Top Tips for Keeping Up with the League of Ireland in 2019

Mon, Apr 15, 2019

No matter which team you wish to choose to support, keeping up with the League of Ireland is a must for any football fan. If you are wanting to know how you will be the first to find out how your team performed in the latest match then keep on reading.

If you go down to the woods...

Thu, Apr 11, 2019

There is something magical about walking in the woods. It is because in there, among the trees, you let yourself get lost, distracted from the ways of the world. In there, among the trees, and the fallen branches, and dried up leaves, you can learn more about yourself than a thousand books would ever reveal.

Passing of colourful councillor marks the end of an era

Thu, Apr 04, 2019

When I first started covering local council meetings here in Galway city and county, there were a lot of serious players on board. Heavy hitters who as soon as a meeting was over, would head to Dublin to make or take decisions in a higher forum. They looked and sounded serious. They were like Abbey repertoire actors let loose on touring the carnival tents and halls of rural Ireland. They knew how to play to the gallery and how to ensure their survival in an animalistic political arena. It was in the chambers of the councils that they fine-tuned their roar for the national stage.

Rory Best to Hang Up His Boots

Mon, Apr 01, 2019

Irish captain Rory Best has indicated that this will be his last season and he will be leaving the game after the World Cup which takes place in Japan later this year. BonusBets.com looks at his incredible career and the reaction from fly-half Johnny Sexton.

Top Tips for Keeping Up with the League of Ireland in 2019

Fri, Mar 29, 2019

No matter which team you wish to choose to support, keeping up with the League of Ireland is a must for any football fan. If you are wanting to know how you will be the first to find out how your team performed in the latest match then keep on reading.

5 Casinos to Visit in Ireland

Fri, Mar 29, 2019

Wherever you go on holiday, it is great to have a plan of all the things you can do while you are there. Ireland is a stunning county, and there is plenty to see across Southern Ireland. If you fancy getting in some casino time, then you will be pleased to learn that there are some fantastic venues to check out and Whichcasino.com has five of the best to go see.

Choosing the right pathways for life

Thu, Mar 28, 2019

It is in our moments of decision that our destiny is shaped. You write your life story with the choices you make. Every day we make decisions that impact on the nature of our day, but at certain key stages of your life, you rock up to a veritable fork in the road, say good morning to the comely maidens dancing there, and then make a major choice on which way you should go.

One of the most important times is when you prepare to leave the nest, to make your way in the world, when you use the knowledge you have been given to decide what you want to do in order to be content, to contribute to society.

Indian Cultural and Sports Community (ICSC) along with NUI India SOC celebrated the festival of colours (HOLI)

Thu, Mar 28, 2019

Indian Cultural and Sports Community (ICSC) along with NUI India SOC celebrated the festival of colours (HOLI) on Saturday, 23rd March 2019 in NUI Galway campus, which was attended by over 250 people with a strong representation of NUI Students and the Indian families living in Galway.

Miss Galway 2019/20: The Search is On

Thu, Mar 28, 2019

Think you have what it takes to be crowned as Miss Galway 2019/20? Fancy being the next Rosanna Davison?

Empty rooms the shrines for those who never came home

Thu, Mar 21, 2019

It’s the empty beds that will hurt the most.

You pass by them and you hope that once again they will be filled, that there will be a shape under the duvet, a shock of darkness on the pillow. A shape that doesn’t move in the morning time when it is time for school.

The trauma of the onlooker

Thu, Mar 14, 2019

We are all suffering from it, yet we may not notice. There is a fatigue around that is engaging us; that is holding us in its grasp. A sort of voyeuristic urge to look on aghast at what is happening in the two countries which perhaps have influenced us the most over the past few centuries. This morning, we wake up to more news of Brexit, as we slide inexorably towards that date at the end of the month.

A necessary evil?

Thu, Mar 14, 2019

As a first time candidate running for city council advice about how to run a campaign is always forthcoming.

