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| A Treat from Bill Ferguson: The following are items from the Seattle Irish Club. Used with permission. Seattle-News@IrishClub.org ©
LEARN IRISH - Interactive online games that teach the basic words of the Irish language are available at www.digitaldialects.com. Even though they don't teach pronunciation, they do teach the basics and can also serve as a tune-up for anyone who's Gaelic is rusty.
BOOK NOMINATION -
Michael Collins, the Irish author who lives in Bellingham, again has a book nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton is one of 137 books nominated worldwide, one of which will be awarded the $150,000 prize. For information, visit www.impacdublinaward.ie.
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News From Ireland
ALL BUSINESS - North Ireland's First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness are on a five-day business trip to the US that will culminate in a meeting with President Bush on Friday. While the trip's focus is on investment - Paisley and McGuinness rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday - the visit is also viewed as a dramatic sign of political progress in the North.
1911 CENSUS - Dublin census returns from 1911 can now be accessed online at www.census.nationalarchives.ie. Users can search the digital equivalent of 4,000 reels of microfilm and 3.5 million images. Project organizers hope to have census returns for the rest of Ireland, including details of the 1901 census, online in 2008.
CLANCY FESTIVAL - Liam Clancy, the only surviving member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, last week was in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, to help announce the first Clancy Brothers' Music Festival June 13 - 15, 2008. The Clancy Brothers, with their rousing renditions of drinking and rebel songs, became stars in the US and were in the vanguard of the 1960s folk revival.
COURSING - Coursing has long been a part of Irish rural life and involves greyhounds chasing live hares. A BelfastUniversity study assessing the levels of hare mortality during coursing in Ireland, analyzed records and video footage collected over 20 years and claims that hare coursing presents no threat to the Irish hare population. Since compulsory muzzling of greyhounds was introduced in 1993, mortality dropped from 16% to 4%. For information, visit the Irish Coursing Club website at www.irishcoursingclub.ie.
POLICE ESCORT - When Cardinal Seán Brady last week returned to Armagh in Northern Ireland after being made a cardinal by Pope Benedict, he was given an escort by the PSNI, Northern Ireland's Police Force. It was the first time the north's police force has provided an escort to a Catholic Cardinal since Ireland was partitioned in 1921.
COLLINS LETTER - A letter written by Michael Collins to Thomas Ashe was sold recently at auction for $384,000. Dated April 1917, the letter contains some caustic comments about Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith. Ashe was a 1916 Rebellion leader who died on hunger strike in September 1917 due to complications caused by force-feeding in prison. For information, visit www.rootsweb.com.
BLOODY SUNDAY - The British judicial inquiry into the killing of 13 civilians and wounding of 14 others by British paratroopers in Derry in January 1972 is now expected to issue its final report around mid-2008. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry started in 2000 and heard evidence from 922 witnesses and took statements from a further 1,563.
JELLYFISH KILL - A salmon farm in Glenarm Bay, Co Antrim, was recently wiped out by billions of tiny jellyfishthat destroyed over 100,000 salmon worth $2.9 million. During the attack, the jellyfish covered an area up to 10 square miles to a depth of 36 feet.
ARGENTINE PRIDE - Admiral William Brown, founder of the Argentine Navy, was born in Foxford, Co Mayo, in 1777, and 2007 was the 150th anniversary of his death. To mark the occasion, a statue of Brown was unveiled in Foxford in a ceremony attended by representatives of the Argentine Embassy and the Argentine Navy. Argentina itself has over 500 Brown statues, with several towns and over 1,000 streets also named for him.
SQUIRREL PROBLEM - Non-native grey squirrels in Ireland may be given contraceptives to prevent them breeding and wiping out the last remaining 40,000 red squirrels. Red squirrels live in harmony with woodland and native wildlife, while greys damage trees, depriving wildlife of food and raiding birds' nests. The grey squirrel was introduced into Ireland in 1911 in Co. Longford and is now to be found in most Irish counties. However, they have not yet crossed the Shannon.
