![Aran Islands: on the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan. Photograph: Andy Haslam/New York Times Aran Islands: on the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan. Photograph: Andy Haslam/New York Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3626912.1536763406!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg)
Aran Islands: on the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan. Photograph: Andy Haslam/New York Times
Aran Islands: on the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan. Photograph: Andy Haslam/New York Times
Aran Islands: on the road to Synge’s Chair, on Inishmaan. Photograph: Andy Haslam/New York Times
"The An Post-GAA Team of the Millennium was unveiled at Croke Park yesterday. The selection which serves as the first 15 inductions into the GAA's new Hall of Fame has also been marked by an issue of 15 commemorative stamps by An Post. The stamps will be available in a variety of combinations from today. Next year, a similar exercise will take place to honour 15 hurlers.
There was some comment on the absence of Dublin's Brian Mullins and Jack O'Shea from Kerry but it seemed generally appreciated that there were only two centrefield slots on the team and someone had to lose out. Tommy Murphy, the Boy Wonder of the 1930s Laois team which won three Leinster titles in a row, who was included ahead of Mullins and O'Shea had the added distinction of being the only player honoured who had not won an All-Ireland medal.
Not surprisingly, Kerry - who top the All-Ireland roll of honour with 31 titles - lead the way on the team with six selections. Despite being clearly second behind Kerry with 22 All-Irelands, Dublin provide only one player, Kevin Heffernan at left corner forward. Galway and Mayo have two players each with one from Cavan, Down, Meath and Laois making up the balance.
Joe McDonagh, President of the GAA, described the project as a reflection "on the history and evolution of our association, its games and its central characters, the players who have left such giant footprints in the sands that is the chronicle of the GAA".
The Hall of Fame which is inaugurated by this team will be represented all through Croke Park, according the GAA director general Liam Mulvihill. He said that the Hall will be added to with a small number of inductions on an annual basis.
"We decided that this team would be the initial members of the Hall of Fame and we were planning to honour those selected around the main areas of the concourse of the re-developed stadium, in the bottom tier and the upper tier. We wanted those ordinary tiers where ordinary supporters gather as the most appropriate place to honour those players.
"The inductions will be in very small numbers, we're probably talking about two a year. Two footballers, two hurlers or one footballer and one hurler. It has to be made very, very special."
Paddy Downey, formerly GAA correspondent of The Irish Times, was one of the adjudicators and confirmed the widespread feeling that the task of selecting such a team wasn't an enviable one.
"It's nearly impossible because there's so many players, particularly in what you might call the big, central positions: midfield, centre-back, full back. Already people are saying to me: `why isn't Brian Mullins on, why isn't Paddy Kennedy of Kerry, Jack O'Shea - above all at the present time' and so on.
"We also had the problem of not picking a half-century team of people we had seen ourselves. You could also argue how could we pick someone we hadn't seen - Dick Fitzgerald, apparently one of the greatest players of all time, Paul Russell of Kerry, Jack Higgins of Kildare, from the earlier part of the century.
"I was conscious that we could have gone further back and taken the word of our predecessors in journalism who had praised these players and done so in print. Inevitably it came to be more a team of the second half of the century than the early years."
Martin O'Connell of Meath was the only player of what might roughly be called contemporary times - one whose career was largely after the selection of the 1984 Centenary Team - to earn a place.
"I was surprised," he said. "I didn't even know until I came up here. I arrived a bit late and Micheal O Muircheartaigh was just reading out the names. I was absolutely delighted."
