From Cork to Toronto

The New York Times have an article on " How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads " by Daniel Cassidy regarding how many American slang words appear to originate either phonetically or via translation from Irish. (Hat-tip Slugger ) The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick. Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.” I think a few of those listed in the NYT are a stretch but still aren't as bad as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus explains the Greek roots of the word "kimono".

Only just came across this - TV3 reporter Sinead Kissane 's touchline post-match interview with Eddie O'Sullivan after the Argentina game. The youtube clip includes Jim Glennon's attempt at humour slapped down by Matt Cooper. [Hat-tip Waffler ] Unfortunately I can't find a clip of the reaction by "sacked Scotland coach" (as Matt Cooper's column in "de Paper" described him) Matt Williams on Setanta, describing Kissane as a "work experience girl" and not "showing respect". At least she has a decent job Mr. Williams. A good reporter asks reasonable questions the public would ask if they got the chance, and she did just that - and it's not like he hadn't time to consider the possibility. The IRFU's decision to award a 4-year extension prior to the World Cup (a mistake the FAI made with Mick McCarthy, let's not forget) was shown up big time here - not least because of the warning signs during the pre-Cup camp....

Independent TDs given "party leaders allowance" - 39,000 untaxable, untraced Euros each. This should be abolished immediately and factored into the public funding per vote parties receive - it's a recipe for more and more single issue candidates.

Another chapter in the demolition of the agri-food industry in Mitchelstown. This is another blow for my home region which has been under threat pretty much since the original Mitchelstown-Ballyclough merger to form Dairygold I think. The only thing keeping things afloat is the new road to Cork. Let's hope that "Breeo". the vehicle Dairygold created to distance itself from the industries that built the brands, will at least consider some local buyout of the facilities to keep the jobs in local hands but is the entrepreneurial spirit there? History would suggest it's a long shot.

The Irish Minister of Defence, having announced a commitment of 350 troops to Chad, now wants the UN to tell him they'll be safe . I'm hoping that what he means by that is that the troops will have sufficiently robust Rules of Engagement and that when he meets the Sudanese Foreign Minister he will receive assurances that the latter's visiting oil workers (and alumni of the People's Liberation Army) will stay near to their rigs rather than freelancing with the Janjaweed.

The webmasters at the Duckworth School of Journalism have an annoying habit of not putting writers names on copy published on line, so I don't know who wrote this open letter to FAI Commandante John Delaney , but it is reflective of the state Irish international soccer finds itself. Here's some excerpts to give you the idea. there can be no greater indictment of both the current manager and his predecessor than the oft-repeated statistic about Kilbane's remarkable run of starts in the Irish jersey. It would take a very creative film editor indeed to produce a memorable collection of highlights from the million or so caps the Wigan midfielder appears to have amassed. We'd have him doing the thing where he pushes the ball between a couple of defenders and falls over, the one where he puts his head down and runs the ball out over the line, the one where he kicks the ball too far ahead of himself and loses possession. The crowning glory could be the moment on Wednesday nig...

The Village has published the 1962 report from Chaplain Henry Moore to Archbishop McQuaid on conditions at the Christian Brothers-run institution at Artane .  Bruce Arnold, who somehow plugs away at the Independent Group, mentioned this in his column a couple of weeks ago and reminded Archbishop Martin of his commitment to openness - indeed it seems Martin himself was a witness to conditions at the school. It's interesting that in a modern era when McQuaid is portrayed as something of a tyrant that he seems to have been extremely concerned about Artane and yet somehow powerless to impel the Brothers to improve matters. In this he does not appear to have been assisted by the Department of Education, according to Arnold's more recent dispatch , who it seems had no desire to believe Fr. Moore given that it would have exposed the bureaucracy's inadequate supervision. I don't know if the GAA have made any mention of their relationship with Artane and the conditions they m...

While the newspapers have been trumpeting the conclusion of Operation Banner , it has been noted that while the reduced British Army presence (5,000 regulars reduced from a peak of 28,000) is now subordinated to the civil police, they retain powers not available to their counterparts in Britain when they are requested.

This will cause ructions in the West. It had been fairly widely rumoured that Aer Lingus would start flying from Belfast International (BFS-Aldergrove) to Heathrow and that Cork and Shannon might lose a frequency each to free up Heathrow slots. According to RTE Aer Lingus will announce that Shannon will lose all of its Heathrow service which will be redeployed to Belfast. As long as Clare County Council fails to develop Shannon as an major urban centre and refuses to come to an agreement with Limerick City Council about a boundary shift on the west of the Shannon to expand the city towards Shannon, the catchment will never support the level of service that is wished for and with the improvement in rail and air service from Cork, Kerry and Galway to Dublin that problem is set to get worse rather than better.

Somehow I missed this back in early 06 but apparently there is a serious proposal to put cable cars through central Dublin above the Liffey. I was for London's Eye and was pleased when it got an extension because while it was visible from a lot of London it never took up much of the vista but there's a bit of a difference between a fairly localised if tall structure and running cables over the river past the Four Courts. The best part is that this week they are applying for Strategic Infrastructure planning status to fend off pesky objections! Jesus Mary and Joseph - cop on to yourselves lads! A cable car might be an interesting idea to link the north and south sides of Docklands or something but this is just nuts - an unbelievably intrusive visual blight and for what? If you want a view of Dublin go to the Guinness storehouse viewing area, don't go wobbling in the wind over the Ha'Penny bridge and pretend it's a transit mode like the LUAS.

