December 2009
54 posts
“Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here is the answer to the letter...”
– Eadweard Muybridge
Northside Pools safe until New Year
TWO Northside swimming pools threatened with closure have been saved until later in the New Year.
Both Coolock’s ‘Northside’ and Sean McDermott street pools faced closure as part of new cost-cutting measures by Dublin City Council.
However, both pools will now be allowed to remain open for a least six months thanks to a Council allocation of $200,000 to keep both North Dublin...
Make my excuses and leave: Pornstars, Paedos and...
AN ONLINE prostitution website that the British government have been trying to have shut down is putting Irish punters in touch with prostitutes from across Europe.
Hundreds of desperate Irish men have been logging on to the controversial Punternet website, where they can make contact with international working girls.
Users from Dublin, Cork and Belfast have posted scores of...
New Years Eclipse
THIS NEW Years eve Dubliners will be treated to a unique lunar eclipse.
The eclipse is a particularly unique event as it falls on a Blue Moon, a second full Moon in a single month, a rare occurrence.
Irish astronomers have explained that the Moon will pass through the Earth’s shadow, getting darker and darker until 7:20pm, when a “chunk” of the Moon will appear black.
...
Longford Cathedral Gutted By Fire
A FIRE gutted Longford’s landmark Cathedral this morning.
Local Bishop, Colm O’Reilly, has confirmed that Mel’s Cathedral in Longford has been destroyed by a fire that broke out at 5am this morning.
Labour Rejects Sinn Fein Coalition Plan
SINN FEIN hopes for a new “broad left” electoral alliance were dashed this week when the Labour Party confirmed it would not consider entering coalition with them.
The Labour Party have rejected calls from Sinn Fein members for further co-operation between the parties with a view to forming a new electoral alliance, stating that they will be contesting the next general election as an...
Quinnford & Scout
I have been meaning to make contact with these guys and write a piece on them but its Xmas and I am legitimately up to my eyes in more time sensitive stories. Perhaps in the new year.
We met in Paris in 2008 and have been documenting our relationship since. The intention behind Q+S is to capture the small details that underline the excitement of being with one another; whether it be sexually,...
“Thank you for your article, we got a bus stop yesterday afternoon!”
– Still getting results!
“The climactic repeated howls of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell...”
– C. Brooker
Calls for cap on local election spending
CALLS have been made for a new cap on election spending following the revelation that close to €100,000 was declared by candidates in the Howth/Malahide ward this year.
A Northside Socialist Party activist has highlighted the large sums spent by local candidates in the recent elections.
Socialist Party activist, Brian Greene, stated that candidates who could afford to spend more on their...
Thousands click to leave catholic church
My Sunday Mirror and NOTW piece, today
THOUSANDS of young people have officially left the Catholic Church in recent weeks despite pleas from the Archibishop of Dublin not to “abandon” the church.
A new website offering information for people considering leaving the Roman Catholic Church has seen a leap in users in the last month with an estimated 2000 people opting out of the church.
The...
Royksopp (featuring Karin Dreijer) - Tricky Tricky...
Mystery of the Dundrum Skull
Sam text me to let me know this was running in his local paper, I had completely forgotten about it.
A NEW book attempts to unearth the secrets behind a Southside archaeological dig that revealed a modern murder mystery.
A bodiless skull unearthed at Dundrum castle, which had been assumed to be a leftover from a medieval battle, turned out to be that of someone who had lived in much more recent...
COP15 Police disguised as media workers
“The Sentinels were carrying out a plot to kidnap all the world’s political...”
– You haven’t read a film review until you’ve read a Maoist film review.
4 tags
From placards to pigs heads
50 activists of the Russian Left Front and the movement “Forward” held an illegal march along the high-end shopping district of Stoleshnikov Lane in Moscow this week.
The procession lit flares, unfurled a banner reading “Anti-Capitalism-2009” and chanted “Our modernization - socialism, Your luxury - poverty of millions”.
The group then threw pigs’...
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“If people complained too much about the conditions they were taken off the buses...”
– Irish protestor at the Copenhagen summit describing their ordeal after police mass arrested 900 people on a peaceful march. Full story in the Mirror and Star tomorrow.
