Marine Hotel Graduation Night Goes Swimmingly

The sumptuous Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire hosted a graduation night for students of Dun Laoghaire College Of Further Education on the 6th of November. Hundreds of students were there to receive educational certificates for all their hard work in the 2007/2008 college year. Certificate recipients were given FETAC and Fás awards during the evening’s proceedings.

The speeches at the graduation night reflected Ireland’s current educational climate. While they all praised the students’ achievements, Chairperson of the VEC, Donal Marren, took time out to criticise the Government’s cut-backs on education. Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, reacted to Mr. Marren’s comments by comparing them to the dimming of pub lights at closing time and the fact that people usually ignore them and carry on as normal.

After the speeches, it was the students’ turn to take centre stage. Classes lined up on the flanks and the graduation-cloaked students were called on alphabetically. Each student of the year was given a Newbridge clock in appreciation of their outstanding contribution to the academic year. Cameras were frantically clicked by audience members to capture all the action and there was plenty of handclapping.

Post-ceremony there was a rush to the Marine Hotel’s many bars for a swift drink. Sandwiches were handed out to help soak up the celebratory booze. The place was jammed with beaming students, proud teachers and even prouder family members. All in all a great evening out for everyone in attendance.

Capital D Puts Shanganagh House In Limelight

Shankill’s Shanganagh Park House was the subject matter for one of the segments of RTE’s Capital D programme earlier this month.

The house, which is run as a community centre, has seen an upsurge in interested course applicants since the episode was broadcast.

Course co-ordinator Anne Farrell believes the Capital D episode will only enhance the centre’s already growing reputation.

“The publicity really has helped us here”, she says. “A lot of local people didn’t know we were here at all until now and there have been a lot more enquiries about the courses we run here since the programme”.

Although course applicants are on the increase, Anne still thinks that older members of the Shankill community are not being helped enough. “A lot more could be done for the elderly here”, she says. “There are not really any other courses for them in the area, apart from the ones we have here”.

Children’s play groups, adult education classes and senior citizen’s courses are all run in the house every weekday. Situated in the middle of the Rathsallagh estate, the house is ideally located for people in the community to get together on a regular basis.

The massive Georgian house has certainly seen many ups and downs over the years. In 1984 a basement fire destroyed much of the building and it was not opened again until 1987. Another fire in 1992 caused it to close its doors once more. It wasn’t re-opened again until 1993 when president Mary Robinson was on hand to snip the re-opening ribbons.

More than one million euro was spent on refurbishing the house in 2005. Funding was obtained by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, the Department of Environment and Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Prague: Czech It Out

When my sister rang and asked me if I wanted to go to Prague around Christmas time, I was instantly interested. She had spotted a deal for flights and three nights in a four-star hotel there for 225 euro a pop. How could I let that bargain slip from my X-mas wish list? Telling her to book it on the spot, I pretty much put it to the back of my mind until it was nearly time to grab my passport and suitcase. Well, sportsbag to tell the truth.

The flight to the Czech Republic capital took just over two hours. Burying myself nose deep in a book (Arthur & George by Julian Barnes), the time flew in. Spotted with touristy looking luggage at the airport, a taxi driver was quick to ask us where the six of us were heading. The Majestic Hotel was our destination and we were there about 25 minutes cab-driving later. The hotel was in fact majestic, with ornate sofas and immaculate golden tiling in the lobby area.

The rooms were extremely nice too, what you would expect from a four-star I suppose.
Prague is the next most visited city in Europe after Paris, so don’t bargain on cheap thrills and inexpensive gift hunting. The Czech Republic aren’t in the euro zone as of yet either, so make sure you bring some local currency with you. 50 Koruna is roughly two euro and expect to pay between 500 and 700 Koruna for a decent restaurant meal.

Prague is filled with incredible Baroque and Gothic architecture and some of the castles near the town square are like something out of an old Disney movie. It’s advisable to bring a digital camera as you will want to snap your way around town.
The Christmas markets themselves really are a sight to behold.

Everything is either glinting like stars in the night sky or giving off the scent of delicious delicacies. Roast chestnuts, creamy crepes and scrumptious sausages are all sold from wooden shacks covered with tinsel and sparkling lights. Langosc is a crispy, deep fat fried roll of dough that is more than likely not good for your cholesterol level, but it certainly is tasty. Wash that down with some luscious mulled wine, readily available every twenty feet or so.

