Email from my Dad today (I inferred permission to post):Jman,

I guess the controls you put on the blog prevented me from posting a comment.  Here it is:  I don't see any need to celebrate the conversion of the Irish to a religion that held the nation in ignorance and poverty for over a thousand years.  By the way, old Paddy was an escaped slave from ( Read more... )

For those who thought memorizing Latin declensions was f'd up, check out Gaelic prepositional pronouns.

For the record, I love German's sensibility (and English's lack of declensions) more than ever.

Since we didn't have to compete on Saturday, we had some time to walk around Dublin. Except for Kay, who didn't want to watch the final round, we actually didn't see very much: Trinity College (minus the Book of Kells exhibit) and Grafton Street were pretty much it ( Read more... )

Over on The TransAtlantic Assembly, Euan MacDonald compares British action in Basra to British action in Northern Ireland.

Key points of similarity:

• Favorable demographics for an initially warm reception: in the Six Counties, a Protestant Loyalist majority and a beleaguered Catholic minority appealing for protection from biased Protestant ( Read more... )

Over on Transatlantic Assembly, Euan MacDonald explains why the DUP's unilateralism is a danger to political progress in the Six Counties.It [i.e. DUP chief Ian Paisley's questioning of decommissioning inspectors' neutrality and/or actual observations] is dangerous because, if accepted, it gives the DUP licence to perpetuate the conflict as long as ( Read more... )

We were joined at seisiun last night by a handful of Sligo and Dublin folks. It was a blast of a seisiun, and we were still rolling when the Nanny's kicked us out at 2am. (One indication was that no one heeded "The Bucks of Oranmore," the close-out tune in American seisiuns, but rather kept blasting through another six reels or so ( Read more... )

WaPo has a good summary of the issues surrounding Berlin's new and much-belated Shoah memorial. It omits the related (but arguably separate) debate surrounding the memorial to the Porrajmos (Devouring, the Romanes name for the Nazi's massacre of 4/5 of all European Roma), but the WaPo or NYT did have a story on that recently. This article does note ( Read more... )

The Onion's synopsis makes so much more sense than my high-school Irish history independent study, go figure...

for the record, I especially like the part about Roth IRAs. and the one about the gay Vikings.

gay Vikings yarr.

from a letter to An Phoblacht:

We need to stay focused and keep in mind that the real issue for the Irish people is not the theft of £26.5 million; it is the fact that the British Government stole the Six Counties and it's time to take them back.
MN,
Falls Road, Belfast.

from Women's Rights: Our Unfinished Revolution in the 2/17 issue of An Phoblacht:

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams opened the conference. "One in four women experiences domestic violence in today's Ireland," he said. "One in every four single mothers lives in poverty." Half the children in the Six Counties are in, or at risk of, poverty. 60% of ( Read more... )