Russian Aircrafts Spotted Approaching Strandhill Airport
MULLAGHMORE, CO. SLIGO – Twelve
Mi 28 helicopters believed to be attached to the Russian military have been spotted approaching Strandhill.
Russian President Vladimir Putin asked his parliament permission to mobilize the country’s military in Sligo to protect Russian interests after hostilities during RAG week.
Sligo Coping With Stormy Weather
Before we look at how Sligo is managing to cope with the horrible weather that’s gripping Ireland, let’s take a look at how other counties have been affected.
Lahinch, Co. Clare
Duncannon, Co. Wexford
Blackrock, Co. Louth
Salthill, Co. Galway
Dublin City
Cork, Co. Cork
SLIGO!!!! Screw you, rest of Ireland!!!
Happy New Year!!!
Youth Defence commended for their tireless efforts in convincing people to vote for abortion legislation.
Pro choice campaigners today have commended the members and supporters of Youth Defence for pushing Irish citizens who are on the fence on the abortion issue to vote in favour of new legislation.
The controversial legislation gives women the right to an abortion if their life is at risk. Even before the bill was proposed to the Dail, Youth Defence were already bombarding peoples’ homes with pictures of dead babies, and holding chanting rosaries on street corners.
“I was always very neutral of the issue”, said Ciara from Dundalk, “but after seeing an old woman franticly waving four foot crucifix while chanting the Lord’s Prayer at one of their demonstrations, I knew I had to vote in favour of this legislation”
The Catholic Church also gets their share of the credit, as it has not been more than half a year since the Magdalene Asylums and the child abuse scandals have been a hot topic issue, making their position void.
“The timing is absolutely perfect. Youth Defence have really driven away people from the pro-life side. They even managed to have the Neo-Nazi activist, Michael Quinn, show up at their annual march in Dublin.” says founder of Irish Women for Choice founder, Deirdre Kelly.
“White Girls NEED to keep well-away from Negro men.” Follow him on Twitter @INBeire
“We couldn’t have done more to help the cause. Even after the death of Savita Halappanavar, they were constantly stating that abortion is never needed to save a woman’s life, despite mounting evidence. ”
She also praised them for convincing Taoiseach Enda Kenny, a Catholic from Mayo, to vote for the legislation by picketing his house, and mailing plastic foetuses to him.
With the help of Conservative American politicians using pseudo-scientific terms like ‘legitimate rape’ funding their cause, and the demonstrations comprising of Catholic icons and old people, Youth Defence have helped bring this new piece of legislation into effect.
LGBT activists are hoping that they don’t put away their rosary beads and placards, since same-sex marriage should be up for discussion in the near future.
Birth of a Chugger: Charity, Commission and Direct Marketing
Chugger: A paid charity worker that encourages targets to give their bank account details to aid their given cause. (ie: Charity + Mugger = Chugger)
The Summer has arrived in Sligo, and young adults will be calling around to your house and stopping you on the street while fundraising for well known charity groups. This is why you shouldn’t give them the time of day, and why you shouldn’t give into their emotional blackmail and sales techniques.
Written by a bitter blogger who wasted his time going through the interview process for this job.
The Ad.
I, like many other students, have recently moved back to Sligo for the Summer holidays. If you are anything like myself, you have found yourself unemployed and on the hunt for work. I planned ahead while I was still living in Dublin, and searched through Jobs.ie to find some Summer work.
Sounds exciting!
I submitted my CV left right and center for any job that was in the Sligo region. But the most promising one had the title “Team Leaders Required in Sligo” posted by Flawless Marketing.
I am a team leader, among the likes of Ernest Shackleton, George Patton and Wolverine, so why shouldn’t I apply for this position?
Plus, I have been working for a promo company in Dublin, handing out free samples and so on while in college, so it would suit me very well, since it was a marketing company. But I would later find out that ‘marketing’ meant ‘direct marketing’, and ‘direct marketing’ meant ‘being an annoying little shit’.
I threw in my CV and continued on with my day. Three weeks later I got a call from a strange Sligo based number. It was from said marking company, and I was short listed for an interview with them. I arranged a date and was told to dress smart, as I would expect.
The Interview
When I got to the office, it felt like I was joining a higher class of the work force. It wasn’t a hard feat, since my last interviewer casually dropped the word ‘cunt‘ twice during the interview. The lobby was classy looking, with magazines on table printed by the parent company, ‘Appco‘.
I casually glanced through the magazine and noticed testimonials from chirpy looking student types, boasting about how much money they made, and the amount of branches Appco is setting up throughout Ireland.
