Recession in Cork

The world is in recession, and it’s even affected Cork. The city was busy but it’s been much busier in previous years. Every second shop had a “Closing Down sale” or “50% off sale” sign. Usually you have to wait until the January sales. It’s great that prices are down, but depressing what it means for the economy. I heard that many stores on North Main Street have already closed their doors.

cork-2008-12-20-01

Construction work still continues in the center of the city though. I bet the developers of those sites are not looking forward to the job of selling floor space to retailers. The Elysian, tallest building in the country, is practically empty since it was opened officially a few months ago.
Besides the maddening crowds, collectors for Share and other charities were out in force. At least that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. The streets were packed with people, but the queues in the shops weren’t that long.

Bully’s on Paul Street was excellent as usual. Their ground floor tables were all taken but they have a first floor restaurant I never knew existed! We got a nice table away from everyone, it was a nice reprieve from the crowds and sounds outside. Their Bully Burger is well worth sampling too. Yum!
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2 candles and an apple pie

2 candles and an apple pie

So, I enter my 33rd year on this planet. Highlight of the day was our lunch in the Castle Hotel in Blarney where Adam was on his best behaviour and I was surprised with an apple pie and a rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung by my wife and 2 of the staff!

The burger I had for lunch was delicious too. Yum.

Socialist Party Budget Protest

The Socialist Party held a protest gathering against the recent tough budget. It took place in Emmett Place in Cork this afternoon. I took a few photos and this video. Our friend, Kathy Sinnott was in attendance but I didn’t hang around to listen for long. Must have a read of the leaflet I was handed. Maybe it has all the answers to a crumbling economy.

Gallery of images after the jump..
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Saor Patrol in Cork

Saor Patrol, a Scottish band “with their vibrant pipe tunes and drum rhythms [that] please and excite many a crowd” certainly lived up to their reputation when they played for the crowds in front of Brown Thomas on Patrick Street this afternoon.

I came upon them when they were nearly finished but the few minutes of music I heard was exciting and lively, and my son Adam totally enjoyed the spectacle. When the crowd clapped in appreciation, Adam joined in, and almost jumped out of his buggy to dance to the beat!

They were playing in Cork City Hall today as part of the Your Mental Health awareness campaign by the HSE. Depression and other mental health problems still have an awful stigma in this country. People can be reluctant to talk about those problems, families and friends hide them away, or pretend they don’t exist, but they’re health problems like any other. With the right treatment at the right time most people can be helped.

Listening to Saor Patrol certainly lifted my spirits. I was tired and worn down but their music reinvigorated me!

Edit – I was wrong. The mental health event they were promoting is a Scientology event. Not a HSE one. Can’t believe those maniacs managed to hire out City Hall. I definitely do not want to have anything to do with that crowd. Ugh.

Meadows Fringe Festival (doesn’t do them justice at all.)

Tom's going away dinner at Proby's Bistro

Last night a number of bloggers met in Proby’s Bistro for a dinner to see of Tom Raftery who’s leaving our fair isle and heading off to live in Spain next Sunday. I won’t bore you with details of who went and who said what to whom, but a good night was had by all! If you really must know who attended, Conor O’Neill listed each blogger’s Twitter account. Check out the gallery for more!

My wife noticed this morning that Tom was featured in yesterday’s Evening Echo. Alongside him are Pat Phelan of MAXroam and Catherine Wall of IT@Cork. That was the Echo with the photo of the Spencer Tunick Blarney shoot, so I’m sure that copy’s circulation numbers were up!
The last photo in the gallery is a shot of that image. Note the prominent WordPress sticker? Thanks Pat!

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Italian Ice cream in Blarney

The first ice cream store in Blarney opened it’s doors for the several weeks ago with a special offer of free ice cream all day but I didn’t stop by there until today.

The store is Il Gelato and it’s around the corner from the main square in Blarney. If you’re in the area, you owe yourself the chance to try out their delicious produce. They offer a range of flavours from the usual vanilla, to chocolate, mint, strawberry and a few other unusual ones. I bought a large tub of chocolate and strawberry. Disappointingly, I thought the tub was quite small and too expensive until I tasted it. It must be the richest and creamiest ice cream I’ve ever tasted! We were after dinner in the Blarney Castle Hotel but I had room for dessert yet I could barely finish the tub!

We all enjoyed our ice cream, and even Adam got a taste of it, despite my earlier protestations that he wouldn’t taste ice cream until he was much older! I’m glad his first taste of ice cream was a good one.

A large tub is €4.80 which seems expensive, but it’s worth it. Delicious!

Lifelong Learning Festival

I was so very tempted to name this post after Conor’s tweet about the browsing behaviour of kids but I’ll be strong and mature about it. He gave a talk today in a large truck in the car park of Wilton Shopping Centre. That might sound a bit dodgy but it’s actually part of the Lifelong Learning Festival this week in Cork. I was out there doing some shopping so I dropped by and took a few photos.

Thanks Frank for the link. Otherwise I’d never have known anything about it!

Bloody hell that Wilton crowd knew their stuff. Kids browsing pron and phishing questions galore.

Bertie Ahern Jokes

It didn’t take long. Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, announced his resignation yesterday and already the joke emails are pouring in. (Thanks Brian and Louise!)

My own contributions:


Sunday Times, December 23rd 2007.

The Bertie score card above is from Bifsniff.com (but created by Brendan O’Connell), anyone want to claim credit for the others? Unfortunately email forwarders don’t usually give credit ..

Gavin, who has blogged the Mahon Tribunal for so long has given his own reaction as well as a chronology of events leading to the resignation yesterday. It’s scary how long the Teflon Taoiseach managed to survive in politics. Nothing stuck to him.

Edit: Green Ink created Bertie 300. Thanks for commenting!

WP Plugin: Import your Flickr comments

I have had a plugin running on my photoblog In Photos for quite a while now that imports comments on my Flickr stream into my blog posts. It prefixed “Flickr:” to the username and linked back to the Flickr comment.

Due to overwhelming demand (two people asked!), I cleaned up the plugin a bit and put a configuration page on it and called it the Flickr Comment Importer. There are a few things to consider if you want to use this plugin but it’s straight forward to install and configure and it’s all documented on the plugin page.

Download it now!