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Co Laois bog body is world's oldest


New tests on the remains of a preserved body found in a Co Laois bog have revealed that it is the oldest bog body ever discovered in the world.

The body was found by a Bord na Móna worker milling peat in 2011.

It was initially believed that the remains were those of a young female which were around 2,500 years old.
However, a series of recent tests have revealed that it is the body of a male, which dates back as far as 2000 BC.
The chemical makeup of bogs can preserve human bodies for thousands of years.

Older bog bodies have been discovered elsewhere but none as mummified or as well preserved as this example.
Archaelogists said the body which is believed to be a member of historic royalty, was almost certainly put to the sword by his own people.The body is missing its head, which has never been recovered.




His head is missing but I bet he was a good looking b**tard...

Looking forward to this. Gmac in good form going into it,Phil Mick will be also in good shape after his win at the weekend.
Haven't decided who I will lose a few €€€ on betting yet.

http://scores.theopen.com/en/TeeTimes.aspx

A national crime league table compiled by the Irish Examiner shows Roscommon and Longford to be the safest counties, while Waterford, Louth, Wicklow, and Limerick recorded some of the highest crime rates.

A breakdown of official crime statistics for 2012 confirms Dublin as Ireland's crime capital, with an average of 789 offences per 10,000 population compared to the national average of 532. It has the highest rates for robberies, theft, drug, and fraud offences.

While overall crime rates were down nationally, one in every 18 people was a victim of crime last year, with one in 60 a victim of theft.

The Garda division of Roscommon/Longford narrowly edged Mayo as the region with the lowest crime rate, with an average of just 325 offences per 10,000 population — less than half the rate in Dublin or Limerick. Low crime levels were also recorded in Donegal, Clare, and Tipperary.

Limerick has the highest crime levels for sex offences and criminal damage to property, while Waterford has the worst crime rate for assaults and weapons and explosives offences.

Kerry recorded the highest incidence of public order offences. However, the county has the lowest crime rate for burglary, fraud, and criminal damage.

Cavan/Monaghan has the highest rate of drink-driving offences, while Louth has the most burglaries on a per capita basis, and Clare has the highest rate for road traffic offences.

Donegal, which has seen record drops in overall crime levels in recent years, has the lowest incidence of both theft and weapons offences.

Despite being the largest county, Cork has only the ninth highest crime rate of 21 Garda divisions — the city centre has lower crime levels than other cities.

However, despite the absence of any major gang activity in the city, Cork has a high homicide rate — 42 in the past five years.

In the county, overall crime levels have been dropping at a faster rate than the national average since 2008.

Mayo, the only county to see a slight rise in overall crime levels in 2012, has the lowest crime rate for sexual offences, drugs, and breaches of court orders.

How safe is your county?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/crime/crimedata/3/

The FIFA Confederations Cup is an association football tournament for national teams, currently held every four years by FIFA. It is contested by the holders of each of the six FIFA confederation championships (UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC), along with the FIFA World Cup holder and the host nation, to bring the number of teams up to eight.

Since 2005, the tournament has been held in the nation that will host the FIFA World Cup in the following year, acting as a rehearsal for the larger tournament. Brazil will host the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup from 15 to 30 June.

Groups
A - Brazil,Japan,Mexico,Italy
B - Spain,Uruguay,Nigeria,Tahiti

Without a shadow of a doubt this is my favourite Golf tournament.
Tiger back on form as well for it should make it very interesting.
Wouldn't right off the hairy bollix Mcilroy either even though he is playing catmalogen at the minute.

My hard earned dosh is going on each way bets for Woods,Mcilroy,Bubba Watson and...... very small bets on Garcia and Westwood because they have to come good some day!

Also at 300/1 Mark LeishLaoisman is worth a €1 bet surely!

The man is fecked.
Love him or hate him,but there is no doubt he was a fabulous footballer.
Shame to see such a talent waste away like this. Doubt he will be of this earth for much longer.

This video of him is sad. The yobs in the crowd cheering him on are as bad.
It's all self inflicted I know but still....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T2Tv-2CCqU8


At his best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9p0ExBpqeY

Has anyone got one and are they worth the extra money?
Powercity have a sale on at the moment and was thinking of getting one.

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for anyone with an interest in the other leagues outside of the Premier League.

La Liga,Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 etc etc.

Paris St Germain got lucky tonight,Ibrahimovic scoring a peno in the last minute to earn a draw.
Not the start the wanted after the money they have spent.

Less than two weeks left till the big kick off.

My predictions.

1 - Man City
2 - Chelsea
3 - Man U
4 - Arsenal
5 - Liverpool
6 - Spuds


Relegated :
West Brom
Wigan
Reading


Surprise package : QPR

FA Cup : Newcastle
League Cup : Aston Villa
Champions League : Juventus

Promoted from Championship :

Bolton
Leicester
Cardiff

Really fancy Harrington this week,he has been playing very well lately and I get the feeling he has being building up to this one all season.
Tiger after winning a few tournaments lately too and could also be in with a shout.

