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The EU is unrecognizable from the EEC that the UK voted for in 1975

What with the EU be like in 2025 - will it even be recognizable as the same one we are voting for today?

I fully support the EEC, and the original concepts of free trade and free movement of labour between countries that are economically, politically and culturally similar, however the EU has become a political body as well as a trading body, and the 28 member states are no longer similar enough for the concept to be a success.

The EU (and especially the Euro) are failing in my opinion

Don't like the unfair competition laws - ie: A country can't prop up failing businesses and protect employment as this would be considered state aid and yet the EU can encourage investment in disadvantaged areas and give them aid in the form of grants.

The reduction in the block grant if we lower corporation tax, is mandated by the EU (OK Westminster may (and probably would have) have choosen to reduce it anyway, but at least there would be a possibility it may not be reduced or at least negotiated a better deal)

The EU is enforcing laws and austerity measures on Ireland, water charges are/were mandatory as part of the measures enforced by the EU as a condition of the bailout, which they forced Ireland to accept.

I don't like the EU overruling the laws of a member nation and being able to force them to comply.

Its bad enough being ruled by the UK, its worse being ruled by an even further detached foreign parliament.

It looks as though we need a narrow Monaghan win to get us through as group winners. We cannot qualify as the best runner-up because Armagh are likely to finish second in their section with a better scoring average than we have. It is hard to be specific, but any sort of win for Cavan should do them.  If Monaghan have a few points to spare, it may also be enough for them. We are not out of it, but we can probably turn our attention to the league instead.

Does head to head come into it if 2 teams finish level or is it simply on scoring average?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-28144918

Dublin city council not confirming this

Fair play to the residents!

There was far too many concerts between One Direction and Garth Brooks

5 nights in a row is too much!

So?

Crowd could be affected.

For a soccer game between two Spanish sides?

2011 Champions league final was on the same time as Armagh and Down in Ulster first round, crowd was affected that day. Man Utd was one of the teams so wasn't all Spanish , but would imagine a lot would have an interest in the Cl final either way ..

Heavens forbid that people be interested in both gaelic and soccer. If both games are on TV I would say a lot of people could be tempted to have the chance to watch both. By attending the Down Tyrone game you don't have that chance.

Loads of people work Saturdays (possibly even some of the players!), so 7pm is more suitable time in my opinion.

Can't wait for the replay and hopeful Down can do it!

This is on the Sky website. Maybe an option for people who don't want to fork out the money for a full sky subscription?

GAA fans with a Sky Sports subscription can watch live on TV, online and on mobile and tablet devices via Sky Go or the award-winning Sky Sports for iPad app, which are both free for subscribers to download at no extra cost. Non-subscribers can also watch these games on mobile, which is a first in Ireland, by downloading the Sky Sports TV app for just £4.99/€5.99 a month.

This is a good option, i would actually think about this and maybe get it if My own County were playing in a match that for some reason I wasn't able to go too - it's nice that there is another option that doesn't involve paying £37 a month to Sky, but would be preferable if it wasn't app and was available trought the sky box (without active sky subscription) as my internet connection is rubbish.

I still do not agree with GAA games being behind a paywall, but as long as sky don't start dictating what games they get etc. RTE should always get first pick and should never have less games than they do now, then it is not important in the grand scheme of things.

Huge contradictions in the positions here -

"I want free to air coverage available North and South."

"Let them simulcast with sky by all means but remain free to air."

Here is something that may surprise a lot of people - covering a match costs a lot of money. To cover a match well costs even more. I'm assuming in point 1 you want the coverage to be good? As good as other sports seem to get from other channels? Costs a lot of money, and, quite frankly, neither RTE or TV3 have the resources to come anywhere near a Sky/BBC/ITV production. But because we live in a territory where the majority of people were able to see BBC coverage of sports and then latterly subscribed to Sky, we feel we can slag away at the coverage of GAA. It is a false comparison. Lads, RTE didn't cover provincial championships live until 1995! The Premier League was four years old at that stage.

So then in point 2, we say let Sky cover away - but not exclusively. I'm sorry, the deal as it stands may be right, may be wrong depending on what opinion you hold, but the idea that Sky would pay to coevr GAA matches on a subscription channel while RTE covers them on FTA is absurd - there is no logic to that statment. It actually smacks of such arrogance "Yeah we'll take their dirty money, but we won't give them any kind of consideration in return."

