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SF/IRA's policy was agree or else!. We can dress it in all romantic Irish nonsense we want, but there never was a justification, moral or political, for their evil crimes.

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

[for reasons not their own]

In 2013, the Government spent €637 million on Ireland's aid programme.

https://www.irishaid.ie/what-we-do/how-our-aid-works/where-the-money-goes/

Maybe it is time the Irish Government got it's own house in order before it tries to save the world.

Hi Barry,

Do you have an amount in mind as to how much, if any, Ireland should give towards foreign aid?

Our foreign aid contribution has dropped by 36% between 2008 and 2012.

There was a worldwide recession in the latter part of the last decade. The poorest people in the world are likely to have been affected most, just like the poorest people in Ireland are. If every country took the view that you seem to be suggesting then the poor, already suffering due to the recession, would be hit even harder.

I believe we should be increasing our aid.

Do you rank certain people, or groups of people, lower than the Irish because they live in an area that, for reasons not their own, isn't as affluent as ours?

Hi again Esmarelda.

I always find these kinds of statements interesting...

"Do you rank certain people, or groups of people, lower than the Irish because they live in an area that, for reasons not their own"

could you enlighten us on that a bit more. How responsible are Irish people for the poor governance of other countries ?

I think since you are the one making the demands the onus is on you to be more specific about statements like this before you try and guilt trip everybody. After all, as you said yourself, it is more important to "enlighten" than merely be "right".

€8.25 billion in interest payments is a total waste of money. The government should govern on behalf of the people, not global financial blood suckers.

No foreign aid until Ireland gets it's own house in order!

The cost of servicing Ireland's national debt this year is estimated at €8.25 billion, although lower borrowing costs on international markets and a deal to repay the IMF early are reducing such costs. Such a figure, however, would be enough to meet the estimated €8.22 billion day-to-day cost of running the State's education system next year.

In 2013, the Government spent €637 million on Ireland's aid programme.

https://www.irishaid.ie/what-we-do/how-our-aid-works/where-the-money-goes/

Maybe it is time the Irish Government got it's own house in order before it tries to save the world.

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

Make Love Not War!

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

Have you see a game of Shinty ?

See a game below:

2011 Scottish Hydro Camanachd Cup Final: http://youtu.be/nFB_QE726DQ