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Posts concerning ireland

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

23:31 17 Mar 2013

No real post this week; I’m taking time off in honor of the “snakes”. Hope you had/are having a good one!

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A Joke Explained

19:06 23 Dec 2012

Sometimes, jokes need explanation; TV Tropes says you’re not supposed to explain the punchline, just the context, but in the case of this joke the two aren’t really separable. Furthermore, this one requires a great deal of broad knowledge in order to make sense; more breadth of knowledge than any other joke I’ve encountered so far. This became clear to me in my relating it to American friends; I didn’t notice the amount you need to know for it while I was living in Ireland[1].
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Corruption: Ireland’s Mahon Tribunal

23:34 01 Apr 2012

Dublin has grown a great deal over the last 30 years, and in so doing has become a case study in how not to manage urban/suburban development, planning, or transit policy[1].

The urban planning process for Dublin County in that period was endemically corrupt, which was common knowledge at the time but has been made extremely clear by the final report, released 22 March 2012, of the Mahon Tribunal, a body set up in 1997 to investigate such matters. It seems unlikely in the extreme that the corruption and the terrible urban sprawl aren’t connected.
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The Front Line Review

22:30 11 May 2009

I came across The Front Line while surfing Netflix for heist movies recently, and decided to watch it on the basis that it was Irish, relatively well-rated, and also that I’d never heard of it. I ended up being fairly impressed, with some reservations.
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Bye-Bye Bertie

23:56 03 Apr 2008

I was surprised by the news that Bertie Ahern, the Teflon Taoiseach, is resigning. Fittingly, I received this news via a text from a friend.
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‘Danny Boy’ Differently

17:56 17 Mar 2008

Since I generally side with the “snakes” in that particular conflict, I’m not a huge fan of St. Patrick’s Day… but the following rendition of “Danny Boy” is just too good not to post (even though it was on BoingBoing earlier).
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Greens in Irish Government

23:54 14 Jun 2007. Updated: 01:05 15 Jun 2007

The Irish Green party have gone into coalition with Fianna Fáil—and with the remnantds of the Progressive Democrats, and a few Independents. I have to say that this appears to be a triumph for FF, who have managed to secure a substantial majority in a situation where they’re not reliant on any one of the three smaller groups.
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Gaeilge

04:01 08 Jun 2007

When I moved to Ireland as a kid, I really didn’t like learning the Irish language. It was difficult and awkward, and on top of that was bound up with a number of other problems.
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Irish Greens Playing with Fire

18:20 06 Jun 2007

The Irish Green Party ended up with six seats in this year’s election. The largest party in the Republic, Fianna Fáil, got 78. With 166 seats total in the Dáil (the Irish Parliament), Fianna Fáil need some partner(s) in order to rule effectively.
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2007 Irish Elections

10:08 27 May 2007. Updated: 14:44 27 May 2007

Over the last few days, especially on Friday, I watched the count of the Irish election results. The difference from the American system is quite significant, and although there are many reasons for that, a key one is the voting system itself, Single Transferable Vote, which gives individual voters more influence than the winner-takes-all system used in the United States.
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