Tonight at midnight Mary McAleese finishes her Presidency after 14 years as President of the Republic of Ireland. While I do not remember much of her election or the campaign preceding it, I do have a memory of much of her years as President as I was 11 when she was elected and have grown a lot since! I have lots of memories of President McAleese, from her national address the day after the September 11th attacks to...
After thinking about all the tweets and facebooking from the Irish Presidential Candidates, I decided to ask them if they would contine use Twitter/Facebook if they were elected President of the Republic of Ireland. I asked the question on Twitter initially, but then posted it also on the candidates Facebook to give them all a fair chance of responding. These are the respons in the order I have recieved them and on what medium they responded on. Mary Davis -...
Changing Attitudes Ireland is again organising events for International Day Against Homophobia in Belfast, Cork and Dublin. While IDAHO is on the 17th May, the events will take place on the preceding Sunday 16th of May. The theme this year is “Open Doors”, which I think is very fitting for a church dealing with this issue. In Belfast the service will take place at St. George’s Church, High Street at 15.00hrs. Following the service between 16.15-16.45hrs. in St. George’s...
Image by hsivonen via Flickr As posted earlier there will be an event in Cork City for Europe Day. This will take place on May 7th at lunch time. The event will be a canvass and will involve the handing out of pens and lollipops and of course talking about Europe. So why am I blogging about this? Well we need volunteers! Anyone who volunteers will be fully briefed and supplied with t-shirt, bag, pens etc. They will also...
Image via Wikipedia So Young Fine Gael have launched their plan to get Ireland back working. The leaflet is a rehash of one’s I have seen for newERA, with just a YFG logo added and the the supporting documentation is taken directly from Fine Gael documents, Hope for a lost Era and newERA. Nothing is new, there is nothing YFG about this. There has been a trend lately for YFG to follow the senior party and I personally don’t...
Image via Wikipedia A friend has unwittingly given me a new idea. Its as simple as this, have something to give out about? then email me (editor@stephenspillane.com) and have a bit of a rant about something I blog about, maybe its something I missed or something you want to refute. Its up to you. All emails will be published subject to common decency and the law (defamation, copyright etc) So onto the first of many (hopefully). It is about...
Image via Wikipedia So George Lee has resigned from Fine Gael and from the Dáil. This isn’t good news for Fine Gael, George Lee or the people of Dublin South. Its not exactly good news of Fianna Fail either. Labour will probably win the seat in the next by-election. My own feelings on his resignation is fairly well summed up by the cartoon over on Caricatures Ireland. It takes more then nine months to make an impact on party...
I have seen posters for this around Cork, and I think a few readers may be interested. Thurs 11th Feb :: 8pm :: Jurys Western Road Following the success of our recent non-fiction evenings at Jurys, we have invited Kevin Rafter, writer, broadcaster and lecturer to give his assessment of Ireland present and future against the background of his new book Party at the Crossroads, which tells the remarkable story of the Fine Gael comeback and provides an authoritative...
Image via Wikipedia When I heard the news that Batt O’Keeffe was suggesting that that National University of Ireland be abolished, I initially thought it was a good idea. Then I stopped and thought about it and realised he must be reading from the same book that Enda was reading from! Abolishing NUI is bad idea. Yes it will save money, but not a whole lot. The NUI serves some useful functions, and it would serve more if third...
Image via Wikipedia So Fine Gael’s Senator Eugene Regan made a formal complaint to the European Commission about NAMA. He claims the ‘scale and scope’ of the scheme is disproportionate to the size of the Irish economy, transfers too much risk from the banks onto the Irish taxpayer and does not contain sufficient safeguards that Irish depositors and borrowers will not be forced to pay for the huge mistakes by Irish banks. Now I think most people would agree...
Recent Comments