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I have renewed my Megabuck Doubler, with the Massachusetts State Lottery. Subscribers don't have to reside in the state; it's open to all across the US.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

On receiving news of the peerage, Martin contacted the Heraldry Society and was assured that he will be the first ever Lord Callanan to sit in the House of Lords. Low Fell refers to an area of Gateshead where John and his locally born, and sadly now deceased wife, Ada, brought up their family of three boys, Martin, Lester and Peter. John still lives in the family home and Martin also resides in the area.

Among those watching from the Gallery will be Martin's wife, Jayne, and their nineteen year old son, Joe. Also present will be John Callanan's step brothers, Gerard and Andy Callanan, formerly of Westgate, Thurles, and now living in Dublin and Cork respectively.


John's brother, Richard, who lives in Scotland is unable to attend as his wife, Rosabel, is unwell. Sadly John's other brothers, Con, London, and Martin and Paddy, New York are now deceased. All seven were sons of the late John Joe (Joby) Callanan,( 1894- 1970) of Cathedral Street and Westgate, Thurles, who captained Tipperary to All Ireland victory in the 1930 hurling final against Dublin. John Joe had already won an All Ireland medal with Dublin ten years earlier.

http://www.tipperarystar.ie/news/local-news/martin-callanan-of-thurles-extraction-for-peerage-in-uk-peerage-1-6404557

On our last programme on 29th October, the panel discussion focussed on gay sportspeople and the difficulties faced when coming out in the sporting world. Dónal Óg Cusack, Nikki Symmons and Shane Horgan were our guests and as well as discussing the personal experiences and challenges faced by Nikki and Dónal Óg in coming out, they looked forward to a time when being gay in the sporting world just won't matter.

We had a really positive reaction to the piece, so here it is for you to watch. You can also catch the full programme (featuring the amazing Paul McGrath) here


http://www.secondcaptains.com/latest-news/being-gay-in-sport/

In an overview of figures ahead of announcing its year-end results, the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) said the movement in the north had strengthened over the past 12 months.
Membership has increased to 442,000 with the loan book at the end of June showing £453 million in lending while savings rose by 5.4 per cent to £1.017bn

http://www.irishnews.com/business/savings-first-for-credit-unions-1383709

London Senior Hurling Champions Kilburn Gaels will remember  the late Cathal Forde by contesting a challenge game in Gort, County Galway on November 8.

Mr Forde was a member of  Kiburn Gaels when they last won a county title in 2010.

He died suddenly, after suffering from cardiac arrest in April 2010 while training for the north London side at their grounds in Hampstead.

His brother Niall and cousins Brian and Colm were also part of the county championship winning side four years ago.

Following Cathal's death all three returned to Ireland where Niall now plays with  Galway championship frontrunner Gort.

Kilburn have qualified for the All Ireland Intermediate club championship quarter-final as a result of their victory in this year's county championship.  This game is set to be played in late November or early December once the Leinster intermediate  provincial series is decided.

http://www.theirishworld.com/2014/10/16/kilburns-tribute-to-cathal-forde/

Dublin TD Dessie Ellis also admitted IRA volunteers were not equipped to deal with allegations of sexual assault or rape such as those made by Mairia Cahill.  "If an allegation was made against a volunteer it would have to be investigated,” he said. "I don't want to comment on specific cases but it would have happened.

"To be honest they were not qualified to deal with something like sexual abuse," he added. Mr Ellis's comments follows widespread calls for the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams to address fresh claims that the IRA and Sinn Fein covered up sex abuse allegations made against their members.

http://independent.ie/irish-news/sinn-fein-td-ira-did-hold-kangaroo-courts-30673567.html

Prize Bonds are interest-free loan to the Irish Minister for Finance. The interest is distributed in the form of prizes. It wouldn't solve Ireland's economic issues, it is a step in the right direction. Do you have Prize Bonds?



A Prize Bond is a lottery bond, a non-interest bearing security issued on behalf of the Irish Minister for Finance by the Prize Bond Company Limited. Funds raised are used to offset government borrowing and are refundable to the bond owner on demand. Interest is returned to bond owners via prizes which are distributed by means of random selection of bonds.

Irish Prize Bonds
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_Bond

Ireland's debt in 2006 stood at €43.7 billion and, at 25.1 per cent of gross domestic product or economic output, was then the second-lowest in the euro zone. By the end of this year, the debt is forecast to reach a little above €203 billion or 111 per cent of GDP. Large as that sum is, it is down from a level of €215.6 billion or 123.3 per cent of GDP at the end of 2013.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/national-debt-and-its-servicing-still-weigh-heavily-on-state-1.1965128

Gavin O'Mahony, a hurler from Limerick, Caoimhe Mohan, a footballer from Monaghan, Meath footballer Michael Newman and Limerick camogie player Caoimhe Costelloe were recorded on a motion capture camera in Oxford yesterday.

