Blogging is dead.

from seanie in mccarthy's dingle;

No it's not. Bloggers can use more than 140 letters. Not necessarily in the right order.

Why Grandad didn't win at Irish Blog Awards - IBA10

from agnes in sean ogs;

Wrong demographic.

Wrong era.

Wrong dress sense.

Over 15.


Pic of IBA delegates(!) robbed from White Rabbit NI

Kill a man. Go home. Don't do it again.

from paudie in skelper quanes blennerville;

And so we have the justice system showing that it can be blind - blind to justice that is. Anne Burke took a hammer and battered her husband, who was in bed at the time to death - hitting him 23 times. She was a battered woman, of that there is no doubt. She was a drinker of substance - no doubt about that either. He, the husband Patrick, was also a drinker and a woman beater. Again, no doubt about that there.

But a human being was killed. And not by a car accident.

Temporary insanity. Yes, I find it insane to have a hammer in the bedroom. Walked free. March 2010.

Caroline Brennan stabbed her brother to death. Walked free. February 2010.

If justice was really blind, and did not know of the gender of either party in the case, what would have been the result? If Eamon Lillis was Mary Lillis and Celine Cawley John Cawley, what would the outcome have been? Indeed what arguments would the defence team have used?

This is not a mysogynist talking. What concerns me is the fact that a person can be murdered, killed, executed and that the perpetrator receive no apparent sanction for it. Unless the defendant happens to be a man.

The "Battered Wife Syndrome" is gradually being accepted in various jurisdictions. There is no such thing as "Battered Husband Syndrome". For a dissertation on this, go to this article.

This is only a blog entry, so I keep my argument short.

For some excellent reading on this read Emer O'Kelly at Independent.ie. Sheer brilliance from Brenda Power at TimesOnline. See also the Tribune.

Cartoon at Alex Gerson.

Passport Office Dummies

from seanie in doheny & nesbitts;
It’s the battle of the small people. Or is it? The unions, through the likes of Blair Horan of CPSU (salary €120,000) maintain that the current wave of action is in support of lower paid workers in the public (civil) service. My eye. The people who are actually fighting the cuts are, apparently, those self-same lower paid workers. Withdrawal of counter service, no phone answering, not using your mobile, are all weapons in the current war. How many managers, middle, senior and uber-senior managers actually man the counters in social welfare offices? Take a guess. You are right. The doorman at the passport office – what do you think his salary is?


Union leaders have taken no cuts. Blair Horan has been asked on many occasion what was the goal of the action to row back the pay cuts. He will not answer directly, but refers to ‘ongoing discussions’. I wonder what his real agenda is.

It’s not just the union heads and union middle management (who have their own battle with falling members and falling union dues) who are using the low paid for their own ends.

If low paid workers get any rise it follows as night follows day that relativities will be the next hurdle. How many middle managers would countenance overseeing staff who earn almost the same as them? Senior civil servants have already managed to have their putative cuts reversed. As far as they are concerned it’s the lower orders sorting themselves out.

Needless to say the government is quite happy to have all these idiots fighting among themselves.

And, as usual, the common man is the loser. And always will be.

More Magnificent than Sigur Ros,Sufjan Stevens

from seanie in the shanty in ballyfinnane;

Oh God it's magnificent to listen to the worderful vocal heavenliness that is The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton, the latest opus from Clogs. What is the point in my reviewing this piece of modern bliss, just read the review here at All About Jazz. The Clogs are not jazz, I can assure you of that!

What kind of music? Well they themselves say "Recommended If You Like: The National, Sufjan Stevens, Bell Orchestre, Stars of the Lid, Sigur Rós, Moondog".

AMG says "There are moments of impossible beauty (“Owl of Love”), dense, but structured dissonance (“Adages of Cleansing”), and of course, whimsical, classically minded, indie folk (“On the Edge”), that when consumed all together, feel like a perfectly executed mash-up of Aaron Copland, Dead Can Dance, Bill Frisell, and Shirley Collins"

Apple Cake to die for, but not in Afghanistan

from agnes stuffed in the half-door dingle;

Enough of the world of clericalism. We need food. We really need an Irish Mark Bittman, the Minimalist (An Fear Beag?). An Irish Male Minimalist does not mean sausage and rashers with black puddin.