An Garda Síochána | |
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![]() Shield of An Garda Síochána |
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Common name | Gardaí |
Motto | Working with communities to protect and serve (Irish: Ag obair le Pobail chun iad a chosaint agus chun freastal orthu) |
Agency overview | |
Formed | 22 February 1922 |
Preceding agencies | |
Employees | 17,652 (total as of 2019) 14,250 sworn members 2,944 civilian staff 458 reserves |
Annual budget | €1.426 billion (2015) |
Jurisdictional structure | |
National agency | Republic of Ireland |
Operations jurisdiction | Republic of Ireland |
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An Garda Síochána area of jurisdiction in dark blue | |
Size | 70,273 km² |
Population | 4,588,252 (2011) |
General nature | |
Headquarters | Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin |
Officers | 14,708 incl. 458 reserves (2019) |
Civilians | 2,944 (2019) |
Elected officer responsible | |
Agency executive | |
Regions |
4
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Facilities | |
Stations | 564 |
Vehicles | 2,815 (2017) |
Boats | Garda Water Unit |
Aircraft | 2 helicopters 1 fixed-wing surveillance aircraft |
Canines | Garda Dog Unit |
Horses | Garda Mounted Unit |
Website | |
www.garda.ie | |
^ "Working with Communities to Protect and Serve" is described as mission statement rather than formal motto |
Name | From | Until | Reason |
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Michael Staines | February 1922 | September 1922 | resigned |
Eoin O'Duffy | September 1922 | February 1933 | dismissed[note 2] |
Eamon Broy | February 1933 | June 1938 | retired |
Michael Kinnane | June 1938 | July 1952 | died |
Daniel Costigan | July 1952 | February 1965 | resigned |
William P Quinn | February 1965 | March 1967 | retired |
Patrick Carroll | March 1967 | September 1968 | retired |
Michael Wymes | September 1968 | January 1973 | retired |
Patrick Malone | January 1973 | September 1975 | retired |
Edmund Garvey | September 1975 | January 1978 | replaced[note 3] |
Patrick McLaughlin | January 1978 | January 1983 | retired[note 4] |
Lawrence Wren | February 1983 | November 1987 | retired |
Eamonn Doherty | November 1987 | December 1988 | retired |
Eugene Crowley | December 1988 | January 1991 | retired |
Patrick Culligan | January 1991 | July 1996 | retired |
Patrick Byrne | July 1996 | July 2003 | retired |
Noel Conroy | July 2003 | November 2007 | retired |
Fachtna Murphy | November 2007 | December 2010 | retired |
Martin Callinan | December 2010 | March 2014 | resigned[47][48][note 5] |
Nóirín O'Sullivan | March 2014(acting) November 2014 (permanent)[49] | September 2017 | retired[50][note 6] |
Dónall Ó Cualáin | September 2017 (acting) | September 2018 | |
Drew Harris | September 2018 | - |
Every country has its own slang terms or local colloquialisms and Ireland is no different. Many of the country's famous sayings are well-known worldwide, but there may be one or two you're not familiar with. No doubt you'll be wanting to experience the 'craic' for yourself as you explore your new surroundings, so we've put together this 'bang-on' guide to the local lingo!
Craic is probably the most popular and familiar slang phrase, simply meaning ‘fun’ or ‘banter’, just good times. It has origins with the Ulster Scots, who told of the crack, the Gaelic spelling not fully popularised in Ireland until the 1970s, when it was the catchphrase of the Irish-language TV show SBB ina Shuí.
Some other slang phrases might not be quite as familiar, and each region of Ireland has its own particular lingo, but here are some of the weird and wonderful words and phrases that might come in handy, and save you from making an eejit or a gowl of yourself!Gowl: An annoying person. Ah, ye GOW-EL ye!
Wisht: Shush! A handy one for in the cinema, or for chatterboxes in lectures.
Scarlet: Embarrassed. Hopefully not because you’ve been a gowl. I was such an eejit, I was scarlet!
Wired to the moon: Maybe you’ve been out late, enjoying the craic a little too much, and you’ve grabbed a triple espresso on the way to the lecture theatre? You’re wired to the moon.
Wee: Small, but everything in Ireland is wee. If Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson were to visit Ireland, he’d be Wee Dwayne.
Quare: Meaning ‘great’. It’s quare weather out today! Also used for ‘very’. It’s quare warm today!
Savage: Something excellent. Was it a good craic last night? Oh, it was savage!
The Jacks: The toilets, fir jacks for the mens, ban jacks for the ladies, not to be confused with…
Banjaxed: Broken. Ruined.
Happy out: Simply happy. You’re enjoying the craic, having a quare old time, you’re happy out.
Sure look at it: A suitable reply to nearly any statement. Isn’t this weather grand? Ah, sure look at it!
Ossified: Very drunk. Regretfully so. See also: langers, blathered, locked.
The messages: If you hear people referring to doing the messages, they're going shopping. Does anyone need anything? I’m heading out to do the messages.
The press: An Irish term for the cupboard. You might want to check you’ve enough biscuits in the press, before you set off to do the messages.
Are you okay?: If the barman is asking you this, he’s not checking on your state of being, simply wanting to know what you want to order.
