Footage posted online captures Limerick drive-by shooting
As Dublin awaits Metrolink from the airport we examine why it is back in the news and why costs are being talked about again. Video: Dan Dennison
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
27 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Quarter of Irish people intend to include charities in will, survey finds
One in four Irish people intend to leave something to charity in their will, according to new research from the Charities Regulator . Small, local charities may benefit the most from those gifts, given they generate the highest level of trust among 1,000 Irish adults who were surveyed as part of the research. Half of the respondents to the regulator's online survey, conducted last December, said they donate to local charities, marking a significant increase since 2022. Trust in larger, international charities has declined the most in that time. There are 11,500 registered charities in Ireland. Those that received the most support over the last year were medical or health-related causes (39 per cent), homeless or refuge services (34 per cent), and local community organisations (31 per cent). Having a personal connection or interest in a particular issue or charity is the most significant factor influencing people who choose to donate. Seventy-one per cent of respondents believe trust and confidence in a charity is very important if they are to donate, down from 80 per cent who felt this in 2022. About a quarter of those surveyed admitted their confidence in charities has decreased, though this is less than the 37 per cent who said the same three years ago. READ MORE Almost two-thirds of respondents said their trust and confidence in charities are unchanged. An Garda Síochána and doctors are the only peer groupings that instil more trust and confidence in the public. Still, there is strong support for greater transparency around where donated money goes. There was a significant increase in the number of people with concerns around how much charities spend on administration. Respondents said they want more evidence of what charities have achieved and more information made available on their accounts. Two in five said they want to increase the amount of money they give to charity, while 18 per cent of those surveyed reported donating their time to charity. Given the perception of what constitutes a charitable donation, some people may not be fully aware that they are contributing to various causes. Madeleine Delaney, chief executive of the Charities Regulator, said the research shows 'continued solid' support for Ireland's charity sector, but 'with an important caveat that charities need to be more transparent about their income and how they are spending it to increase public trust and confidence'. She said the Register of Charities has a record of every charity in Ireland, with an overview of their finances and the activities they undertake. She encouraged people who donate or are considering donating to find out more about the charity on the register, which can be found at .
Irish Times
27 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Death threats against Northern Ireland journalists increasing, says Amnesty
Journalists in Northern Ireland are facing a sustained campaign of violent threats from paramilitaries, making it the most dangerous place in the UK to be a reporter, according to Amnesty International . Death threats – including under-car booby trap bombs – issued to crime journalists have increased in recent years, with repeated home visits by police warning they are at risk. Others have been told they will be shot or stabbed and given 48-hour ultimatums to leave the country. Interviews carried out by Amnesty with 22 journalists uncovered more than 70 incidents of intimidation or attacks in the North since the start of 2019. READ MORE Loyalist and dissident republican paramilitaries as well as organised crime groups are behind most of the incidents. Journalists most at risk have their homes protected by bulletproof windows and doors with alarms linked to police stations. One reporter was visited by police nine times in just under a year to inform her that her life was at risk. A pipe bomb was placed close to her home after a threat. 'Several journalists report that they are receiving more threats in recent years than ever before. It goes beyond threats: they are physically attacked,' according to the Amnesty report entitled Occupational Hazard? Threats and Violence against Journalists in Northern Ireland. The report, published on Tuesday, says frustration with the police response means some journalists have stopped reporting the crimes to the authorities, citing 'time-consuming processes and lack of action or positive outcome'. [ Lyra McKee: A bright star, fallen, sacrificed to bigotry and hatred Opens in new window ] To date, two journalists have been murdered in Northern Ireland. Investigative reporter Martin O'Hagan of the Sunday World was killed close to his Lurgan home by loyalist paramilitaries in 2001 and Lyra McKee died after being struck by a bullet fired at police during rioting in Derry in 2019. Dissident republican group, the New IRA, admitted responsibility. A photographer was shot in the thigh covering a riot in Belfast in 2011. Concerns are raised in the report about a lack of prosecutions. Amnesty is calling on the State to create a 'safe environment where journalists can work freely and report without fear of reprisals'. 'It is currently failing to do so,' said Amnesty International UK's Northern Ireland director, Patrick Corrigan. 