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Danny Boy
by Daniel O'CarrollRSS 
Recent Posts
- Coder Dojo takes Ireland by storm – new tech initiative gets Ireland's kids coding
- Traveller horse race provokes outrage -- dramatic police chase footage goes viral -- VIDEO
- Pioneering Irish website FixMyArea.com outdoes local authorities and shows power of social activism
- Jerry Buttimer - just an Irish politician "who happens to be gay"
- Irish fleeced on water meters - Government plan to charge $400 for water meters that are on Amazon for $40
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Coder Dojo takes Ireland by storm – new tech initiative gets Ireland's kids coding
An Austrlian-born entrepreneur with a penchant for global reforestation is the unlikely figure behind Coder Dojo, a sprawling network of 'coding clubs' where Irish teens can come together and help programme a dazzling array of hi-tech projects.
Bill Liao, whose credentials, beside global philanthropy, include a listing as the co-founder of global business network Xing.com, founded the movement with James Whelton, a schoolboy who had the bright idea of founding a computer club at my old highschool, the wonderful PBC Cork, before deciding to take things to the next level.
Occupy Cork moves camp, as local councillor calls them attention seekers - VIDEO
Cork's contribution to the Occupy movement has moved camp, prompting Fine Gael councillor Des Cahill to label them as attention seekers.
The motley group of what by now must be veteran, if not professional, protesters, has relocated to just a few hundred meters away on Oliver Plunkett St.
Irish police pose as prostitutes -- unprecedented Garda sting nets 27 convictions as police promise further crackdowns
Female Irish detectives posed as prostitutes in an unprecedented sting operation that saw a total of 21 man convicted of soliciting 'ladies of the night'.
The US-style operation, one of the first on this scale for the Gardaí, took place over almost a month in Limerick city centre and its environs, ultimately bagging the cops a total of 21 convictions before Limerick District Court, all of whom were directed to make a donation to a local charity by the judge.
Trinity College Dublin bans the Daily Mail newspaper after faking student death story
An Irish university has moved to ban a prominent tabloid from its campus after it deliberately published a story falsely claiming that a search subject had been found dead.
Although Caolan Mulrooney, a 19 year old teenager, tragically was found dead just two days after the story's publication, it was clear within hours of it going to press, while the search was still ongoing, that the body had not yet been found, and that the story had been deliberately invented.
The story, by journalist Marisa Lynch, sparked widespread fury in Cork and on the Twittersphere.
College fees go up by €250 - students have little room to complain
Students, in fairness, should have relatively little to complain about after today's first installment of the Budget.
While much of the country still braces to see precisely how Enda Kenny and his Cabinet will go about making the kind of massive cuts that prompted the Prime Minster to make a rare 'state of the nation'address on public television last night, all students have to contend with, after the first of two Budgetary installments, is what should seem like a relatively trifling €250 ($336) hike in their fees, alongside a 3% cut in the maintenance grant, a first-line student assistance fund.
Publicans call for ten percent cut on liquor tax as pub trade continues to flounder
Sales at bars have dropped by almost a third in the past four years, according to the
TellUsWhy.ie - Irish website tries to move presidential race beyond a soap opera
TellUsWhy.ie departs from a simple premise: that candidates for the presidency need to tell us why they're fit for the job rather than engage in a mud-slinging contest trying to unearth the latest scandal.
The website seems to have got going around January (see an Irish Independent piece dated around that date, here) but hasn't received the attention it deserves.
Norris in trouble again as seven new clemency letters threaten to derail campaign
David Norris is back in the headlines again.
Just when the Trinity Senator seemed to be gaining traction in his bid to confirm the necessary number of endorsements to make the ballot paper, it has emerged that there are an incredible seven more clemency letters that he has yet to make public.
The new is likely to raise further questions about Norris' suitability for the office, and return to not-too-distant memories Norris' first clemency letter to an Israeli court -- which forced him into taking temporary leave of the presidential campaign trail.
Arthur's Day provokes controversy on Irish chat radio
The 'commemoration' began with a celebration of the 250 year anniversary of the black stuff's introduction to the world, but the drinks British makers, the international conglomerate Diageo, have decided, disingenuously, to continue it every year since.
One of the contributors likened the beginning of Arthur's Day to a documented phenomenon in psychology whereby if enough people do something, others inevitably follow.
110 a day -- latest CSO stats show extent of Ireland's shocking emigration problem
And it's recent graduates who are anecdotally, and statistically, taking the brunt of it: statistics show that the majority of those seeking out are aged between 25 and 44, while the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) this afternoon issued a strongly worded press release stating that recent college graduates were increasingly left with no choice but to seek to earn a living in sunnier shores.
USI President Gary Redmond this afternoon said that the issue seemed, remarkably, to be off the government's radar, and said that it was almost too late to rectify the situation.
Ireland's still expensive, despite recession, latest statistics show.
If one thing the recession doesn't seem to have brought much of to Ireland, paradoxically, it's lower prices.
