On the eve of his sojourn in Europe last year, President Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist.

He did not react well to the experience.

Bush's minders usually leave him in the gentle care of the White House press corps, which can be counted on to ask him tough questions about when his summer vacation starts.

Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who "cover" the White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network

....Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.... Did Coleman step out of line? Of course not. You will see in the video below that Coleman was neither impolite nor inappropriate. She was merely treating Bush as European and Canadian journalists do prominent political players. In Western democracies such as Ireland, reporters and politicians understand that it is the job of journalists to hold leaders accountable.

THE White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.

And the President's staff withdrew from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE the following morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.

The Irish Independent learned that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone. And it later emerged, that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit.


And here is the video link to the TV interview, which you will not see on American television. Everyone should see this.

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John F. Kennedy was greeted with almost religious fervor in 1963.

This is when JFK visited Cork City, Ireland in 1963. The picture was taken on Patrick Street. (Main street of Cork)

When Mr. Reagan came to Ireland, his ancestral village gave him an emotional homecoming and named a pub after him.

Mr. Clinton was celebrated in 1995 by a crowd of 100,000 that brought central Dublin to a standstill.

This picture was of President Clinton's first visit to Northern Ireland in November 1995 in belfast City for the turning on of the xmas lights. (15 months after the IRA announced its first cease-fire). He would visit Dublin and Belfast three time offically and many more unoffically- three visits more than any other serving US President has ever undertaken. Without him northern ireland would be a very different place today. While people may judge his presidency at home harshly, anyone in Ireland would leap to his defence as he genuinely liked and cared for this country. For his full involvement in Ireland please click here

Mr. Bush's reception was frosty, if not outright hostile, as widespread opposition to the Iraq war and revulsion at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal have turned a large portion of Irish popular opinion against a US president, possibly for the first time in the history of Ireland.

On Friday, June 25th 2004 approximately 20,000 people turned out in Dublin to let George W. Bush know that his policies are not popular in Ireland. Thousands also travelled from all over the country to Shannon Airport and the nearby Dromoland Castle. The Irish State deployed masses of police and military to hide Bush from the protestors while politicians did all they could to play down the extent of the protests.

How can there be so little enthusiasm for welcoming President Bush in as pro-American a country as exists on the face of the earth? Our intelligentsia is pro-American; American popular culture, far from being resisted as it is elsewhere in Europe, has been a precious modernizing influence on the grim patriarchy that dominated Ireland until recent times; our teachers and students work in the United States in the summer, our athletes train there, our doctors and scientists do postgraduate work there, we all have friends and relations there. No wonder Ireland shut down more completely than any other country in the world — schools, pubs, business, transport, everything — on its day of mourning for the Sept. 11 attacks. Style is not entirely irrelevant, and I agree that the Bush administration has sometimes used a harsher style than was needed.

There is another twist: we Irish, in our quarrel with Britain, have relied on American power, and that implicates us in how that power is exercised. The images from the Abu Ghraib prison were especially shocking here. We took the British Army to the European Court of Human Rights for using techniques of interrogation in Northern Ireland much less extreme than were used in Abu Ghraib — and, for all we know, in Guantánamo Bay, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Iraq. The British techniques were ruled inhuman and degrading. But this is unhelpful; the acrimony was there well before the Abu Ghraib pictures appeared. The problem is that the world is different with the end of the Cold War. She seems to recognize interests, but only dimly.

Ronald Reagan came and protesters against American actions in Central America landed in jail, but on the entertainment side, he was the perfect partner in genial, Oirish leprechaunery. It was also believed that he had leaned on Margaret Thatcher to bring her to negotiations with us on the future of Northern Ireland. And that's what has mattered most in modern Ireland's relationship with America. Its friendliness to us has often been the power behind our dealings with Britain.

The Clinton administration and both the Clintons went further; they put a lot of time and effort into installing a political structure in Northern Ireland that will work, however long it may be delayed by local malice. When Bill Clinton visited the republic the place was brought to a standstill.

And Iraq is only the most lurid in a sequence of isolationist initiatives — the abrupt rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the imposition of protective tariffs, the hostility to any international court of justice, and above all, the disrespect this administration has shown to the United Nations. Not that anyone has unqualified respect for the United Nations. But small nations, in particular, have to rely on international bodies, and the United Nations for all its flaws is the international body we've got.

• To watch all the various Irish St. Patricks Parades click here
  (Cork City's Parade is towards the end of the programme



• To watch an Irish News report about St. Patrick click here
  
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Cork City's Saint Patricks Day Parade:

Cork can never be accused of not having enough balls to put on a good St Paddys parade....


