general election amounted to around €2million.

This means almost 400 payments from unknown donors could have been made to the Government parties last year.

Or there were a lot of successful table quizzes.

In today’s Irish Examiner, Investigations Editor Conor Ryan used separate accounts, from the Companies Registration Office, to reveal more about some of those undisclosed donations.

Interestingly he tells how indebted Pat Doherty-owned Harcourt Developments, which has cut a debt deal with Nama, switched their donation allegiance from Fianna Fail to Fine Gael, just before the 2011 General Election.

Harcourt made €220,000 in political donations during the boom, including €129,000 to Fianna Fáil, and €49,900 to the PDs.

The firm had been prolific funders of Fianna Fáil during its time in power. The company had donated lesser sums to Fine Gael while in opposition. Its most recent returns recorded a single political donation of 1,500 United Arab Emirates dirham (€330) to Fine Gael.

Maybe it was this decision or the sheer weirdness of a company presumably dealing with a large amount of public debt (Nama files are secret) still donating to political parties that made Mike Murphy quit the board of Harcourt (after 10 years as director) a month after the election.

We literally may never know.

Political Donations Under The Radar (Conor Ryan, Irish Examiner)

(Aidan Crawley/Photocall Ireland)

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