That unfortunate reality was re-iterated again by the latest figures from Ireland's statistics agency the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which show that Ireland remains the fifth most expensive country in Europe, despite being in the throes of an economic bailout crisis, unemployment, etc.
Irish prices remain a sturdy 18% above the European average, the statistics found. Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden are now the only countries in the Eurozone with a higher cost of living.
Attorneys upping fees despite recession
As a headline from Dublin's The Herald put it: "as everyone else drops prices, solicitors raise them".
Amazingly, as the column notes, this is despite the fact that the sector is almost as beset with economic woes as the rest of the economy, and many solicitors and barristers (Ireland maintains separate branches of the legal profession; in the US both are 'attorneys-at-law'), are out of work.
Vatican: Taoiseach, Tanaiste criticisms 'unfounded'
In its long-awaited response to Prime Minister Enda Kenny's firebrand speech in parliament this summer, the Vatican has called 'unfounded' the government's accusations that it attempted to frustrate enquiries into rampant sexual abuse in Ireland, while making a tepid acknowledgement that it 'shares' in and understands the widespread public anger ignited by the damning Cloyne Report.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has quickly jumped on the PR bandwagon, calling on the Taoiseach to substantiate the allegations of frustrating the criminal process which he accused the powers-in-Rome of earlier this summer, but both Kenny and the government have refused to budge from their original positions.
It's not exactly the stuff of high diplomatic drama, but the weak response from the Vatican - the product of 'consultations' between recalled papal nuncio Giuseppe Leanza and the Holy See - will do little to improve the Vatican's badly damaged image in Ireland, and continues the lengthening cooling off between the two sovereign powers.
Milk scam-artist caught on CCTV after 'slipping' on his own setup
Limerick's leading newspaper the Limerick Leader has described Ireland's 'compo culture' being caught on camera after a man was filmed intentionally spilling milk from the refrigerated goods sections before staging his 'fall'.
The incident was caught by Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras and the shop owner, who ran an outlet of the popular Spar convenience store where the incident occurred, has said he will sue the milk-spiller, believed to be a local man in his early twenties, if he attempts to prosecute a claim.
The man was seen moving furtively over to the refrigerated goods department before opening a 2 litre bottle of milk and spilling it over the floor.
DrThom.ie: first online GP sets up 'shop' in Ireland
A handy convenience or a potentially dangerous endeavour?
That's the question being asked in medical circles about Ireland's first ever online GP (General Practitioner) doctor service, which allows users to collect prescriptions for inhalers, erectile dysfunction, and, controversially, the morning-after contraception pill, over the internet.
DrThom.ie is the online progeny of two Irish Medical Council (IMC) regulated doctors, and allows its doctors to "provide online consultations without the need to see a doctor face to face".
Cork considers banning hoodies!
A former lord mayor of Cork, Ireland's bustling southern metropolis, is expected to table a controversial motion before the City Hall next month calling for the outlawing of burkas, the full body cloak worn by some Muslim women, as well, incredibly, as hoodies.
Burka Ban
Former lord mayor Joe O'Callaghan, of Fine Gael, said that it was "high time" that Ireland adopted anti-burka measures, citing Belgium and France as two countries that had recently enacted such law.
The French ban has thusfar proved enormously popular with the French public, according to one writer with the Telegraph, despite the large-scale protests that waved across France before its passage onto the statue book.
Gaybo's gone, who next?
With Norris and now Byrne now declared firmly out of the running, it looks as if the only thing that could spare us from the dreary prospect of having 'Michael D' (Higgins) instated as our next head of State is a Fianna Fail backed nomination for Bryan Crowley.
However as Cathal Dervan notes for this website in his article earlier today here, Fianna Fail choosing to back Crowley is by no means even a certitude.
Gay Bryne latest contender to consider throwing hat into Presidential ring
Byrne, an immensely popular Irish broadcaster known for years as the face of the weekly Late Late Show has said that he was 'flattered' to hear news that a Dublin radio station poll had pitted him as top dog, or at least people's choice, for the presidential race, though disclaimed making a commitment to the race until the people 'clamoured' for him to run -- in which case, he said, he would respond to public sentiment.
Gay Bryne latest contender to consider throwing hat into Presidential ring
Byrne, an immensely popular Irish broadcaster known for years as the face of the weekly Late Late Show has said that he was 'flattered' to hear news that a Dublin radio station poll had pitted him as top dog, or at least people's choice, for the presidential race, though disclaimed making a commitment to the race until the people 'clamoured' for him to run -- in which case, he said, he would respond to public sentiment.
Unlike Fine Gael's choice, European MEP Gay Mitchell, the living personification of the drop-dead boring Eurocrat, and himself caught up in the fading murmurs of another clemency fiasco (although of a far more muted nature) Byrne is almost ubiquitously liked by old-timers and the new generation alike.
Such cross-generational appeal is a rare phenomenon here, but Byrne's relaxed style, gregarious nature, and natural conviviality would make him a popular choice in anyone's eyes.
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