donal's blog

Hard Working Class Heroes '08 is on 12-14 September and competes with the Fringe festival. What's more, ticket prices are up some 100% since 2006. A weekend ticket through ticketmaster.ie is €44.98. According to nialler.com (currently down), the weekend ticket price in 2006 was just €22.50 (if bought directly from the festival folk). Single-day tickets have also seen a similar increase. In 2006, "80 plus bands from Ireland with six acts from Canada largely represent the indie / indie rock genre with a very small amount of artists classed as other genres such as electronica (not a gritty Irish hip hop act in sight)...". In 2008, the approach to band selection hasn't changed much and I would argue that you're comparing like-with-like. Yes - they have added some additional elements like a photo exhibition, but this hardly justifies the large increase. Ticket prices are rising dramatically and it just doesn't make sense... MCD and Aiken claim that the live ev...

Incandescent light bulbs are to be phased out over the next 2 years as part of an EU initiative to reduce CO 2 emissions. This is abosultely brilliant and should result in cheaper prices and availability for CFL light bulbs. We replaced all the bulbs in our house last year at a cost of about €90 - that's not cheap and will drop considerably with competition. Kevin Barry has an interesting article in today's Irish Examiner. He recently visited the northwest and comments about how the current economic situation in ireland is having an effect on areas outside the Pale. he writes "the shimmering prosperity of the capital verges fades very quickly" and "once you get to longford and beyond, it can seem like you're back in 1987". This is a worrying sign if you take into account that house prices are falling in certain areas of dublin, a number of multi-nationals have reduced their footstep in ireland and that interest rates and inflation are set to increase...