Obviously these guys had a bit too much to drink the night before the parade...


That guy must be on steroids...

What the hell was this meant ot be???

The Film "Chernobyl Heart" by Maryann De Leo won this year's Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. This is Adi Roche from Cork, Executive Director of The Chernobyl Children’s Project featured in the documentary.

Click here for my photoblog

Sky Fest Fireworks in Dublin for St. Patricks day

"Top of the morning to ye on this gray, grizzly St. Patrick's Day afternoon. Kent O'Brockman live on Main Street, where today everyone is a little bit Irish, except, of course, for the gays and the Italians."
( Quote from Kent Brockman in The Simpsons)

It's that time of year again, when we don the green, parade up and down the highways and bye-ways of Ireland and drink copious amounts of the 'black stuff', all in honour of our national patron, Saint Patrick. Ask any guy drunk in a pub on St Paddys day, it's not easy being green.

St. Patrick's Day is filled with colorful traditions and is also celebrated outside of Ireland, mainly in the United States, Canada and Australia. More recent times have also seen rise of celebrations in other parts of the world such as Japan, Singapore and Russia.

St Patricks Day Parade in South Korea

Falling every year on March 17, St. Patrick's Day takes place during the Catholic tradition of Lent and has been celebrated by us Irish for well-over a thousand years - ever since the death of St. Patrick toward the end of the 5th century. Because of the “festive” nature of Irish celebrations, All resolutions made for lent , such as giving up drink or sweets, are waived for the day and participants dance, drink and feast on the traditional Irish meal of corned beef, ham and cabbage.

In New York, in Savannah, Georgia, Chigago, in San Francisco and in a thousand small American towns, everyday life stops for the parade. Work, in this most industrious of cultures, ceases in honour of an Irish saint. Never mind the fact that Saint Patrick was actually Welsh; his parades are celebrations of Irishness. Thus, across America, St. Patrick is celebrated in churches and fire stations, high schools and smoky bars. From early in March, Patrick's Day cards are displayed in supermarkets and petrol (gas) stations. They're often tacky and embarrassing to the us Irish at home who have long since distanced themselves from winking green wearing leprechauns and top-o'-the-mornin' paddywhackery. But in America, people like them. US citizens everywhere notwithstanding mainland European, Afro, Asian or Jewish roots find, or imagine they find, an Irish grandparent, announce it proudly, wear cardboard shamrocks and drink green beer for the day.

Even Dogs dont escape Being Irish on St Patricks Day!

Why, in multicultural America, are we the only nationality allowed to paint the streets tricolour and dye the Hudson green? Is it because all the New York cops are Micks? The city doesn't stop to celebrate Italy's or Poland's patron saints, the Jewish Passover or Chinese New Year. What is it with us Irish? What has won them such acceptance in American life? St Patrick's Day is second only to Christmas or Thanksgiving in the USA. Why are we so popular, one asks? Is it because Irish immigrants hugely influenced the early culture or simply because us Irish throw a good party that everyone enjoys? Mardi Gras happens only in New Orleans: St Pat's day happens everywhere.

In the mid 1600s, the Vatican made March 17 a holy day; the first St Patrick's Day parade was organised by the well-heeled Irish Protestants in Boston in 1737. As emigration, especially during the Famine, gained pace, our Irish ancestors, wherever they found themselves, honoured St Patrick as the patron of their identity.

In 1700’s America, we Irish were liked, although not by the British Americans at first. Irish labour leaders fought for all immigrants' rights and gained respect. Irishmen built the railroads, mined the Rockies, expropriated the political system, commanded and staffed the police and fire services.

In 1829, when the first Irish American was inaugurated as President of the United States, there was a grand party in the white house house Andrew Jackson was the only President in our nation's history whose parents were both immigrants to America. They came from Carrickfergus, a little town near Belfast. And their son grew up to be a great Democrat and a man of the people. (Laughter and applause.) The traditions continues today with the Irish Taoiseach (Irish for Prime Minister) invited to the White house for St. Patricks Day celebrations and to present a bowl of shamrock to the President.

Irish Taoiseach presenting a bowl of Shamorck to President Bush.

America's Irish story (and by implication, the evolution of St Patrick's Day) was set in stone between the fateful years of 1846-54 when an estimated two million people fled famine-plagued Ireland, transforming the Irish into the biggest ethnic group in America. By 1850, 26 per cent of New York residents were Irish - most of them living in slums on the Lower East Side. Despite strenuous attempts by The Irish Emigrant Society to move the diaspora inland, few had any money. They had come for work and many of them never moved far from the docks where they landed. Perhaps, inevitably, the influx and concentration in certain areas caused resentment among a native population who perceived the immigrants as a threat to their livelihoods.