Do we thank the Greens for this ? It will be interesting to see how the votes in the Dail go, and how soon the bill is introduced, especially since the FF-PD government refused to assent to Labour's "half-a-marriage bill" last year. There's probably enough votes to pass civil unions as a government bill, but the telegraph wires between Rome and the Nuncio in Dublin must be red hot and a "belt of the crozier" can't be ruled out. An improvement in the status of LGBT citizens in Ireland can't come too soon , it seems.

Just for 2008, due to the early fall of Easter and its superior place in the Catholic Church hierarchy of observed days. The first date proposed was April 1, and the distance from the usual date notwithstanding that would have caused uproar. More from ireland.com and RTE News .

This news story , which relates to serious operational issues on the Liverpool-Knock-New York route, does not paint a pretty picture of Globespan operations, which is disappointing as Ireland-Canada services need the shake-up an Air Canada/Air Transat competitor would bring. The low-cost revolution usually means a minimum number of spare aircraft - if any at all - and the upswing in the aviation market means that fill-in charter aircraft are already busy. Force majeure is understandable given the troubles at Glasgow, a Globespan base. But given those troubles and the seriousness of the damage to their New York 757, if Delta had spare seats on the New York-Shannon flight, Globespan should have been booking as many of their passengers on it as possible and not leaving them sit in New York indefinitely or be forced to pay Delta what was likely to have been a pricey one-way fare. This is how Ryanair behaves in Europe but being stuck in another continent is a bit more serious again and ...

For Canadians, that's about $0.32 for every plastic bag, which has reduced bag distribution by 90% since 2002 .  The tax had been EUR 0.15 (C$0.22) but an upward bump in plastic bag sales led to this further hike.  No fear of that happening in Ontario or Toronto, as the plastic lobby's frequent wailings in the press seems to head it off any time it's proposed.

The Green Party are afraid of the Progressive Democrats sitting near them in that Dail in case they are appear to be "in the PDs laps" or "having the PDs elevated over them". Here's a tip Gormley, Cuffe et al - when the next election comes some of your disgruntled members will remember you going into Governments with the Great Satans without seeing where you sit on Oireachtas Report. Those votes are gone. Your job is to run the country efficiently enough to get voters to replace them - and even then FF will get more credit than you because that's how it works in successful coalition governments. Just ask the Labour Party.

To any CIE types reading, here's a primer .  God knows after various past fiascos one would have thought you'd have taken notice, but here we are, back in court . Mr Dunne (54), of Rowlagh Avenue, Clondalkin, Dublin, told the court yesterday that he had found the lands "wild" in June 1977 ànd had placed his horses there after erecting fences, poles and wire. Over subsequent years, he built stables for the horses and stored hay and feed. He said the local children called him "Dinty" and described the land involved as "Dinty's field". There have been various dark mutterings on message boards about possible encroachments on the Claremorris-Collooney railway line - maybe that's why the new government has declined to commit to its construction?

Well, after a few hiccups the Greens are in, and approved by a thumping majority too. The party activists took the deal well and the opposition of Roger Garland in some ways shown how the Green movement has changed since he was the spearhead - whether for better or worse I can't tell beyond the seat count. Among the various items in the agreed programme for government , the decision to force reopening of rail to Navan and to limit the Western Rail Corridor's Northern limit to Claremorris is a step in the right direction. The Electoral Commission, similar to Elections Canada I suppose, is also a good idea. Trevor Sargent's decision to step down as leader and refuse a Cabinet seat is an interesting one - a nod to those in the party who didn't bargain for this arrangement, and Canadian readers might reflect that Peter McKay should have done likewise after the merger which betrayed the word he had previously given. From a tactical point of view it might be useful to ...

The Irish Defence Forces are just completing what had until then been a highly successful three and a half year UN deployment to assist with the stabilisation of Liberia which included the escort of Charles Taylor to his expulsion to Sierra Leone's UN international tribunal. During the deployment Ranger Sergeant Derek Mooney was killed in a road accident near Monrovia. It is appalling that a couple of clowns have marred the image of the Defence Forces by uploading to Youtube a video showing them pointing weapons at local civilians in acts of horseplay . It's not like idiots in other armies haven't done similar things in the past and the soldiers superiors should also take some blame in failing to sufficiently impress on their subordinates the damage such videos can do.

Well this is telling it like it is: Let's be clear. A deal with Fianna Fáil would be a deal with the devil. We would be spat out after 5 years, and decimated as a Party. But, ... would it be worth it? Power is a many faceted thing. so said Ciaran Cuffe , newly re-elected, on his blog. (Hat-tip Slugger ). The question is - is Bertie using the Greens to panic Labour into making him an offer, and if so by even considering coalition with FF could they suffer the same effects as if they had done so anyway? Meanwhile, the same post spreads rumour about John Deasy's possible defection to the depleted PD ranks. One would ordinarily be concerned about his electoral prospects given running under one flag only to take up another while the ink is drying on the election results. However Deasy's surname probably brought him more votes than his Party, as so often in Ireland and probably the reason FG didn't just dump him even after threatening Enda Kenny with a leadership challeng...

We lost 20-17 but in truth the way France opened this game deserved a victory. Errors in the second half combined with Skrela's skittishness from penalties were not enough to justify feeling cheesed off with their win. There were some refereeing issues too but Eddie O'Sullivan refuses, rightly to blame him. Instead the finger could be pointed at such issues as the Plan A tactic, stuck to religiously, of long kicks which almost never found touch and instead found the mobile French back line who usually returned with interest. Short kicks to land behind the forwards for Hickie to gallop after should have been Plan B. Some of the passing was dreadful, possibly brought on by fear of the flat, some might say frequently offside, French defence. Most relieved? Possibly the GAA traditionalists. Bad enough that the game was played at all in their eyes, but if Ireland rang up a 100% record some might have questioned the need for rugby to return to Lansdowne Road at all! Finally, a...