Triple Distilled Communications

  • Sunrise on Cork harbour by Kieran Mackessy.

  • The world’s most far-flung Irish pubs | The Guardian.

  • Absolutely Epic 1974 Letter From Cleveland Browns to a Fan

  • When you take on a job as a university head, you have an anticipation that there will be a certain salary going with it. You will have bought the house, you will have got the mortgage, which will be bigger than the one from, you know (before). So I can tell you that university heads are as challenged about paying their bills today arising from cutbacks as anybody else.Most of the people who are working as heads of Irish universities could be doing the same thing in universities anywhere around the globe at twice the pay.
    Contrary to popular opinion, I do not have a house or a car provided by the university. But I do know that a university in Britain last year advertised the post of vice-chancellor (for a university) the same size as UCC, (which is) behind us in rankings, and if I had applied for it I would have doubled my salary, got a house and the use of a Jaguar.

    President of UCC Dr Michael Murphy. 

    Dr Murphy also questioned how great a salary cut he should accept to satisfy public discord about the matter.

    “People who have stayed here have absorbed substantial cuts and have individually made major sacrifices on a voluntary basis already.

    “I took a pay cut of 15pc by becoming the university president. On top of that then came the public sector pay cuts and levies.

    “So when I say I’m down 40pc in my cash flow, how far do you want people to go? I think everybody in the country has been making enormous sacrifices.

    “There is an old saying: ‘pay peanuts, get monkeys’. And I would be seriously concerned that this continuing campaign to force further and further reductions in the quality of life of people who are working 60- and 70-hour weeks will drive people out of the country. It is already happening.”

  • Joy as another Irish emigrant seeks to return home

  • I am a small business owner and am gambling everything I have in this business and you try to make a mockery out of me 4 days after ‘small business saturday’ when we are supposed to support small businesses.
    I have a million things going on in my head and one of those things was about helping local charities as I am not the selfish **** you have made me out to be, although on my opening day I will admit it was not the most important thing for me. I have already been contacted by charities to provide breakfasts for underprivileged children in the area and I will be doing this come January but I wanted to get my cafe open and running first.
    You obviously don’t understand business if you think I don’t have to put a mark-up on what I sell. It may be the poorest borough in London but let’s not forget canary wharf is also in this borough but I am the one to blame eh? I am from one of the most deprived area in Belfast so me and my family know all about poverty but haven’t had to blame the small business owners in the area for it, I have been taught a great work ethic and have made it this far without blaming small business owners trying to better themselves and make a future for themselves.

    An open letter from the Nordie twins behind Cereal KIller Café to the righteous assholes at Channel 4.