Thomas Creamer

Supreme Court decides against allowing appeal by Conor McGregor over Nikita Hand ruling The decision has been welcomed by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has welcomed a decision by the Supreme Court not to allow a further appeal by Conor McGregor against findings that he sexually assaulted Nikita Hand.

www.thejournal.ie/nikita-hand-...

Conor McGregor’s bid to further appeal Nikita Hand case is rejected by Supreme Court The Supreme Court has decided not to grant mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor and his friend James Lawrence further appeals against the outcome of the Nikita Hand civil rape case.

Some more positive news;

m.independent.ie/irish-news/c...

Fuck Eurovision. Hope it dies now.

Good on RTÉ, and the public broadcasters of Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia for sticking to their guns.

This is the "mature debate" they keep banging on about btw. What level of cruelty we should aspire to, with the claimed fear of being seen as less cruel than a country rapidly sliding towards fascism. An ivory tower scumbag

Photo of "luckin coffee" outlet

I am ashamed to confess immeasurable disappointment when I glanced at the name of this coffee chain in Guangzhou and realised that I had mistaken the "L" as an "F".

"Apple vinegar beverage" in a green can.

I can't celebrate the inauguration of my President Catherine Connolly with my usual Bulmers today, sadly, but this Chinese apple cider vinegar drink will have to do. 😤

Garda investigation after 13-year-old boy from Bangladeshi community attacked in Tuam Two individuals – apparently older male teenagers – can be seen taunting and physically attacking the younger boy and hitting him in the face multiple times.

Gardaí are investigating after a 13-year-old boy was attacked in Tuam while returning home from school last month.

The boy’s father condemned the 'violent' attack on his son, adding that his family 'do not feel safe' following the incident
jrnl.ie/6869280

In fairness, their more "regular" items are in the high teens...but word of advice - it isn't worth it. I'm kinda pissed I paid that much for the quality of food I got tbh.

Order screen for Popeyes at an airport with "popular products" - a "Maxi XL menu" meal costs €24.50, and a "Maxi Popchicken menu" meal costs €23.50.

Came across the first Popeyes in my life just there - granted, this *is* at an airport, but I did not have the impression that Popeyes was some sort of premium restaurant chain, because this is making Dublin look downright reasonable.

Order screen for Popeyes at an airport with "popular products" - a "Maxi XL menu" meal costs €24.50, and a "Maxi Popchicken menu" meal costs €23.50.

Came across the first Popeyes in my life just there - granted, this *is* at an airport, but I did not have the impression that Popeyes was some sort of premium restaurant chain, because this is making Dublin look downright reasonable.

David Quinn tweet reading Our media are very quick to describe politicians as far-right. I have heard no news bulletins this morning call Mamdani far-left (which he undoubtedly is).

actually our media are extremely reticent to describe politicians as far right, but David lives in Plato's cave and spends all his time making up guys to be mad at

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

This is just pathetic of them - especially when he was just repeating the line about how we were so "warm" and "respectable" in regard to our treatment of Asylum Seekers with zero engagement inthe reality of how asylum seekers are been treated.

This really hasn’t gotten enough attention this week.

@wired.com #ICE
www.wired.com/story/fbi-wa...

FFS, "debate" isn't just you getting to say whatever you like without being challenged.

Simon Harris has the right to make an ass of himself with ill-considered comments that will provide grist to the mill of racists, as he has done.

But the left also has the right to call him out for doing so.

"Once elected, who cares by how much?" Fergus Finlay argues that Catherine Connolly’s democratic mandate is somehow weakened because if “you divide her vote arithmetically by the size of the electorate, the answer is 25.29%”. It strikes me as a strange argument, since I recalled Michael D Higgins winning his re-election in 2018 on an even lower turnout than this year — with support from “only” 24.18% of the total electorate. Yet I do not recall Finlay being so concerned that Higgins had to feel obliged to “prove” he was an inclusive president. And if we want to continue this game further — 25.29% is also the proportion of the electorate Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael won in the general election last year, and it does not break past 27.5% even when you add in the nine pro-government Independents. No serious commentator would argue that a government should be concerned about being elected on such a share of the electorate, so I’m not sure why the presidency should be any different. Tomás Creamer, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim

Almost forgot I wrote this letter responding to Fergus Finlay.