Endless trinkets are sold from jam-packed stalls, but the prices aren’t exactly cheap. The stall-owners won’t take cheques by the way. If you really do feel like crunching up some credit however, there are plenty of designer shops around the city centre. Rolex, Gucci, Armani and Cartier all have outlets near the markets.

If you are tired of all the eating and shopping take a scenic boat or bus tour around the city. Prague is full of amazing and spectacular scenery to feast your mince pies on. There are also plenty of museums, theatres and opera houses if you are feeling cultural. If I had to find something to moan about (ok, if you insist!) it would be some of the locals themselves. Shop assistants can be a bit abrupt and restaurant staff sometimes downright rude. They’re probably just tired of all the tourists though. Prague gets several million visitors every year which might explain some of the cold shoulders.

That’s just a small gripe though, and don’t let that put you off visiting one of Europe’s most wonderful and vibrant cities. So, check into a hotel and check out Prague.

Why Water Affects the Flow of Our Lives

Water is the driver of Nature — Leonardo Da Vinci

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) of Ireland announced in October of this year that 23 areas of Ireland were found to have water supplies contaminated by lead. The areas included Galway, Limerick, Donegal and Kerry among others. This caused quite a bit of panic of course, because we can’t live without our daily intake of fresh water. These cases were not the first this year and most probably won’t be the last either. When these kinds of stories hit the news there is usually widespread panic. Everybody is wondering if their county or town is next on the dirty water hit list. Water contamination stories have been making the Irish news more frequently in recent times.

Galway has been the most affected area with several cases of lead poisoning in the water there. Traces of lead were found in the Old Mervue area of the city where 1000 households were affected. Also, houses in the Bohermore, Shantalla and Claddagh areas were also found to have traces of lead in their water supply.

Last year, in Cavan and Monaghan, traces of Phenol (a highly toxic, caustic chemical) were discovered in the water supply to many households there. The Phenol traces were caused by a copper mining chemical being used as a replacement for a water treatment chemical. Enva, a Cork based environmental solutions company were the culprits in this case. They at least did fully complied with the ensuing investigation into the chemical scandal.

Thankfully it was the only time that this dangerous chemical has ever been found in water supplies in Ireland. Lead is a different story altogether however.
The reason for lead contamination is because lead pipes are still used to distribute water in many areas of Ireland.

The Department of the Environment is funding the replacement of these lead pipes over the next few years. This action really should have been taken a long time ago as too much lead in water can be fatal. Under existing legislation, drinking water that contains more than 25 micrograms of lead per litre is regarded as not safe to drink. The sooner all these pipes are replaced the better for everybody.

As with lots of other scandals or catastrophes in the world, countries tend to only take action when something bad actually happens and do not take preventive measures beforehand. Ireland is seeking help from other countries to assist with the water problems that we have. Experts on chemistry and engineering from Britain and other countries have been hired to help us deal with these issues.

Although the lead trend is slightly worrying, the EPA was very keen to stress that out of the 994 water supplies in Ireland, 99 per cent of them comply with our legal standards of lead contamination. The main problem we have is the distribution of our water and not the water itself.

Dr. Mary Kelly, Director General of the EPA has highlighted this problem recently: “Ireland has an abundant supply of fresh water, although not evenly distributed across the country”, she says. “Water is also crucial as a habitat for freshwater and marine plants and animals and as an amenity for all of us to enjoy”.

Another worrying pattern however, is the level of bacterial contamination found in our rivers. More and more of Ireland’s fish are being killed every year because of this. These bacterial hazards are usually caused by neglectful companies and uncaring farmers who dump their waste products in the nearest river that they can find. Ireland is one of the worst countries in Europe for this type of contamination.

Recent studies by the EPA have shown that only 71 per cent of Ireland’s river length has satisfactory water quality. Added to this is the embarrassing statistic that 22 per cent of Irish coastal water bodies have unacceptable bacterial levels in them. More stringent protection is needed in this country if the water standard is not to slip any further down the contamination spiral.

Environmental laws still allow for some water contamination and perhaps these laws now need to be changed. Stricter guidelines need to be enforced if we are to have an unpolluted water supply. We are not the only country in Europe to have let our water standards slip however.

The general standard of water in the EU has dropped in recent years, and Ireland is only one of many countries that has let its clean water barometer drop. Italy and Spain were found to be banning swimming at coastal and inland bathing areas that were due to be tested by the European Commission (EC). This helped in giving a false impression of water purity in both countries.

