Joe 'Thierry An Mhí' Sheridan scores a try at the Louth goalmouth giving Meath a controversial win over their neighbouring county in the dying minutes of the Leinster football final. The referee needs a garda escort off the pitch and a steward is felled by a bottle. Après match sporting behaviour on a bigger world football stage was marginally better despite 14 yellow cards and one red as Spain deny the Netherlands the World Cup. No punches are pulled afterwards this time, but as the vuvuzelas fall silent, the calls for video evidence grow louder.
Never mind Louth-Meath enmity, the 12th of July up North invites annual displays of intolerance as those other men of Orange demand the right to march through nationalist areas. Despite the efforts of both nationalist and unionist community workers to keep the peace, violence erupts – a lot of it away from the disputed marching routes. Those who choose to annoy, and those who choose to be annoyed, are in a different time zone to former political enemies Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness who sit in government together and jointly condemn the violence. In parts of Belfast and Lurgan, it's still 1690.
Time stood still at 10.40pm on an Inishowen road on Sunday night for victims in the worst car accident in the history of the state. Seven young passengers, aged between 19 and 23, die when the car they are travelling in collides with another vehicle in which the driver (66) is also killed. Buncrana fire officer James McKenna, even with 32 years of service, said it was "the worst accident of its type I've ever had to deal with".
On the eve of Bastille Day, the French government passes the law banning the Islamic burka and niqab from the streets of the republic. At first glance, it shows off the nation's staunchly secular ideals. But is this constitutional ban hiding an insidious racism underneath?
The man now best known for coming a cropper with a nine iron and a fire hydrant holds a news conference at the British Open at St Andrews. Tiger Woods admits he's always been "tempted to change" and has also "always experimented… throughout the years". Revelations on his treatment for sex addiction? No, he's referring to his putter.
"Intimidating and scary." That's 19-year-old Bristol Palin's description of the former vice-presidential candidate and abstinence advocate as she reveals her mom's ignorance of her forthcoming nuptials to on-off boyfriend Levi Johnston. But since giving birth to their son Tripp two years ago, Palin Jr is following in Palin senior's footsteps, confusingly urging other American teenagers to abstain from sex until marriage. Before you know it, Mel Gibson will be running a lecture series on feminism...
Like Nama last week, now it's the ESRI that's in 'it's worse than we thought' mode. The state think tank says it underestimated emigration predictions three months ago – it now warns the figure will be over 120,000 by the end of 2011. Paddy Power really should have bought Paul the predicting Octopus.
We don't need a cephalopod mollusc to tell us that the distance between Clontarf and Kildare Street is not 370kms. Ivor Callely is finally suckered after his claims for €82,015 expenses for travelling from what he described as his principal residence in west Cork to his job in Leinster House are judged by a committee of his senate peers to be "intentionally" misleading. There's no place like a principal residence. Or even better, two.
"It feels like coming home," says Robbie Williams (pictured) on reuniting with Take That. The Norman Wisdom-like Williams is back with Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, and, er, the other two blokes with an album and follow-up tour predicted in November. Whatever he said, whatever they did, they obviously didn't mean it.
To quote Monty Python's mad bishop, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. And yet who is really surprised that new canon laws equated the "attempted ordination" of women in the same category as sex abuse? The church, after all, knows a thing or two about the subject. Erin Saiz Hanna, of the Women's Ordination Conference, daringly calls the Vatican's latest decree "appalling, offensive and medieval". Surely a witch-burning offence?
Comments are moderated by our editors, so there may be a delay between submission and publication of your comment. Offensive or abusive comments will not be published. Please note that your IP address (204.236.235.245) will be logged to prevent abuse of this feature. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by our Terms and Conditions
del.icio.us
digg
Facebook
Google
Subscribe to The Sunday Tribune’s RSS feeds. Learn more.
Print
E-mail
