Mar 15 2006
I sell to leftists, and rightists. I sell to pacifists, but they’re not the most regular customers
You know that saying about truth being stranger than fiction? Well, look no further than County Laois, where seachtar schoolgirls have set themselves up as arms dealers. Bhà siad ag oibre le the C4 programme Dispatches ar feadh sé mhÃ, and have had no problems purchasing “small arms and torture tools” and were even asked if they’d like to act as a loval agent by one company.
This is HI-larious.
And made even funnier, imo, because of the serious aspect. A total wtf! headline from The Irish Times Laois girls set up as arms dealers:
A spokeswoman for the Department of Trade said it was preparing export control legislation which would for the first time regulate arms brokering in Ireland and by Irish citizens abroad. [subs req'd]
On a less serious issue lets move on to Cheltenham. Where I’m sure half the country are already, and at a good portion of those not there are betting on it. But I don’t really care about that, I was more amused by this article[1] on the commentator in England having to deal with some Irish ainmneacha capaill.
There was big disappointment for the Irish in the festival’s opening race when Cheltenham’s in-house commentator correctly pronounced the name of a horse called Ó Muircheartaigh … The remainder of the meeting was a triumph, not least for the language movement. Dún Doire (owned by a syndicate from Dunderry, Co Meath) won the fourth race, while Native Jack led an Irish 1-2-3-4 in the fifth.
The third-placed horse here was called Buailtes and Fadas, as the race-caller’s Gaeilge exam extended to grammar. [subs req'd]
For those of you wondering Builtes are little dots that used to be placed above letters in irish to indicate pronunciation. And a fada is the difference between a and á and indicates a change in pronunciation. If you are interested check out this page on Wikipedia
Anyone want to guess how Ó Muircheartaigh is pronounced? I’d say it with 4 syllables.
- again in the Times so subs req’d ↩
