Category: Ireland
The popular social network Facebook has 600 million users across Europe but that hasn't stopped an Irish agency from auditing the internet phenomenon. The Irish Data Protection Commission has agreed to audit Facebook following complaints about privacy issues from the tiny Europe-v-Facebook group. The complaints stem from an investigation begun by a concerned Facebook user, Max Schrems, an Austrian law student who believes that Facebook is collecting and misusing his personal information. Read more
The president of Dublin City University, Brian MacCraith, visited Boston on Oct. 17 to develop academic and technology partnerships. The holder of a PhD from NUI Galway, Dr. MacCraith, who began his ten-year presidential term in last year, has been a professor of physics and director of DCU's Biomedical Diagnostics Institute. Read more
Is this the year to make that long-delayed trip to Ireland? I asked myself that question at the beginning of 2009, and as in previous years, the answer was a resounding "maybe." Read more
This new year, 2010, will be the 12th anniversary of the start of the Saville Inquiry into the January 1972 massacre, Bloody Sunday, when 13 unarmed Derry citizens were shot to death by British paratroopers on the streets where they lived. A fourteenth would die later of his wounds. No one has ever been charged, no one has been adjudged guilty, and the fact that it has taken a dozen years - with the end not yet in sight - to try to clean up his Lordship Widgery's disgraceful whitewash should be an acute embarrassment to the British legal establishment. Read more
At Christmastime, as the creche is unpacked and set up on the mantelpiece, I pause when I take out the old gray donkey and think about the wonderful work done by Paddy Barrett and his dedicated and caring staff at The Donkey Sanctuary in Liscarroll, Mallow, Co. Cork. Read more
As a friend and I drove along a curvy stretch of the Atlantic Drive on Achill Island in Co. Mayo this spring, I spotted a sign on the side of the road that said: Aire Ailtreacha Arda. Read more
You can probably imagine that, over my years as a travel writer, I have had the opportunity to stay at countless lovely Irish inns, hotels, and manor houses.
Many of these properties have every amenity you could ever want from a place where you really only hang your hat for a night or two. Despite my acquaintance with so many wonderful accommodations, I stayed this spring at a hotel in Ardmore, Co. Waterford, that beats them all by a country mile. Read more
Harsh financial measures are succeeding in Ireland
By Joe Leary, special to the BIR, November 14, 2011
European and American business leaders are praising Ireland's government for setting a courageous course to return the Irish economy to financial prosperity in the years ahead. A balanced mix of increased taxes and reduced spending has both European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) leaders pointing to Ireland as a superb example of fiscal prudence as the country fights to restore its economic health. Read more