Ryan wants to organise a meetup of photographers in Cork! Could be fun, but we might frighten the population of Cork if too many of us descend on Patrick Street at one time!
Category Archives: When-in-Ireland
IFSRA – House Insurance Survey
IFSRA released a house insurance survey today. If you shop around you’ll save money!
Catching the Sprat
Every year the mackerel come in close to shore chasing the sprat the feed on. Further up the food chain, fishermen around Cork Harbour have a boom time in August feeding on the mackerel.
As the mackerel chase the sprat the sprat desperately jump out of the water with their predators following closely. This results in “breaks” as the water foams and explodes with the annual chase!
This picture was taken last night in Kinsale where a large group of men, women and children were enjoying the fishing and the spectacle.
1/12 sec, f/8.0, 155mm, ISO100, Flash
Donoughmore Vintage Festival, July 31st, 2005
The village of Donoughmore in Co. Cork played host to a vintage festival on Sunday that attracted people from all over Munster. Apart from the vintage vehicles there were plenty of other activities. Here’s a taster of what it was like.. Click the picture for more.
Continue reading “Donoughmore Vintage Festival, July 31st, 2005”
North Atlantic Skyline
North Atlantic Skyline: great blog from the West of Ireland with lots of great photos!
IRA orders end of armed campaign
I hope this time it’ll last. The IRA announced yesterday that they have, “formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.”
Of course Ian Paisley made a huge commotion about it but hopefully all parties in Northern Ireland can now sit down together and do something constructive.
(A quick search returns this disturbing page on Ian Paisley. Did he really abduct a 16 year old girl in 1956? The Wikipedia page on him is much less inflamitory.)
Oh yes, here’s a photo of the IRA laying down their arms:
Petrol Prices Rise to 1.20 Euro/litre
I just heard on Red FM that Texaco are telling their retailers to increase the price of unleaded petrol to 1.20/lt! I filled up with petrol at 1.05/lt this morning but I might just fill the tank this evening if this is confirmed elsewhere.
3 Ireland launched today
Ireland has a new mobile phone operator: 3 Ireland. As you can probably guess from the name, they specialise in 3G but unfortunately that only extends to the cities. I’m not sure if Blarney is covered by the red sploch on this map is it? I’ll have to ring them and ask.
More coverage: babblogue and tomrafteryit
The National Data Directory – "do not call" list for Ireland
I just heard on the radio. A “do not call” list is being developed and rolled out in Ireland! Here’s the FAQ from the Data Protection Commissioner. Call your telco now and get them to update your “marketing preference” straight away!
Pictures: Cashel Red Bull Air Race
Wow! Despite the awful weather today, and the long traffic jams outside several towns we had a great time at the Red Bull Air Race in Cashel! Here’s a few photos from the event.
Ryan has some amazing photos from the opposite side of the valley!
We were lucky today! We arrived in Cashel around 3pm, and walked up to the town because the buses must have grown wings and flown away. Everyone was walking, and not a bus in sight. We got into the town around 3.30, and popped into a local pub where we had a drink and sat down for a breather. Rumour had it that an announcement would be made at 4pm so we headed up to the airfield around then.
We ended up on the Rock of Cashel looking down on the field, opposite from where the majority of the crowd was. There were a few security people around, but it looked like they were there to stop people from climbing higher up the hill! The crowd was good humoured and well behaved thankfully, and I didn’t see or hear any trouble. I don’t think anyone drunk could have survived on the slippery hill anyway!
Finally the even started, and two helicopters did a display over our heads for a few moments, followed by the planes doing fly bys.
There was only one round, each plane ducked and dived and performed airobatics for us and got awfully close on occasion!
I had my Canon 20D, and the Canon 75-300mm IS zoom. That lens is rubbish at focusing! At the long end of the zoom it hunts continuously! After I missed two or three shots I flicked to manual focus, knocked the aperture down to f/8 and focused on one of the Red Bull pillars. I hoped that the smaller aperture would give me enough depth of field to keep everything in focus. After that it was a breeze. The 20D performed brilliantly, shooting off 5fps for a few seconds at a time as planes flew overhead or flipped by 90 degrees to go between the pillars.
I took 400 shots all told during the event.
It rained on occasion and I had to hide my camera inside my coat but it didn’t spoil any shots.
The show lasted all of about 10 minutes. We had travelled for about 3 hours for 10 minutes. Not exactly pleasing or satisfying.
On the way back to the car parks were crowds and crowds of people. We were sheltering under our umbrella when we practically stumbled upon a young woman lying on the side of the road. A few more people came over and a doctor pushed her way through to her. I rang 112 and got onto the Ambulance Service and gave them directions. The doctor spoke too, and I heard the woman hadn’t eaten in days. She handed the phone back to me, and seemed to be in good care. With a few glances back we walked on, and soon heard an ambulance making it’s way to the scene behind us.
Traffic going home wasn’t so bad, but if you want to know why five people were killed on the roads at the weekend just look around you. I was passed several times on the road as if I was stationary. An Alfa, followed closely by an SUV whizzed by at something approaching 150km/h! Even a Fiat Punto passed us doing about 120km/h! Let’s all say it together, “Crazy!”
Others who went: bitwise.ch, reapofmind, matt411, John O’Donnell, diarmy, Liom, topgold, wyvernfriend, bleek_embers637 and of course Ryan!
