Áras an Uachtaráin

McGuinness – “Step Back and Bite the Bullet”

| Readers 6

I hesitate before posting but I think it adds something: McKittrick in the Independent (Yesterday I know…)…. Another IRA victim who has been impressed with Mr McGuinness is Mark Eakin, a Protestant whose eight- year-old sister was one of nine people killed in IRA car-bomb attacks near Londonderry in 1972. Mr Eakin has spoken several times with Mr McGuinness and said yesterday he thought the Sinn Fein leader would make a good head of state. He added: “You have to …

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#Aras11: “McGuinness may prove a very compliant ninth President of the Irish Republic”

| Readers 10

Sinn Fein’s audacious move to the south in putting Martin McGuinness’s name into the Presidential ring has several aspects. One, the simplest, it has livened up an election which was looking like the dullest political event on the island since, erm, perhaps the last Assembly election. On the face of it that’s a distinct advantage. It gets Mr McGuinness more face time than any Sinn Fein TD could ever wish for. Defacto, it also means that for now, the story …

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Northern Ireland Exports Bees to Phoenix Park

| Readers 19
Áras an Uachtaráin - residence of the Irish President, and soon to be home to Northern Irish bees

If you see anyone walking round Phoenix Park wearing a white hazmat suit, it’s probably not a sign that chemical warfare has broken out. Instead, it’s the Irish President’s gardeners practising their bee-keeping … all thanks to an export from Northern Ireland. There’s an orchard in the gardens of Áras an Uachtaráin, the Irish President’s residence in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, and from the apples they make mighty fine-tasting organic apple juice. Next year, the new Irish President will have the …

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Uachtarán na hÉireann – SF within a whisker of nominating a Presidential candidate?

| Readers 5

With 14 TDs and now 3 Senators elect, SF are a mere 3 Oireachtas votes away from the magically twenty that permits nomination to the 26 county Presidential election. I have no idea if SF would want to face a heavily tipped David Norris but two things do stand out; -just how much some of those close run Dail contests SF missed out on can really matter (also losing former members like Thomas Pringle TD) -just how far they’ve come …

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All political business done; Cowen goes to the Aras

| Readers 1

So this afternoon we’ll get to know the date set by Fianna Fail for the next Irish General Election. Mr Cowen bows out of politics, but apparently bequeaths his substantial local Offaly inheritance to his brother Barry, who will go head to head with Councillor John Foley. (See the Irish Times for a current list of TDs who will definitely not be back). Meantime, Micheal Martin almost gets to pull the stroke that brought down his soon to be erstwhile …

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