I’ve a throat on me: Thirsty. Just don’t get too ossified and make an eejit of yourself!
Me ould segotia, me ould sweat, me ould flower: Best friend.
Aculsha: An old term of affection, from a chuisle mo chroí, ‘pulse of my heart’
A soft day: A drizzly rainy, misty day.
Acting the maggot: Being silly, making a nuisance. An annoying person.
Making a bags of it: Making a mess of something.
Cat altogether: Something bad. If the weather is terrible, it could be cat altogether out there.
Even if you’re apprehensive about using some of these phrases in your conversations, it’ll certainly help you understand what your new Irish friends are saying. Ah, it was quare warm yesterday, I’d meant to do the messages, but I’d quite the throat on me. I got utterly langers, made a right gowl of meself acting the maggot, and I’m totally banjaxed today. Savage!![]() |
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Event | 1951 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship | ||||||
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Date | 23 September 1951 | ||||||
Venue | Croke Park, Dublin | ||||||
Attendance | 78,201 | ||||||
Date | Performer(s) | Opening act(s) | Tour/Event | Attendance | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
29 June 1985 | U2 | In Tua Nua, R.E.M., The Alarm, Squeeze | The Unforgettable Fire Tour | 57,000 | First Irish act to have a headline concert. Part of the concert was filmed for the group's documentary Wide Awake in Dublin. |
28 June 1986 | Simple Minds | Once Upon A Time Tour | Guest appearance by Bono | ||
27 June 1987 | U2 | Light A Big Fire, The Dubliners, The Pogues, Lou Reed | The Joshua Tree Tour | 114,000 | |
28 June 1987 | Christy Moore, The Pretenders, Lou Reed, Hothouse Flowers | ||||
28 June 1996 | Tina Turner | Brian Kennedy | Wildest Dreams Tour | 40,000/40,000 | |
16 May 1997 | Garth Brooks | World Tour II | |||
18 May 1997 | |||||
29 May 1998 | Elton John & Billy Joel | Face to Face 1998 | |||
30 May 1998 | |||||
24 June 2005 | U2 | The Radiators from Space, The Thrills, The Bravery, Snow Patrol, Paddy Casey, Ash | Vertigo Tour | 246,743 | |
25 June 2005 | |||||
27 June 2005 | |||||
20 May 2006 | Bon Jovi | Nickelback | Have a Nice Day Tour | 81,327 | |
9 June 2006 | Robbie Williams | Basement Jaxx | Close Encounters Tour | ||
6 October 2007 | The Police | Fiction Plane | The Police Reunion Tour | 81,640 | Largest attendance of the tour. |
31 May 2008 | Celine Dion | Il Divo | Taking Chances World Tour | 69,725 | Largest attendance for a solo female act |
1 June 2008 | Westlife | Shayne Ward | Back Home Tour | 85,000 | Second Irish act to have a headline concert. Largest attendance of the tour. Part of the concert was filmed for the group's documentary and concert DVD 10 Years of Westlife - Live at Croke Park Stadium. |
14 June 2008 | Neil Diamond | ||||
13 June 2009 | Take That | The Script | Take That Present: The Circus Live | ||
24 July 2009 | U2 | Glasvegas, Damien Dempsey | U2 360° Tour | 243,198 | |
25 July 2009 | Kaiser Chiefs, Republic of Loose | ||||
27 July 2009 | Bell X1, The Script | The performances of "New Year's Day" and "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" were recorded for the group's live album U22 and for the band's remix album Artificial Horizon and the live EP Wide Awake in Europe, respectively. | |||
5 June 2010 | Westlife | Wonderland, WOW, JLS, Jedward | Where We Are Tour | 86,500 | Largest attendance of the tour. |
18 June 2011 | Take That | Pet Shop Boys | Progress Live | 154,828 | |
19 June 2011 | |||||
22 June 2012 | Westlife | Jedward, The Wanted, Lawson | Greatest Hits Tour | 187,808[24] | The 23 June 2012 date broke the stadium record for selling out its tickets in four minutes. Eleventh largest attendance at an outdoor stadium worldwide. Largest attendance of the tour and the band's music career history. Part of the concert was filmed for the group's documentary and concert DVD The Farewell Tour - Live in Croke Park. |
23 June 2012 | |||||
26 June 2012 | Red Hot Chili Peppers | Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, The Vaccines | I'm with You World Tour | ||
23 May 2014 | One Direction | 5 Seconds of Summer | Where We Are Tour | 235,008 | |
24 May 2014 | |||||
25 May 2014 | |||||
20 June 2015 | The Script & Pharrell Williams | No Sound Without Silence Tour | 74,635 | ||
24 July 2015 | Ed Sheeran | x Tour | 162,308 | ||
25 July 2015 | |||||
27 May 2016 | Bruce Springsteen | The River Tour 2016 | 160,188 | ||
29 May 2016 | |||||
9 July 2016 | Beyoncé | Chloe x Halle, Ingrid Burley | The Formation World Tour | 68,575 | |
8 July 2017 | Coldplay | AlunaGeorge, Tove Lo | A Head Full of Dreams Tour[25] | 80,398 | |
22 July 2017 | U2 | Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds | The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 | 80,901 | |
17 May 2018 | The Rolling Stones | The Academic | No Filter Tour | 64,823 | |
