Latest news with #British-Irish
Kuwait Times
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Kuwait Times
Bono says Ukraine ‘keeping us free' from fascism
(From left) Editor Lasse Jarvi, US producer Dede Gardner, Irish music producer Jacknife Lee, US cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, Irish singer-Songwriter and executive producer Bono, actress Kelly McNamara, US producer Jon Kamen, producer Jennifer Pitcher, and US producer Dave Sirulnick, arrive for the screening of the film "Bono: Stories of Surrender" at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Rock star Bono made an impassioned plea for the West to stand by Ukraine at the Cannes film festival, saying it was keeping Europe free from fascism. The U2 frontman told the audience at the premiere of a documentary based on his autobiography late Friday that the world is again being threatened by fascism as it was when the festival was set up in 1939. 'Mussolini and the little man with a moustache and his mate Goebbels had taken over the Venice film festival, so this festival was set up to fight fascism,' the Irish singer said. 'It took it until 1946 (for the festival to get going) but it stands for that freedom now.' He said Hollywood star Sean Penn -- who is a vocal advocate for Ukraine -- had 'brought us some friends from the actual trenches, from the front line in Ukraine, and they're here tonight... Irish singer-Songwriter and executive producer Bono, Lebanese-British barrister Amal Clooney and British-Irish musician The Edge arrive for the screening of the film "Bono: Stories of Surrender" at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. 'I just want to thank you because you're keeping us free,' Bono added, to loud cheers. 'Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine.' Bono, U2 guitarist The Edge and Penn posed for pictures on the red carpet before the premiere with the soldiers. Earlier the singer, who has spent decades fighting for more aid for Africa and to lift the debt burden from poor nations, lambasted US President Donald Trump's dismantling of USAID, which he said also threatened progress on combating AIDS and HIV. 'What's utterly irrational is taking pleasure in the defacement of these institutions of mercy,' Bono told reporters. The black-and-white documentary, 'Bono: Stories of Surrender' is an adaptation of a one-man stage show drawn from his 2022 book, 'Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story'. Set to some of U2's most iconic tracks, Bono opens up about the tragedy that marked his childhood, with his mother Iris collapsing and dying at her own father's funeral when the singer was 14. His father Brendan 'Bob' Hewson, already a man of few words, retreated into shock, anger and depression. The film, directed by Andrew Dominik of 'Chopper' fame, is also a love letter to the singer's wife Ali Hewson, whom he met when they were both 15, the same fateful day U2 was formed in a Dublin school. It streams on Apple TV+ from 30 May.--AFP British-Irish musician The Edge (third left), Irish singer-Songwriter and executive producer Bono (center) and US actor, screenwriter, and film director Sean Penn (fourth right) pose with Ukrainian servicemen as they arrive for the screening of the film "Bono: Stories of Surrender" at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Sunday World
07-05-2025
- Sunday World
10,000 mothers may have been deported from Britain to Ireland because they were unmarried
The investigation also found evidence of falsified birth certificates and allegations of "people trafficking' Up to 10,000 women and babies may have been deported from Britain to Ireland between 1931 and 1977 in a forced adoption scandal, according to a new ITV report. ITV News carried out a year-long investigation into the story, which the broadcaster said shows women and babies were deported from Britain and incarcerated in state institutions because the mothers were unmarried. The mothers then had their children forcibly adopted. The investigation also found evidence of falsified birth certificates and allegations of "people trafficking'. The children, now adults, often only found out they were British citizens decades later. Survivors are now campaigning for compensation from both the Irish and British governments. One mother, Terri Harrison, experienced a "day of horror" when she came home to find a priest and two nuns waiting for her in London. They told her she had "committed a crime" because she was pregnant outside of marriage. 