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As hurtful as the situation is, some of the comments I see under Laois Today Facebook posts and Laois GAA's posts on Twitter are completely counter productive. Can't believe some people would actually put their name to what they're saying. Absolute cretins.

Say what you will about todays performance and the lads involved with that team, but they were the ones that stuck their hands up in January and wanted to play for Laois. Some of them, naturally, won't be involved going forward. If this was Mark Timmons' last game for Laois then that's a real shame - absolute warrior who would've made it on any Laois team.

As for the game itself, well Down did what Limerick probably ought to have done last week and scored a ton of goals. It was clear to anyone watching last week that we were far too open and soft in the centre and we ultimately paid a heavy price for that today.

It just goes to show the level of frustration and anger in the county that people are willing to put their names to the comments

I might not agree with some of what is being said

But I'd take it over apathy

Whether it's just a one day wonder and anything is done is another story

Whichever of the Portumna neighbours has the better backs will win. If Shefflin doesn't sort out the Galway backs he will never get the Kilkenny job. I mo thuairim

Tipp v Galway too close to call but I'm going to plump for Tipp, but they'll need to stop Conor Whelan whose hitting a bit of form after a few underpar performances.

Going for the Clare men in the other game by about 5 or so, but in modern terms that's a tight game also.

I'd say Barrett's the man for Whelan. Good battle there.

He definitely wasn't

Think of it in 'their' shoes, its not difficult, they are British and want to stay British, and you can throw every benefit at it.

Who do you mean by 'their'?
Unionism is a broad family - Loyalists, traditional Unionists, pragmatic Unionists, Catholic Unionists, cultural Unionists, agnostic/de facto Unionists (eg Alliance).

While every one of those need to be welcomed into any new Irish state, it's only those that form part of the middle ground that need persuading.

By the very term unionist they want to remain part of the union, You can at the very least see where they are coming from? You'd never willing want to stay in the union..

The closer it gets to the border question/poll/deliberation/implementation the place will be completely divided..

What are the timeframes for this? 10/20/30 years?

Best to not upset them and to leave NI as it is then

Let's run the place into the ground so that the south can't afford us but we will be poor, British and happy seem to be their singular strategy

No wonder they are so against the Protocol because it is doing the opposite

We were poor but we were happy. 

Poor,Happy and British

You're saying that like there's no food banks or plenty of affordable housing in the south

And that's McWilliams point

We in the south should be exploiting Northern Ireland with its cheap housing and cheap labour for the good of an all Ireland economy

" But here is the opportunity. The Republic has too much demand and not enough supply; the North has too much supply and not enough demand. Integrate further and gains accrue to both jurisdictions.

Take commercial rents, which are far lower in the North. Prime rents in Belfast are £23 (€26.73) per sq ft as opposed to €65 in Dublin. Surely this gap can be bridged as companies move? The average monthly rent in the North is £773 (about €900), as opposed to the average rent in the Republic, which stands at €1,750 – almost double that in Northern Ireland. The average cost of a home in Northern Ireland is £197,800 (€229,902); it is €308,497 in the South."

Think of it in 'their' shoes, its not difficult, they are British and want to stay British, and you can throw every benefit at it.

Who do you mean by 'their'?
Unionism is a broad family - Loyalists, traditional Unionists, pragmatic Unionists, Catholic Unionists, cultural Unionists, agnostic/de facto Unionists (eg Alliance).

While every one of those need to be welcomed into any new Irish state, it's only those that form part of the middle ground that need persuading.

By the very term unionist they want to remain part of the union, You can at the very least see where they are coming from? You'd never willing want to stay in the union..

The closer it gets to the border question/poll/deliberation/implementation the place will be completely divided..

What are the timeframes for this? 10/20/30 years?

Best to not upset them and to leave NI as it is then

Let's run the place into the ground so that the south can't afford us but we will be poor, British and happy seem to be their singular strategy

No wonder they are so against the Protocol because it is doing the opposite

We were poor but we were happy. 

Poor,Happy and British

Think of it in 'their' shoes, its not difficult, they are British and want to stay British, and you can throw every benefit at it.

Who do you mean by 'their'?
Unionism is a broad family - Loyalists, traditional Unionists, pragmatic Unionists, Catholic Unionists, cultural Unionists, agnostic/de facto Unionists (eg Alliance).

While every one of those need to be welcomed into any new Irish state, it's only those that form part of the middle ground that need persuading.

By the very term unionist they want to remain part of the union, You can at the very least see where they are coming from? You'd never willing want to stay in the union..

The closer it gets to the border question/poll/deliberation/implementation the place will be completely divided..

What are the timeframes for this? 10/20/30 years?

Best to not upset them and to leave NI as it is then

Let's run the place into the ground so that the south can't afford us but we will be poor, British and happy seem to be their singular strategy

No wonder they are so against the Protocol because it is doing the opposite

McWilliams is married to a northern Protestant woman and knows the mentality of them all right. I'm sure his in-laws have seen to that. Always an insightful bit of commentary.

McWilliams is an entertainer first and an economist second. Much like Brolly the Wally, they're in showbusiness. If you want to get paid for talks and panel gigs you gotta say stuff to get you in the limelight.