Although the Irish Great Famine has rightly been seen as the seminal event that transformed the East Coast of America into a virtual 33rd county of Ireland, us Irish were already well represented in The New World. As our numbers grew so did the backlash against us.

We Irish responded to the bigotry they encountered in time-honoured fashion. We banded together, got drunk and fought back. The siege mentality so necessary for survival in Ireland itself under English rule was transferred to the Irish ghettoes of New York, Boston and Chicago. The emigrants took refuge in the Catholic Church, The Democratic Party and organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) which was founded in 1836. When New York adopted a full-time police force in 1845, the Irish influence on local politics and the sheer weight of numbers arriving, ensured the recruits were overwhelmingly Irish.

The most organised anti-Irish platform belonged to The American Party - known popularly as 'The Know-Nothing Party'. Although the name would imply ignorance, the title refers to the instructions given to members not to disclose to the authorities their attitudes to the new immigrants. Founded in 1843, the main focus of the group's anti-immigrant stance was inevitably focused on the Irish who were pouring into the country at an unprecedented rate. The scene was set for a confrontation that would shape the future of St Patrick's Day and of the Irish in The New World.

The New York St Patrick's Day parade of 1853 was a watershed in the history of Irish politics in the U.S. It was the first time the AOH marched under its own banners and the organisation has controlled the event ever since. The following year - 1854 - in response to an attack on AOH members by Know Nothings in the July 4 Independence Day parade, AOH ranks were swelled by Irish units of the State militia who gave it protection. The official sanction given to the parade in the form of police, firemen, political and church marchers every year can largely be traced back to the 1854 parade. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the parade had already grown to be the focal point for Irish activities in New York. In the few years after the conflict ended, the popularity of the day had spread to many other major American towns.

St Patricks Day Parade in New York

In the 1940s and '50s, Goldwyn, Mayer and other Jewish film makers iconised the Irish in modern American myth. They were ideal Americans: Grace Kelly, the squeaky-clean, Catholic-American princess, Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Spencer Tracey, the priest, Jimmy Cagney in Hell's Kitchen, Maureen O'Sullivan in National Velvet, Mickey Rooney in Boys Town. Irish-Americans were cheerful, feisty, essentially decent, family-oriented examples of American success. They were the prototypes, physically and culturally, for the Kennedys, for Camelot, for the American Dream. (I almost sound like Don King there) American sporting heroes also came of Irish stock Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, the Fighting Irish football teams of Notre Dame.


The symbolic importance of St Patrick's Day in garnering the Irish vote was publicly recognised by the White House for the first time in 1948 when Harry S Truman became the first American president to attend the New York parade. John F Kennedy's accession to the Presidency in 1961 was seen by many as the culmination of a defiant Irish political march that began more than a century beforehand.

We Irish have enjoyed success in all walks of American life. The Irish vote is still considered crucial in any election. There are an estimated 40 million people of Irish descent in America and their political cohesion remains nothing short of remarkable despite the generational removal from their ancestral homeland. The ties endure and are strong, despite the strong opposition on the War on Iraq here.

Today we Irish are viewed in a positive light - especially on St Patrick's Day. We have fought and died in other countries' wars, contributed at the highest level to democratic institutions around the world, to America’s judiciary and economic might and not least to its social services such as the fire and police departments.

Saint Patrick

But the question remains, who is Saint Patrick? (you know, that the guy the day and parades are meant to be honouring?!) Although he is the patron saint of Ireland and one of the most famous evangelists in Christian history, St. Patrick's life remains shrouded in mystery. His accomplishments are also surrounded by many unfounded legends, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling.

Patrick was born in Wales in the UK to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century and was christened as Maewyn. Although his father was a Christian deacon in the Catholic church, it has been suggested that he probably took on the role because of tax incentives and there is no evidence that Maewyn came from a particularly religious family and as a result young Maewyn remained detached from religion until later In life. At the age of sixteen, Maewyn was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people. Lonely and afraid, St Patrick began to search for God, a religious quest that eventually led him to change his name to Patricus (or Patrick - a more Christian sounding name) and it is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity.

To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation—an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission—to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish people to christianity.

A Celtic Cross (first designed by St. Patrick)

Familiar with our Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish Celtic symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that adoration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick's life became exaggerated over the centuries—spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.