My picks

P Harrington 18/1
Tiger Woods 9/1
Jason Dufner  40/1

A battle of the heavyweights and the tie of the round without a doubt.
Is there even anyone from Leitrim on the board?
I'm struggling to even remember the last time Laois played Leitrim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZKACCy7OK8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGuyAd6YlIo

Larry v Trudi

Starts Today.


The trial of John Terry for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand will get under way on Monday.
The Chelsea captain and England defender Terry, 31, was charged with a racially aggravated breach of public order after a remark made to Queens Park Rangers player Ferdinand at a Premier League game in October 2011.
Terry could face a £2,500 fine if convicted at the Westminster magistrates court trial, which is expected to last five days.
Police questioned Terry in November 2011 after a complaint from the public and crown prosecutors decided he should be charged with the summary offence.
The comment was allegedly made, and seemingly caught on footage, to the QPR defender when the two teams met at Loftus Road.
Terry's lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf at Westminster magistrates court in February.
His trial was delayed until after the Euro 2012 championships after District Judge Howard Riddle heard that a number of other Chelsea players would not be able to appear as witnesses until the end of the football season.
Chelsea won the Champions League and FA Cup this season and Terry played in the England team that reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 in June.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K589cb1yYoA

Two months ago my wife gave birth to our first son and indeed our first child in the Coombe Hospital in Dublin.It was a bit of a mad dash to the hospital and after getting there at around 2am our son was born at 6.32am at a small enough weight of 6lb6ounces.We called him Eóghan as it is a family name of ours and it goes back a good few generations.
I don't need to tell anyone who has experienced the joy of seeing their first child born how I felt that morning,I was over the moon and I don't think I have ever felt such a rush of joy,the fact that he was a boy,a son, made it all the greater. I had said right through out the pregnancy that I didn't mind if it was a boy or girl but secretly I really wanted a son,not that I wouldn't have still loved a daughter but like any man I really wanted to have a son.

Soon after his birth Eóghan was taken by the pediatrician for the usual check ups and all seemed to be going well and it didn't seem like we had any reason to be concerned about anything.
That was until she came back over to the bed with the baby and said to us that she believed the baby had a genetic disorder.Not having a clue what she meant we asked her what was she talking about.
Your son has some of the physical characteristics of Down Syndrome are the words she told us and the words that meant my whole world had now changed twice in the space of five minutes.

I had just gone from the highest of highs to the lowest I have ever felt in my life,how was it possible this joyous occasion had just turned into a living nightmare.
As I have already said anyone who has been there at the birth of their first child will understand the high I was feeling at first,I'm also sure many of you have felt pretty low at times in your life but to go from one extreme to the other in the space of a few minutes was horrific and something that I won't ever forget,it is burned into my memory and isn't ever leaving.

The next few hours seem like a distant blur,yet when I am on my own and start thinking about it I can remember every little detail about it.
I am ashamed to say I had some thoughts that I would never have thought I could ever have about my own child. I didn't want him,I wanted someone just to take him away so I wouldn't have to deal with any of this. His first night on this earth was spent in the ICU,I prayed to God that night to take him back as I was convinced it would be better for him and for us.These are thoughts I am going to feel guilty about forever. I have been told by experts all these thoughts were natural and not to be too hard on myself. We have been told that what we went through and indeed what we are still going through is a grieving process,and that we are grieving for the child we thought we would have. I suppose there is some truth in this but I still don't think I will forgive myself for some of  the things I thought.

I didn't know the first thing about Down Syndrome,I didn't know anyone with it or anyone who had a child with it.I had an image in my head of a Down Syndrome person and I didn't like what I was seeing.I felt everything I had hoped for for my new child was gone,all the dreams I had, had been taken away from me and there was nothing I could do about it. My son was never going to get married,drive a car,play for Liverpool,Laois or Dublin even(yeah I know a silly dream to have and he probably wouldn't have had anyway but I'm sure we all have deluded dreams for our kids).
This wasn't the child we wanted,this wasn't the child we had talked about,it wasn't the child we had decorated the front room for as a nursery this wasn't the way it was suppose to be having your first child this just wasn't what we wanted.
I was angry,really angry,all we could say was 'why us' how did this happen to us.My wife had done everything she should have all throughout the pregnancy. Many a time when we were at the Coombe for scans or checkups we would see pregnant women outside smoking,It killed us to think they would probably have a perfect little baby and we ended up with a child that would have special needs.

