Archive for the ‘ireland’ Category
Fleeting Moments
The lovely thing about the Leica is panning at slow speeds. With a lens like the 35mm everything is just sharp enough when panning. I know the latest superduper auto everything could do this as well at the kind of shutter speed this was taken at, but there is something satisfying with hitting the arc just right and getting it in one shot. Picture shot with Leica M8 and 35mm Color Skopar. 
Dublin 8
After Obama’s Speech, College Green, Dublin
When President of America, Barak Obama came to Dublin I was interested in looking closely at how people reacted to the event. I wanted to see if a little of his confidence and positivity would rub off on the assembled masses. I wasn’t dissapointed. Many people had a little glow after the speech. There was an undenialble twinkle in many’s the eye.
365 times Up Croagh Patrick
Matt Loughrey took the path up Croagh Patrick, known as ‘The Reek’ 365 times in sucession over the last two years. It’s the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest 30 times in a row. Myself and journalist Warren Swords joined him for his final climb. I’m looking forward to following his next adventure. His page on facebook is croaghpatrick365.
On meeting a ditch.
The roads are fun at the moment. It’s like a day out at the funfair, and we’re all on the dodgems. But nobody really wants to smack into a big rig that has decided to jack knife. Oh, for the days of canal boats for heavy goods and, the rest of us – at least the lucky ones – on horse back.
It’s still a regular occurance to see the horse as pedestrian traffic in Ireland. I reckon, when all the oil is gone, the horse will have a renaissance. That’s if they aren’t eaten first.
Oh look at that, a brand new year.
You know, it’s nice getting though Christmas and New Year with out any major flap. It’s a gift in itself. Our daily Christmas constitution would turn into a pilgrimage to the car wash. We’d try to get to the crib at our local church, but the lure of industrial design is far too much for my youngest. I often wonder what goes through my son’s head as he cast’s his eye over the lines and shapes of this modern convienience. His absorption in the seemingly mundane, informs how I see things. That is how it should be.
Loads of Travelling
Once again it’s copious amounts of car time. The last three weeks have been just one constant road trip after another with a couple of days at home. The kids are beginning to notice my absence. I picked up a hamstring injury preparing for a marathon in November and thanks to all the car time it’s not really improving, it just seems to rotate around and around the upper leg and hip. Bummer. 
I’ll just have to parcel up some sympathy and leave it under the christmas tree for Christmas day. Mmm, some sympathy, with a few glasses of Connemara Peated Single Malt, some good food and the kids creating havoc. All this before 7am. Never mind the hamstring, bring on the nut loaf…
Budget 2009
You know when you feed the budgie it goes tweet tweet all day. It might annoy you. You might want to kill it. No more budgie, no more tweet, tweet, squawk.
It’s the same thing for the average punter. All the crazies have to do is press a button and we all go away with severe unction. That’s unless you really get mad and want to do something about the injustice of your position. But clear communication, untruth or not, will placate the average punter; putting him back into his stall where, of course, there will be plenty of fresh hay and water. Of course…
The Irish government, have pulled a rabbit out of the hat. It’s a very tough budget, but they’ve held our hands for the last year so we could get our heads around it. So, no riots yet, but it’s going to be a close run thing. Wages are going backwards in the public sector, mortgages aren’t, if that one issue isn’t addressed then, as a country we are looking at significant difficulty.
Mortgages now are based on a wage levesl that don’t exist, and house/land valuations that aren’t credible, this should mean some attempt at mass renegotiation in the mortgages of thousands of households, who bought in the last four or five years. The Republic owns one bank, will probably own another one sometime next year and then there’s there’s €55 billion tied up in NAMA. Mortgages are where unions should be targeting their fiscal tactics in the next year. Hopefully.
So the gov reduced the price of booze! Who said these guys couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery… I wonder, was the drinks cabinet raided on the Titanic before it went under?
takeaframe 
National Dialogue
leave a comment »
That’s the funny thing about the Irish, they just can’t stop informing ‘the’ debate, any debate. Even the use of command english in everyday life is an excuse for subversion, humour, and illumination. Take the image below. I nearly put the car in the ditch with laughter when I passed this one. how many times have I muttered ‘dickhead’ under my breath as I was cut up on the road. How many times has it been muttered at me. I’d like to raise a glass of tapwater to the person who tagged this sign. Group hug now, for all the bad drivers in Ireland, yes, we are that bad…
Written by dwyersean
December 11, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Posted in ireland, people, Photography
Tagged with colour, commentary, debate, graffitti, humour, insult, light, night, road, slow shutter, streak, traffic