Category Archives: Ireland

Ireland’s Russian Problem

I remember watching this video by Kev Collins a while back where he covered the Aughinish plant in Co. Limerick. His documentary revealed a horrible site on the west coast of Ireland. Red ponds of waste that blow into neighbouring farms and a family that had to move out of their family home because of it.

Then comes the fact that most of the aluminum produced there ends up in Russia and will inevitably end up in weapons and munitions used against Ukraine.

A month ago Caolon Robertson shared a video short about the same plant, showing a ship that had just left Aughinish for St. Petersburg in Russia. A few hours ago he posted his documentary on Aughinish. It’s worth watching.

It’s shameful that Ireland is allowing this plant to export to Russia.

The Venice of the North Rises Again

AI-manipulated photo of St. Patrick Street in Cork city with the road replaced by a canal filled with boats including motorboats and a small rowing boat, with pedestrians walking along the quayside past shops including Barter, with trees and street furniture lining the waterway.

AI-manipulated photo of Washington Street in Cork city with the road replaced by a canal carrying boats including a blue narrowboat named "ORIEL", a white rowing boat, and a blue motor launch with passengers in life jackets, with shops including Kida Hair and Razors Barber visible on either side, a green construction crane in the background, and a South Main Street sign on the right.

Well, I have to hand it to Cork City Council. After years of roadworks, diversions, temporary traffic lights, and that perpetual stretch of Patrick Street that looked like a minor archaeological dig, they’ve finally revealed the masterplan and it’s magnificent. They’ve ripped out the tarmac entirely and restored the old channels of the River Lee that ran beneath the city centre for the past 240 years. St. Patrick Street is now navigable by motorboat, and Washington Street has a functioning canal service complete with what appears to be a narrowboat called the Oriel running a shuttle to the courthouse.

Parking signs have been replaced by mooring cleats. The 220 bus route now terminates at a floating pontoon outside Penneys. I’m told that Eason’s is doing a roaring trade in waterproof editions, and a new Dublin Bikes-style scheme called “Cork Canoes” launches next week, but knowing the council, the docking stations won’t be ready for another while yet.

In fairness, they’ve finally earned the title. Cork: the Venice of the North. Truly, the real capital at last.

Happy April Fools’ Day. These images were obviously generated using AI. Cork City Council has not, to my knowledge, flooded the city, but after some winters, nature has a good go at it herself.

Walking the Coumloughra Horseshoe hike

I’m not much of a hill walker but John Finn is and filmed a walk there, up Carrauntoohil, the tallest mountain in Ireland and onwards.

It’s a spectacular walk with breathtaking scenery.

John’s video was voted best video of the year by the Mountain Views website (page 58 of the newsletter).

In my own world

Dramatic action shot of goalkeeper in blue jersey diving horizontally through air with arms outstretched attempting to save shot during local football match, with player number 8 in white and black visible in foreground and crowd of spectators including children in red and white jerseys watching from behind goal net at community football pitch with yellow corrugated wall and wheelchair sign visible in background.

Sometimes I feel bad that I have no idea that Ireland are playing a match, or when I see all the threads on the Ireland Reddit and it’s the first I even hear we were playing Portugal.

But then I remember I have my own hobbies and obsessions they won’t know a thing about.

My wife was told by a friend that she’d never meet a man who wasn’t interested in sport. I guess she did.

Most people change with time

Skeletor saying, "So many people from your past know a version of you that no longer exists. Celebrate your growth".
Source: Inspirational Skeletor

Some people don’t change however, and never learn from their mistakes.

“IT’LL be dark at 5pm before you know it” one parent dropping their child off at school cheerily said to themselves as the telltale sign that an Irish summer is over, Enoch Burke hovering at school gates, has arrived once again.

“Fuck sake,” confirmed much of the nation as the emergence of a wild Burke haring back to its unnatural habitat of outside a premises they haven’t worked at since 2022, signaled the summer is well and truly over.

Transfusion Art Gallery at the City Hall

TRANSFUSION TRANS JOY THROUGH ART @ Cork City Hall

I helped the kind folk at TENI set up a small art exhibit in Cork City Hall yesterday. This week is Cork LGBT+ Pride Festival and this is one part of that celebration.

Transfusion features art made by young trans people, including a pencil drawing by the late Jordan Howe. She was a 19 year-old transgender woman from Belfast who took her own life because of transphobic bullying in 2014.

Drop into the City Hall on Anglesea Street. You can’t miss it. The exhibition will be on until August 15th.

It’s been rather warm in Ireland of late

A map of Europe with Ireland down by the mouth of the Mediterranean, and a speech bubble coming from it saying, "Well lads, what's the craic?"

Most of the people on this green isle of ours aren’t “built for this sort of weather” as I’ve heard people say a few times over the last few days. There’s a heatwave here that I’m sure most people in southern Europe would scoff at. Temperatures are in the mid-twenties, and beaches are filled to overflowing, so the Guards requested people go to other locations.

There’s rain due next week. Back to a normal summer for us, and Ireland will slowly get back up to the North Atlantic.

PS. Don’t look too closely at the place names. The original image comes from a Facebook post where I’m sure they stole it from elsewhere, but they used a postage-size image I blew up in Topaz Photo AI for this post.

Malaysia, no 1 for recycling

it’s fitting that I was listening to the segment at around minute 18:00 of this podcast about recycling when I was putting the rubbish bins out.

Most of the recycled material in Europe ends up in Malaysia, apparently. And it sure isn’t completely recycled.

An EPA report stated that, “Plastics present a serious challenge. Only 28 percent of plastic packaging waste was recycled in 2021, a long way off the 2025 EU target of 50 percent. The majority of Ireland’s plastic packaging waste is being incinerated.”

If a portion of that 28% of plastics is being sent abroad, then our recycling rate must be even worse.

Ireland is Red Tonight

Storm Éowyn is battering the country with winds gusting to 130km/h. Hope everyone stays safe tonight. It started raining here around an hour or so ago, and I can hear wind gusting outside from where I sit.

Status Red – Wind warning for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford

Met Éireann Weather Warning

Storm Éowyn: Gale to storm force southerly winds becoming westerly with extreme, damaging and destructive gusts in excess of 130km/h

Impacts:

• Danger to life
• Extremely dangerous travelling conditions
• Unsafe working conditions
• Disruption and cancellations to transport
• Many fallen trees
• Significant and widespread power outages
• Impacts to communications networks
• Cancellation of event
• Structural damage
• Wave overtopping
• Coastal flooding in low-lying and exposed areas

Valid: 02:00 Friday 24/01/2025 to 10:00 Friday 24/01/2025

Issued: 17:08 Wednesday 22/01/2025

Updated: 08:28 Thursday 23/01/2025

Debug code left on the SEAI website

I filled in the solar PV grant form on the SEAI website this afternoon. I tried doing it this morning, but there was a “permission denied” error on their dashboard, which stopped things working. There had been a warning that they were doing updates overnight, so I figured it was probably teething problems with the update.

Hours later, upon submitting the grant form, I saw a “Paused on debugger statement” popup. Clicking play on it continued the process, and it all appears to work fine now. One wonders what happened to just submitting a form and processing everything on the server and refreshing the page?

webdev popup saying "Paused on debugger statement" with step and play buttons.
A chunk of Javascript code with a line saying "debugger" highlighted.

Anyone know someone on the SEAI dev team who can remove that debugger command? The joys of developing debugging on a live site.