Tag Archives: ireland

Dublin Bus service cut-backs kick in

via breakingnews.ie
via breakingnews.ie

According to BreakingNews.ie there will be 120 less buses on the roads of Dublin and the surrounding commuter belt from tomorrow Monday April 26th. The cut-backs at Dublin Bus are in response to the downturn in the economy and the need to cut their losses this year.

29 routes have had schedule changes while some ‘low frequency services’ have been withdrawn but it appears that they’ve forgotten to list them on the website, or maybe I’m reading it wrong:

Screengrab of Dublin Bus web page
Screengrab of Dublin Bus web page

Routes with new timetables include the following: 

14, 14a, 18, 27, 27x, 37, 37x, 38/a, 39/a/c, 39x, 41/a, 46c, 46d, 47, 48a, 51, 51d, 51x, 77, 77a, 77x, 84x, 84x*, 116, 118, 128, 150, 161, 210

New timetables are online at www.dublinbus.ie. According to news reports on TodayFM this morning, there’s a dispute over some of the proposed changes at the Harristown garage and some bus services from that garage are affected this morning.

Cork International Choral Festival hits the real capital

Warm-up time for the 55th Cork International Choral Festival
Warm-up time for the 55th Cork International Choral Festival

“4,600 voices, 85 performances, from 22 countries for 5 days in Cork.”

That’s the 55th Cork International Choral Festival which kicks of this coming Wednesday and runs until Sunday May 3rd. There’s a lovely variety of performances on offer from chamber groups to children’s choirs and numerous competitive events in between including the prestigious Fleischmann International Trophy Competition which takes places on Saturday.

Some performances that grabbed my attention on browsing over the brochure that may tickle your choral fancy:

  • Opening Gala Concert with Cork Symphony Orchestra: A Sea Symphony
  • Shandon Sunrise with Cathal O’Baoill & Gothenburg Youth Choir
  • The National Chamber Choir of Ireland: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
  • Fleischmann International Trophy Competition
  • Closing Gala Concert

Most if not all ticketed events are on sale via the online booking system, over the phone on + 353 (21) 4501673 or in person at the Everyman Palace Theatre box office. Family rates, group rates and season rates are also available. Check out the website at www.corkchoral.ie.

Across from City Hall on Lapp’s Quay there will be a Festival Food Fair on the boardwalk from 10am to 4pm on Saturday while The Clarion Hotel will be satisfying your afternoon & late night choral needs with performances in the Atrium on Saturday & Sunday afternoons from 2.30pm – 6pm and again from 10pm – 2am. 

Looking forward to it!

Review: Handels’ Messiah at Christ Church Cathedral

Booklet for Handels Messiah
Booklet for Handels' Messiah

On Thursday last, I had the fortune of getting to hear a powerful, moving & inspiring rendition of George Fredrick Handels’ famous work, ‘Messiah’. As part of a week of celebrations in Dublin called ‘Handel 250′, the magnificent choir of Christ Church Cathedral, The Orchestra of Saint Cecilia, soloists Deboragh Abbot (soprano), Duncan Brickenden (alto), Peter Davoren (tenor) & Philip O’Reilly (bass) gathered in the beautiful venue of Christ Church Cathedral for a performance of the ‘Messiah’, a piece first performed in Dublin in April of 1742.

My first memories of hearing this beautiful piece go back to when I was in 2nd class of primary school, about 8 years old. Our teacher at the time occasionally had a ‘music appreciation’ lesson & more often than not it was an aria or chorus from ‘Messiah’. I have for years failed to catch a live performance of it and my am I sorry it’s taken me so long to do so. It was magnificent from start to finish. The infamous ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ didn’t disappoint – I haven’t felt goosebumps race from head to toe like the ones I felt on hearing the voices raising the roof with their rendition of the powerful chorus. Admittedly, I was moved to tears by it! 

Congratulations to all involved in the performance and in the festival that ran all week which seemed to offer up a fantastic selection of musical delights. There’s photos and video from the week over at the Temple Bar Cultural Trust website.

You can sample some choral tracks I recorded (only when the blinking iPhone decided it wanted to) right here.

Tasty titbits for your lunchtime

After an insane couple of days it’s time to resume normal blogging services. Don’t worry though, the Fine Gael website fiasco hasn’t gone to bed yet – I’ve given it a permanent home here and George Hook & his Newstalk team are having a look at it today in advance of their show later this evening.

I was at Doves in the Olympia, Dublin last night. One of my favourite bands of all time & it was amazing as usual. Some photos on Pix.ie, down below is a noisy little video and the first of a range I am going to classify as ‘Danceycam‘ (I continue to shake booty & enjoy myself while filming).

RTE have launched their RTE Player online service. Nice design effort & video quality but the use of Flash only across the site is questionable in terms of usability.

Awesome t-shirt design for the Blacknight T-Shirt competition from Nice Cube Design.

Registration for Bizcamp Belfast is now open.

Loopthing is the Tuesday push (I think!)

Bollywood Dancing on Sunday for Big Fish Films was fantastic fun despite the terrible sunburn I suffered

Handel’s Messiah at Christchurch last week was epic, so epic a tear or two may have escaped me. Will put up MP3s later on for your aural pleasure.


Doves – There Goes The Fear on Danceycam from Stephanie Francis on Vimeo.

Sunday Tribune features FG website rip-off

Story in Sunday Tribune

Story in Sunday Tribune
I was up and out early this morning for the filming of a dance scene for Ireland’s first bollywood movie today (awesome fun, post coming later). Glancing in on Twitter during rehearsals I found out that the posts I had written about the Fine Gael website had made page 2 of the Sunday Tribune.

Fine Gael are still sticking to their guns and now claiming that all sorts of research was done into finding inspiration for their new online face. My favourite quote from the unnamed FG spokesperson:

“What has been asserted is not correct; there are grains of truth in this thing but they would get a life of their own on the internet,” a party spokesman said.”

Their lack of understanding of the issues surrounding the website now outweighs the seriousness of their actions. Their lack of engagement with the online community on top of the poorest of efforts in delivering a suitable, usable and useful website is the basis for a total failure in the management of their identity and image online. As Suzy said earlier

“Above all this incident is about the second biggest party in the state and another example of it’s lack of serious commitment to on-line engagement with voters in the country,  a lack of faith in Irish based web developers, and no imagination in the excuse making department either!”

I’m still disappointed and quite annoyed with how the party have handled the incident. FG don’t realise that they’ve missed the boat completely in terms of communication with voters & getting their message out there ahead of the local elections and in time, maybe even a general election before long. Their attitude towards the Internet and the online community (from bloggers to developers) is archaic and worryingly ignorant. I’d normally wish someone luck at this juncture (considering the mountain that they have to climb) but the feeling of disrespect is now a mutual one so they won’t be getting any best wishes (or votes) from this citizen.