I was called in for the interview, and met by an enthusiastic woman who made the interview very comfortable and easy, asking me questions, while talking of all the opportunities to make loads of money from hard work. Not to mention the liberal use of the word ‘advancement’.
She also made sure to tell me that the average employee with them makes €300 – €500 a week going door to door selling products. WOW! How come I know so many people who are slaving away in shops, bars and restaurants when ads for jobs with this type of pay are popping up all over Jobs.ie with “No experience required” in the title. It’s a dream come true!
But she did have to mention right in the middle of the interview that it would be 100% commission, which I’m sure she thought would give me the go-getter, team spirit attitude of an enterprising young go-getting go-getter!
But surely, if the average employee makes €300 – €500 a week, they must be selling something in high demand and of good use to the customer, like Eircom Phonewatch and Mormonism. But we would be selling something different.
The Chuggers
We would be given the task of ‘fund raising’. Our jobs would be to go door to door, and on the streets, to raise money for well known charities like World Wildlife Foundation among others.
Unlike the church gate collection, or bag-packing for the local GAA team, we cannot accept mere hard cash. They need you to set up a direct debit account.
The Syrian refugees need your CCV number
I was still slightly tempted by the prospect of making so much money a week, as if she was trying to pitch the job to me, as opposed to me selling myself like an interview should. But I couldn’t see myself becoming what I’ve always hated. When I ran into these chuggers a while back, I thought that they were doing volunteer work for charity, and had no idea that there was a business to be made out of it, as if they are selling cutlery, or Jesus.
To me the street ‘fund raisers’, or charity muggers, have always just been an annoyance in Dublin that I would brush off after being stuck in a conversation with one of them. But after going through an interview where the interviewer tempted me with the promise of up to €500 a week, before mentioning that we’d be doing it for charity. This can only result in two types of people being screwed:
The Salesman: Desperate for work, he has to manipulate sympathetic people into setting up a direct debit account for a cause he doesn’t truly believe in for commission.
The Victim: Thinking that these people are volunteers who are passionate about their cause, and could potentially get suckered into giving their bank account details.
Best advice
If a chugger approaches you on the street, simply state that you are not interested. You will be wasting their time and your’s if you entertain them.
If a chugger calls to your door, tell him that you are not interested and to leave. Direct marketing is one of the lowest and sleaziest business models, just above Pyramid Schemes.
If a direct marketing job is offered to you on commission, there is a good chance you are going to get screwed over. And if you are a successful chugger, you are screwing other people over.
If you want to set up a direct debit account for a charity, do so without the pressure of some chirpy faced student. Their commission isn’t going to help young Kofi get an education.
Regional Nightclubs Set For New Season Of Shit Celebrities
WITH THE summer months approaching, nightclubs all around the West and Midlands prepare for a new season of visits from celebrities, ranging from the mediocre to the ‘once successful’.
Locals in towns such as Sligo, Letterkenny, Tralee and Tullamore have been informed of an Irish tour from early 2000’s pop sensation, Liberty X.
“When I found out that Liberty X were going to be playing Sligo, I instantly Googled them and then remembered who they were”, said IT Sligo student Samantha Burke.
“Liberty X? They were pretty shit, but it would be good craic to go see what’s left of them”, said shop assistant Gary Finn.
Tullamore and Tralee will also be getting a slice of the action, with confirmed appearances from Luke Marsden of Big Brother 9, and Ben Mills from the third season of The X Factor.
“I just couldn’t believe it, Ben Mills coming to Tullamore”, said Offaly local Andrew Henry. “He was a pretty good singer, but more importantly, he’s met Leona Lewis! We don’t hear much of her anymore, so it’s only a matter of time until she comes to Offaly!”
Nightclub owner Tony O’Dowd commented on the planned visit from the X Factor burn out. “I was trying to book Shayne Ward, but he still considers his career alive, so we’re going to have to wait at least three years before he goes bankrupt. So ‘Lust’ nightclub will have to make do”.
Tralee is set to welcome Callum Best by staging a parade and giving him the key to the city. “He has made a great career off the tailcoat of his father, which is a true embodiment of the Kerry spirit”, said Tralee mayor, Alan Brosnan.
Tralee has gone all out in the festivities since someone of such high esteem hasn’t visited them since Steve-O from ‘Jackass’ stopped in Spar on Castlemaine Road to fill up his car.
There are also rumours of a comeback tour from the members of Blazin Squad that are in debt.