'Journalists are being threatened, attacked and even killed for shining a light on paramilitary groups and others who seek to exert control through violence. This creates a climate of fear that many assumed was consigned to history when the Good Friday Agreement was signed,' he said. Yet, he said, there has not been a single prosecution for threats against journalists from paramilitary groups. [ Lyra McKee: Lost Girl of the Troubles Opens in new window ] 'This sense of impunity only emboldens those behind the threats. When journalists are under attack, press freedom is under attack.' Among the report's recommendations is the establishment of a new media safety group, with representatives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Public Prosecution Service, media organisations and the National Union of Journalists to deliver a new journalist safety strategy. The PSNI should also review its procedural response to threats and attacks against journalists and 'conduct investigations capable of leading to successful prosecutions', the report advises. A Police Ombudsman's report examining the original police investigation into O'Hagan's murder is expected to be published this year. Amnesty recommends the UK government should order a public inquiry into the killing if 'serious failings or wrongdoing by the police' is found by the watchdog.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Housewife of the Year review: A reminder that Ireland of the 1970s and 80s was no country for women of any age
If the 'Lovely Girls' episode of Father Ted was a horror movie, it might have looked something like Housewife of the Year (RTÉ One, Monday, 9.30pm). Ciaran Cassidy's documentary about the only-in-Ireland 'best mammy' contest, hosted each year by Gay Byrne through the 1980s and early 1990s, depicts the event as a glorified pageant for homemakers and a sort of Handmaid's Tale-type ritual that left women in little doubt where they stood in post-DeValera Ireland. Young, old, in-between – the film is a reminder that Ireland was no country for women of any age, and Housewife of the Year let them know it. Cassidy gets the tone exactly right, capturing the low-wattage despair that was part of the background radiation of early 1980s Ireland. When telling the story, there was surely a temptation to serve up a Reeling in the Years type nostalgia-fest – to portray Housewife of the Year as toe-curling and harmless cultural bric-a-brac, to be filed alongside Bosco and Live at Three. The director takes a different tack by interviewing a number of women who participated in this grim jamboree and who are today largely astonished by their naivety. The contrast between the picture they were required to present while on a podium next to 'Uncle Gaybo' – as he refers to himself – and their present-day selves is striking. Ann McStay talks about having had 13 children by the age of 31 and of having to take a bus to what was, in effect, a soup kitchen to feed her family while her husband sought refuge at the bottom of a glass. 'The more kids I had, the more he receded into the pub,' she says. 'He was probably a bit bamboozled'. She entered Housewife of the Year for the prize money and, emboldened by her victory, later spoke out against Ireland's medieval contraception laws. 'After I won, that gave me a bit of courage. You had to be very careful but you have to say it as it is.' READ MORE Just as striking is the story of Ena Howell, whose unmarried mother gave birth to her at the notorious Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork; at the Housewife of the Year, her adoptive mother and her family were gathered on one side of the aisle while on the other her birth mother sat alone. Having reached out to her mother, Ena, we are told her half-siblings demanded she cut off contact. 'They couldn't accept that their perfect family wasn't perfect any more.' Housewife of the Year has many such stories – one woman describes being packed off to a Magdalene Laundry after a pharmacist passes on photographs of her innocently mucking about with some male friends to the parish priest. Another recalls how she became pregnant before marrying her husband and worrying this might be exposed during the contest. 'It was scary. There was still a stigma to it,' she says. 'I didn't want my eldest child to have to suffer anything.' But Cassidy also acknowledges not every mother in 1980s Ireland considered their life a patriarchal hellscape. 'I loved being a housewife,' says Patricia Connolly. 'It never entered my head to go out to work. I didn't have to. Your life revolved around your husband and children.' Gay Byrne doesn't cover himself in glory. As in his interviews on The Late Late Show with Sinéad O'Connor, he comes across as patronising and high on his own smarm. When one contestant reveals she is pregnant, he puts a hand on her waist and cradles his head against her baby bump. There is nothing licentious about the gesture – he isn't being a creep – but nor is he respectful of her personal space. Documentaries about Ireland under the Church are often defined by a sense of barely contained anger. Cassidy's film is in a different register: it radiates a deep sadness as it bears witness to generations of women for whom Ireland was a place of narrowed horizons and stifled opportunities. 'It's like a dreamworld – people accepted all these things,' says one contributor, sounding like someone stirring from a nightmare. Housewife of the Year can also be streamed on Apple TV+
