This morning.

First same-sex couple marry in Northern Ireland (RTÉ)

Pic via Cara McCann

From top: Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and former justice minister Charlie Flanagan; Tullow solicitor Mary Morrissey’s appointment in July to the Circuit Court bench as reported by The Carlow Nationalist

Yesterday.

Via The Sunday Times:

Several District Court judges also applied for the vacancy on the Circuit Court bench that was filled by [Mary] Morrissey, a solicitor who once worked in a law firm with Charlie Flanagan, the previous Fine Gael minister for justice. Last week The Sunday Times revealed that Morrissey canvassed for a Fine Gael councillor in the local elections in 2019.

The Sunday Times has learnt that at least three candidates for the post were approved by the JAAB, but McEntee brought only one name to cabinet. She has declined to say whether she discussed the other names with the taoiseach and Ryan or with Leo Varadkar, the tanaiste and leader of Fine Gael. “Discussions between ministers are confidential,” McEntee said.

The taoiseach would not comment on whether he was aware the JAAB had approved more than one candidate. A government spokesman said: “The minister for justice recommended Mary Morrissey and the cabinet agreed. The normal process was followed and she informed the taoiseach.”

Several judges put in bids for Circuit Court post handed to Mary Morrissey (Stephen O’Brien, Sunday Times)

RollingNews

Last night.

RTÉ One’s The Week in Politics.

Meanwhile…

Oh.

You’re an angry elf.

Thanks Vanessa

Saturday.

Clanbrassil Street, Dublin.

Harry Warren writes:

Please choose an answer: The gardai are…

(1) Protecting the public by engaging, explaining, encouraging and enforcing the Covid-19 regulations?

(2) Buggering up the traffic for kilometres, wasting the public’s time and resources while damaging the commercial life of the city?

You decide.

Meanwhile…

Yesterday.

The Great South Wall, Poolbeg peninsula, Dublin.

Thanks Donal Moloney

Save Poolbeg

Meanwhile…

Yesterday.

Baily light house, Howth peninsula, County Dublin.

Thanks Remí

Meanwhile…

This morning.

Grand Canal, Dublin.

Via David Costello

Behold: two galaxies colliding, sixty million light-years away toward the southerly constellation Corvus. To wit:

The cosmic train wreck captured in stunning detail in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot takes hundreds of millions of years to play out. Cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, the galaxies’ individual stars don’t often collide though. Their large clouds of molecular gas and dust do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the wreckage. New star clusters and interstellar matter are jumbled and flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational forces. This Hubble close-up frame is about 50,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of the colliding galaxies. In wider-field views their suggestive visual appearance, with extended structures arcing for hundreds of thousands of light-years, gives the galaxy pair its popular name, The Antennae Galaxies.

(Image: ESA/Hubble NASA)

apod

An Indian politician has promised if elected to make a one-hour siesta any time between 1pm and 4pm mandatory

Let’s all give a very loud clap
For Vijay, a clear-thinking chap
Who’s running in Goa
And wants to bestow a
Right to an afternoon nap

John Moynes

Getty

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