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Well it was a roaring success! 

Weather messed things up a bit and the schedule had to be adjusted, but all the games that had to be played got played.  We had to take out some of the East v West games because of dangerous lightning.  In the collegiate competition Purdue fell a few points short of qualifying for the final.  Indiana beat Cal in the final by 4 points.  Good standard of hurling too, good enough that you could bring an audience and keep them entertained.

In the East-West games we just kept it informal and didn't present a cup or anything, the purpose of that was to get game time for less-experienced players and anyone who came from a college that could only send a handful of players.  If you put up a cup then sometimes the coaches start taking it more seriously and they're less inclined to play inexperienced players, which would defeat the purpose.  So only one East West game was played, but the Purdue team and a handful of other players got a challenge match in against the local Chicago Michael Cusack's club.

There was supposed to be a youth hurling demo for a few hours but that had to be cancelled too, the main field was going to get churned up too much and the lightning kept flashing away.

We were very lucky to get the final in.  There was a field that hadn't yet been full of cars parking for the Irish Fest, so we commandeered it and got the final played during a break in the storm when it actually stopped raining.

Round-robin results:

University of California Berkeley 4-4 (16) Indiana University 3-8 (17)
Purdue University 3-11 University of California Berkeley 3-11 (AET!)
Indiana University 3-9 (18) Purdue University 2-5 (11)

Final:
Indiana University 3-4 (13) University of California Berkeley 1-6 (9)

No red cards, no fighting, good clean sporting games and good cooperation from all the players, coaches and officials. 

I must give a shout out to the Chicago GAA community, they really threw their weight behind this and gave us all the help we needed with facilities, referees, officials and everything.  Couldn't ask for more hospitable hosts.

Congrats to Indiana, the first college in the USA to put their name on a GAA cup for an inter-collegiate national championship.

Bone-crushing handshakes.

[in true stupid Puck fashion I didnt say anything and paid $9 for the fecking thing]

We were out to dinner a few months back at a pretentious fecking place at an invitation to join another couple. I asked for a Tanqueray and tonic (figuring in this place it would be the guts of 10$). The bar maid took the order and proceeded to pour the gin and then she started making something off to the side. Wasn't sure what she was at until she handed me my cocktail and it looked like watered down snot. I asked her what it was and she said "Oh yeah, we make our own tonic in here". Anyone who drinks tonic knows its the sharpness and the bite that most tonic drinkers like and this was like a flattened, herbacious american style lemonade. I was only able to get  about two sips out of it but in true stupid Puck fashion I didnt say anything and paid $9 for the fecking thing.

Dinner for two that night was 130$ and I went home and made a sandwich. Pretentions fuckin hole.

You haven't been Americanised.  I'd have given it back to her and paid nothing. Why would anyone make their own tonic anyway?  And badly at that?  The tonic's the most important part of the G&T experience. If it's not right then the whole show's off. I hope you went on Yelp and wrote her a scathing review.

(Do they use Yelp in Ireland?)

As I anticipated, Obama's photo-op with the hurley got some attention in the US press and my hurling youtube movie got a subsequent bump in views.  It's been holding steady at 1000 views/day for a while, but Obama's photo op was followed by a spike of 5000 views in one day.  This is the biggest spike this movie has had since a year or two ago when it was posted on some high-traffic Polish website and got 5000 views in a single day.

The Gaelic football video is currently getting 800 to 1000 views/day. This movie hasn't been uploaded for as long so it'll probably grow to overtake the hurling video in hits/day.

In the early part of the 20th century, there were a number of concerns about Irish independence.

Firstly people did not know what was ahead, there wasn't a model then.
While a UI will not be just the ROI, it will probably be between NI and ROI models.

Protestants may have had concerns on religious grounds and pretty much ensured that those concerns would arise to some extent by associating non Catholics with colonialism.
There is no concern about this sort of thing anymore.

People in the industrialised North had concerns about tariffs etc and that the less industrialised South would pursue tax policies re agriculture and industry that wouldn't suit them.
There aren't those difference between the economies now and the EU model ensures that trade with Britain or elsewhere wouldn't be affected one way or the other.

People in the North worried about being associated with a less prosperous South, and that taxes would divert money from North to South.
Now, of course, Ulster enterprise is gone and the North sees itself as needing money to keep it going.

Finally unionists had been giving it for hundreds of years, they may have wondered if the show was going to be on the other foot now.
The GFA models have sorted this one.

Those proposing a UI were always potentially on the hind foot in the 20th century as the ROI was less prosperous than the UK, this is no longer the case and will no longer be the case.

