Not off to Iceland?

Never mind. Saint Patrick’s Athletic are off to play ÍBV Vestmannaeyjar on Thursday. Needless to say, I won’t be there. Part-timer that I am, it’s a bit much really. Thankfully, it looks like we will have an option beyond eating our nails glued to extratime.ie: Supporters club have arranged for McDowells to stream the game [...]

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Live Dublin, die young

I was going to do a post containing a few different snaps from tonights saunter around town, but I think I’ll leave that for another time, as I believe the piece below deserves its own post… By far my favourite bit of graffiti to appear on a wall recently.

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os Blades?

Ken Sweeney in The Independent recently brought my attention to a mysterious (and hilarious) ‘easter egg‘ in a recent Nike football video. The 60 seconds advertisement, which was produced to “commemorate the career of ‘O Fenomeno’, Ronaldo, in the wake of his final game for Brazil”, was uploaded onto Youtube on 07 June 2011. At [...]

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“Of grafton street and derby square…”

I always loved Phil Lynnot’s Dublin but I’m embarrassed to say that I only came across this previously unreleased version online this evening. I’ve replayed it six times now. It was originally recorded at Trend Studios in 1970 and ‘remained hidden in the vaults’ until 2006. After our affair I swore that I’d leave Dublin [...]

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Friday night soul.

Friday night in. No football. With St. Patrick’s in Iceland this week, the normal routine is out the window. Nothing to fear there, as I’ll be up in Ruta (O’Byrnes at the top of Capel Street, it used to be the Four Seasons if that rings any bells) playing the tunes. Feel free to pop [...]

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Stillorgan Labour Councillor tells the lefties not to bother.

This is a pretty bizarre statement by anyones definition of the term, from Richard Humphreys, the Labour councillor in Stillorgan. The best bet has to be where he refers to the Flotilla, bringing medical aid to Gaza, as a “Mediterranean jaunt”. Right….. Cllr Richard Humphreys, the Labour Party Councillor for the Stillorgan Ward, has appealed [...]

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Jaysus,Mary and Joseph.

Sure they probably gave Padraig Pearse some grief outside the GPO too…..

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The Beautiful Game In Ireland: A Story Of Neglect.

I thought I’d pop this up. It’s an article I wrote for ‘The Commune’ in the UK, when asked to give a brief overview of the beautiful game in Ireland. Some of you may enjoy it.

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Manchester Calling 4: “Trotskyite Activities” in Ireland (1943)

Jay Carax will be in Manchester for the next two months but he’s hoping to post irregularly on Dublin and Irish related topics. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) kept detailed files on as many Trotskyites and Trotskyite group as they could, right through the 20th century. One file came that I came across had a [...]

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S’pose a riot is out of the question?

Welcome back, Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly. Great line in this one, about how the closest we’ve come to a social revolt was the anger over a handball in Paris. That’d be the Irish.

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They’re getting ready in Parnell Square.

Just spotted this for sale via the Sinn Féin shop online. It is, quite literally, a t-shirt of people dancing on Margaret Thatcher’s grave. It can’t be long now! Get ready for the big day Stone reads: Margaret Thatcher Tyrant and Murderer Sign Reads: Dancers Please form an orderly queue

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Rockin’ (and rollin’) through a recession

It’s often said that recessions ignite music scenes. (Certainly in the last while, we’ve seen the proliferation of underground Dance events in Dublin.) Music does seem to have that extra edge when it’s written and performed beneath the dark background of economic and political crises. It seems that from the explosion of punk in the summer of [...]

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