Certain areas of Italy and Spain were even removed from the list of sites to be tested altogether, again to assist in obtaining better clean water statistics. This kind of behavior is not permitted by the EC who are having to crackdown on this kind of behaviour. Portugal, Germany, France and Finland were also guilty of removing more than one per cent of their beaches from the sample list of testing sites.

Britain fare a bit better in the EC tests. Only 13 of their 562 individual seaside resorts that were tested still fail to reach the minimum standards required.
The need for fresh, clean water in any society is all too obvious. We depend on unsullied water to sustain us in our lifetime. Plants and animals are no different in this area too. If clean running water is not readily available to every living thing on this planet, the consequences can be extremely bad, if not completely devastating. Water is our life blood and the less it is tampered with, the healthier we will be.

Let’s face the facts though. Even with the lead and phenol cases, Ireland is blessed, for the most part, with an abundance of fresh and uncontaminated water. We do have some inconsistencies in our water, but nothing when compared to countless countries across the globe, where water is treated as much more of a precious commodity.

We tend to take for granted that fresh water is ready on tap in this country. We can drink it straight from our taps; we shower and bathe in it; boil our potatoes and vegetables in it; hose our cars with it; we use it to flush our toilets. Relative to the rest of the world we are extremely lucky in this regard.

When water does become contaminated it leads inevitably to disease and death. More than five million people die from water-related diseases in the world every year, a frightening statistic. Another scary fact is that 84 per cent of these deaths are children who are under the age of 15 years old. It is true that humans can last weeks without food but they can only survive for a few days without water.

Worldwide, approximately 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean water every day and roughly every 15 seconds a child dies of a preventable waterborne disease. This, for the most part, happens in the developing nations of the world, countries that lack the infrastructure and of course the money that the more industrialized nations have. Most of Africa has this problem. Around 300 million Africans do not have access to clean water. This is mostly caused by severe drought in particular areas. Another major factor though is a lack of utilization when it comes to the supplying of water.

Africa actually has an abundant water supply but it is not distributed very well. With 17 massive rivers and roughly 160 major lakes, there is in fact enough water to go around the whole continent. However, Africa only uses about 4 per cent of these water resources for use domestically, and in agriculture and industry.

Asia is the next worse-off continent when it comes to having access to clean water. Around 80 per cent of India’s population still lives in unsanitary conditions. This is mainly due to a lack of running water in toilets there. People are forced to relieve themselves outdoors where disease becomes rampant. It is easy to take flushing water for granted in developed nations, but for much of the world this is a luxury.

Many Asian countries also have a problem with high levels of arsenic in their water supplies. Many Asian nations have no method for testing the quality of water and arsenic traces inevitably cause many deaths. Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam are the worst affected. Rice fields in these areas are often irrigated with contaminated water leading to inevitable sickness and death.
With so much of the world having little or no access to clean running water, we have to be very thankful for living in Ireland.

Although we have our own problems with the water supply here, we don’t have them on anywhere near the same scale as much of the world. Many of us living on this giant bauble we call planet earth don’t have the luxury of just turning on taps to get water. Those that do should count themselves very fortunate. It would be great to think that at some stage in the future everybody in this world will be able to have access to clean water. Until then the reality is that many more people will die from the lack of it.

THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL - Author: Asne Seierstad (2002)

Norwegian author Asne Seierstad’s controversial book on life in Afghanistan’s capital city is a thought provoking, warts-and-all story that puts you firmly in the dust-caked, war torn city of Kabul.

Journalist Seierstad wrote the book after staying with an Afghanistani family for four months. The title refers to the father of the family, Sultan Khan. He is a bookseller by trade and has encountered numerous problems with the daily running of his store. Afghanistan is a country where censorship is heavily enforced on literature, music and movies.

When the Taliban were in power the country was under very strict laws. To keep a bookstore on the go was nigh on impossible. Similar to Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi novel “Farenheit 451”, books were burned for fear of them influencing society. Khan had his stock sometimes turned into ashes before his very eyes to teach him a lesson.

The book is not only about Sultan but his wife and children too. His family is a middle class one by Afghanistan standards but compared to most of the western world they are quite poor. Life in Kabul is a daily struggle for most people living there. With the threat of an explosion or suicide attack never too far away, the population learn to take each day as it comes.

Men are the dominant force in Afghanistan society and women are treated as lower class citizens there. Males make the important decisions in their families and women are more or less told what to do. Sections of the book focus more on the female point of view and these parts are extremely engrossing. Hidden behind black veils and long dresses, women are for the most part hidden from view and their voices are rarely heard.