A traditional icon of the holiday, the shamrock, came about through its use by St. Patrick during some of his sermons. He used the shamrock to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity."

Saint Patrick is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D.Today, as a result of his efforts, the population of the Republic of Ireland is now overwhelmingly Catholic (high 90’s in percentage terms). It’s hard to imagine how one man could influence a country, and by default the entire world, in such a significant way with his efforts, yet here we are in 2005 with the majority of the world celbrating Irishness and his influence on us.

• For a Funny post about Irish/Cork Slang phrases please click here
• Check out my photoblog too!

Howdy from the REAL capital of Ireland, Cork...

This is a small look at what growing up in Ireland was like in the 1980's.
(For people reading this who are from outside of Ireland, you will probably not recognise some of the TV programs and games but hopefully the majority of things are probably the same everywhere else)

I'm talking about......

• Hide and Seek in the park,
• The shop down the road,
• Hopscotch,
• Donkey,
• Skipping,
• Handstands,
• Butcher,
• Piggy back fights,
• Stuck in the mud,
• Football with an old can,
• Dandy,
• Beano,
• Buster,
• Whizzer and Chips
• Hula Hoops,
• Tayto,
• Jumping the stream,
• Building a swing from a tyre and a piece of rope tied to a tree, (If you live in Dublin the lampost),
• Building tree-houses,
• Climbing up onto roofs.
• Tennis on the street,
• The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass.
• Hubba Bubba bubble gum and 2p Flogs,
• Macaroon bars and woppas,
• 3p Refreshers and wham bars,
• Superhero chewing gum,
• Golf ball chewing gums and liquorice whips,
• Desperate dan and roy of the rovers,
• Sherbit dips and Mr. freezes,
• Marathon bars (now called snickers) and everlasting gobstoppers.
• Mars bars
• An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that plays a tune
• Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe neopolitan ice cream.
• Robin hood ice-lollie

Wait theres more... remember...

• Watching Saturday Morning cartoons
• Short commercials,
• Battle of the Planets,
• Road Runner,
• He-Man,
• Swapshop and Why Don't You?,
• Transformers,
• How do you do?,
• Bosco,
• Forty-coats,
• the Littlest Hobo and Lassie,
• Chucklevision,
• The Muppet Show,
• Fraggle Rock,
• MacGyver,
• Dempsey's Den
• Anything Goes,
• Scratch Saturday,
• Tom and Jerry,
• Worzel Gummidge,
• Scarecrow and Mrs King,
• Streets of San Fransico,
• Cagney and Lacy,
• Murder She Wrote,
• Matlock,
• TJ hooker,
• A -team,
• Gummy bears
• Disney's Snow White was brand new
• Captain Planet
• Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven,
• Staying up for Knight Rider and Magnum PI.
• When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like going somewhere.
• A million midget bites,
• Sticky fingers and mud all over you,
• Knee-pads on your jeans,
• Cops and Robbers,
• Rounders,
• Tip the Can,
• Queenie-I-O,
• Climbing trees,
• Spin the bottle,
• Walking to school, no matter what the weather,
• Running till you were out of breath.
• Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt,
• Jumping on the bed.
• Pillow fights,
• Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rodgers was cool
• Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles,
• Being tired from playing... Remember that?
• The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
• Water balloons were the ultimate weapon
• Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
• And don't forget the Marietta sandwiches we'd make by buttering a cupla Marietta biscuits and stickin' them together.
• And that quare oul mixture made in a tall glass with HB ice cream and Taylor Keith Red Lemonade.
  

I'm not finished yet..... remember...

• Eating raw jelly, orange squash ice pops.
• Rushing home from school to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters.
• When there were two types of sneakers - girls and boys and Dunlop Green Flash and the only time you wore them at school, was for "P.E.", Gola football boots.
• When it wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends,
• When nobody owned a pure bred dog,
• When 25p was decent pocket money,
• When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny,
• When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there,
• When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents
• When any parent could discipline any kid or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.
• When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of muggings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! and some of us are still afraid of them!!!
  

And finally Remember when....

• Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"
• "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
• Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly", the game of life and connect four, atari 2600's and commodore 64's.
• Super Mario Bros. was cool
• Super Mario Bros. 3 was way cooler.
• The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs. It was unbelievable that Red rover wasn't an Olympic event...
• Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a biro barrel pea shooter or an elastic band. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better,
• Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable vitamins,
• Ice cream was considered a basic food group.
• Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true..
• Abilities were discovered because of a "double dare"
• St Patricks Day parades were awesome
• Ireland soccer team qualifying for Euro'88 was the best thing ever.
• Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.