'I was no match for this man and he just threw me into the car and pushed me down into the back seat,' she said. 'I started to become invisible from the minute he got me." Ms Harrison was flown from Heathrow to Cork and was one of thousands of women "imprisoned" in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. Once there she was "processed" and given a new name and number. She said: "I became Tracey 1735; we weren't human any more. I was abducted from one country and brought back to this one, and my son was sleeping peacefully in his cot and a stranger in a black habit stripped him and walked out of that institution. "That's kidnapping. That's what happened to me. We must speak the truth." Terri Harrison has helped unveil the truth behind a British-Irish forced adoption scandal. Source: ITV News. News in 90 Seconds - Tuesday, May 6th ITV News said documentation from the time shows a religious organisation called the Crusade of Rescue, now known as the Catholic Children's Society, based in London, was involved in the adoption and repatriation of Irish women and children from Britain from the 1930s to the 1970s. Paul Cullen was four months old when he made the journey by boat from Holyhead in Wales to Dublin. He had always known that he had been born in London and adopted in Dublin, but only recently found out the truth about his birth and his early years. Mr Cullen (62) told ITV News: 'I went half a century without knowing. When the law was changed in 2021, I was eventually allowed access to my files. I began to realise that I was part of something much bigger and the moment the penny dropped and I saw the acronym 'PFI', pregnant from Ireland.' Mr Cullen, the former health editor of The Irish Times, was born at Whittington Hospital in north London in 1963, and then spent a month at St Pelagia's home for unmarried mothers in Highgate, north London, which was run by Catholic nuns. He contacted ITV News after seeing the publication's investigation into the home. His mother, who was in her 20s and working as a nurse in London, was unmarried and pressured to return to Ireland, where he was placed for adoption, a journey organised through the Crusade of Rescue. He was issued a second Irish birth certificate which falsely states that he was born in Dublin, when in fact he is a British citizen. The retired journalist has now reunited with his birth mother but the man he thought was his father died just weeks before they were due to meet. Fiona Cahill's mother Maria was born in a Red Cross mother and baby home in London in 1954, but as a newborn, she was sent to an Irish institution with her mother Philomena, who was unmarried. Philomena had moved from Ireland to London for work as a teenager and later met Maria's father. Like thousands of others, she was labelled as a 'PFI'. Ms Cahill, (50), an artist and carer, said her mother had PTSD symptoms and that trauma has been passed down the generations. Maria, who lived in Doncaster, Yorkshire, and passed away in 2023 aged 69, only found out she was adopted when she was 21 when she applied for a passport. It wasn't until she was 40 that she discovered she was a British citizen after finding out that she had two birth certificates, a UK one and a 'falsified' Irish one. A spokesperson for the Catholic Children's Society – formerly known as the 'Crusade of Rescue' – said: "We recognise that many young mothers in the past felt they had no choice but to place their child for adoption due to the stigma of being unmarried and the lack of support available to them from the government, their families and wider society at the time. "This is deeply regrettable and a tragedy for all involved. Our agency supported mothers to place their child for adoption when requested. Our records also show cases where the Crusade of Rescue offered support to unmarried mothers to help them keep their child. "Today we offer a post-adoption service to support all those who were adopted through us, and their families... We take this responsibility very seriously and work hard to provide an open and transparent service."