FOREIGN STUDENTS - Almost 12,000 students from 114 countries other than Ireland were studying at Irish universities and colleges during the last academic year. The largest groups were 2,416 from the US, 1,134 from Malaysia and 1,129 from Britain.
IRISH ECHO - To read every word of New York's weekly Irish newspaper, the Irish Echo, go to IrishEcho.com.
IRISH CHARITY - Almost 1,400 people, mostly from Ireland, traveled to South Africa last month to build 203 houses in impoverished FreedomPark, near Cape Town. Each house has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, running water, electricity, and sanitation. The 1,380 volunteers were with the Niall Mellon Township Trust which was launched initially as an Irish project, but in 2007 volunteers participated from the UK, Europe, and America. Every penny donated goes straight to the charity as all administration costs are borne by Irish entrepreneur Niall Mellon. For more information, visit www.irishtownship.com.
COLORFUL 1913 - The first ever color photographs taken in Ireland were taken on a two month journey through Ireland by two French ladies in 1913 and included shots of Connemara, Galway city, Athlone, Glendalough, Drogheda and the Boyne Valley. For the first time ever, the 50 photos are now on display in Ireland at the National Library in Dublin and each picture is captioned with extracts from the women's travel diary. For information, vist www.nli.ie.
POTÍN - In 1770, there were 2,000 working Potín (Irish moonshine) stills in Ireland producing about two million gallons annually. There was nothing illegal about Potín until the early 1800s when the British government decided to impose an excise duty and the Potín-makers decided they didn't want to pay it.
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Tid-Bits
A truck recently drove into the Guinness Brewery yard in Dublin, hitched to a trailer and drove off with 180 kegs of Guinness, 180 kegs of Budweiser and 90 kegs of Carlsberg, an estimated 40,500 pints of stout and lager valued at $94,000.
Monsignor Paul Tighe from Co. Meath will be second in command at the Vatican's communications office as Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the body that runs the Catholic Church's contacts with the media.
The three largest religions in the Republic of Ireland are Roman Catholic (3.6 million members), Church of Ireland or Anglican (125,600) and Muslim (32,500).
There were 112,900 single parent families in the Republic of Ireland last year, about 12% of all families.
A man in Galway has been charged with making bomb threats and nuisance phone calls to President Bush and FBI agents will travel to Ireland to give evidence at his trial.
Ireland's average temperature is rising at twice the global rate and six of the 10 hottest years over the last century have occurred since 1990.
The Irish Football Association, the body that controls soccer in Northern Ireland, has lifted its decades-old ban on playing soccer on Sundays. The IFA was the last European Soccer Association to have a ban on Sunday games.
A new Etihad Airways service from Dublin to Beijing via Abu Dhabi starts service in March, catering mainly to Ireland's rapidly-growing Chinese community.
There are 20 full-time and five part-time Catholic chaplains working in Irish prisons.
Overseas visitors to Ireland will this year top nine million for the first time, generating $6.75 billion in revenue.
Irish second-level students perform significantly above average in science, reading and literacy.
Irish adults are the third largest consumers of alcohol in the EU, behind Hungary and Luxembourg
70% of the Irish are happy at work, but 54% still say they plan to switch jobs in 2008.
Nobel Prize winner and former US vice-president Al Gore was in Ireland last weekend to address 400-delegates at an environmental conference.
The Gaelic Athletic Association announced an online questionnaire seeking the opinions of GAA members and the general public. If interested, visit http://www.questionnaire.gaa.ie/en/
About 43,000 children have been adopted in Ireland since the 1950s.
An Post delivers more than 100,000 letters to Santa from Irish children each Christmas season.
Ireland ranked fifth in a recent survey of real estate investors in the US.
Irish companies are now in over 1,300 locations throughout the 50 US states.
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Beannachtaí na Nollag agus Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir! Bí áthasach agus grámhar i do cheiliúradh!
The Blessings of Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you! Celebrate with love and joy!
Slán
John Keane
jkeane@irishclub.org
© 2007 John Keane. Items may be copied if
SEATTLE-NEWS@IRISHCLUB.ORG © is credited.
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