(Part 2) Best products from r/ireland

>Ms Creighton said teachers should also be included: “It happens across the world and this is the new system of management within public service delivery which happens right across the globe, and we have to be able to distinguish between those who excel and those who don’t, whether that’s in the education system — after all, this is about our children, it’s about the future of the nation, and we can’t tolerate underperformance any longer.”

I'm a teacher. I'd love performance related pay, as I feel I'd do pretty well out of such a regime.

Unlike Lucinda, however, I'm not a fucking delusional eejit. Lucinda has no expertise in any of the shite she's talking about here. She's never worked in management. She's never worked in the public service. She's never worked in education. She's never worked, except as a politician and, incredibly briefly, as a newly qualified barrister.

Whatever about the rest of the public service, which I've never worked in, performance related pay in education would be a disaster and always has been a disaster.

Lucinda, in mentioning performance related pay for teachers, is ignoring the huge an gigantic elephant in the room: How are you going to measure that shit? In fact, on a more basic level, how are you going to define it?

How you do oversight is the problem. Teaching is an incredibly complex (and not super well understood) process.

The strategies countries currently tend to lean on include standardised (high stakes) testing and/or inspections of classroom teaching. Both these methods are fatally flawed, and the flaws actually only get worse as the teachers get more intelligent.

To take testing first. The problem is fairly obvious, clever teachers who are incentivised to get students to achieve high test scores will essentially alter their methodologies to ensure that this occurs. Optimal teaching methods are seldom the same as the optimal methods for ensuring that students do well on an exam. As a method this has improved with our ability to better analyse data and control for certain external factors, but it's far from perfect. I'm not sure it can ever work when you take into account that clever people will always find a way to game the system, what you will end up with are not the best teachers, but the best exam coaches. Is that aligned with the goals of a good education system? Fuck no.

Inspections pose a similar problem. They're better, because you get a more holistic sense of what the teacher is doing. However there are two practical issues with it. The first is that in order for inspections to be worthwhile you need talented and experienced inspectors. That's not cheap. You also need to do very regular inspections, that's not cheap either. A robust system of inspections is expensive.

The second problem is that for inspections to work as a disciplinary model you also need to have fair, clear, and transparent criteria on which the inspections assess teachers. This leaves you back in a similar (if slightly better, while significantly more expensive) situation as the testing scenario. Teachers will quickly adapt to the criteria, and do "just enough" to ensure they hit the target. They will, as the phrase went in my time within such a system (the UK) "play the game man, you've got to play the game". Nowadays you'll see books like The perfect "OFSTED" lesson which are a guide to essentially gaming the inspections.


The best method, and this is what thriving education systems like the one in Finland do, is to ensure that only extremely bright and motivated graduates enter the profession by making teacher training highly selective. This method works because it gives freedom to teachers, it assumes (correctly) that bright and motivated young graduates will make bright and motivated teachers, and that as a result you won't need to peer into their classrooms to check on them. You can trust that they will do their jobs well and use their best judgement, which has been well trained.

This reminded me very much of a pretty good documentary series about the Vikings on the BBC a few years ago Vikings and as far as I remember the raiding parties would sleep in small tents, 2 men to a tent and in the same sleeping bag/skins or whatever. Conditions were cold as fuck so this was a survival thing but there may have been a kind of buddy system going on where they would watch each others backs at all times. I think the same suggestion of some sexual contact being possible was made but, as pointed out in the comments elsewhere here, you just can't compare to modern definitions of homo or heterosexuality.

I honestly like the idea of Cúchulainn and Ferdia being lovers, it'd throw the cat amongst the homophobic pigeons but I also can't help think that the over the top lovey dovey prose may have been artistic license on behalf of a bard who's been paid to write 1000 verses and needs to fill space. The bard has to break out his best stuff, which I'm sure a lot of the time is based on typical love stories, so he's throwing everything in there. Was the Tain written by on scribe? And if so was it passed orally between generations or poets first, so each embellishing on the last and trying to outdo the other?

No one currently lives on the Blaskets I am fairly confident. The occasional German family tries to overwinter sometimes but no one (or at least very few people) permanently lives on the main Blasket at least. You can stay there overnight or for longer periods though, just without many of the creature comforts inhabited with a large population islands have.

If you are interested in the area Twenty years a growing is a great book. Peig i did not like, but it is more famous.

Ryans daughter is filmed in the area. It looks great but John Mills oscar winning performance is pretty much unwatchable. Never go full retard.

I got the RPSB Birds of Britain and Europe and I swear by it. I got it when I knew nothing about birds and it's very easy to navigate. It breaks it down in groups so if you know a bird looks like, say a sparrow then you can work from there. You'll never want for another guide (as long as you don't leave Europe).

If you want something more specific there's Ireland's Garden Birds but if I were you I'd go with the RSPB guide if you plan on going out into the field.

The Birds of Ireland might be good but I've not looked at it so I can't recommend it.

There's also Ireland's Birds: Myths, Legends & Folklore which is a lovely book filled with folk tales about Ireland's birds but isn't a guide just nice background info and there's also one for Ireland's Animals

Check out the Irish Wildlife Trust website and Bird Watch Ireland. Look for them on FB too, I bet there's Cork branches of both that could probably give you more specific advice for that area of the country.

With regards to equipment I don't think you need invest much at the beginning, a pair of binoculars couldn't hurt but you don't need to break the bank with a top end pair.

If you are planning on venturing out into the fields then save yourself some heartache and get a decent pair of walking boots (only if it's going to be regular, old trainers will probably do if it's just every now and then) the same goes for a rain coat.

As far as general advice goes it's all fairly common sense stuff.

