New Aviva Stadium - 1st game of rugby

I was covering the 1st game of rugby at the new Aviva Stadium at Lansdowne road, Dublin for The Examiner yesterday. The game was between Combined Provinces Match, Leinster / Ulster v Munster / Connacht, (Under 20/Development Teams). At 68-0, or 62-zip as our American friends might say, was certainly a whitewash.

Nice stadium with the most up-to-date facilities, apart from pitchside wi-fi, which we all know isn't the most reliable anywhere, they have 15 internet/lan plugin connections at each end of the pitch, just be advised to bring your own extended CAT-5 cable as the ones at the pitch are a little short.

The pitchside viewpoint is very nice for photos, slanted just nicely down, although you still get soaked, as do spectators.

Managed to get a shot of the historic first try being scored by Leinster/Ulster's Craig Gilroy:

An Post Meath Heritage Cycle Tour - photos

First assignment shooting from the back of a motorbike (thanks Davy) The An Post Meath Heritage Cycle Tour, 500 entrants last year, over 1,400 this year - one of the best organised events I have covered in a while. The other 500 images will be posted tomorrow...

Clogherhead world record attempt for most people buried in sand simultaneously

Had great fun covering this world record attempt in Clogherhead on Sunday for The Examiner on Sunday, more than 500 people buried themselves in the sand of little strand beach as part of the Clogherhead Prawn Festival. So many people turned up and made the effort. They were rewarded by having great coverage in all of the papers by all accounts. This was my favourite pic:

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This is the post in the blog

this is the post itself, my dog is a great fellaWhen Meath were last in the Leinster final one young fan thought it would be a great idea to PAINT h...is cat GREEN!!! His mother was very,very upset - naturally .And so to retrieve the situation the young fella decided to wash the cat IN THE WASHING MACHINE..( FYI The door does'nt open until the cycle comes to a complete halt !! ) Unbelievably the cat survived and was suffering from fluid on the chest and exhaustion when we examined him..LUCKY will be around on Sunday for the big game against Louth

Lucky the cat and Michael and Colman Burke

Funny job for The Examiner today of 'Lucky' the cat, his brilliant vet Colman Burke and Colman's brother - the superb Meath Senior Footballer Michael Burke who will miss this weekend's Leinster SFC final against Louth. Michael broke his leg playing against Laois in the quarter final and as sore and uncomfortable as it was and still is, perhaps not as bad as what poor 'Lucky' had to endure, the story (by vet Colman Burke of Royal Pet Vet) is after the photo:


When Meath were last in the Leinster final one young fan thought it would be a great idea to PAINT h...is cat GREEN!!! His mother was very,very upset - naturally .And so to retrieve the situation the young fella decided to wash the cat IN THE WASHING MACHINE..( FYI The door does'nt open until the cycle comes to a complete halt !! ) Unbelievably the cat survived and was suffering from fluid on the chest and exhaustion when we examined him..LUCKY will be around on Sunday for the big game against Louth

Examiner Front Page again

Great fun assignment last weekend for The Examiner - the annual culchie festival held this year in Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan. Went out on the Friday and took a few photos of one of the first culchies to arrive in McCabe's Bar, Ballyjamesduff - Patrick Smith from Castlepollard, County Westmeath. The festival seems to be great fun and for the October Bank Holiday Weekend something different to do.

The Virginia Pumpkin Festival was also held the same weekend in the nearby town of yep, you guessed it - Virginia. After reading some of the info on the festival lineup I decided to concentrate on culchies arriving from Ballyjamesduff to Virginia to pay homage to the Pumpkin so I got there early on teh road from Ballyjamesduff to Virginia which is a great long straight stretch of road. They were to arrive on hundreds of Honda 50's, in the end it turned out they arranged to meet in the town of Virginia, unbeknownst to me or the stewards I was talking to on the Ballyjamesduff road.

Ireland at the best of times can be disjointed and disorganised and in my line of work you just have to accept this, once you do things go smoothly enough, no point having a hissy fit when you can't control events.

A warm enough day I had planned to stand in the middle of the road and get shots of bikes flying past me, this could have been a foolhardy venture but for the fact that I had large hi vis jacket in the jeep, these luminous garments infuse the wearer with great powers it seems, especially the ability to stop traffic, which I did when I saw Elvis arrive on his trumped up Honda 50, I was delighted with the photo I took of him and it ended up on the front page of The Examiner - good result all round.

If I could paint...

I am not an artist and could never draw/paint/sketch or do anything with oils/acrylics/charcoal but if I could I would probably paint something like this image I took of the sea looking out over the mountains at Carlingford, County Louth. The image hasn't been touched up or any special effects added to it, it was a 1/8 second exposure at f22 and I really like it, taken at 1 minute past 6 last Sunday (13th September) I love the colours and sense of drama. Incidentally, to th e best of my knowledge I got a C in Art in my LeavingCert, the highest mark for my art theory where I wrote an essay eschewing the virtues of a work of art entitled 'How to Explain pictures to a dead hare' by German sculptor Joseph Beuys, which all sounds pompous and pretentious, the fact is at that time in school students had to pick their favourite painting and write an essay about it for the Leaving Cert state exam.

I didn't like art at the time and certainly had no favourite painting so I scanned quickly through a book of modern art and found the aforementioned piece and figured if I wrote about it rather than the Mona Lisa or Picasso's Ice Cream I stood a better chance of getting noticed and therefore getting a higher mark for originality, I reckon it worked.