Latest news with #Keane


The Herald Scotland
6 hours ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
William Buick booked for Field Of Gold at Goodwood
With Keane currently serving a suspension after contravening the whip rules, connections needed to secure a new pilot for Field Of Gold's next appearance – and having revealed Buick was 'on the list' of potential riders two weeks ago, he has now been confirmed for the high-profile mount. Barry Mahon, Juddmonte's European racing manager, told the PA news agency: 'I think John and Thady were to talk to William yesterday to confirm his availability and it sounds like they've done that and he's free to ride him, so I'd say that's the plan. 'In fairness, until you get to within a week of the event you don't know what other trainers and jockeys are doing, but obviously William has been able to commit now which is good. 'He's a top-class rider and rode a Group One winner for us last October on board Kalpana, so it's good to have him on board.'


The Irish Sun
a day ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Perspective is important as Evan Ferguson is ahead of where most Ireland legends were at his age
IN the Roman Empire, it was customary for an emperor to signal from above whether or not a gladiator deserved a second chance. And, as much as his ears will be ringing from Advertisement 2 The Bettystown native has scored five goals so far in all competitions for Ireland 2 The 20-year-old was greeted by a crwod of Roma fans upon arrival at the airport Credit: @fabrizioromano Perspective is important when it comes to And nobody in English football has scored more league goals in the last 50 years or so than his haul of 329. There were also two prolific seasons in LaLiga with Real Sociedad which came after he had realised his boyhood dream of playing for Liverpool, having twice been rejected by the club as a teenager. His international debut did not come until he was 27, and Aldo was 30 by the time he broke his Ireland duck, yet he ended up with 19 goals to his name. Advertisement Read more on Irish football That was just one short of Frank Stapleton's Ireland record. Niall Quinn eventually overhauled Stapleton — by one — before they were all blown away by Robbie Keane, who went on to score 68 times for his country. At the age Ferguson is now, Keane was completing a permanent move to Leeds United having been loaned to the club by Inter Milan just five months after he had been signed by Coventry City. It might not have been much consolation to him but, five years later, Inter owner Massimo Moratti expressed his regret at the sale having watched him shine for Spurs. Keane had made an initial impression under Marcello Lippi but when Moratti sacked the manager and replaced him with Marco Tardelli — with whom the player would later work at international level — his opportunities dried up. Advertisement Most read in Football Live Blog Every player's career is different but the point is that most experience setbacks along the way so, while Ferguson's last year or so might be a cause for concern, it is not a reason for alarm. A more recent example of someone who enjoyed an initial breakthrough, then a stalling of their progress before kickstarting their career again — also with a move to the continent — is Troy Parrott. Roma fans mob and serenade Ireland star Evan Ferguson at airport ahead of loan move from Brighton He was 21 when he moved to Holland, first on loan to Excelsior, and then, permanently, to AZ Alkmaar whom he helped reach the last 16 of the Europa League, the Dutch Cup final as well as securing European qualification. Ferguson will hope for a similar boost by making Advertisement But he will need some good fortune along the way at the Stadio Olimpico. He needs a coach who is prepared to believe and willing to invest in him, in the same way Roberto De Zerbi did at Brighton. The Italian was not the first to be won over by Ferguson's ability, of course, but it was under him that he really flourished, both in terms of goalscoring and becoming a key cog in their build-up play by dropping deep. PREMIER LEAGUE WOES A lengthy lay-off during which De Zerbi was replaced by Fabian Hurzeler and other forward options were signed changed his circumstances significantly. The assumption that a loan move to West Ham would be for the best because he had previously worked with Graham Potter turned out to be mistaken. Advertisement The net result was that he managed just 388 minutes of league football — scoring once — a significant drop from the two previous campaigns. If Giallorossi gaffer Gasperini has faith in