Enjoy, readers:
"Activist-poet leads Irish presidential vote" October 29, 2011|Associated Press
DUBLIN - Human rights activist and poet Michael D. Higgins headed for victory yesterday in Ireland’s presidential election as the Irish picked a left-wing idealist to be the new face of a debt-struck nation.
Related: Leftist govts shown the exit amid European crisis
Also see: Spain tilts to the right as voters oust Socialists
Higgins’s main challenger, business guru and reality TV celebrity Sean Gallagher, conceded defeat in a telephone call to Higgins. Gallagher said he expected that Higgins would be, as his own campaign slogan promised, “a president to be proud of.’’
Higgins, 70, was mobbed by well-wishers and journalists as he arrived at the Dublin Castle count center. Minutes later, electoral officials announced that he had received 39.6 percent of all first-preference votes to take an unassailable lead atop the field of seven candidates.
Final results are expected today because of Ireland’s complex voting system, which permits voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
Why can't we have that, American?
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Feeling a bit uninhibited?
"Ireland to close Vatican Embassy" November 04, 2011|Associated Press
DUBLIN - Ireland announced yesterday that it is closing its embassies to the Vatican and two other nations, but denied that its deteriorating relations with the Catholic Church played a role in its choice of cuts.
Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore said Ireland was under grave financial pressure as it tries to slash spending in line with its international bailout last year. He said a review determined that Ireland’s diplomatic posts to the Vatican, Iran, and Timor Leste offered the least returns in foreign investment....
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Also see: Rescue program for Ireland is fragile, IMF says
In other words, the first bailout didn't take and the banksters now need more.
And speaking of fragile:
"Seventh bishop steps down in Ireland; Catholic Church considers cutbacks following scandal" November 24, 2011|By Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press
DUBLIN - Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of another Irish bishop yesterday, leaving seven of Ireland’s 26 Catholic dioceses without one and raising expectations of major cutbacks in the size of the Irish church following child-abuse scandals....
Probably a good thing; less pooper-pumping going on.
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"Deceased Irish archbishop is accused of sex abuse" December 09, 2011|New York Times
DUBLIN - The former Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, widely regarded as the most powerful Catholic prelate in modern Irish history, stands accused of serial child sexual abuse, the Irish Times newspaper said yesterday....
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And thoshe who harbor terrorshiths (hiccup):
"Irish judge blocks IRA veteran’s extradition to US" December 22, 2011
DUBLIN — An Irish Republican Army veteran wanted in the United States for allegedly circulating North Korean forgeries of US $100 bills has won his six-year fight to avoid an American trial, a case that highlights the difficulty of winning extradition cases in Ireland....
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Related: BC is ordered to turn over IRA materials
