Tag Archives: Italy


Scenes from this year’s Palio in Siena, Italy

There are just two Palios in Siena, Italy every year.

The second one is on tomorrow, August 16.

The first one in July was visited by photographer Donal Moloney.

Donal writes:

One local described it to me as “Palio is life”. It seems that there are far more important things about this event than it just being a 14th century horse race. I was there 4 days and only began to understand the real meaning of Palio and what it is to be Sienese.

Palio has been on my bucket list for many years but I’ve always feared arriving and not being able to get the camera angles I want. The spectacle lasts just 90 seconds but the square in Siena is used for trials and ceremony the entire week leading up to the event.

There are 17 districts (Contradas) that compete twice a year at Il Palio (one in July, one in August). 10 contrada are chosen to compete at each main event. Horses are only assigned by the Mayor three days prior by lottery. 30 horses are used in trials on the Thursday of which 10 are chosen. They then gallop around the square twice a day in preparation. Only then do the jockeys don the colour of the contrada they represent.

Sounds complicated? It is! Add to that the skullduggery, bribery and corruption that goes on behind the scenes and you get even more confused. This is all part of the Palio.

Three months earlier I found a man online who charges a lot of money for such privileges. 15,000 people cram the square on race day and I get myself a good position on San Martino bend.

It’s 5pm and the sun is beating down on me. I’ve barely room to swing a cat but I’m pumping with adrenaline. Four hours later, endless delays and they’re off in near darkness.

Three laps of the square and it’s over. I jump the barrier with my gear on my back and run down the track into the oncoming horses to get a shot of the victorious jockey before the Italian press photographers get there.

It’s mayhem as I beat my way as close as I can to him. Men are shouting and crying with joy as they greet their hero.

I’m suddenly part of their contrada and I end up leaving the scene with them to the church where both jockey and horse will be given benediction by the parish priest. Jaysuz lads, ye couldn’t make it up.

Donal Moloney (Facebook)

 

italy try

For the weekend that’s in it.

March 16th, 2013.

Italy, the dreaded banana skin of the 6 Nations, fells a stunned Ireland.

Gerry Thornley holding back his tears wrote:

The most dejected trudge yet from the dressingroom to the coaches in the tunnel of the Stadio Olympico fittingly resembled another scene from MASH. A dazed and Luke Marshall followed by Keith Earls, his arm tucked under his tracksuit top. Luke Fitzgerals went by on crutches, his leg entirely encased. The ravages of the Six Nations campaign will be felt for some time.
A host of new men have been thrust into this ravaged squad, with the carnage of Saturday providing them with scenarios that they could not of imagined or experiencing in their fledgling careers to date

Previously: Mi Fa Cagare

Retro Rugby on Broadsheet.ie


For the weekend that’s in it.

Adultrock’s Gavin Elsted unleashes an off-your-chops rendition of Put Em’ Under Pressure.

Yokes kick in after two minutes.

Yay!

Via Nialler9

Meanwhile….

 

This saucy choon (above) remains the favourite of the tournament in Karl’s den the ‘sheet office.

Euro 2016 songs to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked “For your consideration”

This evening.

Ireland have booked a date with the host nation France, in the knockout stages of Euro 2016.

Robbie Brady (top) headed home against Italy following a tense, dodgy ref-packed 85 minutes and 30 seconds.

No slip-ups, we go again..

Final score: Italy 0 Ireland 1 

Meanwhile..

Squee!

Thanks Hugh

UEFA Euro 2016 

Meanwhile…

CeU-Du6UMAA1Y13Screen-Shot-2016-03-07-at-15.34.17-1024x555

From top: People at Moria detention centre in Lesbos; acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Brussels for a meeting between Turkey and the EU heads of government on March 7

Further to the EU/Turkey deal

On Tuesday, journalist Oscar Webb, from Lesbos island, reported:

Up to 190 shipping containers are on their way to Lesvos, Samos and Chios, to be used as offices by 600 EU asylum officials and 430 interpreters. According to the terms of the deal between the EU and Turkey that came into effect on 20 March, ‘all new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands … will be returned to Turkey’.

Sixty judges will preside over appeals committees – also to take place in containers – for people who do not immediately accept deportation orders. And 2500 police, security and army personnel from Greece and other EU states, with eight ships and thirty coaches, will enforce the deportations. Until the material and manpower arrive, the refugees and asylum seekers are waiting in detention camps on the islands.

On Lesvos, close to a thousand refugees – the unlucky ones who arrived, in some cases only by minutes, after the 20 March deadline – have been placed in the island’s only detention centre, near the village of Moria.

They were met at sea and on the beaches by police who took their photos, gave them numbered wristbands, issued them with arrest papers (‘you have been legally arrested … currently you are being held here legally and temporarily … please be patient’) and took them to the camp. More arrive almost every day.

Conditions are bad in the Moria camp. The Greek authorities are struggling to look after the detainees without the help of charities and volunteers. Last week, the UNHCR, Médicins sans Frontières, the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council all said they were pulling out.

Further to this…

The Department of Justice released a statement earlier this morning, saying:

Ireland will shortly be sending three international protection case work experts to the Greek Islands. The experts will come from the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) and the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).

Ireland will also be offering the services of two members of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal to support the establishment of Appeals Committees. This is also being coordinated by EASO [European Asylum Support Office].

The agreement requires that the return of irregular migrants to Turkey will take place in full accordance with EU and international law. Furthermore, all migrants must be protected in accordance with the relevant international standards and in respect of the principle of non-refoulement.

This contribution will be on top of the four Irish experts sent earlier this year from the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service and the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner to Greece and Italy to support the relocation of asylum seekers under the EU Relocation Programme.

Ireland is also considering a request from Frontex to EU Member States for the deployment of border Guards to assist in the return of people from Greece to Turkey in compliance with international law. There are some limitations on what Ireland can do, given it is not a member of Frontex, but it would like to help where it can.

Meanwhile, Hannah Lucinda Smith, in The Times reports:

Turkish border forces are shooting refugees dead as they flee the civil war in Syria, The Times has learnt.

Sixteen migrants, including three children, were killed by guards as they crossed into Turkey over the past four months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring organisation.

An officer in the British-backed Free Syrian Police and a Syrian smuggler living in Turkey said that the true number was higher.

The deaths cast further doubt on an EU migrant deal struck 11 days ago. It classes Turkey as a “safe third country”, meaning refugees can be returned there without fear of persecution.

Update on implementation of the EU – Turkey migration agreement (Department of Justice)

Waiting for the containers (LRB blog, Oscar Webb)

Turks shoot to kill as refugees cross border (The Times)

Previously: ‘Can Ireland Not Do Any More?’

Ireland And The Turkey Refugee Facility

Turkey Basting

Top pic: Oscar Webb

H/T: Subpri.me

programmeticket

For the weekend that’s in it.

Saturday, December 31, 1988.

In the year Nelson Mandela is awarded the freedom of the City of Dublin in its millennium year and the Lotto went loive, It was also Italy’s first international appearance at full level against one of the home nations.

Little idea in the line-out, no concerted pattern in the ruck or maul and vulnerable in the extreme around the fringes of the scrum..

And that was just the Irish.

Edmund Van Esbeck wrote:

That was a frustrating exercise. There was absolutely nothing in that match to enrich the memory of the occasion. The manner and lack of quality in the Ireland performance was disturbing. There was very little to admire and basically nothing to encourage.

YIKES!

but we have Joe now.