the striker's ability to reproduce the sort of form he showed when given an extended run in the side then the move could be the making of Ferguson. WON'T BE EASY But the stability the former St Kevin's and Bohemians player requires now can be elusive at the elite level in the game, particularly in Italy. That might sound strange to say in relation to Gasperini who just finished up a nine-year stint with Atalanta, exiting on his terms. But go a little further back and you will see how a poor start to a stint with Inter Milan in 2011 saw him sacked after just five games. Advertisement The following season he was sacked after five months by Palermo and rehired three weeks later before being dismissed again after a fortnight. He is Roma's fifth manager in 18 months, following in the footsteps of Jose Mourinho, Daniele De Rossi, Ivan Juric and Claudio Ranieri. The only example of any continuity at the club was the moving of Ranieri to a role of 'manager and senior advisor to the ownership' following the hiring of Gasperini. Presumably, then, the ex-Chelsea, Leicester City, Fulham and Watford manager had some say in the signing of Ferguson who, 18 months ago, was being mentioned as potential signing for the Premier League's biggest clubs. Advertisement RECORDS SET TO BE BROKEN His stock — and, as a result, his market value — have fallen in the interim but, even so, if Roma were to exercise their option to buy him for €38million, on top of his loan fee of €3m, it would obliterate the transfer record for an Irish player. That was set two years ago when Brentford paid Wolves €26.8m to land Nathan Collins. And while Bohs might have been concerned about a drop-off in form, a sell-on clause of 12.5 per cent would also make his move to the Seagulls 4½ years ago the most lucrative transfer from the League of Ireland. Keane is the only player to have won a quarter-century of caps before he celebrated his 21st birthday. If Ferguson features in Ireland's next four games he will have accumulated 26 before he reaches that landmark in October. Advertisement FERGIE'S NOT THE FIRST IRISH MAN IN SERIE A That underlines the fact that, as far as Ireland is concerned, he is a generational talent and remains the player most likely to be the focus of our attack for the next decade or so. But it is also the case that Irish success stories in Italy are rare. Far fewer players have tried their club in Serie A compared to LaLiga or Ligue 1 for example, and fewer still have thrived there. Liam Brady is the standout with Paddy Sloan and Festy Ebosele acquitting themselves well while James Abankwah may yet establish himself for Udinese. But, at the same time that the reports linking Ferguson to Roma became more credible, the Irishman already on their books — Kevin Zefi — was lining out for Sligo Rovers in a friendly against Mansfield Town. Advertisement He is still under contract there but it looks no more likely that he will make the breakthrough there than at Inter, his previous club. Cathal Heffernan moved on from AC Milan to Newcastle United after 18 months while a cruciate ligament tear plus Como's promotion from Serie B makes progression for Liam Kerrigan look tough. He spent last season on loan to Beveren in the Belgian second division. Further back, Ronnie O'Brien joined Juventus on a five-year deal on a free transfer from Middlesbrough but by the time he left, his only appearance for them had come in the Intertoto Cup. Ferguson's pedigree is better than that quartet and, in the right environment, he can blossom. Hopefully, this gladiator is given the time and space to prove himself rather than have his fate decided by an arbitrary call. Advertisement


Sunday World
2 days ago
- Sunday World
Man who caused death of niece weeks after she gave birth is gangster's brother
Criminal Assets Bureau claimed that sibling was involved in massive money-laundering operation A MAN who admitted causing the death of his niece after ramming steel gates with a van is the younger brother of a Limerick gangland figure. Danny O'Donoghue (42) pleaded guilty this week to dangerous driving causing the death of 21-year-old Marguerita O'Rourke in Rathkeale just days before Christmas. He also admitted possession of a machete, making threats to kill and causing criminal damage to a van. O'Donoghue who has been in custody since his arrest last December is due to be sentenced in October. His brother John O'Donoghue is a convicted drug dealer who has also been targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau. John recently spent time in Portlaoise Prison before a conviction for a feud-related attack