Don't worry about cups and vanilla beans. Bittman does it easy style. So laid back and droll, it brings you straight into that New England world where everyone is button-down content. Or appears to be.

Do yourself a favor or a favour. Try him out.

Fairy Cake - Darina v Dunnes

from mags in murphy's ice cream shop;

Her majesty (4 and a half) was having a playdate with a neighbour's kid. (Neighbour = half mile away) Great excuse for me to bake! Dug out Darina Allen's new book and decided to make queen cakes and a cream sponge. Yummy Yummy Easy Easy. Obviously the ulterior motive was my love for cake. Her majesty was the excuse. The cakes were fantastic. 12 buns and a gorgeous cream and strawberry jam sponge!

The playdate friend arrived with the poor unfortunate mother. What did she bring? A box of Ritz crackers and a packet of Dunnes Buns.

Darinas Buns. Butter, caster sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, white flour, baking powder, milk.

Dunnes Buns. Wheat flour, sugar, egg, vegetable oil, fruit, modified maize starch, glucose syrup,raising agents (sodium carbonates, disodium diphosphate, sodium aluminium phosphate), whey powder, salt, emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, propane 1, 2 diol esters of fatty acids, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate), wheat protein, skimmed milk powder, preservative (potassium sorbate) flavouring, acidity regulator L(+) tartaric acid).

Which buns do you prefer?

Because we're Irish.

Miracle of Twitter

from stockie in riney's bar sneem;

It's great to be of assistance to the paper of record. Thank to the Irish Times - it picked up our post on Mary Harney and quoted it Miriam Lord's excellent Dail report. (see Thursday 11th March IT).

So we are a "miracle of twitter". Isn't that nice.

Losing a Son

from the editor at his desk;

What a day. Death is in the air. Every sight and every sound.

Bridie Dwyer lost a son. Also by suicide. He was tormented because of the actions of one Bill Carney. See Newstalk and BBC. She carries on with such strength. She is an individual.

Marie Osmond loses a son. One day after her son's funeral, she does a stage show with Donny. I cannot make any rational comment on this. We are all individuals. We are part of society.

I lost a son. Today is his anniversary. He was eight in 1993. Only son. Only child.

People shouting in the dail. Resignation. Off with his head. Off with her head. They shouted last year, ten years ago, twenty even. People shouting on the radio. Banks. Jail them. Tax them. People in safe jobs want more money. Shout it out. Pensioners with gas bills. Talk to Duffy. Let's drink on Good Friday. Let's not drink. Shout it out.

This country is, and nearly always was, a self-serving, I'm all right community.

If as much energy was expended in making this country a good place to leave to our chldren as is spent on arguing and fighting one's corner, then we would reap the rewards.

Shout it out. It only works if we all shout together. But we won't.

We are all individuals.

You must learn to cry before you can see.

Mary Harney + 4 Live it up for Paddy's Day

The Historic Meeting Place

from stockie in the coachman's;

It's amazing how high the life Mary Harney leads. Herself, the hubby and three (3) lackeys will live it up down under. Finger food and an open bar in New Zealand. Let the teachers strike. Mary will eat fried chicken.

The press release in full;
Recent years have seen the Irish Government rein in spending so we have not seen a visit from a Government Minister for sometime. However, this year, the Consul General has successfully negotiated such a visit .

As a result, Minister Mary Harney T.D., Minister for Health and Children, will be visiting the Hutt Valley Irish Society on Monday 15th March between 6.30pm and 8.00pm.