The point of Northern Ireland is not prosperity. Right now, among unionist politicians, the central strategy seems to centre on the immiseration of the people in order to inflate the likely future cost of any united Ireland, so as to scare off lukewarm nationalists of "middle Ireland". How else can you interpret the oft-heard expression "The South can't afford us" other than "We" are going to remain impoverished as a negotiating strategy? It doesn't matter what sort of poverty we endure as long as it's red, white and blue poverty. It's worthy of Flann O'Brien.

However, this tactic is not working because the story of the past 25 years since the signing of the Belfast Agreement has been the quiet, modest but obvious success of the integration of the island economy. Commerce always finds a way. Thirty thousand people cross the Border every day to go to work. Since Brexit, and through the Covid years, cross-Border trading has increased. In 2021, Ireland exported €3.7 billion to Northern Ireland and imported €4 billion, a significant increase from 2020, when exports stood at about €2.5 billion. Imports from Northern Ireland to the Republic also increased, Central Statistics Office (CSO) data shows.
Overall, exports to Northern Ireland as a proportion of all Irish exports to the UK increased from 16 per cent to 23 per cent in the past two years. Similarly, the share of UK imports coming from Northern Ireland has shot up. Politics might be trying to create borders, but trade is doing its own thing.
The orientation of trade in Northern Ireland has been transformed by Brexit. The Republic is Northern Ireland's single largest export market, accounting for 40 per cent of total exports outside exports to Britain. Before Brexit, Northern Ireland exports to Britain were 3.7 times greater than exports to the Republic; now that figure is only 2.5 times greater. Trade between both parts of the island is flourishing. The value of exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic increased by 23 per cent between 2020 and 2021, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA); a much larger increase than the change in total exports.
Brexit is not a wedge between both parts of the island. Rather, it has proved to be a bridge – precisely what the protocol is designed to do. Northern Ireland has the best of both worlds, one foot in the EU and one in the UK.

But there is a long way to go.
The Troubles are estimated to have reduced Northern Ireland's GDP by up to 10 per cent. However, in the quarter century since the Belfast Agreement, a real divergence emerged between the North and South. Economic indicators make it abundantly clear that the peace dividend went to the South.
From 1998 to 2021, the Northern Ireland economy expanded by about 38 per cent in real terms, considerably less than the Republic. Even taking the GNI (gross national income) measure, which strips out the distorting effects of multinationals on the economy, the Irish economy has grown by about 83 per cent in real terms, more than double the rate of the North.

Central to this economic underperformance of the North relative to the Republic is its poor productivity performance. Productivity is the key to driving improvements in living standards, and Northern Ireland has the worst productivity (measured in terms of output per hours worked) of any UK region, about 17 per cent below the UK average as a whole. (The UK itself is among the worst performing economies in the OECD.) In contrast, productivity per worker is about 40 per cent higher in the Republic relative to the North. Wages can't rise when productivity is so low, which explains why wages are so much lower in the North, running on average about 64 per cent of those in Ireland.

Definitely worth a listen

David McWilliams Podcast

The Unionist Strategy against a United Ireland ....Poverty

https://open.spotify.com/episode/21gxBKirO4AEHr0wbG1Pkd?si=__CA_cPmT36YKdiBfX5lOw

Is Croke not an option ?

The logical choice would

Tipp v Galway in Limerick

Clare v Dublin in Portlaoise

There's nothing to gained by having a double header in a half or even third full Croke Park and dragging 2 counties from the west across the country to Dublin

Double header in Nowlan Park or Limerick Gaelic Grounds, Cork have a home football game on so that ruled out.

Nowlan not a runner

Capacity 27,500

McDonagh Cup should be the McDonagh Cup and that's it. Finish it later, don't condense it and don't be putting them in to play in the McCarthy Cup. Don't be taking the good out of the Competition.

Hard to please everyone isnt it. Not long since I heard that all teams in the country should be entitled to a chance to win Liam Mac in a given year. Id wager that no sooner would this option be removed there would be cries to bring it back the following year.

What do we want hurling to be? Realistically this year there are only 6 serious teams

sorry Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Antrim and Westmeath
https://twitter.com/TheSundayGame/status/1670197080495882240

You didnt include Cork in the 6 or those you apologized to

beaten by a point by Limerick and if the result had been reversed they would have been one of the 3 coming out of Munster

Dublin drew with Galway

Waterford should have beaten Limerick in round 1 and gave Tipp a lesson

Wexford bet Kilkenny

Westmeath bet Wexford

Antrim drew with Dublin

the challenge for the bottom 4 of the 11 in the Championship is to putting in consistently strong performance's across the Championship

[Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for ,that's on them,there were no shortage of information explaining to them what was in the offing if they voted to leave.]

Would nationalists accept a 50%+1 against?

Yes, of course. With the demographics the 1 would have already died when the count took place, so just have another referedum after 7 years with plenty of clarification in the meantime.

50+1 would be too unstable . Brexit was won 52:48 when most voters had no idea what Brexit meant and it has been a clusterfuck that sucks political energy and goes nowhere.