15 June 2018 | Taylor Swift | Camila Cabello, Charli XCX | Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour | 136.000 | Swift became the first woman headline two concerts in a row there. |
16 June 2018 | |||||
7 July 2018 | Michael Bublé | Emeli Sandé | |||
24 May 2019 | Spice Girls | Jess Glynne | Spice World - 2019 UK Tour | ||
5 July 2019 | Westlife | James Arthur Wild Youth | The 20 Touror The Twenty Tour | The 5 July 2019 date sold out its tickets in six minutes. Second date released were also sold out in under forty-eight hours. | |
6 July 2019 |
This morning a party of one N.C.O. and six men of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment were fired on by a body of civilians outside a bakery in Church Street, Dublin. One soldier was killed and four were wounded. A piquet of the Lancashire Fusiliers in the vicinity, hearing the shots, hurried to their comrades' assistance, and succeeded in arresting one of the aggressors. No arms or equipment were lost by the soldiers.Much was made of Barry's age by Irish newspapers, but the British military pointed out that the three soldiers who had been killed were "much the same age as Barry". On 20 October, Major Reginald Ingram Marians OBE, Head of the Press Section of the General Staff, informed Basil Clarke, Head of Publicity, that Washington was "only 19 and that the other soldiers were of similar ages." General Macready was well aware of the "propaganda value of the soldier's ages." Macready informed General Sir Henry Wilson on the day that sentence was pronounced "of the three men who were killed by him (Barry) and his friends two were 19 and one 20 — official age so probably they were younger... so if you want propaganda there you are."It was later confirmed that Private Harold Washington was 15 years and 351 days old, having been born 4 October 1904. About this competing propaganda, Martin Doherty wrote in a magazine article entitled 'Kevin Barry & the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War':
from the British point of view, therefore, the Anglo-Irish propaganda war was probably unwinable [sic]. Nationalist Ireland had decided that men like Kevin Barry fought to free their country, while British soldiers — young or not — sought to withhold that freedom. In these circumstances, to label Barry a murderer was merely to add insult to injury. The contrasting failure of British propaganda is graphically demonstrated by the simple fact that even in British newspapers Privates Whitehead, Washington and Humphries remained faceless names and numbers, for whom no songs were written.”
He tried to persuade me to give the names, and I persisted in refusing. He then sent the sergeant out of the room for a bayonet. When it was brought in the sergeant was ordered by the same officer to point the bayonet at my stomach ... The sergeant then said that he would run the bayonet into me if I did not tell ... The same officer then said to me that if I persisted in my attitude he would turn me out to the men in the barrack square, and he supposed I knew what that meant with the men in their present temper. I said nothing. He ordered the sergeants to put me face down on the floor and twist my arm ... When I lay on the floor, one of the sergeants knelt on my back, the other two placed one foot each on my back and left shoulder, and the man who knelt on me twisted my right arm, holding it by the wrist with one hand, while he held my hair with the other to pull back my head. The arm was twisted from the elbow joint. This continued, to the best of my judgment, for five minutes. It was very painful ... I still persisted in refusing to answer these questions... A civilian came in and repeated the questions, with the same result. He informed me that if I gave all the information I knew I could get off.On 28 October, the Irish Bulletin (organised by Dick McKee, the IRA Commandant of the Dublin Brigade), a news-sheet produced by Dáil Éireann's Department of Publicity,published Barry's statement alleging torture. The headline read: English Military Government Torture a Prisoner of War and are about to Hang him. The Irish Bulletin declared Barry to be a prisoner of war, suggesting a conflict of principles was at the heart of the conflict. The English did not recognise a war and treated all killings by the IRA as murder. Irish republicans claimed that they were at war and it was being fought between two opposing nations and therefore demanded prisoner of war status. Historian John Ainsworth, author of Kevin Barry, the Incident at Monk's bakery and the Making of an Irish Republican Legend, pointed out that Barry had been captured by the British not as a uniformed soldier but disguised as a civilian and in possession of flat-nosed "Dum-dum" bullets, which expand upon impact, maximising the amount of damage done to the "unfortunate individual" targeted, in contravention of the Hague Convention of 1899. Erskine Childers addressed the question of political status in a letter to the press on 29 October, which was published the day after Barry's execution.