Morgan ‘Morgy’ O’Donnell photo guide to Sligo
For this weeks entry, I left it to up and coming photographer, Morgan O’Donnell, to give you some insight to his experience in Sligo.
hello my name is morgan o’donnell but my frends call me morgy. im 15 and i hav been in sligo all my life xcept dat time i went to trabolgan wit my parents which waz so much crak! i hav loads of fotos of sligo dat i can talk about becuz i hav life experince even tho i’m 15, but i hav been in pure 3 times, so i know da crak . i go to summerhill (go on da boys in blue) nd wen i get out of school i am gona be a photografer becuz i luv takin fotos nd its pure easy to make them look pure class in instagram nd ders loads in sligo to take pics of. if i cant b a fotographer, im goin to move to cavan nd help da starving, lol.
Tesco
dis is a pic of tesco nd johnstons court. my mam calls it quinnsworth, bt i hav no idea what shes on about coz it says tesco nd shes a stupid bitch, lol. evry day at lunch me nd the lads wud go dwn to tesco nd gt lunch bt we dnt now cuz dermott got caut nicking a pack of tayto nd a crunchy and it was pure funny becuz his mam nd dad flipped out wen tesco told them about it nd he came into skool wit a black eye nd i bet his mam was like “itz a feckin disgrace i taut u better dan to rob from quinnsworth”. johnstons court iz pure class aswell coz der r loads of shops like HMV nd eurogiant nd dey sell condoms wit JLS writen on dem nd i cnt wait to use em on a pure posh one from strandhill road.
The Rugby Club
dis is a pic of da rugby club nd it is pure class coz nt onli do dey hav rugby matches on but dey also hav discos wit absolut rides of girls nd u can get deh shift der. i went der on junior cert result night nd b4 we wnt to the rugby i had a a whole 2 ltr bottle of devils bit nd derek’s dad let us drink in his house cos he is divorced nd reli cool about dis sorta thing. i also like da rugby cos the walls sweat nd i was gettin stuck into this bird nd her brother came over nd tried to fite me and i knocked him out wit a few slaps but no one saw it. swear on me mothers grave it happnd.
Pure
dis is pure nd it is pure class lol. it iz my fav nightclub cos it iz ez to gt in as long as u hav jeans nd a mustashe. i managed to gt in aftr i gt my junior cert results nd da bouncer sed ‘u hav ID?’ nd i was like ‘eeeh no’ nd we laffed nd he let me and de boys in. its way better dan da rugby coz u can buy booze der nd the music is pure class. 1 time i saw a lad get head in da seating area nd i noticed it waz dermotts sister nd he was pure scarlet when da pics made it onto facebook. it is what id imagin it wud be like in ibiza, new york or mullingar.
Four Lanterns
dis is 4 lights nd it is da best chipper in ireland!!!! one nite we were drinkin in da bishops garden until 10 o clock nd dave had a naggin dat his older bro got him in da shops nd afterwards he was so pissed he threw up a whole kebab chip tray on da counter and called da girl workin the tills a slut. it was pure funny, not a word of a lie. the toilets are also class if u want somewere private to roll joints
Globe House
dis is globe house nd its where all da foreigners live. da lads call it congo hill but i never asked why. da ppl livin der are from really shitty places like nigeria, somalia, or cavan. sumtimes dey complain about da conditions dey r livin in nd i tink its unfair cos dey shud be use to it, lol. da mercy college is beside it nd it is a girls skool nd dey r usually angry cos dey hav to go to skool wit foreigners, lololololololol
Sligo Rovers
dis is sligo rovers nd dey r my fav team aside from celtic. i prefer dem to sligo gaa team cos dey arn’t shit lolololololol. i went to my first rovers match wen i was 10 nd dey were playin against shamrock rovers nd da place was full ov dublin wankers nd dis dublin fella trid to bring me to his van to show me puppies but my dad was a dry shite and pulled me away.
i hope dat dis collection of fotos makes u appreciate sligo nd helps me pass my CSPE project. if u dnt like it u can meet me at da peace park nd we’ll sort it out der.
Old Summerhill: Where the mullets roam free
After seven years, three members of staff arrested, one recession, and a flamboyant PR visit by Bertie Ahern, Summerhill finally has its new school. It’s sleek, modern and up to date with today’s notions of health and safety….. the embodiment of everything that Summerhill isn’t.
Having been a student there for five glorious years, I have gotten use to the fact that some rooms in the school building were closed off due to the fact that they were inhospitable. And this fine institution thought me how to become a well adjusted citizen who can work and communicate with the world…. if the world was ‘lads only’!
Yes, Summerhill is a ‘boys only’ school. Part of its Catholic ethos is to produce the most sexually frustrated young men that would turn into ravenous beasts at the sight of anything more feminine than a belt sander.