50% + 1 in a democratic decision is a majority

What are you suggesting is done instead?

You'd hope that lessons would have been leaned from Brexit and that a UI referendum would be 5 years in the planning

As for this notion that Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for ,that's on them,there were no shortage of information explaining to them what was in the offing if they voted to leave.

One of the things  that  was talked about pre-Brexit was the  possibility of Irish Sea border checks , and big Jeffrey  actually said  sure that wouldn't be a problem if they  had  those.  So ,  a lot of people look to their politicians for  guidance (madness, I know) on such  things before  voting

Do you honestly  think  all cards will be laid out  on the table pre-border poll?  Will all promises  and arrangements  be honoured  after the referendum? Of  course they won't.

If you take guidance from the likes of Jeffrey Paisley Bojo and Rees Mogg then the jokes on you

Even at the most basic level making it more difficult to trade with your nearest and biggest partners was never going to be biggest and brightest of ideas

With respect to a UI,there would have to be an agreement similar to the GFA which would have to agreed and signed by the British and Irish governments plus in all probability the US and the EU

Similar to the GFA if it is in the agreement,it would have to adhered to

Would nationalists accept a 50%+1 against?

Yes, of course. With the demographics the 1 would have already died when the count took place, so just have another referedum after 7 years with plenty of clarification in the meantime.

50+1 would be too unstable . Brexit was won 52:48 when most voters had no idea what Brexit meant and it has been a clusterfuck that sucks political energy and goes nowhere.

50% + 1 in a democratic decision is a majority

What are you suggesting is done instead?

You'd hope that lessons would have been leaned from Brexit and that a UI referendum would be 5 years in the planning

As for this notion that Brexit voters didn't know what they were voting for ,that's on them,there were no shortage of information explaining to them what was in the offing if they voted to leave.

Hurling can be reintroduced to places . Belfast is an underused asset for Antrim and Down where the hurling footprint is the problem.
Laois is different https://youtu.be/D8sTmXpgBS0&t=5220s

I don't want to speak ill of the dead

But Teddy was a disaster as Laois manager,I could give 4/5 shocking examples but I won't

Some of what he spoke about as regards player  buy isn't an issue with the likes of Willie Maher

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2023/06/14/sean-moran-the-munster-hurling-championship-has-been-great-but-can-it-continue/

Would it be fairer for Munster teams if the round-robin groups mixed according to seeding? Of course, but then we would end up with two identical league competitions, one after the other.


There is another compelling reason why it won't happen. Munster have had a fantastic year at the box office. In his welcoming address for Sunday's programme, provincial chair Ger Ryan pinpointed the reason why Munster hurling is unlikely to be tampered with.

"We have had great crowds at our games this year and by throw-in time today, total attendances of this year's senior hurling championship will exceed 300,000," Ryan said.

That adds up to a staggering average attendance of 27,288 per match. When you consider the misgivings – justified in the football championship – about the round-robin format and its traditional impact on attendances, that's an astonishing figure, especially as it includes Waterford's doomed fixture list.

It means the average crowd in Munster was nearly 3,000 greater than the Leinster final, which was itself the best attended match in the province by a distance.

An average of over 27, 000 is some going.

It probably would have broken 30,000 if Waterford had gotten the win in round 1

[Ben Lowry: Unionists and London have consistently failed to challenge Ireland's repeated criticisms of the UK on legacy]

Newsletter editorial rant. Reader discretion advised:

Ben Lowry: Unionists and London have consistently failed to challenge Ireland's repeated criticisms of the UK on legacy

To see how weak unionists and the government have been on legacy, consider Leo Varadkar on Friday (this article was first published in the print newspaper on Saturday June 10).

The Irish prime minister had the nerve to say amendments to a Westminster bill aimed at tackling Northern Ireland's past "don't go far enough". He was referring to government attempts to placate nationalist criticisms of the legacy bill, which offers an amnesty for people accused of Troubles crimes if they assist truth recovery. The ever scolding Mr Varadkar said he had raised the issue several times with the prime minister, then said legacy "is one of the few things that all five major parties in Northern Ireland are united on".

Unionists are wholly to blame for the way in which a Taoiseach can imply that they and the IRA are at one on legacy. They have joined with nationalist opposition to the bill, instead of making clear their contempt for how even moderate nationalists now rarely challenge a republican narrative on the past.

Meanwhile, London has moved to shut down legacy rather than take the fight to their tormentors, including an Irish state that refused to extradite IRA murderers over three decades. While Dublin drones on about the amnesty, the UK is too feeble even to cite Ireland's own de facto amnesty for IRA (sic). For years I have said the only response to such Irish hypocrisy is unilateral UK probes into Irish terrorism.

Typo aside, what's Ben waffling about here? Wasn't Mountjoy full of IRA prisoners?

The South had no issues with executing IRA prisoners right up to the 1940's and had non jury trials in place long before Diplock in the north

He also might bone up on the Emergency Powers Act which is still on the books down here and see what could be used against the IRA

And speaking of probes into terrorism,one should definitely be opened into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and specifically UK state involvement in them.