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OTB interviewed several people at Esker Hills GC following the Ryder Cup  win.
Shane Lowry is steeped in GAA between the Lowrys and the Scanlons.

Hopper McGrath had 3 daughters on Galway all Ireland winning teams in 2013, 19 and 21

What other examples are there ?

I think it's hard enough  to find really good modern music. A lot of the styles are hard to warm to.

However I came across 3 separate Irish women that are making names for themselves in the music world and producing fantastic stuff  , some of it based on house music

There may be more. the 3 are :

Jazzy from Crumlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb5MYhF2nwE  14 m views on Youtube

Roisin Murphy from Arklow . The beat is amazing  235K views after a month
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQt8C4dM6ws


This is more pop style but it's very catchy

CMATCiara Mary-Alice Thompson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msm7B15G0hY  released last week

Fair play to them

The NI legacy Bill has passed the final legislative  stage in Westminster thanks to the Tory majority. The Bill proposes an effective offer of immunity from prosecution for perpetrators of crimes during the Troubles who co-operate with a truth-recovery body. It would also halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict.

It is even opposed by the DUP.

The Government has imposed speed limit reductions on several types of road since the Tipperary tragedies.
100kph on national secondary goes to 80kph and 50kph goes to 30 kph in urban areas


https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0906/1403640-speed-limits/

Someone interviewed on RTE said that this alone will not fix the problem. Most of the risk lies on these roads and there are many dangerous features such as unmarked junctions, very sharp corners and agricultural machinery use. This all has to be addressed.

The 2 Tipperary crashes happened on secondary roads.

Fulham sold Mitrovic, age 28,  to al Hilal. Other foreigners at the club include a Canadian goalie, Koulibaly, Neymar
(where did it all go wrong, Neymar?) , a journeyman South Korean, Milinkovic (ex Lazio) , Neves, and a Brazilian called Malcolm.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/al-hilal-riad/startseite/verein/1114

It reminds me of club football or a third class football league with a  few decent players and the rest donkeys , evenly distributed across the class.

The standard is only as good as the weakest players.

Mrs Merton to Debbie McGee"So what attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"

Each Dail seat is worth 30,000 people . Cavan/Monaghan (5 seats) would have 150,000 people or so.
Dublin has 49 seats. So it would have to be subdivided. Maybe Kerry could be divided into 2x3 seaters.

Which teams would be expected to benefit?

Just wondering.

I only found out recently that the Brits supported the Government side in the Irish Civil War. I

https://www.sportsjoe.ie/gaa/the-people-of-faughs-gaa-club-205038

https://www.irishnews.com/sport/2023/08/17/news/the_man_never_dies_while_his_name_is_spoken_ballyholland_harps_remember_kieran_sands-3538544/

1. Grade inflation is twice ECB core inflation, to keep up with gas prices

2.Sure I didn't need a leaving cert. I spent 10 years in a bedsit in  Galway and now just did an IPO

3.Maths is a national weakness.

4. It will still be hard to buy a house

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0823/1401131-pub-closures/

Reports of animals loose on the RM (Roscommon Motorway) between Athlone and Ballinasloe. Jaysus.
No link to county final.

Reports in Tenerife that at least 3 fires are  expected to have been started deliberately. #jaysus
Would these fires be likely to change your holiday choices going forward?

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0817/1400306-whiskey-production-back-in-belfast-after-90-years/

A good year for Monaghan, Derry, Meath, Cork, Ros, Down....

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/roscommon-gaa-has-wrong-sheep-on-county-crest/a682870245.html

No sign of it ending

https://twitter.com/TonightVMTV/status/1673446390595457024

According to wikipedia the 1946 connacht Final took place in St Coman's park in Roscommon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_All-Ireland_Senior_Football_Championship

Must be be the patron saint who had the woods.
Anyways, where was St Coman's park and when did Douglas "the" Hyde take over ?

Is it what you expected?

Who will survive ?

There is a problem with quarter finals and there has been for a while.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2023/05/17/sean-moran-there-are-simply-too-many-teams-in-the-all-ireland-round-robin/

"It's hard to imagine what an innovation the quarter-finals were when introduced in 2001. Straight knockout matches between a variety of counties in pairings that were often unusual. As it happened in the first year three of the matches were reruns of provincial championship fixtures but this was alleviated by the first Kerry-Dublin encounter in the All-Ireland series for 16 years.

It even went to a replay. During the next six years there were seven replays in the quarter-finals and the average winning margin was just 0-4. From then up until the format change in 2017 there was just one further replay (as well as one quarter-final that went to extra-time, as was the rule that year, 2011).
Average winning margins almost doubled during that time and the two least competitive years – winning margins averaging nearly 0-12 – occurred in the last three championships, 2015 and 2017, before the Super 8s were introduced the following year. That stabilised things a little but during the two years more than a quarter of the matches ended in double-digit whackings.
Last year the quarter-finals returned but the margins were still averaging more than 0-8 and that included the Galway-Armagh tie that went to penalties. Without it the other three averaged 0-11."


There is a before an after to the Dublin thing.  And there are different patterns to before and after if you look at quarter finals.
If you take 2005 to 2012 as before and 2013 to 22 as after and ignore the covid seasons with no quarter finals in 20 and 21 you get 8 seasons for each.

In the before you have the 4 provinces providing teams with relative weights changing as power changes and a process of teams developing and fading out. So you can see see Cork losing 4 semi finals before winning the all Ireland in 2010 or Donegal going from a quarter final in 2009 to a semi in 2011 and the all Ireland the next year. You can also see Tyrone fading out post 08 and Dublin replacing them with 3 semi finals in a row from 2010.
What you can also see is Laois, Westmeath , Meath and Kildare regularly reaching quarter finals and Meath and Kildare getting to semi finals. There  were 11 quarter final appearances by these teams in 8 seasons. You could imagine Meath reaching an All Ireland final in 2015...

After 2012 there were just 2 non Dublin Leinster quarter final appearances. But there were still quarter finals. And what you see is Monaghan reaching 5 , Galway 4 not including last year and Roscommon getting to 3. This year's Roscommon team is probably different but there was a real drop in quality of the last 2 quarter final teams after 2012. And this is the structural problem with the quarter finals until the previous arrangement is restored. Teams that don't deserve it reach the quarter finals because there is nobody else. Galway eventually got organised but Monaghan didn't or couldn't. Roscommon never made a semi-final. Monaghan reached one.

Another interesting thing about the after situation is that for 4 seasons the same mix of semi finalists was repeated . Mayo, Dublin, Tyrone, Kerry. 13,15,17,19.
This indicates that the natural process of teams rising and falling is broken.

Dublin and Kerry have been in 7 out of 8 quarterfinals since 2013. Kerry arsed up the Super 8s in 2018.  There is a block of 4 "normal" teams and then the 2 slowcoaches. It's the same in Division 1. The quality is diluted.

The championship was a fragile ecosystem. So is Division 1.

And until the Dublin situation is resolved the competitions will continue to be compromised.


#IbelieveLaoisandKildareandWestmeathandMeath