I wouldn't have picked that title myself, but I do think it is a bit of a slippery slope to argue that a threshold sufficient for Michael D. Higgins or FFG is not sufficient for Catherine Connolly.

www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/your...

‘Small babies were hospitalised’ – Children among five rescued from Louth IPAS centre after fireworks used in arson attack Five people were rescued after a fire broke out at an IPAS centre in Drogheda last night after fireworks were thrown into the building.

m.independent.ie/regionals/lo...

“I haven’t seen violence like this since Rwanda. The velocity and ferocity of the RSF killing civilians since Sunday is unlike anything I’ve seen in 26 years of doing this work, and HRL [Yale Humanitarian Research Lab] has been reporting on the RSF and the Sudanese war for a while.”

Incredibly grim

Extract from Journal.ie article, with quotes from Simon Harris; “Migration is a legitimate public policy point of consideration in our country and across the European Union.” He said the fact that 80% of asylum applications are rejected in Ireland were what led him to believe migration numbers are too high, and said that fact “should raise a red flag for government”. He also said that general migration figures, separate from asylum applications, are also “too high”. “We can continue to go around and put fingers in ears and not listen to people if we want, but we can actually do what political leaders do – engage on topics.

Harris would be on stronger grounds to claim he is treating the subject of migration sensitively if he also didn't fail to conflate aslyum seekers with migration in general.

Like, yes, it is a "point of consideration" elsewhere, yet you haven't learnt anything!

www.thejournal.ie/simon-harris...

Gary Gannon TD: “What he could have also said was their numbers this year have also decreased by 40 per cent on last year. He could have talked about the absolute failures in the system that he’s presided over for 10 years and how he was going to address them.
/..
@garygannontd.bsky.social

“Once you [went] in those doors to those institutions, you [didn’t] come out the same.”

Mary Donovan's mother Margaret Mary spent most of her life detained in Irish psychiatric institutions.

She is now calling for an apology over how her mother was treated.

@investigates.thejournal.ie

Fair, I take that. I think it's hardly Connolly's fault that her opposition weren't able to get off the ground this year as opposed to 2011.

Fun fact - 25.29% is literally the same percentage of the electorate FF & FG won in the general election in 2024. And that doesn't even surpass 27.5% even when you add in the Lowry independents.

Heh - I was born just a year before that show started, so the first I heard of Ming was a bit before he got elected a TD in Roscommon-South Leitrim.

I was pure gutted when I had to come to terms with the fact that Michael Fitzmaurice really did not share much with Ming, aside from turf-cutting.

The fact that instead, the debates and the campaigns ended up focusing on neutrality, inclusion, and the other priorities of Connolly and the left were what the media were whinging about when they claimed it was "dull", and the far-right claimed to be excluded.

I'm spitballing completely here tbh - but sadly, I think the Presidential campaign gone by will be the last election in the forseeable future where the far-right doesn't get to insert their own narratives (about immigration, trans people, etc.) into debates due to them not having a candidate.

It is kinda funny, because Connolly and Ming are probably two of my favourite Indos, and if you gave them any kind of politicial quiz, you'd probably find little difference, yet their personas as politicians are just very different.

wint @dril - turning a big dial taht says "Racism" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right 6:03 AM · Mar 15, 2017

I mean, there is the National Party (and a few other equally mad ones) and Independent Ireland seems to be trying to fill that space, but maybe the latter isn't yet explictly racist enough for the racists, while the National Party is just too openly racist. Basically, as per the dril tweet;

I mean, Ming also has that streak of wearing t-shirts, and as far as I am aware he stayed pretty much grand throughout his career, so even that isn't really a tell.

Catherine Connolly won literally the biggest personal mandate (both in terms of percentage, but also by the raw number of first preference votes) in the history of the state.

Doesn't stop some incredibly sore losers from ignoring the existance of those 914k+ voters. #Aras25