in Rathkeale was quashed on appeal and he was set free last year. His brother Danny appeared by video-link from the same prison this week at Limerick Circuit Court. John O'Donoghue Marguerita O'Rourke, who had her first child just three weeks earlier, had been closing steel gates to a property when Danny O'Donoghue hit the gates, killing her. The property is not far from the house where John O'Donoghue lives and which has been the target of an attempted pipe bomb attack in the past. It was also the scene of raid by the Criminal Assets Bureau. During his two years behind bars, it also emerged in a Cab case that John O'Donoghue was regarded as significant player in massive money laundering scheme. The senior investigating officer also described O'Donoghue as being 'closely associated' with Eds McCarthy, a leading figure in the McCarthy-Dundon gang. In the Cab case against a car firm, Bawn Motors, it was highlighted how O'Donoghue had 'established himself as a key figure in the international drugs trade' and has 'extensive criminal contacts with the wider Traveller community'. It was also stated he had met with Chirsty Keane, the leading member of Limerick's Keane gang at a Rathkeale pub along with one of Keane's most trusted lieutenants Dermot 'Pum' McManus. Flowers at Marguerita's funeral Since Marguerite's death family members have continued to post heartfelt tributes to the young woman expressing their huge sense of loss. Even this as news of the court case went online this week one woman commented: 'My beautiful sister you didn't deserve this l love you so much forever in my heart.' Her death last Christmas came after a number of incidents of violence in the Co Limerick town during the traditional influx of people ahead of Christmas. A house was damaged and in a shocking incident in which a BMW X5 was used to smash into property and was then set alight in November. In October a truck was used to damage a property in another incident and petrol bombs thrown at a house. Three years ago, Rathkeale saw a terrifying incident during the Christmas period in which a series of vehicles were rammed and written off. The Sunday World revealed at the time that the incident came as part of a three-way fight for dominance between criminal gangs. In a video of the aftermath a machete was visible lying on the road. Just a few weeks before Ms O'Rourke's tragic death, a man was attacked by hurley-wielding assailants and his car smashed up in the town. Marguerita O'Rourke (née Sheridan) Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 21st At one point there were plans to close a number of roads in the town as part of a garda operation did not go ahead after objections from local residents. Ms O'Rourke's funeral became a memorable as well as a huge vigil in the Co Limerick town, where balloons were released into the sky. Among the many heartfelt tributes online was one from her brother Freddy, who said at the time it had taken him days to able to put his feelings into words. He said that Christmas would never be the same, 'not just Christmas; my life will never be the same' and that she had left behind 'a very special boy.' He added that he couldn't believe he was saying 'rest in peace, our Marguerita.' Her father John paid tribute to the people who had shown such public support for the family for the daughter he described as 'a true legend.' Hundreds of family and friends turned out on Christmas at a candlelit vigil in the town on Christmas Eve. In a social media post he thanked 'the gardaí, nurses, doctors, priests, the settled people in Rathkeale, the Travelling people and everyone for their messages. 'The local shops, hotels for everything and everyone who called to my house and everyone over the world, thank you.'


The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
William Buick ‘on the list' for vacant Field Of Gold ride
However, with Keane ruled out of the entirety of the Goodwood Festival after picking up a 14-day suspension at Sandown last week for transgressing the whip rules, Field Of Gold will require another change of jockey on July 30. Juddmonte's European racing manager Barry Mahon insists no final decision will be made until closer to the time, but told the PA news agency on Saturday: 'I'm sure he (Buick) is on the list, but we'll have to wait and see whether Godolphin have a runner in the race and everything else nearer the time. 'All being well we're heading to Goodwood – that is plan A. I saw the horse myself earlier this week, he looked in good shape and seems to be doing well. 'We'll make a decision on who rides him closer to the time.'


