Messages

i dont have much of a problem with limerick. good road down ground on the right side of town and good parking around about.
id have been disgusted if mayo went for the coin toss and too be honest unless you are from east mayo its as easy to get to limerick as it it is roscommon and a good deal easier to get in and out of it.

plus as i get older and as ill have young kids with me the option of having a seat is preferable to standing which would be the case in roscommon.

Before anything about the match have to say it was one of the most enjoyable away trips I was ever on , absolutely fantastic bunch the down supporters , we ended up staying after a long session of drink , put up in a house of a down player , all Ireland winning medal in the house too , can't praise their hospitality enough , classy bunch .

Thought we just did enough to win and didn't seem to have any interest as usual in doing any more than was required. Our defensive frailties showed again , just have to hope they are going to be working on it . Even when we deployed a sweeper sometimes it was poorly done ie Barrett running to the ball leaving the space he was supposed to be covering open and ff line was then man to man .

i came on to same the exact same thing. without a doubt the the nicest bunch of supporters and people i have  ever met at football game in Ireland in 30 years of going to games, and out from a club game against a Clare outfit years ago i have never had a bad word with anyone at a football game.
lovely ground, well organized, everyone so friendly, chatty and nice and really knowledgeable football people.

you should be able to get them in supervalu and i assume they will be on sale at the ground. if not just go up early and shout ''ill scan a season ticket'' there will be hundreds ( if not thousands) spare season tickets with people  looking to have them scanned.

 rainy night in soho gets my vote but Nancy Spain is also one of my favorites.  But there is nothing Irish about it. interestingly it was written about a real woman called  Nancy Spain she was an upper class english journalist, wrote for the telegraph i think. she was killed while on the way to the grand national in a private plane which crashed. she was among other things in a public lesbian relationship which was most unusual at the time.

yes under 16's are included in the attendances, everyone who goes through the attendances is supposed to be counted.
from a health and safety point of view you can imagine how important that is. 
i suppose this only possible with a half empty ground, it would be hard to get away with in a big championship match.

anyone remember the mayo v  dublin  match a few years ago where it was oblivious to anyone on the hill that there was a bigger crowd than normal in there, everyone was waiting for the attendance to be announced in the second half but it never was.

all the papers just reported it as a full house.

attendance only 6500. corresponding fixture 2 years ago had 8500. tyrone support getting smaller and smaller.

The corresponding fixture two years ago was a sun drenched day in late March. It was championship weather.

Sunday past was as bad as it gets conditions wise.

can't always blame the weather. Kerry had near 13000 at first game in worse conditions. Mayo had 11000 in a storm first Saturday night.

on attendances, as has been mentioned before mayo understate their home gates for every league match and have been at it for at least the last 5-7 years. they are fairly consistent  with the understatement, usually in the region of 2-3k,more on occasion.
i assume they are doing this by pocketing the money from tickets bought with cash on the night and using certain capable stewards on certain turnstiles.

the argument goes that a permanent customs post only has no cop/solider until the fist hard man takes a pot shot at one some night.
from there we escalate to armed customs posts to protect the customs officers.

even if there are no customs posts per se only cameras on poles the same thing happens when the cameras start getting destroyed now you need a cop/solider to mind the camera

really really good, well done.

no minding on them really, cats do what they like, you can keep them in the house if you like, they are very clean, our cat is mostly an outside cat, sleeps in the garage eats scraps supplemented with cat food and of course all the mice, birds, rabbits etc, that she kills.
make sure and get her nurtured unless you want to find yourself on a gaa discussion board punting kittens.

i'm based in north mayo but id be prepared to travel a bit to meet you if it suited. i want rid of the things before the kids get too attached to them. they are weaned and ready to go.

if you do need a cat i'm trying to get rid of a couple of kittens at the moment!! their mother sorted out our mice problem and she has them well trained. let me know if you are interested!!

its on again this Sunday night on bbc2, uk wide.
i found it a very hard watch, i had to turn it off a few times.