Extra.ie
07-05-2025
- Business
- Extra.ie
Trump's movie tariffs will ‘haemorrhage Ireland's film industry'
Thousands of jobs in the Irish film sector could be in danger if US President Donald Trump goes ahead with a controversial 'movie tariff ', industry insiders have warned. Mr Trump announced on Sunday night that the US Department of Commerce would impose a 100% tariff 'on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands'. Hollywood figures have reacted with confusion to the bombshell, as most of the details of the plan's logistics haven't yet been revealed. Pic: Getty Images Here in Ireland, concern is growing over potential impacts on a native industry which has received great international recognition in recent years. Screenwriter Mark Michael McNally, who co-wrote the 2023 Liam Neeson action film In The Land Of Saints And Sinners, told he believed Mr Trump's tariffs would 'haemorrhage the Irish film industry'. Mr McNally said the tariffs were a major worry, but that it wasn't clear how they could be implemented, and he was hopeful the measure would be abandoned. 'It's sort of a backwards way of thinking because it's very unclear how this would be done,' he said. 'Taxing a piece of media is very different than imported fruit or some other physical good. We've seen how his previous tariff threats in the past few months overwhelmingly harm people on the lower ground. 'The common worker on a film – the grip, the costume designers, local actors in Ireland – all these different departments rely on international production for a greater sense of stability because the local industry isn't enough to make a living as a crew member, for most people. It will haemorrhage the industry.' Pic: Andrew Downes/Xposure Midlands-North-West MEP Maria Walsh – a member of the EU's delegation to the United States – raised the issue of film tariffs in the European Parliament in Strasbourg yesterday. 'Trump's latest threat could pull the plug on Ireland's global status as a production powerhouse,' she said. 'A tariff on films would prove a logistical nightmare and is possibly unworkable. The nationality of production of any one movie is far from clear, given the intertwined web of global investors, labour and revenue.' Despite the questionable feasibility of the tariff, the Fine Gael MEP warned it could 'make it financially impossible for many companies to continue producing here'. British-Irish film producer and Oscar-winner David Puttnam – who produced Midnight Express and War Of The Buttons – told RTÉ's Today With Claire Byrne show that Mr Trump has caused 'far more chaos than he'll solve'. Pic: Getty Images 'He'll bring a few jobs back to the United States, but I promise you, every American involved in making and distributing movies today is very, very worried,' he said. 'They're not sitting there thinking, 'Oh great, this is a bonanza for America'.' Screen Ireland estimates the film, TV and animation sectors together employ around 12,000 people in Ireland and contribute almost € 700 million to the economy. As well as lush landscapes, Ireland also has generous tax credits enticing international film productions to shoot here. Mr McNally added: 'When economic factors are unknown, there's less investment, so this is an immediate worry. 'Trump tends to make big statements or gestures and then quietly roll them back. Hopefully that's the case here.' As well as the many Irish workers who could be out of work if the tariffs go ahead and there is a fall in the number of films being shot here as a result, the quality of films around the world will also suffer, Mr McNally said. 'People have complained that the quality of film has gone down in recent decades or that 'they don't make them like they used to',' he said. 'I think that's rubbish, but it's important to note that a lot of the smaller-budget Hollywood films like Anora and The Brutalist that sweep up in award season will be harder to make if these tariffs go ahead.'
BBC News
25-04-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Giant icebergs once floated off the coast of Britain study shows
New evidence has revealed that giant icebergs once floated off the coast of Britain. Scientists found scratch marks left behind as their undersides dragged across the floor of the North Sea in the last ice suggests that their size would be similar to icebergs found off present-day say the findings could provide important clues in understanding how climate change is currently affecting the world's southernmost continent. What did scientists discover? Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey used 3D seismic data to search for fingerprints of giant found deep, comb-like grooves, which they believe were created by the undersides of large icebergs that broke off the British-Irish ice sheet more than 18,000 years were found preserved in the sediments buried beneath the present-day taking a closer look at these grooves, experts were able to estimate that the icebergs could have been around 3-6 miles wide and 50-180 metres thick, although it's difficult to be also discovered that some of these scratch marks are as close as 90 miles to Scotland's present-day east coast. James Kirkham, marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the new study explained that their research also suggests how the icebergs may have looked like. He explained: "We found [evidence of] these gigantic tabular icebergs, which basically means the shape of a table, with incredibly wide and flat tops."These have not been seen before and it shows definitively that the UK had ice shelves, because that's the only way to produce these gigantic tabular icebergs," he shelves are floating platforms of ice where glaciers extend out into the say it's the first time that evidence has been found showing that the ice sheet which once covered Britain and Ireland produced such large icebergs.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Fingerprints of city-sized icebergs found off UK coast
