Conor's Bandon Blog-Conor's Bandon Blog

Return of the Porki

The Empire may have done its best to kill the pork industry in Ireland but the producers are fighting back. Barrie Tyner from Slow Food Ireland just let me know that the West Cork and Cork City Conviviums are coming together to bring us ‘The Pig Extravaganza’. jedi-1 I was disappointed to find that this did not include dancing pigs but it’s the next best thing :-) To celebrate National Pork Weekend, an evening of eating and great chat is planned down west on Sunday, the 18th of January.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Thursday, January 8, 2009

Foodtalk on Newstalk

I just got a mail from the lovely people in The Good Things Cafe in Durrus to tell me that the awesome Carmel was on the Foodtalk programme on Newstalk Radio. Good Things Foodtalk is hosted by one of the best food bloggers anywhere, Caroline Hennessy from Bibliocook. If you want to listen online and subscribe so that you get each broadcast, then there are a bunch of different ways of doing it.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Wednesday, January 7, 2009

What you read here in 2008

It looks like 2008 was not a good year for new content on this blog. Only two posts were in the top twenty most-read in the last 12 months. I promise to do better this year :-) The most read content was: Tikka Masala CBBC on Sky Digital Goat’s Cheese and Pregnancy Social Worker Jobs in Cork HDClone Review RTE Free-to-Air The Snip Cheap Calls Nigella Express Review English Irish Dictionary Tesco Online Shopping Review Buffalo Wings Real Gourmet Burger Heston Blumenthal Review Buddah Bar Paris Review Capote Review Rashers Gizmo Boqueria Tapas Review Losing Teeth

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, January 4, 2009

TeenCamp Ireland

Bloody teenagers. All they do is sit around, playing video games, smoking, drinking cider and coming up with fantastic ideas like TeenCamp. TeenCamp Ireland is a gathering of the techies/bloggers/fanboys age 13+ in Ireland to give talks, meet others, share ideas and have a laugh. TeenCamps are organised/planned/run by teens for other teens. They are holding it in Filmbase in Dublin on Jan 17th. If you know anyone in this age group who fits the bill, let them know about it.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Frost Stops Play

Whilst growing up from age 6-18 in Kilkenny, one group of people I never got on with were the park-keepers (“parkies”) in the Castle Park. They always seemed to be fun-killers. It looks like nothing has changed in over 20 years. I watched at least 50 people walk away gutted from the park yesterday with bawling children due to this: Frost Stops Play One person claimed it was because a child had slipped and hurt themselves on the previous day.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, December 28, 2008

Great site about Annaghmore

If, like 99% of the local population, you think Annaghmore is the best idea we’ve had in Ireland since feeding PCBs to pigs, check out this excellent site with information about it. Any politician who votes in favour of Annaghmore is basically admitting to being a shill and will be out on their ear in the next election.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Saturday, December 13, 2008

Having some nice rashers for breakfast

So 47 farms used contaminated pig feed. Unless the FSAI confirms that Gubbeen or Caherbeg are two of those farms, I’ll be having a lovely bacon sarnie for my breakfast. Gubbeen If the State’s Chief Medical Officer says that dioxin is only dangerous if a person is exposed to it over a long period of time, then why the hell are we destroying millions of Euro worth of food?

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Sunday, December 7, 2008

Curious Wines launches

You eagle-eyed West Cork drivers may have noticed a big new sign on the back of one of the units behind Great Gas on the Bandon Bypass. It is the retail/warehouse outlet of newly launched Curious Wines. Mike Kane, the owner, has put together a brilliant selection of wines which are not your usual supermarket generic stuff. Their web-site has just gone live and it’s a corker (boom! boom!). Another stunning creation by the shockingly talented Ms Dent.

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Blog post of the year

When the Irish Blog Awards nominations open early next year, I’m pretty sure Ivan McCutcheon’s recent post about local West Cork abbatoirs and butchers will be the one I pick. If you care about the food you put in your gob and appreciate the work of people with a passion for their craft, read Ivan’s piece, print it off and give it to those you know. For so many reasons, it is imperative that businesses like Dan Maloney’s in Bandon survive and thrive.