• Don't disturb nests
  
  
• If you're going onto private land seek the landowners permission
  
  
• If you're planning to go off into nature on your own just let someone know the general area you'll be and when you expect to be back. It's unlikely that anything will happen but it's not impossible.
  
  
• Be patient.
  
  
• You're going to get wet feet.
  
  
• Bring a little notebook and take down the characteristics of what you saw. (Size, colour etc) It's easier than carrying the guide around all day, or if you have a camera try and get a picture of the bird.
  

Have a look at Who Stole Our Game by Daire Whelan.

The GAA has monopolised the "community" aspect, especially during the Rule 21 27 years.

^^My ^^apologies, ^^Rule ^^21 ^^is ^^a ^^more ^^famous ^^but ^^less ^^generalised ^^rule ^^about ^^prohibition ^^of ^^anyone ^^involved ^^in ^^the ^^British ^^police ^^or ^^security ^^force ^^from ^^playing ^^GAA ^^games.

The Government didn't give any support for a long, long time.

The refusal of joining with municipal stadiums caused a lot of hardship for every sport that didn't receive much government or fundraising funds.

Have a look at Dinamo Zagreb. They are from a country roughly our size, which is adjacent to much larger, more glamourous football league, in a city about half the size of Dublin, but they play in the Champions League regularly in a beautiful stadium.

Dinamo get wildly varying attendances - 1,500 (Cork City sized) at 'easy' games in the league, 15,000 at 'big' games in the league, 65,000 at Champions League games. However, they do well enough from merch and UEFA participation money, and from not giving away their talent for nothing, to sustain the club at that Champions League group stage level.

Irish teams have in the past been better at the football than clubs like Dinamo - Cork City in the mid 2000s, or Rovers and Shels at other times recently - but once those runs were over, people stopped supporting them again. Zagreb's people will always turn out for the derbies. They don't wear Milan and Roma jersies and talk about how shit Dinamo and Hadjuk are all the time.

A few books I've enjoyed about Irish history:

The Isles: A History - a contextualised history of the nations of these isles. Hard to understand one without the others.

The Oxford History of Ireland - Wide ranging. Really enjoyed the last chapter on literature.

Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1447-1603: English Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule - I've only read the earlier edition which some people had problems (pdf) with but I found very informative.

A History of Ulster - Localised but comprehensive and authoritative. Sorry about that. I'm a bit parochial as you'll notice as the list goes on.

The Siege of Derry - Great narrative to it. Easy to read, without sacrificing depth.

The Catholics of Ulster - A dense tomb full of fascinating history. With a title like that you'd be forgiven for thinking it is a one sided piece of propaganda for one side up above but it totally isn't.

The Great O'Neill - Fantastic read. Ó Faolain isn't an academic historian but he is a deeply gifted writer and very knowledgeable.

King of Beggars, A Life of Daniel O' Connell - Same as above.

Probably Mic Christopher or Sean Kangataran.

Mic was a friend of Glen Hansard who'd died tragically when falling down some steps coming off a stage in Holland, if I recall correctly.

Sean is a fella I went to school with from Shannon, Co. Clare. You can listen to some of Sean's stuff here: https://seankangataran.bandcamp.com

He's fairly class. He's mates with Glen Hansard as well and is currently living in California trying to make it there.

Outside of that, I'd have to say Mick Flannery.... actually probably most people from the Other Voices album that was released ages ago: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Voices-Songs-Various-Artists/dp/B00009QI2U

Not all of them are Irish though (Josh Ritter being an example), and some are well appreciated obviously (The Frames, Damien Rice), but there are quite a number on this album that really are under appreciated. Mark Geary, Ger Wolfe, John Hegarty.

Here's the album contents anyway:

1. American Townland - Interference - Interference
   
2. Snow Is Gone - Josh Ritter - Josh Ritter
   
3. Healthy - Mundy - Mundy
   
4. Universal - Nina Hynes - Nina Hynes
   
5. Closer To Happy - Emmett Tinley - Emmett Tinley
   
6. True Friends - Jerry Fish - Jerry Fish
   
7. Other Men - Martin Finke - Martin Finke
   
8. Volunteer - Mark Geary - Mark Geary
   
9. Belle - Paul Tiernan - Paul Tiernan
   
10. Stars Above - Maria Doyle Kennedy - Maria Doyle Kennedy
    
11. On A May Morning - Barry McCormack - Barry McCormack
    
12. Party On - Damien Dempsey - Damien Dempsey
    
13. Star Star - The Frames - The Frames
    
14. The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice - Damien Rice
    
15. Anyone Who's Yet To Come - Various Composers - Various Composers
    
16. What Would I Know - Rosey - Rosey
    
17. Standing In Doorways - Ger Wolfe - Ger Wolfe
    
18. On Taobh Tuathail Amach - Ronan O Snodaigh - Ronan O Snodaigh
    
19. Limerick - John Hegarty - John Hegarty

Other than the usual hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy and whatnot, I enjoyed McCarthy's Bar.

This one is good too.

if you have an old banger of a pc or even better a raspberrypi see here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/

and one of these connected to it - see here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/NooElec-NESDR-SMArTee-XTR-SDR/dp/B06Y1D7P48/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=e4000&qid=1572073983&sr=8-5

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then, you can stream all saorview channels around your LAN so you can view on any connected device.. and anyone you want to share it with no regional restrictions.

The food served on the wings of the Hungerstrike improved significantly during the protest, a very obvious and cack handed attempt to tempt those off the strike. Bobby Sands has written about it. Perhaps you would like to read about it yourself

He's one of my favourite authors. I've lived over half of my life abroad and he captures the life of the outsider looking in.

You should also read McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland it's both hilarious and insightful.