This sexual energy is usually put into erotic art, which once could be found all over the school. Erotic art which mainly featured the male endowments.
I cannot comment on what the new school looks like from the inside, as I have graduated from Summerhill three years ago, and hanging around the school in my spare time would raise a lot of questions. But I know it doesn’t have the rustic charm of the ‘old building’, with it’s Castle-Dracula-meets-Murphy-Report aesthetics.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, it’s the Ursuline Secondary School! WOMEN!!!
To blend in with the Summerhill students you will need the standard blue uniform and tie (fun fact: the label on the back of the tie says ‘Virginiam’, go on, have a look if you can). But you will need also need a chic looking mullet.
Mullets came and went in the 1980s, but that won’t stop Summerhill students or Persian nightclub owners from sporting the sexual Mississippi Mudflap.
The practical uses for mullets would include: Protecting your neck from the glaring sun and indicating that your lineage is slightly inbred. And the sun doesn’t shine much in Sligo.
Disagreements between students on subjects such as; mullet length, which one of them is gay, or whether Joyce’s greatest novel was Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake, could be sorted out in the ironically named ‘Peace Park’.
Because of these disagreements, the Peace Park is now closed during Summerhill’s lunch hour. So fights are moved to the Cathedral Carpark, where the Bishop acts as referee when he’s not making lude gestures at Protestants.
Summerhill’s greatest rival would be Sligo Grammar School. For older and wiser students, they are just another school, which happens to be private. For the younger and simple minded, they are posh, snobby West-Brits that would have you evicted from your Catholic hovel given half the chance.
Such misguided rhetoric would stem from hundreds of years of persectution from the Protestant Aristocracy, which manifests itself as the Grammar….. or as the Grammar would say, “Their shite rugby team”.
But Summerhill has plenty of achievements in the sporting field over the years, I’ve never paid attention to the sports announcements, but the team photos in the GYM caught my eye on a few occasions
There’s a joke in here somewhere, I’ll let you take it from here.
For the crustier looking students, there isn’t much to offer aside from the school band. The school band has the honour of playing poncy pop rock versions of popular Catholic prayers at school masses. The Church’s efforts to appeal to the young tend to make organised religion as appealing as genital warts (which is what you get from pre-marital sex, kids!).
The new generation of Summerhill Students are going to miss out on much of the experiences I’ve had in Summerhill. Especially the one hour lunch break, allowing students to go into Sligo town and meet up with friends from other schools (ie: girls).
And with that, I leave you with Summerhill’s only piano!
Despite being the secondary school which educated the great tenor Count John McCormack, and the worldly mediocre Westlife, the Summerhill I knew’s attitude towards music could be summed up in this picture
Five traditions in Sligo that are rarely mentioned.
Tourism brochures and what not will tell you to do very obvious things in Sligo, like visiting Carramore tombs, W.B Yeat’s grave, or climbing Knocknarea. But this is a more realistic account of what you should do with your time in Sligo.
1. Eating outside Source.
Source Sligo is a chic new restaurant situated at the end of O’Connell Street. It takes pride in its aim “to provide honest and wholesome food sourced from local suppliers who care as deeply about the food they produce as we do about how it is prepared, cooked and served.”
Its interior is a fine mix between rustic and modern. With a sheltered doorway and massive windows, you can see people have a fantastic dining experience while you smoke and eat food from the Four Lanterns. It also provides shelter at 3am while the rush for Four Lanterns food and taxis is at its highest.
Recommended dish? A Big 4 and chips.
They have live music every so often, and more importantly, it can be heard from outside.
2. Injuring yourself playing on the rocks in Strandhill.
The rocks on the seafront in Strandhill were put there to prevent the constant flooding that would bombard the village during rough weather. Since then, they serve as a place to wear the little feckers out.
You can’t sue the rocks, so there’s endless fun.
But having fun on the rocks isn’t the most important part, injuring yourself is! There are many ways you can do this. You can:
-Jump from the top of the cannon
– BMX down the rocks (say it’s to raise awareness of the state of the BMX park)
-Surf at very high tide.
-Stand on a rock until it’s submerged in water, and spend the rest of the day walking around in wet socks until you get the consumption and die.
There are loads of ways to enjoy yourself in Strandhill, not to mention pretending the cannon is your penis.
3. Claiming some sort of connection with one or more of Westlife
Talking about Westlife around people in Sligo is like walking on eggshells. If you talk about them in a negative light on front of someone, they might stop you in your tracks and say “Shane Filan is my cousin!” (Or less commonly, “Mark Feehily is my father”).
