Thomil's Random Ramblings

All changed, changed utterly -  A terrible beauty is born. I can think of no better words to sum up the birth of Ireland than these two lines by poet and nobel laureate William Butler Yeats. Ireland as we know it was born in a maelstrom of violence, rivalry and hatred, and shadows of this maelstrom reach us even now, in a modern Ireland at the dawn of the 21st century. The Easter Proclamation, the document from which the Irish state draws its very legitimacy, and which has been elevated almost to the status of a mystic relic, remains unfulfilled, its promise of equal rights and civil liberties for all remaining hollow for women, who aren't even afforded the very basic right to decide over their own body. As for the myths surrounding the Easter Rising itself, well, I already wrote at length about the hypocrisy and almost pagan idolatry that surrounds it in an earlier article. And yet, since that article was published back on October 3rd, 2015, something has changed. Changed

Walk the streets of Cork, and in many ways it will feel like walking through a time capsule. Sure, the city centre is as busy as ever, and a large number of previously empty shops have been filled again, but the streetscape itself hasn’t evolved significantly for about a decade. Of course, most of this is down to the economic meltdown of 2008, which paralysed development in the city. And, while the recovery has securely taken hold in Dublin by now, it has taken quite some time for this trend to filter down to Cork. However, it is fair to say that things are finally on the up here in Cork. Three projects in particular have been announced or come to the surface over the last few weeks. Albert Quay Office Development Website: n/a Back in Spring 2014, a huge debate was ongoing about the location of the much-needed Events Centre, the two competing sites being the former Beamish & Crawford brewery site, and a large site on Albert Quay in the Cork docklands. I wrote about this