Blogs

The incident recently reported (after a delay of several months) involving a Royal Navy nuclear submarine and a Ro Ro Ferry reminds us once again of the dangers posed by nuclear submarines activity in the confined area of the Irish Sea.

The Irish (and Celtic Seas) are busy areas commercially and are getting busier in terms of merchant and fishing fleets, wind farms and oil and gas exploration.

The near miss between a Ro Ro Ferry and a nuclear submarine in the North Channel highlights once again the danger posed by dived submarine operations in navigational choke points such as the North Channel and Pembroke Strait.

Isle of Man Post Office (Manx: Oik Postagh Ellan Vannin) have presented a new issue of ten stamps to show the diversity of wildlife to be found on the Isle of Man (Manx: Mannin). The Island, which is located in the Irish Sea, was cut off from the surrounding islands of the Atlantic Archipelago, a group of islands off the north-western coast of continental Europe, in around 8000 BC.  The Island has a richly-varied landscape in a small area with a unique composition of wildlife, making the need for its protection very important.

The village of Kilmartin (Scottish Gaelic: Cille Mhàrtainn) is in Argyll and Bute (Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd) in the west of Scotland. It is located in Kilmartin Glen, an area noted for having the most important concentration of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in mainland Scotland. Kilmartin Glen can quite rightly claim to be one of the world’s most significant archaeological landscapes. Standing stones, stone circles, remarkable carved rock art, cairns, castles and forts, all spanning a period of over 5,000 years. 

MTTVs Paul Moulton is at Milntown talking to Charles Guard about the ‘chair of Illiam Dhone’ that the Milntown Trust have recently purchased.

I’m sure that Paul mentioned at the Illiam Dhone ceremony that he was off to the Antipodes later in the month so these must be news items that were ‘in the can’ so to speak.

Anyway it's a real gem (both the table and the Guard - Moulton interview).

‘I STOOD AMAZED; FOR IN THE ISLE OF MAN OUR POOR ARE NOT NEGLECTED’

The words above are from the Manx poet T E Brown’s work ‘Bella Gorry’ but it seems these days if you find yourself poor or in debt you are the architect of your own misfortune. This propensity to blame-shift is not peculiar to our society just go on line type in a search and you will find academics are writing papers on the tendency to make the poor ‘the architects of their own misfortune'. They don't 'budget correctly' or plan for 'unforeseen misfortunes' etc.

One hundred years ago the First Dáil (Irish: An Chéad Dáil) was held in Dublin’s Mansion House on 21 January 1919. It came after the General Election of 14th December 1918. The Irish General Election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 general election which took place in Ireland. In 1918 the whole of Ireland was a part of the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was represented in the British Parliament by 105 MPs. It was significant moment in modern Irish history.

“A major bank told a customer who wrote to it in Welsh to complain that some services were not available in her language that she should communicate with it in English rather than a “foreign” tongue.

Nia Lloyd, a classroom assistant from Wrexham in north Wales, wrote to HSBC pointing out that online services were not available in Welsh.
Customer support replied that her message was in a “foreign” language and asked her to resend it in English. Both Welsh and English are official languages in Wales.

Children have rallied outside the Irish parliament Dail Eireann this week calling for action on climate change. Green Ireland ie reports:

“Hundreds of young protesters rallied in front of the Dáil yesterday to call on the Irish Government to immediately address the growing threat of climate change.

The Children’s Rally for Climate Action organised by Climate Case Ireland (CCI) comes just days before a high profile climate case against the Irish Government in the High Court.

Bearing in mind the decision of the Manx Treasury to bring back proposals for Employed Persons Allowance (EPA) in May I thought it would be useful to remind ourselves of the difficulties some families face in the school holiday period (see media links below). Although the focus was on the lengthy summer break there are of course equally lengthy times such as the two weeks over Easter. Also this Xmas media reported higher food bank demand.