Perpetual Motion Paris has the Eiffel Tower. London has Tower Bridge and Big Ben. New York has the statue of Libery and the Empire State building.. And Naas has… Well, everyone knows it as the ‘Big Ball’. Familiar to anyone who has driven down the N7/M7 from Dublin, heading for Limerick, Cork, Waterford, the south… Continue reading Road Art 6
Road Art 5
‘Squires’ Gannon Bill ‘Squires’ Gannon, who played in the Kildare All-Ireland Senior Football Championship winning football team in 1927 and 1928, the first captain to raise the newly minted Sam Maguire Cup in 1928, and the only team to win two All-Ireland SFCs with the same fifteen players. Sculpted by English artist Mark Richards, the… Continue reading Road Art 5
Road Art 4
The Martin McBrearty Chair As part of the Donegal Stone Festival in 2015, the stone chair, carved in Kilkenny sandstone by mason Christian Helling and dedicated to the memory of Kilcar stonemason Martin McBrearty. “It has taken me a year to find this perfect stone,” said Christian Helling. “It is given in memory of Martin… Continue reading Road Art 4
Exit X
I’ve been on Twitter for fourteen years now. Or I was, until last Halloween. My first experience of the site, the one that hooked me, was watching the Portraitgate story unfold in real time as a group of people on Twitter unpacked the story as RTE tried to memoryhole it. The last straw was the… Continue reading Exit X
Road Art 3
Clocha na hÉireann Located in Gleann Cholm Cille, Co Donegal, Clocha na hÉireann is a stone map illustrating the 32 counties of Ireland. It was commissioned in 2016, marking the entenary of the Proclamation of the Republic in 1916. Each stone is carved from stone native to the county it depicts, and in most cases… Continue reading Road Art 3
Mastodon For Migrants
So you’ve finally had enough of the Birdsite? It’s time to leave, but Threads isn’t doing it for you, and you can’t find a decent guide to Mastodon? Well read on. I’ll keep it simple. I won’t talk too much about instances or fediverses. Just follow these steps. 1. Join mastodon.ie Go on, I’ll wait.… Continue reading Mastodon For Migrants
Road Art 2
Ghost Horses From The Bog The four Ghost Horses From The Bog, by Lynn Kirkham, made from bog oak from the Bog of Allan. There are several equine themed public sculptures near my home outside Kildare town, but this is my favourite. It captures the essence of horse and motion. Through the Percent For Art… Continue reading Road Art 2
Housing, Europe and AirBnB
A while back, Irish and other news outlets reported that Irish efforts to tackle the housing crisis by restricting short-lets such as AIrBnB ran into an EU roadblock. You can read a typical report on the story here. So I decided to send a request to the EU Commission under the Aarhus convention access to… Continue reading Housing, Europe and AirBnB
Caledonia
The thing about independence movements is they lead to single-issue parties. All other differences are put aside as everyone agrees on the One Big Issue. This is why a war of independence is often followed by a civil war as all those differences resurface. Scotland is having one of those moments where the One Big… Continue reading Caledonia
Chill Out
I’ve been thinking again about the Mastodon experience for journalists. Mastodon isn’t Twitter. You’re not the main character over there. And the moderators actually moderate. Don’t be the guy walking into a quiet pub demanding they turn on the TV News at full volume. You’ll get barred. Sit first. Listen. Learn. Twitter trains people to… Continue reading Chill Out