Over the next week there was lots of tears and our emotions were all over the place.
We were suddenly in a world that was alien to us.We heard new terms like 'Trisomy 21' which is the medical name for Down Syndrome. It turns out my son has 47 chromosomes whereas we all only have 46, the extra chromosome comes from him having 3 copies of chromosome 21,we have only 2 copies of it, hence the name Trisomy 21 ,and that's it that's the only difference we were told though unfortunately that slight difference in his genetic makeup brings a whole host of problems. We were told about possible heart defects,poor hearing,digestion problems,sight and learning difficulties,delayed milestones such as crawling,walking and talking.We learned it happens in 1 in every 800 live births.Why couldn't we have been one of the other 799 is all I could think.

While we were told that he had Trisomy 21 we had to wait until the blood test came back to say for certain. I had myself convinced the Doctors were wrong and that he didn't have it. Anyone that came to see him said they couldn't see it in him.I Googled for hours and read all this stuff about Mosaic Down Syndrome which is a lesser form of it,I was convinced this is what he had.The Pediatrician in the labour ward on the morning he was born had told us he was only showing about 3 of the signs they look for,all this added fuel to the fire and I was sure the tests would come back negative for Trisomy 21.Of course when we got the results they came back positive,he did indeed have T21. It was another kick to the gut,I now had it in black and white that I was going to have to raise a child with Down Syndrome.

We were then introduced to a Pediatrician who was a specialist on Down Syndrome.He told us to forget everything we thought we knew about Down Syndrome,forget the stereotype,forget that image we had in our head. He told us times had changed,that people with Down Syndrome were leading far better lives than they were even as short as 10 years ago. He told us nowadays there are far better services to help us,early intervention programs,better screening for health issues. He told us Eóghan had a certain limit he could reach but he will only reach that limit if we help him get there,if we put in the effort to give him the best of everything there was no reason he couldn't go on to live a long and hopefully independant life.I know this can be said for any parent and their child but in his case it was going to be vital that we done everything we could for him.Years ago he said the majority of babies like our son were sent to institutions and were never given a chance at life,and those that weren't didn't have the same early intervention services like what is available nowadays.It was the first time since his birth that I started to feel a little better.
I started to realise that it was time to man up,this is the way it was and nothing was going to change it. Yes it wasn't the life we wanted but it was the life we now had and I don't think I could live with the regret if I didn't do everything possible to help my son.

The last two months have been a bit of a rollercoaster. We have become frequent visitors to Crumlin Children's Hospital. Thankfully all his tests so far have come back with positive results. We had tests done for hearing and cardiac amongst others. His heart is the same as any newborn,50% of babies born with Down Syndrome have heart problems but thankfully he doesn't. Eóghan can also hear in both ears,hearing and fluid in the ears  is a common problem with Down Syndrome but he seems fine for the moment. At his 6 week check up we were told his muscle tone is pretty much the same as any child his age which is also great news as once again this is a major concern for kids born with Down Syndrome.

In general people have been pretty good to us,we have gotten the odd well meaning but annoying comment like 'God only gives special children to special parents' I have to say I hate this line of thought and don't believe it for one second,not that I don't believe in God because I do,(yes even after this happening I still do)but I don't believe for one second that we were somehow chosen for this.There have been other incidents when people have upset us unintentionally but I don't hold a grudge as people mean well and I don't know if I would have said the right thing to someone else if the roles were reversed. Really though the majority have been excellent to us and if it wasn't for my family and close friends and even for a few posters on here who I have gotten to know outside the gaaboard I don't think I could have got through the last few months.My wife has been my rock though and I think this had brought us closer together than ever.

I still get pretty low and angry and there are still tears shed but I have moved on from the black abyss I was in the first week.
I have moments where I get really jealous and envious of other parents when I see them push their newborns in their prams. I think too much about the future and what my son will become or what he will look like because of his condition. I haven't helped myself sometimes by looking up youtube and other sites and seeing some of the comments a minority leave. The word 'retard' never really sat well with me even before all of this happened but now it infuriates me.

We have spoken to Down Syndrome Ireland and they have told us when we join we will be in the Kildare branch because of our location in Lucan,this is something I think will help us in the years to come and they really seem like a great organisation.The Special Olympics also seem like an excellent organisation and without doubt will be something I will join once he is old enough. A few other things we have learned is calling kids like my son Down's children or Down's kids isn't acceptable in the Down Syndrome community. They are children born with Down Syndrome,they are not Down Syndrome children,they are not the condition,they just happen to have it.

I never in a million years thought this would happen to me,this was never a road I expected to have to take but it has happend and I am already some way down that road and I have to deal with it now.
I can't ever see a day where I will accept this,I will always wish he didn't have it,but I have almost got to the stage where I see him as my son first and him having Down Syndrome second.
Right now Eóghan is the same as any other baby,physically he is in good shape and he has no health problems and he needs all the same care any baby needs.What the future holds for him and us I don't know,I hope he will be able go to mainstream school and live an independant life but for now I have to just concentrate on him as a baby,it's difficult to do that but when I do I feel a whole ton better.

