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Drop Dead... One of my favourite scenes from Derry Girls

Bottom of the group without a point or a goal scored. Are the team really better without Vera Pau as some of the players told the media?

Before you start criticising these Girls.
We have the following ranked teams in our group

England - 2
France - 3
Sweden - 6

We are Ranked 25 and we were ranked 38 at one stage.

We are mixing with the BIG GUNS here.

They got very unlucky with the draw, England and Sweden were in pot 2 and 3 because of poor performance in the previous Nations League tournament. They will still have a chance to make it through the playoffs into Euro 2025 but if they lose all 6 games, which could happen that might make the playoff path tougher.

The draw is mad It's weird that it wasn't overridden.
Ireland may have to wait another 4 years for the euros

Bottom two go into playoffs so will still have a decent chance of qualifying.

Home Home on the range (cover of folk song)
Four Strong Winds
Long May You Run

2-0 loss at home to England. Damage was done in 1st half, where England also missed a penalty. As Euro champions they are a step up. Ireland really didn't start playing until the 70th minute with the introduction of Megan Campbell and Leanne Kiernan. They made a serious impact and Ireland had a rake of chances to nab a goal or two in the last 15 minutes, Katie McCabe almost scoring when the England goalie's kicking it out managed to whack the ball off Katie's backside. Questions will be asked about the manager's starting team/tactics. But overall we are very dependent on a few good players.

'thats very Irish'

If its used once its too many

Or 'only in Ireland' for things that happen all over the world.

The "luck of the Irish" when something lucky happens. The luck of the Irish was used as an ironic expression of bad luck during the famine in Ireland

I believe that  was a derogatory term used  in the likes of the States , to tar the Irish as a lazy, and drunken race.  For example ,  any money they got,  they got through luck  , they certainly didn't get it  from hard work

Then if anyone else experienced bad luck, they blamed the Irish too.

Murphy's Law!

Connacht Championship very poor. 2 strong teams. 3 very poor teams and Roscommon just slightly below Galway/Mayo.

Mayo stand out team in Connacht by miles.  Only team in last 20 years to perform consistently in Croke Park in championship which Galway and Roscommon haven't done. Galway even with full team rarely deliver in knockout games.

Not to make excuses (although I will), Ros, Sligo and Leitrim are 26, 27 and 32 in population ranking. All 3 rank in Top 5 counties with the oldest demographics, per CSO. (I double checked those stats in case Ed Ricketts reads this thread). It's a wonderful thing that we put it up to the top teams every now and then. I'm hopeful of a shock or two in Connacht.

[40% civil service workplace]

Dublin has pretty much created an all-island economy, kept north in EU single market, got EU to already approve unification, so that the process will be more seamless. It's building an energy connector to France, and supplying whole island with one grid. As I said, the North has to do its bit too and start reducing a 40% civil service workplace. And actually decide they are Irish become the last census was pretty lame with 29% Irish only. Are the 20% "Northern Irish only" unity supporters or Our Wee Country supporters? Would be nice to see more who see themselves as Irish. Even tne worst west Brit Free Stater knows they are Irish.

Where does that figure come from?

There are approx. 23,000 civil servants in the north - just below 3% of the workforce.

The public sector as a whole is about ten times larger, but still comes in at only ~27% of the workforce up here.

Meant public sector which is almost half the private sector workforce (220,000 to 595,000) compared to the South 350,000 to 2,300,000. 27% overall, correct there Ed.

That is just not sustainable in a UI and it's up to the North to ready itself for unity too and start changing that ratio.

Are all teachers, doctors and nurses in the South regarded as public sector?

Yes. However I don't know what all the extra public servants are actually doing in the North. It's not in education or nursing because republic has 5x more teachers and 4x more Nurses for a population of 5m versus 1.9m.

so how does that effect things will Monaghan be in pot 4 now

More likely still 3.

Enjoyable open second half. Paddy Lynch is a fine footballer.

[40% civil service workplace]

Dublin has pretty much created an all-island economy, kept north in EU single market, got EU to already approve unification, so that the process will be more seamless. It's building an energy connector to France, and supplying whole island with one grid. As I said, the North has to do its bit too and start reducing a 40% civil service workplace. And actually decide they are Irish become the last census was pretty lame with 29% Irish only. Are the 20% "Northern Irish only" unity supporters or Our Wee Country supporters? Would be nice to see more who see themselves as Irish. Even tne worst west Brit Free Stater knows they are Irish.

Where does that figure come from?

There are approx. 23,000 civil servants in the north - just below 3% of the workforce.

The public sector as a whole is about ten times larger, but still comes in at only ~27% of the workforce up here.

Meant public sector which is almost half the private sector workforce (220,000 to 595,000) compared to the South 350,000 to 2,300,000. 27% overall, correct there Ed.

That is just not sustainable in a UI and it's up to the North to ready itself for unity too and start changing that ratio.

Dublin has pretty much created an all-island economy, kept north in EU single market, got EU to already approve unification, so that the process will be more seamless. It's building an energy connector to France, and supplying whole island with one grid. As I said, the North has to do its bit too and start reducing a 40% civil service workplace. And actually decide they are Irish become the last census was pretty lame with 29% Irish only. Are the 20% "Northern Irish only" unity supporters or Our Wee Country supporters? Would be nice to see more who see themselves as Irish. Even tne worst west Brit Free Stater knows they are Irish.

1-0 it ended. France managed by Hervé Renard, the suave ultra tanned Frenchman with the crisp white unbuttoned shirts who managed Saudi Arabia at the last World Cup. Megan Campbell back for Ireland with her long throws. Good to see. French dominated but Ireland did well to hold them to 1. England up next at Aviva. They drew 1-1 with Sweden tonight.

France 1-0 up at half time in the women's Euro away qualifier. France goal came early and Irish women under a lot of pressure that half. Big step up in standard and they've done well to keep it to one. But they got a horrid hard group with 3 of the top 5 teams in the world in a 4 team group. RTE covering with commentary from the ever green George Hamilton.

It should be noted that Windsor Framework only applies to goods, not services. North is not in EU for services. That would be biggest benefit if a UI as the difference in exports of services North and South is astronomical (even allowing for sleight of hand reporting by MNCs in South). Republic exports over €300 billion in services and North £20 billion. Varadakwr and Coveney were shrewd enough to prevent services from being in protocol as it would have been to the detriment of ROI economy and given UK financial services a direct gateway to EU via North instead of having to relocate parts of business to Dublin/Frankfurth/Paris.

John Doyle from DCU did a full study on that - showed that Irish gov would only incur about £2-3bn of the UK subvention cost when you extract the security/defence costs, NI's contribution to UK national debt and pensions.