Creating the next Ireland

clipped from archives.tcm.ie In 1969 Charlie Haughey introduced a series of tax breaks to assist artists and writers and this has greatly helped the development of the arts in Irish society. The government is trying to encourage an economy based on ‘‘brainpower, not brawn’’. To give momentum to this effort, we need to actively encourage technical thinking and innovation in our schools, colleges and workplaces. I propose that the government kick start this effort by introducing tax breaks for inventors who go on to develop and commercialise their ideas in Ireland. Our politicians should be preparing Ireland to become a knowledge-based economy, where the value created will not be manufactured goods or agricultural produce, but intellectual property, creative industries and internationally traded services. This will require world-class infrastructure, which must include decent broadband access. Creating the next Ireland Sunday, October 22, 2006

CELTIC TIGER AND FUTURE OF IRISH ECONOMY WITH

Prices in Ireland are high
Price difference between Ireland and EU15, per cent

clipped from www.finfacts.com

Irish-American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947) - Ireland's greatest industrial hero. In 1919, the year that the tractors began rolling off the assembly lines, at the Henry Ford & Son plant in Cork City, the war of independence against British rule began. Protestants in Henry's father's native West Cork, were sometimes targeted because of suspicions about their Irishness. The son of a West Cork Protestant has a special place in the history of Cork.

Time Magazine cover of July 12, 1963, following the State visit of US President John F. Kennedy to Ireland - - Sean Lemass, Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) 1959-1966 who together with T.K. Whitaker and former Minister for Finance Gerard Sweetman (1954-1957), are the architects of the modern Irish economy

Source: OECD Economic Survey of Ireland 2006: Boosting growth through greater competition

Irish Junior Minister Tom Parlon
(seated)

Source: Heritage Foundation

Shamrock: Haiku Journal of the Irish Haiku Society

clipped from www.freewebs.com DENMARK May Day dawning...the letterbox clicks in the dark Shamrock

Sweet Mary Lou (Hilarious!)

Really really funny vid:

A satirical look at the recent performance of Sinn Fein in the general election in the Irish Republic. Despite wild predictions of gains, the Sinn Fein vote was diminished, with star candidate Mary Lou McDonald getting trounced in Dublin.

clipped from www.youtube.com

I want to be all used up when I die. - Bernard Shaw

clipped from thinkexist.com “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” “When I was young I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work” “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” “The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people” clipped from thinkexist.com “We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.” “We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” “Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get” clipped from thinkexist.com “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it.”

Rate of foreign adoptions in Ireland one of Europe's highest

The Trinity College research examined the experiences of 180 children aged between two and 17 who have been adopted from abroad. The report found that children were 17 months old when adopted, 80 per cent had spent some time in institutional care and they came from 15 different countries.

Given the conditions in which they had typically spent their earliest months or years, the study found that most children had made an "extraordinary recovery".

clipped from www.ireland.com Previous Day Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Ireland has one of the highest rates of foreign adoptions in Europe with up to 500 foreign adoptions a year, compared with just 250 in much larger countries such as the UK, new research has found. A two-year study by the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin - commissioned by the Adoption Board - found the rate of inter-country adoption is now 10 times that of domestic adoption, which on average involves about 50 children a year. Experts yesterday said the reasons for the high rate include the relative scarcity of Irish children being offered up for domestic adoption and Ireland's failure to ratify an international convention regulating inter-country adoptions. The small number of Irish children being placed for adoption is due to a number of factors, including the protection of the family in the Constitution - which makes it almost impossible to adopt a child from a marital family - and a greater acceptance of children born outside marriage

Why was the Iona/Irish church out of step with Rome?

Curiouser and curiouser. This was a big deal back then. Supposedly we in Ireland got Christianity very late in the day from Patrick, who was trained in Rome? So how did we get Easter so wrong. And we were not the only ones.

Patrick banished snakes from Ireland according to myth. We NEVER had snakes, EVER. How could he banish what we never had? Unless it was figuratively, like the shamrock!

So what is the connection between the snakes that never were and Easter? Anyone have a guess?

clipped from en.wikipedia.org The Synod of Whitby was a seventh century Northumbrian synod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, Background Christianity in Britain during the seventh century existed in two forms distinguished by differing liturgical traditions, labeled the “Ionan” and “Roman” traditions. The “Ionan” practice was that of the Irish monks who resided in a monastery on the isle of Iona (a tradition within "Celtic Christianity"), whereas the “Roman” practice refers to the practice of the remainder of the West, which kept observances according to the customs of Rome. One of the main differences between the two traditions, and hence a source of controversy, was the proper calculation of Easter The issue was therefore a question over the proper celebration of the most significant Christian feast, and the situation in Northumbria had resulted in visible disunity, even in the royal court.