Moaning to the Council, I get results
This week I have had a huge pothole at the Law Society on Blackhall Place filled in and racist graffiti at Manor/Prussia Street removed.
I would be interested to know if its because I’m a journalist and regularly in contact with the Council or because the Council are actually on the ball.
A picture of the offending graffiti is available further down the page, I don’t think I’ll...
Jewish Nazi, still under investigation
The Irish army say they are still investigating Joseph McKenna.
Sunday Mirror - 4 Oct 2009
A NEO-NAZI at the centre of a probe into far-right infiltration of the Defence Forces claimed last night: “I’m half JEWISH.” Joseph McKenna is one of the young South Dublin recruits at the centre of an Army investigation into neo-Nazi activities ordered by Defence Minister Willie...
Tiger Woods gags media over pictures that do not...
Wikileaks has a full PDF of the gagging order over here. Very unusual to stop the media from publishing something that doesn’t exist.
“This Order is not to be taken as any admission that any such photographs exist, and in the event they do exist they may have been fabricated, altered, manipulated and/or changed to create the false impression that they are nude photos of our...
Rage Against The Machine featuring Paul Gogarty -... →
Blonde Redhead - En Particulier
Music for a...
This one is going to be big
DUBLIN CITY manager John Tierney has promised that any staff found to have acted inappropriately in the allocation of council houses will be punished.
Members of the public who have acted illegally by obtaining accommodation for which they are not qualified would also be pursued, Mr Tierney has told councillors in a report.
Tiger Woods big.
€50 million in local authority cuts on top of...
A DUBLIN local authority is facing financial ruin as it stands to lose millions of euro in the coming year when its landfill space runs out.
Fingal County Council will be forced to purchase landfill capacity on the open market by the end of 2010, a senior official revealed at a recent Concil meeting.
The problem is so acute that a local public representative has warned that the Government...
“If you are a delegate at COP15…we offer free sex for your postcard. We do...”
– Danish sex workers Union protesting anti-sexwork information postcards distributed to delegates at this week’s Summit. Check out their website here.
Barbarism looms on budget day
Budget is out today and CE workers will find out if horrific cuts, which will see the collapose of vital childcare, drugs rehab and community regeneration projects across the country, are to be introduced.
Moatview, near Darndale, is facing a particularly bad time, having never really benefitted from the boom years anyway. One local has reported how money lenders are moving into the area to fill...
6 tags
More on Anna Mendelssohn, Angry Brigadista
I was sent some more information on the death of former Angry Brigade member and poet Anna Mendelssohn who passed away recently, as reported here.
While little has been made public about her life after prison, in a biographical note for a poetry anthology called “Conductors of Chaos” Anna gave a cryptic and brief account of her life.
“My academic career was brought to an...
“I hope Nepal’s human beings will drop off this planet! They are MONSTERS...”
– An ever so caring animal rights activist on the Gadhimai festival, which involves the world’s largest sacrifice of animals
Angry Brigade Member Passes Away
POET and convicted member of 1970s British guerrilla group, The Angry Brigade, Anna Mendelssohn, has passed away.
Ms Mendelssohn was one of the defendants in the Stoke Newington Eight trial of 1972 for her part in a series of bombings carried out by anarchist group The Angry Brigade. However, after her release in 1977 she devoted her life her family and achieved critical acclaim as a poet...
Michael Dwyer on Prime Time tonight
Tonight Prime Time Investigates is covering the case of Michael Dwyer, a young Irish security guard who ended up travelling to Bolivia with known members of the far-right to become a mercenary.
There are lots of serious questions to be asked, like why a group of neo-nazis were working for Shell in Mayo and recruiting from the I-RMS staff there.
A neo-nazi confessed to journalist Kevin Brannigan...
Professor Bertie Meets His Match
Donal Ó Fallúin of Free Education for Everyone (FEE) Maynooth deserves much praise for his hard work in making a former Taoiseach scared to step foot on his campus.
In under a week he has managed to bring the issue of Bertie Ahern’s appointment as an honorary professor (of conflict resolution), earlier this year, into the mainstream media as a serious talking point.
Of course, I...