Archive for 'Friends'

Possible fraud and libel by City Jet Handling employee(s)

Posted on June 20, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends, Ireland.

My good buddy Damien had some harsh accurate words to say recently about City Jet Handling (previously known as Sky Handling Partners). It now appears to someone in that organisation has been using Damien’s details to sign up to gay dating sites. He has not received a satisfactory response from them and wonders what to do next. I think a Solicitor’s letter should be the first step. Anyone else?

2 Comments

Nostalgia Week at conoroneill.com

Posted on April 19, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends, Personal.

Given that this blog is six years old this week and we’ve started reminiscing about the good old days of Engineering in Merrion Street and Earlsfort Terrace, I’ve decided that it’s officially Nostalgia Week here at O’Neill Towers.

Knarf reminded me of Jimmy Jamjars at the gates to Merrion Street. Catherine reminded me of The Jimmy Jamjar Awards. I think Teresa won one in 1991 for the largest number of PFOs of any Engineering student.

I nominate our pop-rivetted aluminium boxes which ended up holding bog-roll in Merrion Street as a candidate for best re-use ever.

No Comments

Kilkenny to Cape Town

Posted on April 11, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends.

Paul Brennan let me know the other day about a very worthwhile effort by his friend Hugh Bergin. Hugh is doing a motorbike trip from Kilkenny to Capetown. It is a personal trip but he’s trying to raise some money for the charity Self Help. Self Help is an Irish development agency engaged in promoting and implementing integrated sustainable development programmes in rural Africa.

He started his journey late in 2006 and he is currently in the Congo region, still going strong and keeping a diary of his adventure.

You can sponsor him here.

Best of luck to him. My guess is that the Kilkenny to Inistioge leg was the most challenging

No Comments

A Toast

Posted on August 28, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Friends.

To Blueberry Jam

Made by Teresa’s and Craig’s fair hands from blueberries picked on a berry farm in the midlands.

Yumm.

tags: Jam, Blueberries

4 Comments

Mickey D’s - From not bad to bloody hell

Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Friends, Reviews.

We pop in to McDonald’s in Roscrea on most trips from Bandon to Cavan. It is about half way and the kids are usually starving at that stage. It’s a wee bit small and parking is a hassle but it is one of the best run ones in the country. They have one of those “helper” people permanently on the floor mainly doing clean-up but also offering to mind kids if you need to order the food or go to the loo. The food is fine and the place is always spotless.

On the way back from LondonDerry (how much trouble am I in for writing that ) we were targeting McD’s in Athlone which isn’t as good as Roscrea but is usually fine. But Fionn couldn’t wait that long and we pit-stopped at the one in Cavan. We’ve been in it several times before and it has never really impressed. Always feels like there is no-one really in control. This time was shockingly bad. The place was empty on arrival so all of the staff were chatting. The young-fella who took the order was fine - and he was the highlight.

The baby high-chairs were filthy. I dropped some fries on the floor on the way to the table and they stayed in full view of all for the entire meal. The mens toilets were filthy and had no toilet roll. I also didn’t see a cleaning schedule pinned up anywhere. No cleaning was done in the main seating area for our entire visit. Bloody awful. Was there even a manager on duty?
This McD’s is usually very busy and my guess is that they have come to the conclusion that they don’t need to try to excel at all since the business comes in anyway. A recipe for disaster. This is exactly the reason that McDonald’s as a corporation got into so much trouble. They raced towards the bottom of the market, concentrating entirely on cost and forgetting that they need to keep customers happy. It is the same mistake Dell are making with the corner-cutting on quality at the moment and I’ve a feeling RyanAir are also going to hit a tipping point where customers say “no more”. But this will probably not be until Michael O’Leary decides to transport cattle in the main cabin along with people.

I heard a fantastic quote on “The Restaurant Guys” podcast last week (well worth listening to these guys) where they repeated an old saying: “In the restaurant business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse”. I think that applies to all business.

I know I’m only talking about fast food but McD’s really seemed to be getting their act together recently. Good coffee, nice variations on burgers, some variety in the Happy Meals. Let’s hope Cavan is just one bad franschisee and not a trend.

On a side note, after the hell of the Maxol Coffee we stopped in Supermacs in Fermoy so Catherine could change Fionn. This is another place that always looks dirty but to be fair to them, the service was excellent, the chicken tenders were genuinely tasty (real chicken, possibly from Ulan Bator but real chicken all the same) and the coffeee was good. Their adult loos were fine but the changing area for babies was flithy.

