Topics

Less than a week after the tragedy in Omagh, there have been two more deaths in two seperate incidents.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1117/mayo.html

The lady in Monaghan comes from a very well known and popular GAA family in county. She was only 50 and her daughter was due to be married soon, another awful tragedy. May they both rest in peace.

The young fella has asked Santa for a hurley (he's . No problem here, he has one thats a bit small and another can be got in lifestyle sports. However, the ones in lifestlye don't have a tip on them. Me being from big ball land, I have absolutely no contact with any hurling club, the young fella just likes to puck a ball about on the green when the notion takes him. Can any of you advise me as to where I might get one with a metal tip on it??

Mr Ahern has again being trying desperately to defend the large pay increase that he was kind enough to approve for himself.
This week his advisors have obviously told him to compare himself to world leaders like Bush, Bush & Merkel. Sure GW has the whitehouse, camp David, air force one etc. etc. Thats fair enough, he is recognised as being the leader of the free world (so I'm told)
Therefore, I don't feel it is a fair comparison, lets just compare him to Angela Merkel the German chancellor. Germany is the largest economy in Europe and I believe it is the third largest in the world (if not it is close) They have a work force of 43M, the labour force of the ROI is just over 2M. So how do these respective world leaders compare?

Salary & Expenses:
Angela - €246,000
Bertie - €288,000 (this is before the increase obviously, also excludes the large make up bill)

Tax treatment of income:
Angela - No special treatment, her net salary is only €118,000
Bertie - No special treatment either, be my own estimation (very much open to correction) net salary of circa €185,000

Accommodation:
Neither have any form of official residence or holiday home. Both live in their own private residence

Travel Holiday and other Benefits:
Angela - Anything that is official business is paid for and anything that is personal is not. No personal or entertainment allowances. Officially entitled to 30 days holidays, although known to actually take less than 2 weeks.
Bertie - Use of state car and garda driver 24/7 for the rest of his life (even if he is just travelling to open an off licence in Waterford)
No formal holidays, he normally takes two weeks in August. Very important, the best seats in Croker (but I don't begrudged him this, just envious of it)

Pension:
Angela - No details to hand
Bertie - If Bertie retired tomorrow he would be entitled to a very nice €165,000 pension per anum, which will rise with subsequent pay increases. The Dept of finance have estimated that for someone in the private sector funding their own pension would need to be earning €800,000 pa to generate a pension of this size.


When you look at the different roles and responsibilites and see that Ahern is getting the better deal, it is quite amazing (or it would be if you knew nothing about Ireland!) The Irish taxpayer is getting very poor bang for its buck IMHO

Was watching hidden history programme tonight on RTE, which I think has had some excellent programmes in the past. I can't say the same about tonights programme though.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/hiddenhistory/index.html

Something occured to me during it, as I have noticed it starting to creep into both elements of Irish Life and the media over the last number of years. Are we ashamed of our history? It seems to me that there are people out there who actually believe we should apologies for the war of independence. They think that the Easter Rising was awfull act against Britain while they were fighting the great war. Is it just me or are other people noticing this too??

I don't condone the way the two young pearsons were killed, if they were to be executed a bullet should have been put in their heads and not the disgracefull death that they got. However, I thought the programme itself put forward enough evidence that these were legitimate targets at the time. For those of you who didn't see the programme it has that arch buffon Eoghan Harris (or Sen Eoghan Harris as they called him!) saying what a disgracefull act the whole thing was, when I doubt he knows a whole lot about it. This was after all a time of national war.

Has anyone else any thoughts on this? Did anyone else see this particular programme?

I was going to do this as a poll, but there are just far to many. You have the golden mile stretch from Dorset St through Dumcondra with 14 pubs in total I think, this is not to mention Ballbough, Fairview, Phibsboro, City Centre or where ever else people like to have a pint.