Who do we think we are lads? Sky are the biggest sports commercial broadcaster. We entered the commercial rights market ten years ago with Setanta - the days of turning up our noses at the realities of pay per view should be gone. As Bernard Shaw said to the Duchess, we know what you are, now we're just deciding the price.

We can decide to keep our games free to air and give them to RTE to cover each year - fine, but please let's not bitch and moan about the coverage they provide when it is a monopoly.

Or we can give Championship games to Sky as well, get some money for it but have them on a subscription basis - but please let's not wail about our loss of innocence, when we started Pay Per View games with a different company 10 years ago.

You are right, sky probabably wouldn't want a simulcast deal, but there is nothing to stop it being offered, so its not really a contradiction - as long as the games are available free to air in Ireland, then I couldn't care less if Sky, Setanta, BT Sports or anyone else also shows them.

As for the quality, I would prefer poorer quality games broadcast free than excellent quality coverage paid for through sky.

I'm not really that bothered about sky having 14 games or so, but how long is it before they are all subscription only?

I have only got RTE in the last about 6 years, and I have loved being able to see other counties play. I will get of off the sofa and go to my own county games but rarely would go see any other county.

I do not agree with GAA games going to paid subscriptions.

They should all be free to air on both for everyone both North and South.

I have already stopped going to lots of away games as I simply can't justify the cost of fuel for some of them, depending on where they are.
I am not going to the Down Laois game, as it will cost about £50 to get there.

I don't tend to watch many games on TV, but if I'm not doing anything of a Saturday or sunday and there is a game on I do tend to watch it, especially the championship, so if it's not on I won't be watching them - the gaa has a lot of viewers like me, and we won't be paying subsciptions.

I don't currently have a sky subscription at all and to get one with sky sports would be £37 a month - no way would i pay that to watch 10 games a year and I have no interest in any other sports.

Sell skys the rights to simulcast by all means but the games should be free to air, and preferably on RTE (without SKY being able to block RTE).

No - unless it was for her to hand the North back!

Fair enough.  I was simply saying that the general perception among moderate unionist voters was different.  Now that this has been brought to light, they may lose these same voters. 

If anyone actually reckoned the Union did any good, as distinct to favouring it for reasons of colonialism or bigotry, then they'd vote for Alliance.

Why, if they were pro union, would they vote for Alliance rather than a unionist party? That's like saying that anyone who thinks an all Ireland independent state is a good idea, should vote Alliance rather than SF or SDLP. Makes no sense at all.

They would vote alliance because although they want to be in the union it is not the sole issue. we are in the union, they have nothing to lose by voting alliance,

I am pro an all Ireland independent state but I also recognise that no matter what i want, a united Ireland won't happen until the majority of NI want it - and until that time I will vote alliance, as I don't want to vote for tribal politics, the mechanism for gaining an United Ireland is a referendum, that will happen at some stage in the future, then I will vote for a United Ireland.
Until we get a united Ireland, I will vote Alliance (or any similar party) thats puts the real issues - health, education economy etc above tribal politics.

Politics in Northern Ireland is often a fighting match between the nationalists and unionists, they spend so much time arguing over issues such as flags, parades that the real issues get left behind.

Lazer, my parents-in-law used to play Set Back a lot in Ohio.  Sometimes called Pitch or Jick Jack, the rules can be found at this site:

http://www.pagat.com/allfours/pitch.html

Cheers - we seem to play it differently to any of the rules I have found online, but the theory is very similar, its a brilliant game.

My husband says he had to learn the game to be initiated into the family!

25 & 45 both played in Down

25 for a quick game, 45 for a longer one.

Favourite game in our family is Set Back (And have yet to meet another person that has ever heard of it!)

Brown lemonade is a great mxer for Southern Comfort

Its the norths equivalent of Red lemonade (although you do occassionally get red too), most pubs will have brown lemonade.

I can rent my house out - only £500 for a room for the week

Sounds like a good money spinner

Don;t forget the interest effect too

if you have £10k in sterling sitting in a ISA at say 3% that would earn you £150 ish over the 6 months, whereas if you withdraw it all and change to Euros you lose that.

Also think about what are you going to do with the money when you lift it - pay the venue, or having sitting around?

We had the same question before our wedding, and in the end decided we didn't want a fortune in cash lying around, didn't want to pay the venue/suppliers early and that the fees for depositing and withdrawing in my husbands Euro account together with the commission fees and the loss of interest etc that it wasn't worth changing it as we didn't really expect any major exchange rate fluctuations.

I am now very glad we made this decision as the rate when we booked the wedding was about 1.15 and by the date of the wedding was 1.2