Oh god, am I turning into the Sunday World’s Pub Spy? Is that newspaper column still going?

Whilst I am at it, any recommendations for Child friendly places to stop on the N62-N55 that are not too close to Cork or Cavan. Needs to be speedy, have clean loos, child-changing facilities, better food than McD’s, not require a detour and be helpful if you do have four monsters. I don’t ask for much do I

[tags] McDonalds, Roscrea, Athlone, Cavan, The Restaurant Guys, Supermacs Fermoy[/tags]

1 Comment

Bandon to Derry - Nearly Mizen to Malin

Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends.

We finally did it. Up to Derry to visit the Pierce’s. On the way up we over-nighted with Mary in Cavan and then arrived at Saturday lunchtime. Incredible location looking out over the Foyle. Great weekend.

On Sunday we braced ourselves for the return journey. There were three options - some bizarre route via Tuam suggested by AAIreland, via Dublin suggested by Eoin or back the way we came via Cavan.

We plumped for the latter but I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has other suggestions. We did Derry-Lifford-Strabane-Omage-Enniskillen-Belturbet-Cavan-Athlone-Roscrea-Cashel-Cork-Bandon. With two shortish pit-stops in Cavan and Fermoy, it took the guts of 8 hours to do it.

The N62-N55 backbone through Ireland is the main route from deep south to far north. Maybe it’s time to consider the first Motorway that does not head towards Dublin? In some places, it is so narrow that trucks have to come to almost a full stop in order to pass each other.

[tags] Cork-Derry Motorway Petition, Ireland’s roads[/tags]

No Comments

An ex-church or nunnery in a small town near Cork from McCarthy’s Bar??

Posted on December 5, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends, Ireland.

An old old friend (bet ya like that description Jane) is living over in Frankfurt. Her hubby has just finished McCarthy’s Bar and is dying to visit the place mentioned in the book which he describes as an ex-church or nunnery in a small town near Cork, on the coast, known for it’s good cuisine.

I have no idea where he is talking about and Googling only brings up the actual McCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere. Can the combined wisdom of the blogosphere help a Greek abroad? Just post your responses as a comment. Thanks.

2 Comments

Sweeeeettttttttt Caroline

Posted on October 24, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends, Pictures.

I raced back to Bandon from Ballymaloe, jumped into the interview suit, thanked Mary and Claire for risking their mental health by minding our four for two days and shot off with wife riding shotgun to Killarney. The Cork-Killarney road is now my most hated road in the country. 30 mph from Crookstown to a few miles outside Ballyvourney.

We arrived about 30 minutes before the meal was due to start. Caroline was looking fantastic. Not for nothing that she had most of the Class of 1990 UCD Elec Eng competing for her attention way back when. None of us are bitter that she married a teacher and part-time rock star, no not a bit, not a jot. Dave himself looked pretty damned delish - even to a confirmed heterosexual like myself.

This picture shows the bride in full flight.Take it from me that Dave looks just as good from the front.

We are now at that age where we only see batches of the old gang at weddings and special occasions. Caroline had gathered a fine selection of engineering misfits and their partners and we got on to our usual topics as if we had seen each other only yesterday.

As the wedding started so early, most people were well-on by the time we arrived. My awesome capability for alcohol meant that I had caught up after a pint.

I had been talking to Claire, Dee, Paul, Brian, Conor and Maria before I finally refocused to realise that the room we were in had one fantastic view. I only managed to get a picture of it on Monday in lashing rain but it is still pretty wonderful:

The meal was spot-on, the cake was fab and I loved the wine. I was too bloated to move after that.

First picture is of the final two contestants in the Bernard Manning Lookalike contest (with Paul there for scale):

The entertainment then began and the band turned out to be the best damned wedding band of all time. I am not bloody joking. The lead singer looked like Jennifer Ellison and absolutely nailed “River Deep, Mountain High”. I did not want them to stop. I forced Wifey up for a few dances but sadly my belly gave severe head injuries to several small children and the dance floor had to be evacuated.

We had a great old catch-up session and realised that the men are all still as immature as we were in Ios when we put laxatives in Tom’s cocktails and shaved Paul’s legs. The women folk are just lucky to have us

Maria tells Conor-Dub that he was always her favourite Conor.

Eoin tells me that he has his hand on my wife’s ass. Catherine is clearly impressed.

Aoife says “pregnancy munchies me? I don’t think so. Hands off, they’re all mine”

Jill tries to give Conor a hug and convince him that he doesn’t need to lose weight. Her arms won’t fit around.