!st Large Turbine on College Campus in the World

It will pay for itself in five years, through reduced electricity bills. It will reduce national CO2 emissions by over one thousand tonnes annually. The total cost was €1m.

clipped from www.measuresoft.com Dundalk Institute of Technology/Centre for Renewable Energy – Ireland In 2002 the Dundalk Institute of Technology established The Centre for Renewable Energy, a research unit within the college campus. The manager of the centre, Mr Lawrence Staudt has been involved with renewable energy since 1978 in both Europe and the USA. The aim of the centre is to assist with Ireland’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, through research, academic programmes and information dissemination. The centre awarded a contract to Vestas Celtic Wind Technology to erect a wind turbine on the campus and the project was completed in August 2005. The turbine is rated at 850 kilowatts, and provides over half of DkIT’s electricity needs, with the rest coming from the national grid. The average power output over the year is approximately 250 kilowatts Any excess electricity is sold to the electricity company, Airtricity. The turbine stands 60 metre tall, with each blade length at 26m.

From "Making Sense of the Troubles"

clipped from www.btinternet.com From "Making Sense of the Troubles", J. McCrittrick (Blackstaff, 1999) News of the Westminster bombed halted the offensive in Belfast only briefly. When British troops began advancing again they did so with a new ferocity. Casualty figures for the retaking of West Belfast are unreliable - press reports of any civilian casulaties were strictly censored and Government records remain secret under a 100-year disclosure rule. Republican sources claim casualties amongst the civilian population reached several thousand and there is widespread anecdotal evidence of atrocities committed by troops as they advanced through Belfast. The British Government has consistently rejected such claims, blaming them on a mixture of terrorist propaganda and the result of the IRA torturing those they deemed "collaborators".

The emerald isle. Ireland's Ahern forms a coalition with the Greens

clipped from www.economist.com During his decade in power, Ireland's economy has in all but one year expanded more rapidly than any other in western Europe. Unemployment was eradicated in 2000, and the economy has gained tremendously from immigrant workers from the new EU member states. Also, the government has benefited from higher tax revenues arising from strong domestic demand and a soaring property market. More modest increases can be expected in 2008, not least because of the less rosy revenue outlook. Under our central economic growth forecast, expected trends in revenue and expenditure should cause only a moderate deterioration in the fiscal position over the outlook period. However, as our GDP forecast, of 5% in 2007 and 3.4% in 2008, is subject to large and growing risks, the fiscal outlook is also clouded. In the decade up to 2006 residential property prices in Ireland rose more rapidly than in any other developed-world economy.

World's Largest Tidal Turbine at 1.2 MW off N.I. coast

clipped from www.treehugger.com A company called Marine Current Turbines will be installing a 1.2 megawatt tidal turbine off the coast of Northern Ireland in August. The SeaGen turbine will be the world’s largest ever tidal current device by a significant margin. It will generate clean electricity for approximately 1000 homes. The turbine is a prototype to be replicated on a large scale over the next few years. The rotors on the SeaGen turbine turn slowly: about 10 to 20 revolutions per minute. A ship's propellers, by comparison, typically run 10 times as fast. The risk of impact from SeaGen rotor blades is small, because the marine creatures that swim in strong currents tend to be agile, and can avoid slow-moving underwater obstructions. Future turbines will generally be rated at from 750 to 1500 kilowatts (kW), and will be grouped under the sea, at places with high currents, in much the same way that wind turbines in a wind farm are set out in rows to catch the wind.

My place ...in Lusk, an ancient site.

clipped from cloghmore.bravepages.com Lusk Round Tower Map Reference: O215546 A monastery was founded at Lusk about 500 by St Macculin and the site is also associated with St Maurus. It was plundered and burned several times in the succeeding centuries and the only remnant of an Early Christian foundation is the Round Tower. It stands about 27m high and retains its original conical cap. There are nine storeys including the basement. The flat-headed doorway is now less than 1m above ground level. The Round Tower is attached to a square tower built in the 15th or 16th century with three matching round towers at its corners. The large tower houses several medieval tombs including that of James Bermingham (1527) and the double-effigy tomb of Christopher Barnewell and his wife Marion Sharl (1589). clipped from 216.239.59.104 Photos

Up the road from where I live.

In 1993, Newgrange and its sister sites Knowth
and Dowth were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of their outstanding cultural
legacy.

clipped from www.mythicalireland.com

Newgrange - Ireland's most famous monument

Newgrange Newgrange is one of the best examples in Ireland and in Western Europe, of a type of monument known to archaeologists as a passage-grave or ppassage-tomb. It was constructed around 3200BC, according to the most reliable Carbon 14 dates available from archaeology. This makes it more than 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years more ancient than Stonehenge. Newgrange from the air Newgrange sits on the top of an elongated ridge within a large bend in the Boyne River about five miles west of the town of Drogheda. This area has great eminence thoughout Irish history - legend tells us the foundations of Christianity were laid here. Two miles or so downstream is Oldbridge, where the Battle of the Boyne took place in 1690.