Under similar circumstances a body of Irish Volunteers captured on June 1 of the present year a party of 25 English military who were on duty at the King's Inns, Dublin. Having disarmed the party the Volunteers immediately released their prisoners. This was in strict accordance with the conduct of the Volunteers in all such encounters. Hundreds of members of the armed forces have been from time to time captured by the Volunteers and in no case was any prisoner maltreated even though Volunteers had been killed and wounded in the fighting, as in the case of Cloyne, Co. Cork, when, after a conflict in which one Volunteer was killed and two wounded, the whole of the opposing forces were captured, disarmed, and set at liberty.
He is meeting death as he met life with courage but with nothing of the braggart. He does not believe that he is doing anything wonderfully heroic. Again and again he has begged that no fuss be made about him.He reported Barry as saying "It is nothing, to give one's life for Ireland. I'm not the first and maybe I won't be the last. What's my life compared with the cause?" Barry joked about his death with his sister Kathy. "Well, they are not going to let me like a soldier fall… But I must say they are going to hang me like a gentleman." This was, according to Cronin, a reference to George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, the last play Kevin and his sister had seen together. On 31 October, he was allowed three visits of three people each, the last of which was taken by his mother, brother and sisters. In addition to the two Auxiliaries with him, there were five or six warders in the boardroom. As his family were leaving, they met Canon John Waters, on the way in, who said, "This boy does not seem to realise he is going to die in the morning." Mrs Barry asked him what he meant. He said: "He is so gay and light-hearted all the time. If he fully realised it, he would be overwhelmed." Mrs Barry replied, "Canon Waters, I know you are not a Republican. But is it impossible for you to understand that my son is actually proud to die for the Republic?" Canon Waters became somewhat flustered as they parted. The Barry family recorded that they were upset by this encounter because they considered the chief chaplain "the nearest thing to a friend that Kevin would see before his death, and he seemed so alien." Kevin Barry was hanged on 1 November, after hearing two Masses in his cell. Canon Waters, who walked with him to the scaffold, wrote to Barry's mother later, "You are the mother, my dear Mrs Barry, of one of the bravest and best boys I have ever known. His death was one of the most holy, and your dear boy is waiting for you now, beyond the reach of sorrow or trial." Dublin Corporation met on the Monday, and passed a vote of sympathy with the Barry family, and adjourned the meeting as a mark of respect. The Chief Secretary's office in Dublin Castle, on the Monday night, released the following communiqué:
The sentence of death by hanging passed by court-martial upon Kevin Barry, or Berry, medical student, aged 18½ years, for the murder of Private Whitehead in Dublin on September 20, was duly executed this morning at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. At a military court of inquiry, held subsequently in lieu of an inquest, medical evidence was given to the effect that death was instantaneous. The court found that the sentence had been carried out in accordance with law.Barry's body was buried at 1.30 p.m, in a plot near the women's prison. His comrade and fellow-student Frank Flood was buried alongside him four months later. A plain cross marked their graves and those of Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher who were hanged in the same prison before the Anglo-Irish Treaty of July 1921 which ended hostilities between Irish republicans and the British.The men had been buried in unconsecrated ground on the jail property and their graves went unidentified until 1934.They became known as The Forgotten Ten by republicans campaigning for the bodies to be reburied with honour and proper rites.On 14 October 2001, the remains of these ten men were given a state funeral and moved from Mountjoy Prison to be re-interred at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.