When is the next EU summit?

the next summit is not until the autumn (october). at this summit the final deal will have to be ready to be singed off on by the leaders of the 27 before each leader goes back to have it ratified by their own parliaments, in some cases this may also include regional parliaments.

in the event that there was no final deal by this October summit but one was close its possible negotiations could be pushed out by a couple of weeks but realistically mid to end November would be the absolute deadline to give time to get it ratified by all 27 parliaments.
28 of course if you count the uk it would still have to be ratified by them.

article 50 is a ticking clock that cannot be stopped. if there is no agreement the uk crash out, full hard brexit. the transition period ( at present up to end dec 2020) will only apply if the uk sign the withdrawal agreement ( Irish backstop, divorce bill, eu citizens rights).
the Brits know full well that a crashout hard brexit is not an option, so even if they want to kick the can down the road a bit with the transition they will have to commit to the withdrawal agreement.

i think it is tomorrow, leaked reports of the ''third way'' show it to be just the first and second ways mangled together, completly unworkable and already rejected by the EU.

whats going on at the moment in the uk is one of two things.
1. one of the greatest bits of political maneuvering ever seen where the PM is playing a kind of 3 dimensional chess game so complex and intricate that it is almost beyond the understanding of most mortals. it involves keeping every side wrong footed by giving the appearance of total chaos while all the time steering every party ( eu, the opposition, various factions in the Tories, the media etc)into a position where she can then unleash her grand plan at the last minute and secure a deal that will not lead to the near collapse of her countries society. 

2. may and her cabinet are the worst and most useless collection of politicians the UK has ever had and she is on course for a hard Brexit next march for which she has left her country completely un-prepared, the result of which could be utterly catastrophic for almost the whole of British society, this she would have done in a pathetic attempt to hold onto power for as long as possible.

the gaa has nothing to worry about from rugby, and visa versa. will the gaa lose players to professional rugby? probably, but not so many as to worry about, will they lose any to the club game , again maybe a few but a good few less than rugby will lose to the gaa.

take an example of a very successful vibrant rugby club near me. Ballina RFC. this year at senior lever it won ever competition it entered and has now been promoted back to the AIL, it has had massive success at underage at all age groups, both male and female. a number of previously gaa only local secondary schools now have successful rugby teams across the age groups.

its facilities have improved dramatically, new astro pitches revamped club house and a brand new 4g pitch being laid as we speak.

it is flying high at the moment and those involved would say these are the clubs greatest days. it is particularly proud of its underage set up where it has unprecedented numbers taking part. as an example at present they over 30 under 8 boys
training.

now compare this to the local gaa scene.  those 35 players above are taken from a catchment area that would cover probably in the region of 17 gaa clubs that would conservatively have 350 under 8's at present.

the local soccer team has about 40 under 10's (or the soccer equivalent which is really under 8, its very confusing) this year, who would only draw from a catchment of about 5 gaa clubs.

ballina is a town with a long rugby heritage and a strong rugby base but even with that its tiny in comparison to the GAA.  all of those 35 rugby under 8's play football as well as rugby.

[Guy, I agree with most of what you're saying but isn't considering yourself catholic but not agreeing with many aspects of it a complete contradiction?I agree with many of the teachings of the church yet I don't believe. That does make me a catholic?]

Hardy, is it not the case that the cardinals, guided by God, appoint the Pope and so the appointment is actually made by God himself, indirectly?

Guy, I agree with most of what you're saying but isn't considering yourself catholic but not agreeing with many aspects of it a complete contradiction?

I agree with many of the teachings of the church yet I don't believe. That does make me a catholic?

[/b][/i]

oh a complete contradiction, that's what i could never understand, i'd discuss it with people and they would outline what they believe and what they dont believe and id say to them ''what you are describing as your perfect situation is almost exactly the teachings of the Anglican church, why dont you just join them''  and they would break  their shite laughing at me and say 'ah no,no,no, 'i'm a catholic i could never do that'.
then I'd call them all the hypocrites under the sun and they would shrug their shoulders and say some along the lines of ''sure wasn't Jesus a hypocrite didn't he turn water into wine and anyway you have to turn the other cheek''

as for control of the schools, this is the institutional church's last stand, they will cling onto this with all their diminishing might.
they have the upper hand here too as they own the buildings and the land so they will be hard to shift.