Anyway that's my story,I know what has happened to me isn't the end of the world and there are people in far worse situations.I actually also discovered  through the course of my research that Kevin Kilbane,Lee Carsley and former F1 driver Damon Hill have kids with Down Syndrome,in a strange way this has helped me deal with my own situation.I know many people don't like him and I have seen a thread on here where many people lambasted him but Brendan O'Connor wrote a excellent article about his little daughter having Down Syndrome, this also helped me cope a little.
It's amazing when something like this happens in your life you realise how unimportant some of the things in life you thought were of utmost importance.I don't think I will ever get upset with Liverpool losing anymore,though I admit it did do me the world of good seeing them beat United last weekend.!Seriously though my outlook on life has changed dramatically in the last 2 months and all for the better.

Finally,I am not writing this looking for sympathy from anyone,nor do I want it either.I'm writing this because someone I have been seeing to help me cope with this told me it would be a good idea to write everything I am feeling down and to be totally honest with it,which I have tried to be as there wasn't much point in writing this if I wasn't going to be brutally honest ,as hard as it is to admit to some of the things I have felt.I was never the best with putting words together but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
I also have found it a great help to read blogs from people who have kids born with Down Syndrome,also there are many genuine forums (minus some of the knobs that post comments on youtube and the like)with support groups and I have found them great as everyone who posts have all experienced what I am feeling,so I thought maybe someday someone be it from this forum or not will see this post and it will help them also.
Thanks for reading.

Laoislad.

Starts tonight at 9pm.
Enjoyed this last year so hopefully this season will be as good.

[Butler comes on board as first steps taken in hurling recovery]

After the mauling from Cork in the qualifiers this year I think people in the county finally realised something needed to be done with hurling in the county.

I have always thought of Laois as a hurling county more so than a football one(around my area is mostly hurling anyway)
I suppose hurling took a back seat with the small bit of success we had with our  minors,u/21 footballers and the small period where our seniors threatened to do something but never quite delivered, apart from 2003.
I have always said if I had a choice I'd rather see Laois win Liam before Sam.

It's good to see something being done about it and hopefully we can follow in the footsteps of the Dublin hurlers and make a breakthrough in the years ahead.



Butler comes on board as first steps taken in hurling recovery

Laois GAA have pulled off something of a coup after it was confirmed that Paudie Butler, the National Hurling Coordinator with the GAA, will take an active role within the county in a bid to improve coaching standards.
Butler has taken up the position of 'Master Coach' in the county, and has already begun drawing up a coaching programme to be circulated around to secondary schools in the county. It is hoped he will have the programme drawn up in the next week to ten days.

Once that programme has been put in place, Butler will then be available to offer coaching courses to club juvenile coaches around the county. Butler's appointment, which has been cleared with Croke Park, comes on the heels of the publishing of the Laois Hurling Report for 2011, in which is was alluded to that Butler be brought on board in a similar position.

It is proposed that a new four-region coaching structure be implemented, with a hurling centre of excellence and director of hurling also being put in place. It is also intended to have four full-time coaching staff for hurling in the county.
Butler is currently splitting his time between his new role with Laois and his commitments with Waterford, where he works with the centre of excellence.

Speaking of Butler's appointment, Laois GAA Chairman Brian Allen outlined the role he will have within the county.
"He has started setting up a coaching programme for schools, and he hopes to have that done up in the next week to ten days, and we hope to have that out with the teachers before the competitions start."
Allen also revealed that Butler would be meeting with club coaches in the future also. "He will move onto clubs after that (the college programme) and initially it will be working with juvenile coaches, but anyone who wants to come in and be upskilled is more than welcome."

The county board chairman also pointed out that those who take part in the course will be expected to get involved at club level once the courses are completed.
"We will be monitoring the people who come in, to make sure they are coaching when they are finished, because that hasn't always been the case."

In other hurling news, the make up of the committee which will begin the search for the next Laois senior hurling manager has been revealed. The process and committees used for appointing managers in the past came under scrutiny in the aforementioned report, and this time, a four man hurling-specific committee has been appointed.
Pat Critchley (Portlaoise), Andy Dunne (Clonad) and Kieran Delaney (Camross) will be joined by Brian Allen in locating a successor to Brendan Fennelly.
- Leinster Express

Any chance this could be fixed?
Come on Admin get the finger out!

A brilliant free app for anyone with Android or Apple smartphones.
Just wondered what everyone listens to or are there any stations people found that are particularly good and worth adding?
At the moment all I have on my presets apart from the Irish stations are:

talkSport
Anfield FM
BBC Radio 5 live
Triple M.