Tag Archives: Ireland

Vex, where are you?

Several years ago any resident of Blackrock would recognise this tag. It was plastered all over the area, on every lamp-post, many walls and practically every smooth surface. I spotted this one near Blackrock Castle while Jacinta and I cycled past. It was at the bottom of a metal door almost completely hidden by bushes!

RTE's Bush Interview

Justin has a lot more on RTE’s Bush Interview that I mentioned previously. He notes that the White House complained to “RTE, the Irish Embassy, the Irish Government, and the reporter herself” aftewards. hehe.
He includes links to the realvideo version of it as well as an mp3 audio-track too. I recorded the realvideo streaming version using the following command:

mencoder -o primetime56.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc rtsp://streaming2.rte.ie/2004/0624/primetime56.rm

Race Against Waste!

Despite having a slightly dodgy tv advert, the Race Against Waste website is actually rather useful and informative! There’s info on everything from recycling to composting and reusing material, and the first FAQ is “Where can I get a compost bin?”
Ah yes, once upon a time I actually blogged about computers, technology, politics and photography.. (keep tuned, myself and a friend took some great photos at the weekend, they’ll be posted tomorrow!)

Buying and Moving House in Ireland – Utilities

Part ??? of ??? – almost there!
I get the keys of the house on Friday so I’m quite excited at the prospect! There’s still a lot to be arranged, and transferring utilities is one of those jobs. I rang The ESB, Bord Gais, and Eircom earlier to find out how.

  • Using the 2003 02 area phone book I saw that the ESB had a number of phone numbers. Unfortunately the first sales number I tried went through to their emergency/fault line! Ring 1850 372 372 if you want to talk to a sales guy. I was kept on hold for less than a minute and told to get a meter reading on Friday, get a forwarding address, ring them again and the account will be transferred.
  • I rang Bord Gais then. The phone was answered immediately. A meter reading has to be done by the current owners, they should ring Bord Gais on Thursday or Friday with their new address, my payment details and the meter reading. Their phone number is 1850 426200.
  • Finally, I rang Eircom. I was kept on hold for a good 3 minutes. Different recorded voices came on from time to time saying there were delays, and sorry for holding, etc. I thought it was strange to have different people recording those messages but it’s probably cheaper than hiring more staff to man the phones. Anyway, story is much the same. They ring Eircom, give my name and payment details. Transfer of a phone account costs €12, and if I want a new number it’ll cost €24.59. Isn’t it strange how the ESB and Bord Gais can transfer an account for free? (or at least they never mentioned a cost, in which case, my apologies to Eircom!) Ring Eircom at 1901 and press 1 for a sales person.

Much Later … It’s much easier than that. The previous owners took meter readings, and rang the various utilities to transfer the bills over to their new address. Bord Gais and the ESB were informed of my moving in to their house, and I rang Eircom and got the phone line connected a few days later.

Haunted Houses, Ghosts and Poltergeists

I need a spooky category.. Gerry Ryan has had a few calls from women saying their houses are haunted. I’ve an open mind about this and wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand at all.
The first caller said that she saw a silver haired woman lying on the bed next to her one morning, she turned away and back again and the woman was gone. She heard her child mumbling one night and went into her room later and the child said that she had been trying to call out and she was held down by something. Last Monday she took 3 photos of her children and apprently there’s an hump-backed old woman with a cane in the picture. A psychic told her that the woman in the house doesn’t want them living there! *gulp*
There’s more, and it’ll probably be repeated on Saturday morning so have a listen then!

Blackpool Factories In Ruin

I went up to Blackpool on Saturday afternoon to photograph the textile factory and Sunbeam. Even 24 hours later smoke still rose from the fire-gutted buildings and rubble. The Evening Echo had a stark picture of the blazing building on it’s Friday edition. It’s lucky nobody was injured in the blaze. A creche on the site narrowly escaped damage but thankfully half the 160 kids who are usually in the creche were in care that morning.


This is all that stands where a large textile factory burned down on Friday morning. According to the news, the rest of the building was demolished at noon on Saturday.


Rubble and Debris. Over 130 jobs are gone as the textile factory isn’t opening again.


Detail of the destruction of the out-buildings behind the main factory.


All that remains today of an old Cork landmark.

Close

Ad-blocker not detected

Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.

  • uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
  • Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
  • Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.