Euronews
12-07-2025
- Business
- Euronews
How one Irish hotel is rewriting the rules on food waste
At The Lodge at Ashford Castle, a 19th-century villa in the wild green of western Ireland's County Mayo, dinner scraps don't go in the bin. They go into cocktails, canapés or compost. Over the past year, the hotel has slashed its food waste by nearly 60 per cent by weight and its food trimmings by 90 per cent. That amounts to 11.5 tonnes of food waste, nearly 50 tonnes of carbon and more than €16,000 saved annually. Much of it is thanks to a chef who was empowered to swap sustainability gestures for serious change. 'Instead of hundreds of tiny little initiatives, we decided to go after the stuff that would actually make a difference,' says executive chef Jonathan Keane, a sustainability advocate who leads the kitchen at the 64-room sister hotel to the magnificent, medieval Ashford Castle. Those initiatives have been quite an undertaking. On any given day, Keane and his colleagues can serve 500-plus meals and go through piles of produce. 'At this property, I have 650 kilogrammes of watermelon rind. What can I do with that?' From trimmings to transformation The answer, it turns out, is a lot – especially when you have dataon your side. Over the past three years, The Lodge's parent group – Red Carnation Hotels – has worked with UK-based food waste analytics firm Winnow to get a clearer read on their waste. The company's AI-powered tools and image recognition help Keane to measure and categorise what is being thrown away each day and why. 'I get an email every morning that tells me exactly what food went into the bin,' says Keane. 'If two kilos of onion skins went into the bin, I'll see a picture of that. Then I can investigate why that happened instead of [the skins] going into stock or treacle.' Armed with these insights, the kitchen team has learned to upcycle ingredients like trimmings, peels and offcuts into syrups, muffins, canapés and even welcome drinks. What little waste remains goes into a biodigester, which produces nutrient-rich fertiliser for the estate's sprawling garden – a pandemic project that Keane and his employers instituted to be more self-sustaining and environmentally-conscious. 'The garden became such a big project that it became phase one [of greater change],' says Keane, whose vision for The Lodge includes a tunnel greenhouse, a future distillery with its own orchard and aquaponics, a system that couples raising fish with hydroponic vegetable gardening. 'The long-term goal is to be fully self-sufficient.' Hospitality's hidden problem The hospitality sector has long accounted for a hefty portion of the world's waste. Restaurants, hotels and other venues generated more than 25 per cent of the world's 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste in 2019, according to the UN Environment Programme. Most ends up in landfills, releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. 'Much of it goes uncounted, so we don't even know the real scale,' says Vojtech Végh, Winnow's zero-waste culinary advisor who worked closely with Keane on The Lodge's transformation. 'Speaking from experience, it tends to be more than we would expect.' The first step toward addressing this murky problem, he explains, is to arm chefs and hotels with information. 'If we don't know what is in our bins, then everything else is just guesswork, which isn't effective or sustainable,' Végh says. 'Once we start to measure our food waste, we can then focus on what exactly we need to reduce. A growing shift across the industry Across the industry, hotels are slowly waking up to the environmental and economic costs that this failure to measure has created. At the Hilton Tokyo, chefs have begun reusing vegetable trimmings and fruit peels in soups, desserts and drinks. Novotel London Excel has also used Winnow's AI tools to cut waste by around 50 per cent in recent years. Other solutions have also started to take shape. In Southeast Asia, startups like Yindii have stepped in to connect hotels, restaurants and bakeries with local diners. Surplus food is sold at a discount through its app. The model has expanded across Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore, where users can rescue meals for a fraction of the cost and prevent perfectly good food from being binned. Efforts like these are just the beginning. For food waste prevention to stick, Végh argues that kitchens must rethink how they operate at a systemic level. 'Zero-waste cooking is more about how we think when we cook rather than how we cook,' he says. 'If we embed food waste prevention into our processes – rather than build it on top – then step by step it becomes the new standard in any kitchen.' A culture shift from the kitchen out If you ask Keane, the real change starts even one level beyond processes. Sustainability, he says, has a lot to do with people, 'which isn't always high on the agenda in kitchens.' Keane has tried to create 'a fun place to work. We're nice to each other. We treat each other like adults, and we have the same approach with the ingredients and the produce.' Part of creating a more open – and open-minded – culture has involved getting his team of 18 kitchen workers out into nature more often. An avid forager, Keane regularly brings his colleagues into the forest to search for wild vegetables and mushrooms. He believes it builds morale while reinforcing the practices he wants The Lodge to embrace. He also brings hotel guests out on foraging tours, ever so subtly transmitting a message that he hopes will stick long after they check out. He says that these steps might help his hotel, and others like it, have a greater impact in the future. 'We're not preaching. We're bringing the customer along with us [at their own pace],' Keane explains. 'We want to leave a legacy.'