The RePlay project has brought together three Irish bodies - the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, the GAA and Dublin City University - and five other European partners in a bid to preserve our knowledge of traditional sports.

http://www.irishnews.com/news/eu-funds-study-to-analyse-how-gaa-players-move-1385480

A RESEARCH project is being launched to recognise GAA players across the north who were involved in the First World War.
'Forgotten Gaelic Volunteers' aims to identify the many Ulster GAA members and players who took part in the war effort a century ago.

The involvement of numerous GAA figures in the Irish revolutionary movement of the period has led many to mistakenly believe association members had little connection to the war.

However, preliminary research has revealed dozens of Gaelic play-ers joined regiments of the British army and fought in Europe between 1914 and 1918.

More
http://www.irishnews.com/news/gaels-in-great-war-subject-of-research-1385933

"She knows my history. She knows I was a member of the IRA. She knows I was in conflict with her soldiers, yet both of us were prepared to rise above all of that," McGuinness told a BBC Radio Ulster documentary on Sunday.

Reflecting on his meetings with the Queen, McGuinness said: "I liked her courage in agreeing to meet with me; I liked the engagements that I've had with her. There's nothing I have seen in my engagements with her that this is someone I should dislike – I like her."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/12/martin-mcguinness-the-queen

So I would like to just ask them this, I would like to ask them, as an old-fashioned socialist who would dearly love to see a genuine 32-county Irish socialist Republic: which of the dead was it okay to kill and who will it be okay to kill in the times to come so we can sit around the cosy fires of the future and tell our children how the beautiful Republic came into being?


http://www.irishpost.co.uk/news/irish-republicanism-regarded-holy-unquestionable

They were tired, thirsty, all of them soldiers happy to be headed home to New Hampshire. The troop carrier out of Iraq stopped briefly in Shannon to refuel, and Ireland being what Ireland is, even in the wee hours the airport bar was open — and this curious game of hurling was playing on the TV.

"We had no idea what we were looking at,'' recalled Eddie Clements, one of the National Guard soldiers whose life in that moment some nine years ago veered sharply to a whole new world of sports. "It was kind of like, 'Hey, hurling, OK, what's that? That looks pretty cool.'


SEE THE VIDEO BELOW:
Irish sport of hurling - Two Fields One Team - St...: http://youtu.be/Igfp7Z6-Y4M

This week's Prize Bond Star prize of €20,000 goes to lucky Prize Bond number BF 449329 held in County Tipperary. The lucky bond was purchased in 1995.

See more at: http://www.nenaghguardian.ie/news/roundup/articles/2014/09/28/4032780-tipp-winner-scoops-20000-with-prize-bonds/#sthash.zztsAq8b.dpuf

Hurling might be the coolest sport you've never heard of. Played with a ball one must balance on a kind of lacrosse stick without the net pouch, while sprinting up and down what looks like an oversized soccer field, players must dodge other players who, also wielding bats, try to smack the ball away from you before you can turn your stick into a bat and whack the ball into a big hockey net or between football goal posts. Catch all that?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/09/26/hurling-could-be-the-coolest-sport-you-dont-know/

As more young people leave Ireland, Gaelic Football is losing its lifeblood. John Murphy reports on the struggle to keep alive the game that is at the heart of Irish identity.

Listen Below:
https://audioboom.com/boos/2414839-cc-goodbye-ireland-goodbye-gaelic-football-21-august-2014

Perhaps some of the most surprising observations come from people such as Baron Prior, who as James Prior was Margaret Thatcher's Northern secretary during the course of the 1981 hunger strikes, and also from Lord Tebbit, who was injured in the 1984 IRA Brighton bombing and whose wife was paralysed in the attack.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/new-bbc-documentary-asks-who-won-the-war-in-north-1.1942143

NEW Zealand may vote next year on changing its flag, newly re-elected prime minister John Key said yesterday, as the country looks to assert an identity independent of colonial ties to Britain.

http://scotsman.com/news/world/new-zealand-pm-waves-prospect-of-new-flag-vote-1-3549594

The Irish community in San Francisco has rushed to offer help and support to Ritu Vohra, the landlady whose house was severely damaged by a group of Irish students in San Francisco for the summer on the J-1 visa.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-in-San-Francisco-rush-to-repair-damage-after-J-1-students-destroy-house.html