So Brian Kerr is gone. I can’t say i’m sorry to see him go. He’s a decent man but wasn’t up to scratch as manager. There was no excuse for Ireland’s dreadful performance throughout the qualification campaign. I wonder who’ll take over. I hope it’s not Bobby Robson. Alex Ferguson, David O’Leary, Martin O’Neill and [...]

Cionaodh, who pops in here occasionally, posted this elsewhere. I hope he doesn’t mind me stealing it. Yer man with the handgun is reading Buntús Cainte and doesn’t look to be coping so well with it. Irish isn’t that tough, is it? Original image from An Taibhdhearc.

Ah lads, ya can’t be serious, bottled air? What next, bottled water? “Dude is selling empty jars to thick yanks. What kind of fookin eejit would buy a jar of fookin air.” Classic!

Gaelic games are close to my heart. Although I’m not a GAA member or player at the moment (I play handball every week, does that count?) I was a hurler in my younger days and I have had *some* small involvement with the GAA in Europe within the past few years. Still, I’ve always been critical of certain aspects of the GAA, mainly their love of money. They talk about developing the game abroad yet the tight fisted cunts find it hard to part with any money for even a few sticks (personal experience). Then there’s the issue of player compensation for example!

Another area I have a problem with, and this is the purpose of this post, is the links with nationalism. This is obviously most evident in Northern Ireland where the “nationalist ethos” of the GAA is seen to ‘exclude’ half the population there. It’s 2005, there’s no reason for an entire community to feel excluded from our cultural/sporting organisation. And while we can argue that our intention is not to exclude anyone you can easily understand, given the nationalist tone of our Official Guide preamble or the links between the GAA and nationalism in Northern Ireland, why many in the NI protestant community would feel excluded? Isn’t it more than a tad shameful that still today in multicultural progressive Ireland a significant proportion of our island population is unable to participate in our national sports, some of the finest sports in the world? Whether they’d want to or not is irrelevant, there shouldn’t be anything preventing them from participating.

I’d like the GAA to be able to promote Gaelic sports & culture for all, not a single soul excluded. We should be making the GAA a better organisation, an organisation where we can put hand on heart and say that this is an organisation where all are welcome regardless of skin colour, religion or political affiliation. Of course I can easily put hand on heart now and say that all ARE welcome, and I truly believe that but the GAA’s links with Nationalism contradict that claim. So we need changes and I’m going to highlight a few which I believe, if implemented, would make the GAA an organisation we can be more proud of.
Btw, most of these suggestions come from discussions with members of the protestant community in NI, where better to get feedback but from those ‘on the outside’.

For anyone interested we’ve put screen shots of Open Office in Irish online. Localization is not yet complete but Kevin Scannell & lads have been doing a fantastic job so far on what is a pretty big project. If you have good Irish you might consider getting involved and helping out with translating or testing.

Have you ever bought a blow up doll? Would you? How about a rubber doll? Would you fork out $6,500 for one? Some men do. Whatever you’re into I say. I mean, the dolls such as “Real Doll” are pretty well put together and look quite realistic and there are any number of reasons why [...]

Google have announced plans to spread the wealth by setting up a $1bn charity fund which will fund social investment projects in the developing world! At the time of Google’s initial stock market flotation last year founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made the pledge that they would set up a foundation to do “good [...]

Via the rebel smoker, Damien Mulley is mulling over the idea of creating an Irish Blog Awards. Not a bad idea, there’s certainly a good wide range of Irish blogs ar líne, although you can already pick out some likely winners like Slugger, Twenty or Richard Delevan mar shampla. Still, it might throw the spotlight [...]

Twodaze post is sponsored by the letter “R” … the number “Eleventy” … and the phrase “Bag of tits”. Oh and Big Bird is a cunt and Bert is as bent as an S-hoop.

My son (5) appears to have inherited my supreme talent for telling jokes. He came home from day-care the other day with a joke which he would only tell in Finnish. The joke auf Englisch: A fish walks into a shop and asks the man “Can I have some Light Milk” (what the Finns call [...]