New Printable Irish Voter Registration Form

I previously posted about the importance of registering to vote, with some figures intending to show that individual votes can make the difference between one government and another. As part of that, I linked to the pdf of the voter registration form. It was pointed out to me recently that this form is unprintable.

Read More »

Kenny’s Bookshop

I mentioned yesterday having bought a book from the online store of Kenny’s Bookshop in Galway. Some nagging thought in my mind spurred me to spend a little time looking at their site. Hadn’t Kenny’s been in the news recently? The "About Us" page explained all: though the business thrives online, Kenny’s Bookshop of High Street, Galway is no more.

Read More »

Copernicus Is A Charlatan And A Hypocrite

There, that got your attention, didn't it?My recent reading, The Redress of Poetry, a collection of Seamus Heaney's lectures delivered while Professor of Poetry at Oxford includes a stirring treatment of Brian Merriman's "An Chúirt Meánoíche".

Read More »

Ireland and the WIPO Broadcast Treaty

My alter ego at the McGarr Solicitors website has posted up an exchange relating to the Irish Government's relationship to the negotiations currently occuring in Geneva at the WIPO. These are aimed at to bringing about "A Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations".

Read More »

More Poetry

It’s interesting to note how many of the great artistic movements got their names from insults hurled by their critics. The work of a group of Parisian artists was described as not painting, but mere “impressions??? and thus was born Impressionism. Later, in that same city, artists were derided as savage and primitive; “Fauves???, in short.

Read More »

Digital Rights Ireland Pleadings now online

For those who might be interested in such things McGarr Solicitors, where I earn my daily bread, have posted scans of the pleadings to date in the Digital Rights Ireland data retention case. So far these consist of the Plenary Summons and the Appearance entered by the Defendants.

Read More »

Flooding this weekend. Warnings in October.

Over at Winds and Breezes Treasa noticed something odd about the government's readiness for predicted floods;I see from breakingnews that we could be facing the worst flooding in 25 years this weekend. I unfortunately shall be nowhere near the coast to see the unusual high tides, but that’s irrelevant at this junction. Mr Roche advised people to follow guidelines on the www.

Read More »

Playing Twenty Questions

Last week, Damien Mulley emailed a goodly number of bloggers and asked them for a max of 5 questions they'd like politicians to answer on their door steps. Some of the subjects were fairly predictable- each person took the chance to take a quick ride on their hobby horses, myself included. However, there are also a fair number of interesting questions raised.

Read More »

Poetry (Sheepishly) Returns

A combination of factors, most notably my own lassitude, caused the great poetry project to fall into abeyance in recent times. My reading continued during this fallow period, but was limited to work by poets I’d already written about here – the lesson being to only buy slim volumes, so that I don’t spend weeks on end waiting to finish a poet, before I can move on to write about a new one.

Read More »