Messages

[Also quick thanks to yourself and David McKeown for the legal info. Never thought I'd say I learned a lot on the GAA Board, but I did!]

Justice done and seen to be done. Unanimity of it is very telling.

I take it from some of your posts that you are from a legal background. I have been somewhat taken aback by the reaction of some on twitter from people on both sides of the argument in relation to the verdict. Are their likely consequences for those expressing opinions about both parties? Also given the high bar of reasonable doubt, and the admission some of the defendants could there be a civil case in your opinion?

I have to say from a personal perspective I applaud Stuart Olding's reaction and apology to the complainant, cold comfort I'm sure to her, but I thought it took guts.

Twitter is the hotbed for fools and those with agendas. There will be no consequences really but there could be. The reality is that this is feeding people's agendas yesterday and today and maybe tomorrow but the old phrase that today's news is tomorrow's chip paper will kick in and they will be debating the 8th Amendment or whatever their next cause is.

It has been stated on here that there is the possibility of a civil action. As the balance of probabilities is the burden of proof there is w better chance that she might win it. I honestly am not sure that will happen in terms of running it to a hearing. If this woman does she loses her anonymity. If she starts one and doesn't run it the whole way to hearing and accepts an out of court settlement then she will be castigated as the perception will be that she did it for the money. Also if she runs it and loses then the stark reality is that the court would likely award costs against her and the costs of 4 defendants in a high court civil action will be huge. Easily half a million. I also think that given the seemingly very clear cut approach of the jury to a finding of not guilty then I reckon that she'd be on a hiding to nothing.

Olding is being applauded for his statement but read it again. He's basically calling her a liar. It may be couched up in nicer language but at the back of it all he's saying he doesn't believe her side of the story. That has been lost as well in translation.

Jeez, another 5 pages since yesterday evening!

Agree bcb1, I think the IP would be ill advised to take this any further.  Look at where we are today.  OK, not guilty all around, but she is still generating a lot of sympathy right from the #ibelieveher crowd to people like me and others here, who while fully accepting the jury's verdict as being the "right" one and being honest enough to state that I probably would have reached the same verdict, don't believe that she out and out lied.  The number of inconsistencies in her evidence taken in the round meant that the evidence was not near beyond a reasonable doubt.  So I still have sympathy for what she's been through.

Also although the defendants are free, they're not exactly leaving the court "without a stain on their character".  So again the focus is still on the four boyos and it remains to be seen how Ulster Rugby deal with this case.  There's still a lot of public opprobrium for them and their attitudes.  As reported on joe.ie Harrison's decision to decamp straight to the bar of the Hilton Hotel from the court at lunchtime made me ask has he learned anything from this process!?!?

All that could be lost with another case and given the speed an unanimity of the decision would she even make the "on the balance of probability" threshold?

Also quick thanks to yourself and David McKeown for the legal info.  Never thought I'd say I learned a lot on the GAA Board, but I did!

Sometimes you need to separate the wheat from the chaff and there was loads of chaff on this thread but the nuggets from David and BCB give a little more insight into what's going on.

The definition of legal rape was a very new concept to me and I'd say to 95% of the population at large.

Save your whatsapp messages for the mods investigation 

Oops, bloody phone crashed and wiped all my correspondence.

[Is that you MR, How many Darrens are there in St Galls]

Is that you MR, How many Darrens are there in St Galls?

Must be big Darren O'Hare from the club, the only other Darren I would know, but I'm going to go with the usual WUM who comes on once a year with various names and has a go at me, will see how long he/she last this time before losing the run of himself/herself and looses the plot

If he claimed to be the said NG clubman and reported you ... is that not a banning offense MR?

Apologies if I outed anyone, it wasn't my intentions.

I like MR2 thought it was the usual WUM who pops up on a regular basis.

[my own rugby club has 22 teams including women's, girls and disability,]

Saying he's wrong, which he patently is, isn't snobbery.

No but saying he's wrong while have a dig at three schools is what exactly? To me your projecting your own snobbery towards fee paying schools.

Point out where I had a dig at the schools?


I made reference to the fact that, in Ireland, rugby is clearly still very much an elitist sport, regardless of how many sit down to watch the national team play one of its biggest matches of the last ten years. The developmental route to the professional game very much goes through those elite schools. When you're arguing that it's "the sport of the people" that point becomes particularly relevant.

Why mention the schools at all then, you brought them up not me?

Rugby is not an elitist sport, anyone can join their local rugby club, my own rugby club has 22 teams including women's, girls and disability, how many GAA clubs can match that? The development route doesn't very much go through the elite schools. There are many pathways. Jacob Stockdale did not got to a fee paying school and he just won player of the 6 nations. Joey Carberry, Tadgh Furlong, Bundee Aki, Iain Henderson, Keith Earls also all starters, non-fee paying schools.

Do you increase your chances of a professional career if you go to a Michael's, Belvo or a Blackrock, absolutely, the culture of rugby in those schools the same way the culture of football in St Jarleths's improves your chances but it's not the only pathway.

The likes of Francis and MacKenna try to polarise people, I wouldn't give them oxygen.

Several, around the country I would imagine. How many rugby clubs can match it, as of a matter of interest?

Not many particularly the disability side. Does disability hurling or football exist? Genuinely don't know but I know the FAI have led way and now how 1000s participating in their football for all programs and the IRFU are following suit, very much in it's infancy with only I think 9 or 10 special needs team in Leinster. Girls rugby is growing at a massive rate, 7s is a big winner in the schools, very similar to ladies football in that manner. I get the image of rugby with MacKenna and Francis doing their best to ensure that stereotype exists. But once you move away from large cities and towns the cross pollination between GAA clubs, soccers clubs and rugby clubs is such that they probably struggle to exist if their members were one sport only.