That picture causes Conor to go on the GI diet and give up drink until Christmas. Starting tomorow, I swear…….

D’Wife faded at around midnight and I started getting dopey around 1am. I looked around and Paul was asleep in a chair, Brian was gone (presumably to bed), Conor-Dub ditto, so I hit the sack. Turns out the boys were only re-charging their batteries and kept going until 5am! I missed the singing session and the DJ. I could say that they make me feel old but I’ve always loved my bed. My sources (Maria) tell me that Caroline and Dave also headed to bed around 5, but not before Caroline had asked Maria if she could borrow her “OK” magazine. Hot stuff in the wedding suite alright.

The following morning, we grabbed breakfast around 10am and they all started apearing just as breakfast ended. I felt grand, Conor-Dub looked like he was still drunk and Brian appeared not to have slept at all. So a successful wedding by all measures.

It looks like we are nearly out of weddings now. A few stragglers left (Mark, Mark, calling Mark). We could try and badger Quigs and Lolly but I don’t think they are for turning. So next thing will be the 40ths and then (oh, it pains me to even think it), the 20 year reunion.

So Caroline and Dave - well done, we’re chuffed you finally did the deed. Enjoy Prague and then enjoy Bishopstown even more.

The excess of booze means I took only a tiny few photos. They are all in the Flickr Photo Set of the Wedding here. If anyone has other pictures of the day that they want to share, feel free to mail them to me and I’ll add them to the set.

Tomorrow, the story of our Sunday in Killarney.

UPDATE 1: Maria has sent on a bunch of much higher quality pictures. They are in the Flickr photo-set now too.

[tags]“Caroline’s Wedding”, Killarney, Weddings [/tags]

No Comments

Patrick Kevin Pierce, RIP.

Posted on June 25, 2005, by Conor, under Family, Friends.

Aged 22, Patrick died in his sleep last monday night. He was buried at Shanganagh Cemetery yesterday after a heart-breaking funeral mass in Shankill. I didn’t know Patrick that well, I met him maybe once or twice a year when visiting Eoin and Jill. But the short life of this young man should be celebrated as a example of achievement in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Nine years ago, Patrick was hit by a car and suffered massive head trauma. He was not expected to live. He spent 4 months in a coma. It took one and a half years for him to start re-learning how to speak and how to walk. Many of us would have given up and resigned ourselves to a silent life in a wheel-chair being waited on hand and foot. Not Patrick! With willpower the size of a planet, he refused to consider himself disabled and improved both his physical adeptness and speech clarity day by day.

It was a humbling experience listening to Patrick speak. Initially I couldn’t make out very much, then I suddenly realised that everything was being done perfectly apart from the speed. It was like a strectched audio tape. If you simply slowed down the rate at which you expected to receive each sound, you could understand everything he said. And he was one funny wee bloke when you did listen! His sense of humour was obviously completely untouched by the accident. I often wondered if he was trying to push his thoughts through a damaged speech-centre or if his brain has re-used some other part of itself to provide speech functions. Either way it was a joy to encounter.

At his eulogy yesterday, his Dad said that Patrick always did whatever the hell he set his mind to and as a result, he fell nearly every day. I’ve seen some of those falls and they were frightening to be near. But he simply got himself up as if nothing had happened, dusted himself down and continued on doing whatever it was he was trying to do. I don’t think any of us will forget that protective hat he had for all those years.

Patrick could not have achieved everything that he did without the enormous sacrifices made by his parents Pat and Barbara. Every parent is going to do their best for their baby boy but seeing what they did for Patrick made us all realise what parenting under extreme pressure really means. I am very sad for the pain that Patrick’s siblings are feeling right now. No-one should have to lose a little brother so suddenly. But, as a parent myself, I am deeply upset for his parents and the grief that they are experiencing after 9 years of “living on borrowed time” as his Dad put it.

Whilst we rightly criticise the dreadful money wasting in our health service, the serives provided to Patrick in his rehabilitation were world class by all accounts and once again I heard nothing but praise for the NRH.

I had never encountered The Peter Bradley Foundation until yesterday. Long may they help young adults like Patrick achieve the independence that they yearn for and deserve.

In the modern world our kids have a multitude of nonsense role-models to pick from. I dread the day one of my boys tells me he wants to be David Beckham. If (and when) they do, I’ll be telling them all about young Patrick Pierce and the nature of true character.

My deepest sympathies to all of the Pierce family and to Patrick’s many friends.

1 Comment

Births and Deaths

Posted on June 25, 2005, by Conor, under Babies, Family, Friends.