I personally have always detested Quinns, always thought that Mc Graths or Fagans was a better call.
There are pubs like The Red Parrott or Clonliffe House where on a normal day you would not frequent but are grand on a match day.
The ivy house is grand if you want to get away from the masses and have a bite to eat.
Cleary's under the bridge in Amien street for a good spit on the floor pub before you get the train home.
The Snug (RIP) or Berringhams on Upper Dorset St are places I used to frequent alot in the late nineties
Kelly's, Gaffney's or Meagher's are all worth a shot
Even in Croker itself, be it behind the stands or premium level (although I find its far easier to get a drink behind the stands compared to premium level)

So what do ye all go for??

Invariably, as it is with all of these polls it will be a soccer moment that tops the poll (Saipan no doubt). Can I simply suggest that us GAA people go onto it do our bit to get the GAA moments up the ratings a bit. It is no doubt a good sign that the GAA doesn't really have any major disasters to report (unlike the FAI), but ones to choose from would be:
* Charlie Redmond doesn't leave the the pitch in the 95 AI final
* Ref blows early in Clare/ Ofally match
* Paudi calls them all animals

Worth a look anyway


http://www.rte.ie/tv/20moments/

Any of you use them before?? I'm interested in any feedback

Was thinking of doing the right thing for the environment (and save a few quid of course).

I had a quick scan and didn't see this up as a topic, if it is just redirect me to the thread...
Anyway, given the current competition being run by the Indo and BOI thought I'd put up what I went for. As you can imagine, not easy and sure some people will completely disagree with me. I used the allstars as a starting point for my selections and worked from there. Yes I have picked players out of position, I picked on the basis that these are the top 15 guys....
GK -
John O'Leary (an automatic in my book, didn't give this much deliberation)
Backs -
Paul Curran
Darren Fay
Seamus Moynihan
Graham Geraghty
Kieran Mc Geeney
Martin O'Connell
Middle -
John Mc Dermott
Dara O'Se
Forwards -
Anthony Tohill
Trevor Giles (Mc Guigan was my first choice, but over the course of the 15 years Giles probably deserves it)
Sean Cavanagh (class at midfield, I think he is even better at half forward)
Maurice Fitzgerald
Peter Canavan (Captain)
Stephen Mc Donnell

The county breakdown is as follows:
Meath - 5, Kerry - 3, Dublin, Tyrone & Armagh - 2, Derry 1

Subs - (ie those that were on the short list)
Keith Barr, Sean Marty Lockhart, Sean Og De Paor, Thomas O'Se, Brian Mc Guigan, Charlie Redmond, Mickey Linden, Michael Donnellan

I have to admit the little Cork sh%&te has always got on my nerves, I would have assumed that as he is always giving financial advice that he would have been a Qualified Financial Advisor (QFA) the industry recognised qualification for the financial service, checked it out on the QFA Board website and it turns out he is not!!!

Has anyone any idea what qualifications he has to be going around telling people what to do with their money??? A quick google search didn't shed any light on the subject for me.....

I have three tickets for this gig and can't go now 

If anyone is interested, drop me a PM, face value

Does something not need to be looked at for Senior Intercounty matches???

Dermot O'Brien the captain of the Louth team in 1957 passed away last night. Dermot was the last Louth man to lift the Sam Maguire some 50 years ago. He was also a very well known traditional music performer and an absolute gentleman. May he rest in peace.

Obviously one of past leaders of the country was the Cork hurling legend Jack Lynch (FF), but are Fine Gael trying to steal a march on the GAA vote??

Jimmy Dennihan is standing FG TD in Kerry, part of the great team, think he won 5 all irelands, captained the team and I have to assume he has at least one all star to his name.
John O'Mahony standing for FG in Mayo, u21 all ireland with Mayo, 2 AI's with Galway and a provincial title with Leitrim (and might even deliver the holy grail to his native Mayo)
Graham Geraghty standing for FG in Meath West, 2 AI's with Meath, one as captain and 2 all stars (but not one policy on his brochures!!)

Are there any other GAA candidates out there, or can anyone remember previous or standing TD's who were GAA legends, there has to more than what is coming to the top of my head???