Update on Dublin Ireland

Last night in Tallinn, Estonia the Irish soccer team beat Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of the Euro 2012 playoff qualifier. There were goals from Keith Andrews (13) , Jon Walters (67) and Robbie Keane (71) (81pen). Estonia had 2 players sent off for 2 yellow card offences and this helped Ireland to their largest away win for some years.

Ireland Celebrate their 2nd Gaol Last night

 On Tuesday next the 2nd leg will take place in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and this should be a celebration of qualification for the European Championship for only the 2nd time in history, the previous time was Germany 1988. There should be a full house for this game.

Also yesterday Michael D Higgins received the seal of office to become the 9th president of Ireland, in an inauguration ceremony in Dublin Castle. At the ceremony yesterday were the two previous office holders, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese and this is the first time in the history of the office of President that there has been more than 2 living Presidents past and present. Here is a short video which captures some of the ceremony from yesterday.

 

The following link is to a short video which captured the ceremony of the inauguration of the first president in 1922. (This clip is shared courtesy of British Pathe with credit to Commentary: Sean O'Sullivan, Photography: Gordon Lewis, Produced for the Institiuid Naisiunta Na Scannan Eire - The National Film Institute of Ireland.)

THE INAUGURATION OF IRELAND'S PRESIDENT - UACHTARAN NA HEIREANN ( aka IRELAND or IRISH STORY ) - British Pathe

Amazing how much has changed yet stayed the same in 89 years.

Dublin Facts and the Presidential Election 2011

In Ireland, according to the Constitution of Ireland (pdf file from Government office) if you are over 35 years and an Irish citizen you can try to get nominated to become President, provided you have not been President for 14 years or 2 terms of office. There are 3 possible ways to be nominated listed in the constitution

1. Get 20 members of the Oireachtas (Houses of the Government) to nominate you.
2. Get 4 of the local councils to nominate you.
3. If you are president of the Ireland and have served 7 years or 1 term of office you can nominate yourself.

As the current president Mary McAleese is not allowed to go forward having spent the past 14 years in office so an election needs to take place.

With a deadline of 12:00 noon on September 28th as the cut off for nominations we have 7 people in the race

• Michael D Higgins a member of the Labour Party with party nomination.
• Gay Mitchell a member of Fine Gale Party with party nomination.
• Martin McGuinness a member of the Sinn Fein Party with party, plus 4 independent Parliament members nomination.
• Mary Davis independent candidate with local council nomination.
• Seán Gallagher independent candidate with local council nomination.
• Dana Rosemary Scallon independent candidate with council nomination.
• David Norris  independent candidate with local council nomination.

Dublin Facts: Figures released by the Central Statistics Office show that the population of Dublin in April of this year was 1,270,603 people of which 618,541 are male which is 33,521 less than females. This is a 7% increase on the population count of 2006. The population of Dublin has risen from 505,654 in 1926 to the current level of 1.27million having broken the 1million barrier in 1981.

What is this Blog

I am new to blogging and this is my first attempt. I have started this blog as part of an assessment I need to do for the course I am doing in Web Technologies at the National College of Ireland.

In this blog I hope to be able to give you a taste of Dublin life and the people who live here. I will try to give an insight into Dublin through the years and also what life is like now in these new times of austerity and recession.

I will have links to sites which I feel are worth visiting to get information and also a list of things to do if you ever happen to visit this lovely city.

There is also the important issue of the election of the 9th President for Ireland on October 27th this year and I will have a section of the blog that gives information about the race to Áras an Uachtaráin (House of the President). The current President is Mary McAleese who is in office since November 1997 and is just finished her 2nd 7 year term as President and therefore can no longer hold office as per the Irish Constitution

The information and the facts that appear will be hopefully interesting and useful, if there is anything that you would like me to include that you think may be of interest please pass it on to me.