Unionism has a choice, it can cling to a sectarian 17th century colonial vision which Britain has now basically apologised for. It can stay in a union where the other partner couldn't care less and even despises their regressive political philosophy. It can continue in the present, rather sad, situation where any sign of economic progress North or South is unwelcome as it might undermine the good Union.  Or people of British heritage can make their way in 21st century Ireland just as people from Poland, China, Brazil and Nigeria do.

+1

thon giggsy's a horny hoor.......

[Alex Salmond pledge to fight 'bigotry and booze']

The Irish vinter's association put up a bit of a fight over the smoking ban as if it was going to put them out of business, but excess drinking is still a problem in Ireland and the pint of Guinness is still seen as the essential part of any visit even for heads of state. Will anyone stand up to Ireland's alcohol industrial complex and the drinking culture it has spawned?

26 May 2011 Last updated at 08:52 ET
Alex Salmond pledge to fight 'bigotry and booze'

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has laid out his five-year vision for government, with a pledge to tackle "bigotry and booze".

Following the SNP's landslide election victory, Mr Salmond has made new laws on tackling sectarianism and minimum alcohol pricing a priority.

He also outlined a "social wage" with the people of Scotland.

Mr Salmond pledged to retain vital services in return for measures like public sector pay restraint.

The Scottish government's detailed programme for government, including a list of planned bills, will come after the summer break.

Opposition parties urged Mr Salmond to clarify plans for his independence referendum, planned for the second half of the five-year parliament.

Speaking at Holyrood, the first minister laid out plans for economic recovery and pledged to put a "jobs agenda" at the heart of his programme for government.

In the next few weeks, the Scottish Parliament is expected to pass new laws on increasing jail terms for sectarian-related disorder to a maximum of five years.

And ministers will also bring back plans to set a minimum price per unit of alcohol - proposals which were defeated in the last parliament when the SNP was in minority government.

It is a phrase commonly distrusted by the right, in that they argue it can involve enhanced state control and hand-outs, rather than any form of earned entitlement or "wage".

On this occasion, Mr Salmond placed it in a specific context - and with a specific contrast.

The context was public spending constraint - and particularly the wage freeze being endured by many in the public sector.

To alleviate such difficulties, Mr Salmond argued, it was vital to provide continuing compensation in the form of public benefits - such as free personal care, free prescriptions, free travel.

A counter case could be made by some that such universality of provision benefits the relatively well off more than the poor - in that the low-waged might expect such benefits in any case under a targeted system.

To contest such arguments, Mr Salmond turned to a contrast: that between the approach he plans in Scotland and his vision of what is happening south of the border.

His vision, of course, would be disdained as a caricature by those in government at Westminster.

More from Brian Taylor
The first minister told MSPs: "In the age of Twitter and texts, the dreams of a free-speaking world are contaminated by viral strains of bitterness.

"Technology has given fresh energy to old hatreds and pustulant sectarianism again seeps across our land.

"Well, it will be stopped - I will not have people living in fear from some idiotic 17th Century rivalry in the 21st Century."

Mr Salmond said sectarianism "must stop", adding: "Not because it is embarrassing to our national image - though it is.

"Nor that it is embarrassing to ourselves - though it is that too - but because it is a pointless cause pursued by the pitiless."

Turning to Scotland's "booze culture", Mr Salmond went on: "I think that we have confused our appetite for fun with a hunger for self-destruction.

"We tolerate a race to the bottom of the bottle, which ruins our health, our judgement, our relationships, our safety and our dignity.

"Thus, early legislation in this parliament shall address both bigotry and booze."

Mr Salmond said his government had committed to helping hard-pressed Scots by freezing the council tax over the course of the five-year parliament and moving against public sector compulsory redundancies.

The SNP has also committed to keeping prescription charges and bridge tolls free, while maintaining free bus travel for the elderly and protecting NHS spending.

Defining the social wage as a "pact" between politicians, public services and the people, the first minister said: "We shall deliver the social and economic circumstances that allow for people to dream, to aspire and to be ambitious - but it is for the individual to realise their dreams, to reach for their hopes, to meet their ambitions.

"People understand that public spending must be restrained, and, in return, we will stand alongside the family in Dumfries that wants to send their daughter to university.

"We will support the commuter in Dunfermline who travels daily across the Forth or the family in Ayrshire who would otherwise have to choose which medicine they can afford this month.

"And we will protect the pensioner in Inverness who lives off her savings and fears ever-rising prices and bills."

Mr Salmond said the SNP's planned Scottish Futures Fund would tackle "endemic problems" with support for young people, transport, housing and new, digital technology.

And the government would also prioritise the "internationalisation" of Scotland's economy, in areas such as renewable energy.

Hitting out at the UK government, Mr Salmond said: "Elsewhere on these isles, the tolerance of the poor is being tested - budgets slashed, priorities changed, hope crushed in the braying tones of people who claim to know best.