And of course, you can’t make the legitimate point that they are a polished up, bland group of singing heads with few original songs, because they are lovely local lads and you might upset someone who knows them in the slightest.
‘Louis Walsh’s Western Extravaganza’ didn’t have the same ring to it.
There is also the dilemma of people who think that money and success is something to admire over musicianship. “Well they’ve sold over 2 million records, so they must be doing something right”, or “They’re from Sligo and you’re putting them down”.
And with Shane Filan’s bankruptcy tourism in the news (but not as much as someone relevant), we’re going to hear more about what they did for Sligo, and how they took part in bake sales, and carried their grannies to mass in the snow.
4. Comparing shit in Sligo to Shit in whatever city you go to college in.
So you’ve come back from the bright light metropolitan hot spots like London, Paris or Limerick and you feel like the dogs bollocks.
You are no longer the man who pooped in The Leitrim’s toilets, despite there being no doors. No, you now look down upon the nightlife in Sligo, saying that the music isn’t niche enough, after hearing Wagon Wheel being played for the 3rd time.
“C’mon now lads, we’ve heard just about enough of that shite!”
You are now rubbing elbows with other misplaced country bucks in UCD, but coming back home for your mammy’s cooking, and to relive fond memories from the weekend before where you did the same thing.
Organising fights after school in the Peace Park because lunch time is booked out is now beneath you, God’s speed!
5. Making up stories about what happens in the Grammer School’s boarding halls.
Being the only boarding school in Sligo, there is a lot of mystery in those dorms. Also, most of the boarders would be from outside of Sligo, and wouldn’t interact with the locals as frequently as they would like
Since it costs a couple of grand to go to school there, it’s hard to get a good picture of what goes on, but since they’re mostly Protestants, it’s okay to make stuff up.
Hard to understand what goes on behind those big Protestant walls
Popular theories include:
-sodomy with toothbrushes
-naked scrums
-Freemasonry (sexy naked Freemasonry)
-chess
-singing ‘God Save the Queen’ naked.
-throwing a maladjusted Summerhill student into a room full of girls.
-making soup to entice Catholics into a naked scrum.
It is hard to fully understand what goes on behind those walls, but with enough imagination, we’ll crack the code someday.
Pro choice, not pro abortion
Nobody is too fond of abortions. One of the hardest things in modern day Ireland is to say that you support abortion, because of the fear of looking like a heartless monster. I used to lean toward the Pro-Life side, thinking that it was a non issue, until I met a girl in college who needed an abortion due to an impending miscarriage, a situation I never thought about.
The Pro-Life ‘Youth Defence’ have always had the advantage of being able to parade pictures of cute babies and women who are too far into their pregnancy to even think of an abortion. And most of the time, they’re only stock photos.
Representing Irish women (and American lobby groups)
Being Pro-Choice isn’t simply about abortions, it’s about the many choices that should be available to women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy. I would even go as far as to say that pro choice goes way back to before the conception.
Ireland in the 1980s, and before, was a different place. The Catholic Church was taken more seriously, and the scandal was yet to come out (this blog entry isn’t about their sex crimes, it’s about our ‘sexual deviance’). Back then, condoms were not easy to get in the Republic. They were reserved for married couples, and Catholic lobbyists would kick up a stink when the government took a more laid back approach to sex.
Pro choice can also mean the choice to wear a condom to prevent pregnancy, which wouldn’t be available if the Youth Defence had their way. They would much prefer to live with the idealised notion that most humans can suppress their sexuality.
It would be hard to point out that restricted access to contraceptives, bad sex education (abstinence), and the desire to have sex would result in an unwanted pregnancy. And abortion is an option in the UK, and Irish women take that opportunity
“Figures released today (29.05.12) by the UK Department of Health show that in 2011, a total of 4,149 women providing Irish addresses had terminations in England and Wales.”(Irish Family Planning Association, 2012)
Although the figures are dropping, it is still a fact that women sometimes have no better option.
They’re not too font of gay people either
The Youth Defence tend to also speak with strong rhetoric that can manipulate peoples’ emotions. They use absolute phrases such as “Abortion is NEVER needed to save a woman’s life”, which the death of Savita Halappanavar would disprove. Or “There’s always a better option”.
I don’t want to tar all pro life people with the same brush as the Church and Higher ranking Youth Defence. They just need to meet women who have had abortions, and understand that not every situation is the same.
They just need to understand that there isn’t “Always a better option”, and a strong pro-choice voice in Ireland has to be heard. And the Catholic Church would only make things worse, which 80 years of Irish State – Church integration would show.
Sligonian 