The slow pealing of the bell

Thu, Mar 07, 2019

I have heard too many funeral bells this winter. I have donned my funeral coat more than I wished to. I have shuffled along funeral lines and proffered my sympathies to trembling hands, damp from the tears dabbed momentarily. I have accepted sympathies too. I have been in the lines and among the lines. I have said goodbye to people I loved and respected. I have hugged colleagues and friends who shake with sadness and shock. I have had the obligatory cup in my hand at wakes, picked at fruit cake baked by the loving hands of saddened neighbours.

I have hoped that with the coming of spring and the stretching of the day that the low peal of the funeral will become an uncommon sound. I remember ringing it as an altarboy, slow and deliberate, not the rushed 25 peals of the bell eight minutes before Sunday Mass. No, for the impending arrival of a cortege, when we tugged at the rope that led all the way to the bell in the tower, we took care to ensure that the clapper would hit the inside of the bell once, in a low meaningful but subdued way; to go out across the sky and tell all that a death had taken place, that a moment of reflection should occur, to ensure that even when the sound stops that you would hear the echo of its lone ringing in your heart. It would go out through the evening sky to stop people in their tracks, to disturb people’s lives and tell them that someone in their community is mourning.

Ireland Not Performing to Expectation in Six Nations

Tue, Mar 05, 2019

The Six Nations is underway and by their own admissions things are not going according to plan for the Irish team. In 2018 they were riding high after becoming the Grand Slam winners so sitting in third place is not entirely cutting it. Freetips.com looks at their game so far.

Take up rather than give up this coming Lent

Thu, Feb 28, 2019

Back in the dark dreary days of the eighties, when the birds were falling off the trees with the hunger and the smell of rain-sodden hand-me down duffle coats was the overriding scent of the era, we actually looked forward to Lent and the chance to give up something you were probably unlikely to be having anyway.

Back then, there didn’t seem many vices that seemed give-up-able for 40 days. There wasn’t that much TV, there was no internet or social media of which to deprive yourselves. In the main, it was sweets and sugar — and so the beet and sweet industry took a blow during the Springtime of each year, as our souls were saved from eternal damnation by virtue of our amazing willpower to deny ourselves goodies that were probably out of reach anyway.

Fantasy Football round 29 preview

Thu, Feb 28, 2019

There are only 10 matches to go in the Premier League. Liverpool and Man City are slugging it out at the top for the right for them to call themselves the best team in the land; the battle for Champions League football is hotting up, and plenty of sides are fighting for their top-flight lives; it is exciting.

The beauty of being there

Thu, Feb 21, 2019

Midway through the first half of the National Hurling League game between Galway and Dublin in Salthill on Sunday, the stadium announcer proclaimed that somebody had handed in a house key, a “sort of elaborate-looking house key” to be more precise, and that it could be reclaimed from the stand at halftime.

Three coats of blue gloss and an understanding

Thu, Feb 14, 2019

I always loved this time of year as a kid. All winter long, the three lake boats which we had on Lough Mask would lie as part of the winter furniture — a plaything for my childhood. It was their hibernation, a chance for them to drip dry over the winter months. A chance for the floorboards, probably sodden in water all summer, to dry in the shed, alongside the oars. To have a timbered chat with each other about the adventures that they’d had all year, the rocks they’d have run aground, the stories they’d have heard, the secrets shared between anglers and gillies, the dying fish which breathed last on their thin ribs beneath the floorboards.

Consultation can move us all forward

Thu, Feb 07, 2019

Consultation is an under-rated concept. But it is key as it helps engender the support that decisions need to be successfully implemented. The importance of it is to the fore in Galway this week because of two major projects. One which is just starting out, and the other which is midway through.

Let's make more of our global connections

Thu, Jan 31, 2019

Back in the day, town twinnings were a great fashion altogether. Every little town and village had some fella living down the road, probably in on a witness protection programme or someone who said he hailed from some little Breton village named Creton-LeBlanque or Moron du Ville. And in a time when there was really nothing on the telly and it rained for eight months of the year, the temptation for a jolly to an exotic destination (anything east of Moate) was too much to resist.

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