Seierstad keeps the narrative very simple and the book has a nice flow to it. The language used is never over complicated and the drama never feels forced. The author gives the Kabul family room to breathe and express themselves without ever being too opinionated herself. She allows us to come to our own conclusions.

Sultan Khan and members of his family were not impressed when they read the finished book. Seierstad was accused of exaggeration and using recorded dialogue out of context. Whatever the honesty of the author and the ethics involved in writing the book it still packs an emotional punch and once read is not soon forgotten.

KNEEL: IT’S MR. YOUNG

Neil Young rocked Dublin on June 29th with a blast of a show at Malahide Castle. The sunny, rainless weather was absolutely perfect for an outdoor concert and the 21,000 or so fans lapped up every minute of it.

Neil Young’s concerts really depend on what mood you get him in. Not up for it and he will plough through the set with hardly a blink in the audiences’ direction. He was certainly feeling groovy for this one with sarcastic jibes and slapstick manoeuvres to accompany a plethora of cracking live tracks.

Wearing a paint stained shirt and looking as rugged as ever, Mr Young played like a hurricane on this occasion.

Jumping straight into Love and Only Love from Ragged Glory, Neil chewed up his guitar for ten minutes and proceeded to spit it back out at the mesmerised audience. With an incredible oeuvre to pick from, Mr. Young changed the mood back and forth throughout the gig, switching from electric to acoustic and stopping for a quick organ grind too.

While the electric stuff, including My My, Hey Hey, Spirit Road and Powderfinger was top-notch, the mellower parts of the show were on another level altogether. Acoustic versions of Old Man, The Needle and the Damage Done and Unknown Legend were simply spine-tingling. Sitting behind the organ for Mother Earth, Neil reminded us of just how musically gifted he actually is.

With wife Peggy on backing vocals to lend support, Neil was in his element. Minus any strong Irish winds he swayed the crowd with his awesome talent alone.

Finishing the main part of the concert with an astonishing version of No Hidden Path, Neil was persuaded by the chanting spectators to perform one more song in an extremely short encore. A brilliant, roaring, up-tempo version of The Beatles’ A Day in the Life ended the proceedings for the night. Then this well known legend popped off stage and let the crowd disperse to hum and sing his tunes on the way home.

Irish Snaps

WAR OF THE WORLDS; written by H.G. Wells, 1898

Book Review

H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds is one of the most influential science fiction novels of all time and one of the great pieces of literature in the history of writing. Made into two Hollywood movies, several made for TV shows and a popular musical, trying their very best to dilute Wells’s vision, the original novel still holds up as an eerie, atmospheric, spine tingling sci-fi chiller.

At the beginning, shooting stars are seen firing across the night sky of London and the next day a strange cylinder is found in the area of Horsell Common and curious locals attempt to find out what it is and where it came from. Armed with the white flags of surrender, they are quickly fired at by a powerful heat ray that evaporates them into dust.

This reaction from the aliens immediately tells the reader that these invaders are not friendly ET types but ruthless predators who view us as merely a nuisance in their mission to take over the earth. At the time of the novel this was almost unheard of in science fiction stories. The aliens were normally portrayed as inquisitive beings who were more interested in studying human nature than destroying it. Wells blasts this notion out of the water at the start of War of the Worlds. These intruders are here for the destruction of the human race, not to study us.

The tale is told to us by a narrator who has, so far, managed to avoid being made into human toast. We follow him on his trail of escape and hear about the many harrowing sights he witnesses. The aliens of the story are tentacled, oily skinned beings and are viewed by the narrator as they begin to build weapons of mass destruction in their attempt to wipe out the population of our planet.

Hiding out in rundown buildings that the Martians have not levelled to the ground, the narrator spies on alien activity in the area. He also meets two men in these hideouts but finds it hard to relate to both of them even though they are in the same situation. They seem deranged by the whole invasion scenario but are happy to just stay where they are. Our narrator wants to move on and help in the fight against the aliens. In a creepy scene dripping with a sense of foreboding and dread, he has to silence one of the men from fear of detection by the aliens.

Joining the exodus from London, the narrator mulls over what the future could possibly hold for him and the rest of humanity. Humans could be made into alien slaves to help build more Martian machines or just be completely eradicated to make way for a new species. To take one’s own life by walking into a Martian death ray seems a viable option at this stage. However, an unforeseen occurrence somewhat changes the overall scheme of things and we are left to ponder what might have been.

