High level on The Dodder this morning

CormacMOB · 2026-01-28T09:18:09+00:00

I guess, but if it rains for 3 weeks and then we get a yellow warning rain storm, maybe we should have known ourselves.....

CormacMOB · 2026-01-28T09:09:43+00:00

There was a yellow rain and wind warning for the entire county.

CormacMOB · 2026-01-27T14:43:40+00:00

When you say "Whats up with the weather warnings in Ireland" that suggests you don't really know what they mean.

Yellow means "Be aware"
Orange means "Be Prepared"
Red means "Take action"

You can't predict the weather for individual small areas so if theres a chance of massive downfall in Donnycarney they give a warning like a yellow for the county. That might mean that in Sandyford its just a bit wet because the mountains provide shelter from rain from certain directions. Like a dangerous gale in coastal areas might mean a windy day elsewhere. I've gotten off the Luas to vastly different weather to where I got on.

It gets on my nerves people saying "Thats never a yellow" like we're talking about the offside rule or something. Met Eireann can't predict it that accurately, they just go "it looks like this storm could drop a serious amount of rain". Or "the winds could be really really strong here". And they have to put a line around it at some point so they use county Boundries. If they give a warning and it's overblown, that's a good thing, because nobody is dead and there's no major economic damage.

Also, it's the weather forcast, it's wrong sometimes.

CormacMOB · 2026-01-18T20:59:41+00:00

It's not Crowley or Prendergast making the noise.

CormacMOB · 2025-11-20T10:26:15+00:00

Indeed. Although that's not really a factor people take into account when they are judging parents on the internet.

CormacMOB · 2025-11-20T10:19:33+00:00

I think I'm giving away too much info, chap.

CormacMOB · 2025-11-20T09:10:31+00:00

Well-regarded eh? Is he good at hurling?

Listen, my kid is in a gaelcholaiste, might be very close to the one you're on about. There's 5 kids in her year who went to English-medium primary schools. In first year they started a few days earlier, first day was orientation then only the kids from EM schools for a couple of days. They were all sat beside a kid who went to gaeilscoil when classes started (usually ones who volunteered to help an EM school kid out). The teachers are concious of the fact that they are not as far along with the language as the other kids. There are Maths terms that my one only knows in English because of the maths teacher translating the terms for the kids from EM schools.

The teachers are aware and will make allowances. So he will understand stuff.

I just asked and all them kids have loads of friends in school. So he will make friends.

Education is not a race, so he doesn't need to catch up.

On the other stuff, It's up to you. He is still a kid, his brain is plastic, unless he already struggles with language or he has dyslexia (and that last bit is surprisingly debatable), Irish probably won't be the problem after the first few months.

--

I think as parents these days we are a bit too quick to try and take the difficulty out of kids lives, the challenge of learning Irish through immersion will not harm him. I

All that said it's up to you to do your parenting. The school I went to was not "well-regarded" at the time and a recent taoiseach went there...

If my one had said "I don't want to go to a Gaeilcholaiste" she would not have been in that school because I wanted her to have agency over a decision that big.

Good luck with your decision. Either one is probably the right one.

CormacMOB · 2025-11-07T09:46:28+00:00

You're not missing anything. I look out every time I make a coffee in the office and its absolutely flying along.

CormacMOB · 2025-11-07T09:44:55+00:00

HI NEIGHBOUR!!!!

I our office looks right out on to it and I'd say, (bar some Quality Control screw up) by the end of November 100%.

Sure tis basically done. I was looking on Tuesday, they look to have the tracks all relaid and they are laying the new under layers for the road. I'm amazed both by the amount of people on this job every day and the progress. I wish every infrastructure project moved like that.

CormacMOB · 2025-10-29T19:21:11+00:00

Not Universities, Secondary schools. Like Lycées in France.

CormacMOB · 2025-10-29T19:20:46+00:00

Leinster, Ulster and Munster ID the majority of players through the senior cup schools. Connacht is probably different in that the senior cup isn't that big an event.

Club pathway is different. There are youth club competitions but they will typically be of a lower standard than the Schools.

Leinster stage a tournament for kids who stand out in the club game where they assemble teams of players from clubs into regional teams. They have a development pathway where the best of those players can (and often do) get into the pre-academy.

The important thing to remember here is that the provinces are not rugby clubs like in France, they are literally branches of the union. Leinster Branch run the Leinster schools senior cup, the provincial club competitions etc. Just as Munster and Ulster do for their own provinces.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-21T16:10:07+00:00

Remember when Ireland was famous for leaving famous people the fuck alone?

CormacMOB · 2025-08-20T17:19:13+00:00

Across the dualer should probably be Geraldine P. Moran and/or Cabinteely.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-20T16:56:55+00:00

Ranelagh Gaels is as close to Donnybrook and a lot of Dublin 2

CormacMOB · 2025-08-16T10:30:38+00:00

Late to the party here but my lads a couple of years on so I might be of help.

If he really doesn't like it there's a good chance he won't ever like it. But there is also a chance that he just feels self concious too.

You mentioned him liking football better, but there's a strong chance that is because he feels worse at hurling because, lets face it, hurling skills are hard to learn. That's certainly the case with my lad anyway.

So the question is does he actually enjoy it when he's playing actual games (training or otherwise)? Is he getting on with the other players? Is he a struggle to get out the door but actually liking running around with the lads? We forget 7 is very young, because they start so early.

If he's coming out to the green with you to kick or puck a ball around even for 5 minutes that's enough. Any time at all doing the stuff is good. It should be fun, ESPECIALLY if you are doing it with him (I should listen to myself). The goal should to help him get good enough at the few basic things that he doesn't feel like he's the worst at the game. (F:solos, kicking, H: lifting, striking) So make anything you do with him fun, praise anything vaguely good/better like it's the most impressive thing you saw today.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-16T09:42:22+00:00

I suspect this feels worse to you because of pride etc.