"We should aspire to be different. In Scotland the poor won't be made to pick up the bill for the rich."

Mr Salmond again called for Westminster to devolve control over increased borrowing powers, corporation tax, excise duties, control over the Crown Estate, broadcasting and increased influence in Europe.

And, turning to the referendum, Mr Salmond told MSPs: "The age of benign dictat is over.

"This parliament is not a lobby group, begging Westminster for what is already ours. This parliament speaks for the people of Scotland and they shall be heard."

Outgoing Labour leader Iain Gray called on the first minister to make his referendum plans clear at the earliest opportunity, saying the issue was creating uncertainty over Scotland's economic future.

Mr Gray said of Scotland: "I think it is big enough, rich enough in talent and certainly smart, creative and educated enough to take every opportunity being part of a bigger social and economic unit affords it."

Tory leader Annabel Goldie, who is also standing down from her role, said she was proud to be both Scottish and British - but argued it was not possible to be for both independence and extended devolution within Britain.

She said the Scotland Bill on more powers for Holyrood, currently going through Westminster, was "the way ahead".

"Alex Salmond's is not the only mandate," said Miss Goldie, adding: "Scotland by referendum has voted for a devolved Scottish Parliament with tax varying powers - that is the settled will."

.... I completely disagreed with the way he and Mrs. Thatcher tried to impose the Anglo-Irish Agreement over the heads of virtually the entire Unionist population

Play me the world's smallest violin.

Your sympathy is noted, even though it was neither solicited nor needed.

(The key word was "tried"  )

You see here's what gets me about the Anglo Irish Agreement and the collective hysterical nervous breakdown that your crowd had when it was signed. Yiz are fond of whinging about how something could be imposed on the majority against their wishes.  Yet the very partition that your entire political ideology is based upon was a prime example of something being imposed on the majority in Ireland against their wishes (and don't get me started about the threat of "immediate and terrible war" that backed it up).

Yiz are democrats when it suits youse, aren't you?

I doubt anyone there knew the original words Eamon. (we're not that well versed in Obama oratory) It was picked up on by the media the following day. Anyway I was only making a point that many others made. It was a very short but enjoyable event and Enda and his speech didnt add or take from it in any way. Like I said before his image was better on the world stage than that of Cowen and for once it was good to see that slieveen Ahern take a back seat when the US president was over.

Jesus, God forbid if Cowen were still in charge. He'd have been half cut, would have slurred his words and would have been booed off the stage. Did you see the skit Jay Leno did on him? Cowen literally turned the country into a laughing stock.

For his next trick he's going to claim that the fallen patriots of 1916 have all been forgotten even though his own Queen paid her respects to them a few days ago.

As a journalist said he should at least have referenced who he was quoting.

Right, so he should have said "and for the benefit of the politically illiterate, that's a quote from Obama's acceptance speech"? Yeah, that would have been smooth.

Eamon normally I find your posts intelligent so you're obviously being deliberately thick and sarcastic this time. Have a listen to Obama's speeches where its either "in the words of" or "as one of your great poets says". It was widely covered in media circles that FG f**ked it up by not covering that end of it. So maybe no need for the extreme trashing of my opinion. I think you know well what I (and others) meant.

Well I am in a thick and sarcastic mood these days (well spotted  ), but in all seriousness I honestly don't think attribution would have added anything to the speech. I think that would have been patronising to the audience, implying that they wouldn't have known who said the original words. I mean if I said "ask not what your county board can do for you, ask what you can do for your county board," would it really be necessary to prefix it with "to paraphrase JFK" or would it be better to let the audience make the obvious connection themselves? Sometimes if you spell everything out too much for the audience you lose some of the effect. It's like telling a joke and then explaining why it's funny, it'd completely take away from the effect you're trying to have.

.... I completely disagreed with the way he and Mrs. Thatcher tried to impose the Anglo-Irish Agreement over the heads of virtually the entire Unionist population

Play me the world's smallest violin.

As a journalist said he should at least have referenced who he was quoting.

Right, so he should have said "and for the benefit of the politically illiterate, that's a quote from Obama's acceptance speech"? Yeah, that would have been smooth.

Finally got around to watching Kenny's speech earlier. Jesus lads yiz are fierce hard on the fella! There was damn all wrong with his speech! He thanked the people for their warmth over the last few days (alluding to Queen Elizabeth's visit), paraphrased Obama for a few lines, then covered all the bases you'd expect him to cover.  You could tell the crowd was eager to hear Obama himself but he still kept their attention. His delivery was fine. It was a little bit throaty but I think that added to the passion of it rather than take away from it.

Cycling is a sport on the rocks.

I entirely agree. I love watching the Tour de France, but it's just not the same anymore. As soon as you see an incredible athletic feat your first reaction now is to become suspicious instead of be amazed by it.