Icebergs as large as cities, potentially tens of kilometres wide, once roved the coasts of the UK, according to scientists. Researchers found distinctive scratch marks left by the drifting icebergs as they gouged deep tracks into the North Sea floor more than 18,000 years ago. It's the first hard evidence that the ice sheet formerly covering Britain and Ireland produced such large bergs. The findings could provide vital clues in understanding how climate change is affecting Antarctica today. The scientists searched for fingerprints of giant icebergs using very detailed 3D seismic data, collected by oil and gas companies or wind turbine projects doing ocean surveys. This is a bit like doing an MRI scan of the sediment layers beneath the present-day seafloor, going back millions of years. The researchers found deep, comb-like grooves, interpreted to have been created by the keels of large icebergs that broke off the British-Irish ice sheet more than 18,000 years ago. Some of these scratch marks are as close as 90 miles (145km) to Scotland's present-day east coast. "We found [evidence of] these gigantic tabular icebergs, which basically means the shape of a table, with incredibly wide and flat tops," said James Kirkham, marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the new study, published in the journal Nature Communications. "These have not been seen before and it shows definitively that the UK had ice shelves, because that's the only way to produce these gigantic tabular icebergs." Ice shelves are floating platforms of ice where glaciers extend out into the ocean. By analysing the size of the grooves, the scientists estimate that these icebergs could be five to tens of kilometres wide and 50-180m thick, although it's difficult to be exact. That means they would have covered an area roughly as big as medium-sized UK cities like Norwich or Cambridge. The icebergs are comparable in size to some of the smaller icebergs found off present-day Antarctica, such as blocks that calved from the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002. Dr Kirkham described seeing such an iceberg when working in Antarctica two years ago. "Those of us working on this paper were standing together, gazing out onto this iceberg and thinking, 'Wow, that's probably a similar size iceberg to what was found off the shore of Scotland 18,000 years ago, staring us at us right in front of us in Antarctica today.'" Hundreds of ice shelves surround about three-quarters of today's Antarctic ice sheet, helping to hold back its vast glaciers. But if ice shelves are lost, the glaciers behind can speed up, depositing more and more ice into the ocean and raising sea levels worldwide. Exactly how this plays out, though, is "one of the largest sources of uncertainty in our models of sea level rise", Dr Kirkham told BBC News. That's partly because scientists have only been able to use satellites for a few decades to observe about 10 cases of ice shelves collapsing - hence the desire to look for examples further back in time. No ice shelf setting is the same, but the researchers say their findings from the former British-Irish ice sheet could help understand how Antarctica might respond to today's rapidly warming climate. By looking at the changing scratch marks on the seafloor, the researchers discovered an abrupt shift in Britain's icebergs about 18,000 years ago, a time when the planet was gradually warming from a very cold period. The occasional production of giant bergs ceased. Instead, smaller ones were produced much more frequently. That indicates that the ice shelves suddenly disintegrated; without these massive floating platforms, such large icebergs could no longer be produced. And it's potentially important because this coincides with the time when the glaciers behind began to retreat faster and faster. The crucial, but unresolved, question is whether the disintegration of Britain's former ice shelves was merely a symptom of a quickly melting ice sheet - or whether the loss of these shelves directly triggered the runaway retreat of ice. Resolving this chicken-and-egg dilemma, as Dr Kirkham put it, would shed light on how serious the impacts of losing today's Antarctic ice shelves might be. "These ocean records are fascinating and have implications for Antarctica, as they illustrate the fundamental role of ice shelves in buttressing [holding back] the flow of continental ice into the ocean," said Prof Eric Rignot, glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study. "But the argument that the collapse of ice shelves triggered ice sheet collapse is only part of the story; the main forcing is warmer air temperature and warmer ocean temperature," he argued. Graphics by Erwan Rivault Scientists probe the secrets of mega icebergs West Antarctic ice shelf melt 'unavoidable' Norwegian seafloor holds clue to Antarctic melting 'Stunning' seafloor ridges record Antarctic retreat
