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Recent Comments

Angela Flynn on Clare Island at 8:28 pm May 9, 2008:

Treasa on It's all about timing at 7:42 pm April 4, 2008:

I have so many bruises from hitting my head off the wall on this. oh well at least it's the weekend.

I KNOW THAT BEACH :P! yay its spanish point, i practecly lived on that beach p.s great poetry

Mick Ruddy on Clare Island at 8:49 pm November 30, 2007:

I'm Patrick Flynn's cousin - Clare Island is a magical island - my parents must have had so much fun growing up there. It is rich in it's variety of landscape. Took my mum back in 2005 - only wish I could take her back again.

I think a lack of accountability is culturally endemic. It's not just an issue for the HSE, it's an issue through out most of industry, private or otherwise. Management seems to consist of not having to take responsibility for anything at all.

joe Queally on Burren Ramble at 1:19 am October 29, 2007:

Craig Stuntz on Random Thoughts at 5:26 pm September 7, 2007:

It isn't the President who is crazy enough to launch air strikes on Iran, it's the Vice President. It's an open question who is actually in charge. Not that this is a comforting clarification!

Treasa on Random Thoughts at 11:09 am September 7, 2007:

You may want to put points 1 and 5 together for further reflection... as for point seven, the more keys you have, the more locks you have also.

Fer on The West Coast of Clare at 6:46 pm August 2, 2007:

whenever I hear somebody talking about the west coast of Clare, that always reminds me of a song by Loreena McKennitt, THE OLD WAYS. ;)

abandon it, its a waste of time. write a page of irish and you can do it in English in 80% of the time I object to my taxes paying for a dying language...hell lets fund Latin lingo again then...oooh but no one speak latin eh?? Well I'm sure doctors and Pharmacists would disagree HARSH SOUNDING DEAD LANGAUGE

Brittany will do that to you. It's like an alternative version of Ireland. So near yet so far... I'm looking through the rose-tinted glasses of the tourist, but still...

Oh dear. My usual time slot for philosophy is 3am on a Sunday morning...I'm not sure I'm quite on top of the game on a Friday morning. "I think it is the pace of change in Ireland that is unsettling, there is a real sense of the temporary, a lack of permanence" I feel that the pace of change is not so much the problem. I think it's the personal cost of that pace of change. I realise that this is coloured by the number of people who are outright jealous of the fact that I drive 7 minutes to work every morning as opposed to 1h15 if the traffic is okay. In short - I get the feeling that more and more people are looking at their wide screen televisions and asking "What is it all for, when you get down to it?" Looked at in that context, I can understand people wanting to escape to some point in the future when "it'll all be worth it". I discovered 5 years ago that working for the future without regard to the present was pointless...

To try and put a little more flesh on my muddled thoughts (definitelty a WiP), when I say now I'm thinking of The Long Now so it's not so much about living for the moment as living in the continuous present. I get the feeling that in Ireland we look to the past with a mixture of nostalgia and disdain but definitely a sense of detachment (the past is disconnected), and we look to the future as some undefined time when everything will finally be fixed. The present is somewhere that we are trying to escape. Waters muddy enough for you now?

Forgive my poor expression, it's more a feeling I have - something just beyond the tangible. I think it is the pace of change in Ireland that is unsettling, there is a real sense of the temporary, a lack of permanence. It's as if it could all go the way of Macondo. Having the opportunity to contrast Ireland with other places really brings it home to me. Yes, good holiday, thanks.