Maybe the numbers weren’t quite what the organisers expected and certainly the weather wasn’t what we’d all have liked, but, despite all that, the recent World Fleadh in Portlaoise seems to have been a hit. I had great intentions of going to workshops and sitting in on the odd seisiún but, between the jigs and [...]
Hedge funds have been in existence for well over half a century, but only in recent times have they come to the fore in investment markets. For many years these investment vehicles of the very wealthy flew under the radar, but the advantages of the techniques being used, and the impressive returns they generated, could [...]
As a headmaster of a public school once said: “If your son is a clever boy send him to Balliol College, Oxford. However, if he is not clever, still send him to Balliol, Oxford.” What the headmaster here clearly believed was that the boy, regardless of his intellectual ability, would benefit greatly from his learning [...]
For all of those generous people who sponsored me to do the Camino de Santiago walk for Multiple Sclerosis Ireland, I must say a heartfelt “Thank you“. It was an amazing experience and one I would recommend, if you can make the time. h4. Fit 80-year-old One of our group of 57 walkers, was aged [...]
Zero, zilch, nada. No matter how many ways you say it, it still means the same thing: nothing. In fact, the last time I heard it was when I checked my bank account by phone and was told, ever so politely, that there was zero money available. That night I turned on the television only [...]
The Channel Islands are to the west of France and are a part of the United Kingdom. In 1940, after the fall of France, they became occupied by Germany. Hitler saw them as being crucial for a number of reasons. Their occupation was an embarrassment to Churchill as they were a part of the United [...]
The beautiful Gothic city of Siena, Italy, as well as its inhabitants, are probably best understood through the Palio. Twice each summer in July and August, this popular festival takes place in the city’s central campo. Most of the thousands of visitors who fill the shell-shaped campo assume that this is merely a bareback horse-race. [...]
Recent years in popular culture has seen the rise of food as a well-oiled topic. What was once the basic sustenance of three meals a day has become the subject of TV shows, food books and miles of aspirational lifestyle columns in newspapers. A landmark case in Northern Ireland recently saw a restaurant successfully sue [...]
Time is so precious in the new society that people pay to buy time. It is done in many ways and for different reasons, most of them personal. There is no time for leisure or relaxation and it seems as though time is passing by. With the new society a person is awake very early [...]
There is one thing we’re good at in this country and that’s our ability to host and enjoy a hooley. And, by the time you read this, the mother of all hooleys should have happened in Portlaoise. For the last week, The World Fleadh will have rocked and reeled the town in a celebration of [...]
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