Emm, I can't imagine wheelchair hurling to be honest. Can't really imagine it for football either.

Why would it have to involve wheelchairs? There's a hell of a lot of different disabilities.

There is wheelchair hurling, in it's infancy.

http://ulster.gaa.ie/2017/10/ireland-wheelchair-hurling-championships/

Not sure what that's got to do with the price of bread though!


I'd say most GAA clubs of a reasonable size have 20 plus teams.

We've a small catchment, not even a village and between hurling and camogie we'd put out almost 20 teams from U6's to adult in both codes and we don't bother the big ball.

Not sure why people bother with this shít from McKenna and Neil Francis, column inches for the eejits to get wound up about.

The DUP should join the Tory rebels and vote for the Customs Union. Then they can characterise the resulting outcome as administrative and veterinary inspections

Arlene will put up a token protest but then let it dwindle as it could potentially be an economic godsend to the wee six.

Many sending offs at the weekend or just in the Rossa game?

How did that game end up as there's nothing up on the Antrim web site yet?

WRT the fixtures I see its feast or famine stuff, but with the Joe McDonagh being played on Sundays there's little options available to the fixtures secretary.

I think our secretary mentioned to our senior panel that they'll have 7 games in 20 days late July to early August.

Harry & Meaghan in Belfast today.  Possible late character witness??

Meaghan is going to give all the Barristers a run down on how to do their jobs. She works for a law firm, Pearson Specter Litt.

What may have prompted this is that there are a few lads on the Royal School Armagh team playing the Schools Cup last week, who have very obviously Irish names and a fair smattering are from a GAA background. There was a lot of coverage of the match in the area and it was certainly remarked upon to me about the names of the players.

Ireland win a Grand Slam for the third time in its history and it's all over the D4 based media, no big deal IMO.

McGeeney and his type of intercounty management need an all year round type role and with compacted leagues and if Armagh don't make the super 8's then the season could be over for him sooner than he'd like.

Does he have a 9 to 5 job?

re-watched 12 Angry Men earlier in the week in anticipation of what will go on behind the scenes shortly;

I realise this has little relevance, but hey ho, hasn't stopped some of yis

I watched re-runs of Ally McBeal, I think I could give this law malarkey a good go.

Syferus,
    What law school did you attend? What is the entrance criteria?

British made a big deal about returning to a blue passport post Brexit. Now seems that the contract to manufacture them has been won by a French company who underpriced the current UK manufacturer. You couldn't make it up.

It gets better,
    A Galway based company complete the bio-metric programming of the passports during the application process.

Jim Allister will have a fit.

Fence half of it off and let a farmer graze a few calves on it. That's a massive garden.

Put it into spuds and a few rows of carrots and stuff, make it work for you.

You're missing the point here completely. Which isn't surprising.  This is much bigger than one election in the US. I (and many others from what I can see) care about the privacy of data. CA and FB have overstepped. That much is clear. US politics is a drop in the ocean. I accept that those living in the US may feel differently about that as they have to live there. Thankfully most of us don't.

A lot of posts on here but most are just repeats of what's on the US politics thread and completely miss the importance of this story except for shark's post imo. The big picture here and the opportunity for this to be replicated a hundred fold is frightening. Trump has won his election and no amount of hand wringing will change that. It's the elections of the future and how this sort of thing can be combated that we should be talking about. There's no simple solution to it though

Lets not kid ourselves either. Foreign Governments and big businesses, Media moguls have been influencing elections in various countries for decades so what Cambridge Analytica was doing was just an upscaled, modern, privatised version of what has been the norm form as long as pussy was a cat.

One day it's Murdock and his red tops, the next day it's some private "individual" using CA and a social media stream to carry its message.

Charlie Brooker is normally a good old read.

Someone mentioned Kevin Cashman, I found quite alof as you'd get nuggets of greek mythology or something deep thrown into the mix but hurling wise and taking into account his Cork/Traditional three hat dothing bias he had some insightful things to say.

Newton Emerson is pretty decent normally when it comes to local politics even if I don't personally agree with his slant on local travails.

[Moyles]

It's starting to feel like the beginning of the end for Jose. Building up for a meltdown.

I give him to end of September / Early November next year.

Has all the hallmarks of the Chelsea exit here, although he never went after any of their players like he's done with Shaw.

No - that time it was victimising and libelling the doctor for doing her job that lost him the dressing room.

The major difference here is that he seems to have the backing of the board. I really don't know what to make of it, but if you watch the post-match press conference for the Brighton match and put it together with his comments and 12 minute rant from the Seville game, he is feeling the pressure.

There is a school of thought that Mourinho is making an attempt to gain 'total' control at United.

At Real / Chelsea he could never gain total control of transfers.

There was an article I read recently, maybe on the telegraph - I'll try and find it that raises some very good points, Ferguson / Charlton views have been marginalised since the Moyles debacle, Woodward is not a football man meaning Jose is playing some aggressive politics.

Chris?

Do you not think it's got to the stage now though where Putin is fed up with the UK and Uncle Sam's hypocrisy? I find him as intriguing a man as there is in the world or has been in the world for the past 40 years. He certainly is a dictator and has committed serious crimes but it can't be denied how interesting he is.

He's a fallow imitation of Stalin. He's not really interesting even as a curio. Russia had a chance for a new beginning and chose a KGB strongman. When the world goes renewable they are so fûcked it isn't funny. And few will be all that upset about it.

If he was smart he would have used the money to develop other industries and modernise Russia as an open society that people want to do business with rather than feel compelled to do business with. Instead he enriched himself and brought about the era of the oligarch.

I always thought it was Boris Yeltsin who allowed the carve up of the old state industries which created the oligarchs who then bought up half London and fund the Tory Party?