Also in the Minister's party will be:


* Mr Brian Geoghegan, husband of the Minister
* Dr Philip Crowley, Deputy Chief Medical Officer
* Ms Patricia Ryan, Special Advisor to the Minister
* Mr Darragh Scully, Private Secretary to the Minister
Rodney Walshe, Honorary Consul General of Ireland, will accompany the Minister and her party.
We extend an invitation to all our members and friends to join us in welcoming Minister Harney and her party to the HVIS and to take the chance to meet the Minister. We will be serving finger food and, of course, the bar will be open.
Minister Harney's biography can be viewed by at www.dohc.ie/about_us/ministers/
Slan go foille
Bryan Mulligan
Secretary, Hutt valley Irish Society

Women's Day, Soviet Style

from agnes in paudies bar;

So this is where it comes from. A translation for you; "8th of March is the day of rebellion of the working women against kitchen slavery" and "Down with the oppression and narrow-mindedness of household work!"

Who could disagree.

International Women's Day, Again.

from stockie chillin in fabric;

International Women's Day. 2010. What's new? Does Katie Price wear a burka? Too much to talk about and I cannot multi-task, I'm told. So talk among yourselves.

Video by way of LinkTV

Young Women Die, So What

bloody cross 2, originally uploaded by Jo Naylor.

from agnes in ashes camp;


We now have the hand-wringing circus surrounding the death of Tracey Fay. It will go on for a few days, Liveline, weekend supplements, Sunday articles tv and radio talking heads.

So what.

Bridget Cleary, 26, dead. Burnt by her family. 1895
Anne Lovvett, 15, dead. Giving birth beside a grotto. 1984
Mariora Rostas, 19, dead. Raped and murdered. 2010
X case, 14, alive (?). Raped, miscarried. 1992
Hazel Mullen, 16, dead. Strangled, dismembered, boiled, by Shan Mohangi. 1963
Bridie Gargan, 27, dead. Bludgeoned to death by Malcom McArthur. 1982
Baiba Saulite, 27, dead. Shot. 2006
Raonaid Murray, 17, dead. Stabbed. 1999

The list goes on and on. Oh I know you will say there are women killers. Of course there are, but that's not the point, is it?

American English Down the Men's Room, sorry, Toilet

from sean ban in the manhattan bar tralee;

American English is getting worse. How impenetrable do you find the following piece of nonsense (I presume it's nonsense) from the web?

NBC Deletes Message Board Overrun with Conan Separatists (and a Weird Yale Theater Plug)

Just when NBC thought it could slip back into Lenonian ennui, aTonight Show forum for "things you want Jay to see" overruns with I'M WITH COCO's and is deleted. Weirdly, Brian Williams' daughter singing Ke$ha on YouTube plays a role.
Under the title "Jay, look at this!" a moderator invited users to post "photos, ideas, links, and other things you want Jay to see." The first response was an embarrassingly earnest plug for Yale viral video upstart Kurt Hugo Schneider (one of the kids behind Yale: The Musical) from a commenter named "MakeMoney." Then, the commoners raze the board with three pages of wall-to-wall Conan separatist JPEGS.
 
Does it really matter? Of course it does. The point of language is to communicate and be understood. Slang is of a different order, I do not mean slang. I don't even mean proper grammar. Certainly not.
 
How soon will it be before we have a translator at the White House on St. Patrick's Day ? Obama meets Cowen. Going forward.
 
This americanisation (americanization) is slowly creeping into journalism. It is so easy to recognise a report from an american journalist. American - "I find it easy to recognise american reportage" said Fred Munchin, a homesteader from Litchfield, CT. (pop 6,562). Irish/English - "It is easy to recognise a report from an american journalist, I find." said Fred Murray, 51 from Atlone.
 
Oh I could go on. But as this is a blog I will continue it in a more structured way elsewhere

Discover Hidden Ireland, if you dare

from agnes in ulick's farranfore;

This picture is from the US version of the Discover Ierland web campaign.

No offence to Padraic, for I'm sure that it is he, but what hidden Ireland is he going to show me?

A Magdalen laundry? A ghost housing estate? A Christian Brother? Southhill and Moyross (sounds grand like that, doesn't it?).

Or maybe he has something else hidden. Either way, I'm staying in Kerry. Don't trust that weird accent.