War of the Worlds could be seen as a metaphor for the English invasions of Africa and Asia where the indigenous population were swept aside in the pursuit of riches. This might have been Wells’s intention but the novel works best by showing just how vulnerable we humans really can be. The intruders view us like we view ants; something to just stand on and crush or to be completely ignored as a non-threat in the first place. Even though we are the dominant force on our planet at the moment, Wells seems to be warning us that there could be something bigger, stronger and more efficient than us in the universe. Being a former biology teacher, Wells was all too aware of human vulnerabilities and he takes many pot-shots at our pompous notions of being the most powerful species in the universe.

This novel is a must read for science fiction fans and classic literature aficionados. Cloaked in a heavy, claustrophobic and ominous atmosphere of death and decay, the novel throws the reader into the catastrophe of the invasion and doesn’t let us breathe until the end. The writing style flows with immense skill and every sentence seems important. Characters are made to feel useless under the Martians’ microscope and the reader feels the same.

Forget the movie and musical adaptations of War of the Worlds and read the original story instead. If there is one science fiction novel that could be given an award for the most influence on the genre, it would surely be this one.

System of a Download

There used to be a time when the music industry had music fans where they wanted them.
Forced to pay extortionate prices for CD’s the customer didn’t really have any other option to get to hear their favourite bands when a new release came about.

A few years back people in Ireland and around the world started to get in on the act of copying CD’s for each other. Come on, you must remember the first time somebody copied an album for you and you felt a slight twinge of guilt about it. Even though this was technically illegal a lot more people were becoming copy cats. Anybody with a computer and CD burning equipment could easily do this. If somebody else did this for you and not yourself the twinge of guilt was barely noticeable at all.

During the late 80’s and early 90’s the music industry was well aware that this was going on around the globe. Their profits were being nibbled at and they felt the bites alright but nothing substantial enough to warrant medical help. Non-infected mosquito bites perhaps.

Moving swiftly forward to the present time, the music industry is now having zombie-sized bite chunks being taken from their balance sheets. This is mainly due to internet websites where the general public can download their favourite albums (new or old) for free. That’s right, for free. Zero. Zilch.

There are a countless number of these sites on the web and more and more are appearing all the time. This is proving to be a real pain in the neck for the music industry. Here is a statistic that must keep industry moguls waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Worldwide, for every legal download of a music file it is believed there are twenty illegal downloads. That is a ratio that is scaring the life out of the music companies.

People can download these music files using P2P programs. That’s port to port for any newcomers to this. Once a person has a program like this they can go onto any of the plethora of illegal sites scattered over the internet and start downloading until the cows come home. Or even continue after they come home.

The only thing hindering people getting what they want from the web seems to be the download limit their service provider……..well, provides. The P2P programs are available to download for free too by the way and it seems the general public are only too willing to milk these internet udders dry.

The Irish are generally quite slow in keeping up with technology compared with the rest of Europe and most places elsewhere by the look of it. Sodastreams and tape decks are just making their way out of fashion here now. Even though we are a tardy nation when it comes to computer technology and the like, there seems to be enough people using computers and the internet for illegal downloads to now make the music industry sit up and take notice.

Unhappy with the situation in Ireland, the music companies are beginning their fight back against illegal downloads. Maybe some feet in boots out there have started shaking but you should be ok for the time being anyway. The record companies have decided to target internet providers instead of individuals.

In what will be a landmark case, five record companies are taking Eircom to court over allowing downloads to take place on their broadband service. According to Willie Kavanagh, managing director of EMI records in Ireland, "with the greatest of respect”, to Eircom, it was "well aware" its service facilities were being used to download music in an illegal manner "on a grand scale". He has a point I suppose but a bit rich coming from a company who once made tracks from the English band King Crimson available to download on licensed EMI websites, without the band’s permission. Eircom lawyers are already getting prepared for the virtual-themed face-off, claiming the company was under no obligation to monitor what people were downloading. Let’s get ready to rumble etc.

Obviously Eircom have been targeted first because they are Ireland’s biggest internet provider but other internet suppliers will be very curious as to the outcome of this one. An endless stream of court cases might begin to appear on the horizon in Ireland if Eircom loses.

Music is not the only form of illegal downloading that takes place here and you have to wonder are there movie and computer game companies anxiously waiting for the Eircom verdict. Their products are being sought for free over the net as well. This might get very interesting. Maybe RTE can get the rights to film these trials or we could all watch them over the internet. Using legal live streaming of course.