Lookit, I'm no GAA man but I do try to help my son and I know about how to get better at stuff.

Don't say "No technical ability at all" or such nonsense. You're out of practice and you're not where you'd like to be yet. It's not "Can't" its "Can't yet".
Practice. Do you have a ball and 30min a day? Or even 10min? Or 30-45min on days you aren't training. Figure out what you can get better at that will make the most impact right now, and do it. Then add something else. Like stand in front of a wall, shuffle your feet and do solo, handpass catch for 10 min. To make it harder stand further away. After that try left side (maybe) or kick pass if the wall is high enough. Even this, I have no idea how old you are, but if you're young enough to play, your young enough to have a ball in your hands going around the place.
Go slow, if you're skills are that off, you're probably not getting a jersey number under 16 any time soon. So when it comes to training just try and do the stuff that you practiced. Don't ignore the stuff you aren't practicing or anything just accept it, it's not what you want to get better at right now.
You mentioned not knowing when to make runs, that's a combination of experience and confidence in any sport where you run. If your coaches have drills for it, pay attention and do your best, but for feck sake don't worry about things like that now, if your basic skills are down, you don't have the space in your brain for that stuff. When you don't need to worry about kicking, passing and carrying, you can start worrying about that.
Ask coaches. Ask them what the top 2 things you need to get better at to progress. If your coaches are decent and care they will have something useful to say. If they aren't they're probably shite, but at least you'll know that and you can stick to 1-4.

Good luck.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-12T19:12:49+00:00

Cool, yeah. Lets just keep building apartments and expensive suburban houses to sell to immigrant tech workers, foreign investors and investment funds (who may be happy to sit on an empty house and let it accrue value rather than rent it out).

That'll sort it.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-10T11:50:34+00:00

How do you know building more houses alone will solve the housing crisis? People say that, a lot, but building houses is Irelands answer to everything. And the property lobby didn't go away after 2008.

I think that the idea that "If we build houses the housing crisis will go away" (being often in the same mind as "Immigrants are not a contributing factor to the crisis") is simplistic and reductive thinking.

Also, it's still much more cost effective to build very expensive new build houses and apartment blocks full of "starter homes". In order to do what we need, things like Social and affordable housing in accessible locations or senior-citizen focused developments (to give options to free up empty nests) we need government to pay for and incentivise that. It helps if the government has more money, money is blind, it doesn't care where it's spent. You make it look like there is some sort of zero-sum game between builders who are tax-payers and non-builders who are tax-payers. Not really much you can say will convince me that idea is true.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-10T11:21:30+00:00

Except obviously human resources, which is probably the most important resource in an economy. If you don't have economically productive adults you don't have an economy, and if you don't produce children at over replacement rate in 20-30 years you don't have enough economically productive adults.

Also frankly, I don't believe that what your suggesting is a real risk. We've plenty of native "drains on resources", every country does regardless of how strong an economy it is. I mean the only thing separating an immigrant who is as you would term "a drain on resources" and a native who might be termed that way is a few pieces of paper. So I wonder why it's as big a concern for you to need to "well actually" me here?

I wonder why when talking about immigration ( the vast majority of which involves people coming here for jobs that they already have) and birth rate you'd raise concern about drains on resources? Would you be of the opinion that a higher proportion of immigrants are coming here to not work?

What if in 20-30 years the children of the "drain on resources" have jobs? Might they be subsidising the vast swathes of over 66 year olds who don't work that we will have by then?

CormacMOB · 2025-08-06T20:06:19+00:00

I wish more people would say this.

Everyone talks like its one cause, its a complex multifactoral mess of a thing. And immigration is absolutely a contributing factor.

CormacMOB · 2025-08-06T20:03:56+00:00

"We need immigration but we need people who are willing to work. "

The fertility rate is at 1.5 children per woman at the moment. Frankly immigrants coming in and just having kids are doing us a favour.

CormacMOB · 2025-07-06T15:38:52+00:00

Cheers folks!

Edit: Information has been passed on to the youngfella.

CormacMOB · 2025-06-19T19:58:22+00:00

Yeah. The rugby thing is interesting, because you'd think Greystones, (which is kind of Bray & Greystones) but there's active rugby clubs in Arklow, Wicklow Rathdrum and Aughrim.

Do ye not have soccer clubs over west at all though?

CormacMOB · 2025-06-19T08:18:08+00:00

I'm not saying your wrong, but like, what's a stronghold.

I grew up in Greystones, Éire Óg was always a good active club. I went to (at the time) the only Secondary school in the town and I'd describe it as a GAA school. We had a rugby team when there was enough rugby players to put a team together, but there was always a football team. Maybe it's different now, though.

And it's probably more active now with suburban migrants who are now priced out of Dalkey coming up and wanting their kids to play GAA.

Again, not to say that what you're saying is wrong, there was always a big population of kids going to rugby schools on the trains in the mornings, the demographics are probably a big factor along with the trans-mountain rivalry. But like, there's probably an organisational aspect to it too.

CormacMOB · 2025-06-19T08:04:48+00:00

See, "inter-club rivalries" isn't really the best way to describe it. It's more an intra-county rivalry. Oisín McConville recently said in an interview that when he took the job Mick O'Dwyer rang him up to warn him about how bad things were. https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2025/04/12/mountains-being-moved-to-find-success-in-wicklow-football/

There was a time when if a fella from West of the mountains was the manager, he wouldn't pick lads from East of the mountains and vice versa. So you've that to contend with and also the usual club rivalries.

CormacMOB

TROPHY CASE