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EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week, same-sex marriage got you talking more than anything else – with our top five most commented articles all on aspects related to the referendum.
So here, in no particular order, are the standout comments from the week that was.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. HRH The Brummie got 2,594 green thumbs for his take on Gorse Hill:
Hope they have left a cheque for the court cases they lost. Now back to the UK to your luxury accommodation. I’m sure you won’t be one of the families sleeping in their car tonight or in a shelter.
2. Some 1,878 of you liked Wayne O’Fathaigh‘s comment about Ibrahim Halawa:
Want to do some real reporting and post the video of his political speeches in front of thousands while he was on a family holiday??
3. A woman who hit her son for rioting in Baltimore (see video above) reminded Matt Donovan of someone closer to home, 1,705 of you approved.
Good woman. Almost as good as an irish mammy.
4. Brian power got 1,697 green thumbs for his comment on a story about a missing child:
Fair play journal for using this as an alert for the app. Hope she is found well
Luckily, the girl was found safe and well.
5. Joanna had this to say about a No campaigner who repeatedly asked a Yes campaigner about sex between two men, during a radio debate on same-sex marriage:
Me thinks he’s a little too curious….
1,694 of you agreed.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. “The No side seem fixated on the notion of the ‘ideal family’ – whatever that means” (624 comments)
2. ‘There isn’t a celebrity in the country who would dare come out and say they’re voting No’ (380 comments)
3. Poll on same sex marriage shows slight drop in support for ‘Yes’ vote (376 comments)
4. The No campaign’s posters keep getting defaced and ripped down (301 comments)
5. A Yes Equality campaigner was asked on live radio about sex between two men (290 comments)
Standout comments of the week
There was a great exchange on an article about rural pubs. Here’s how it started:
Love a good rural pub
Me: “Any chance of another pint”
Barman: “it’s 3.30am”
Me: “ah go on”
Barman: “Fcuk it, I’ll have one with you”
Barman: “And then I’ll drive you home”. May aswell since I picked you up”.
Me: “Thanks, and I’ll pay you for those last 4 pints tomorrow”
News that the Poolbeg chimneys are staying put was welcomed by a lot of you, including McConnell Mary:
Great that they’ll still be around for future generations. Still remember the feeling you get when they come into view on the ferry to the north wall after being away for 14 yrs.
Although Kian David Griffin isn’t a fan:
I much prefer the sight of our greenery and cliffs when flying back into the country. Then again, our Urban cousins won’t have been exposed to as much beauty as us simple country folk so…lower expectations of what looks good I guess?
The clearly well-travelled Antrim/Kurdistan had a novel idea for the new Children’s Hospital:
Looks like it could host the 2018 champions league final
On a serious note, selita had this to say about a homeless family of six who had to sleep in a car:
As a parent, I am torn by this article. On the one hand, i cannot imagine the stress and upset of being homeless with my children. On the otherhand, I would love to have 4 children, but, i know i cannot afford it, as both of us have to work in order to pay our mortgage, so we made the decision to have a smaller family, so as not to be in this situation. This man has 4 children under the age of 4 years, and ‘lost his job a few years ago’ and i assume his wife is not working.
why should I work, and pay taxes, for others to have a large family, when it is something that many other working parents would love to do?
This man needs to cop on, life is hard, and you cant have what you want. he is irresponsible having children when he clearly cannot provide from them.
After Kasey Kelly (4) lost her battle against a brain tumour, Sam Bartell said what a lot of people were thinking:
Thoughts with her family, just heartbreaking. Such a brave little soul. Rest in peace
As it emerged that all Irish citizens in Nepal are safe after the devastating earthquake, Laurence Cavanagh summed it up well:
Great news for our nation.Hopefully every other nation is as fortunate as us.And hopefully we can start an effort quickly to bring comfort to the suffering there and start the process of rebuilding as soon as the rescue phase is done.
Meanwhile, Michelle Ní Dhubhlaíocht had this response to a baby being found alive in the rubble:
Nothing short of a miracle.
See any good comments? Send them on to sinead@thejournal.ie
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As usual we only hear about the antics this should be about the fake information gov continues to provide
Martin is an incredibly bad politician. He’s also got a very nasty streak and is a compulsive liar.
And that’s what a large proportion of the electorate voted for, I guess.
@James Groden: Aontù are the only ones that have shown any leadership and intelligence.
SF have lost the room by their fixation on their Hamas brothers.
@James Groden: If history has taught us anything, it’s that being a compulsive liar is exactly what makes someone a good politician.
@Gerard Martin: If history has taught us anything,it’s easy to to sound off in opposition as if you have all the answers(and all of them start with ‘it’s easy,all you have to do is….’But it’s vastly different in government when you actually have to make decisions and be judged all day and night by Monday morning quarterbacks.
@Thomas Sheridan: God help your senses. I wouldn’t let him at lego houses!
@Thomas Sheridan: who?
@Thomas Sheridan: Toíbín’s constant lies bought by the gullible
@Thomas Sheridan: Hamas AND open borders!
@Brian D’Arcy: Would that not be even more true of all the parties
@Housing Hunger Games: Respect for the collective judgement of the electorate
@James Groden: There you go, telling untruths again.
Price of housing is crazy and anything associated with building a house or a wall. Etc etc.
New build are asking 5k to put your name on a house and 25k on signing. That’s just one example. Government did nothing and doing nothing to stop this.
Plenty of dog boxes available. Just no one can afford them .
Typical fffg gravy train.
It’s a hung government call an election, it’s preposterous what’s going on, and the speaker of the house is a joke.
An embarrassment of a government
This government of FFG and lackys will not last 12 months it is very fractured, and mehole does not look comfortable at all he’s running to every country he can to get away from his pre election lies
@N D K: Money talks and €200k pa talks very loudly to the independent junior ministers.
That’s a cool €1000000 each if they can drag it out for the 5 years.
It’ll just about buy a 1940s 2up/2down ex corporation houses at that stage.
Typical guff out of Mehole. That man just can’t take criticism without slinging mud. He should try answering the questions he is asked instead of replying with personal slights.
@Shimo F: He’s a slieveen and a congenital liar!
Eoin Ó Broin only wrote two books on housing but sure what would he know, what everyone knows is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are full of excuses and nothing more lying their way into power with no housing plan and attacking the opposition, cheap of them and cheap of those who voted for them and yet they come on here acting as if they didn’t do it and they’re too afraid to use their real names, little children and nothing more.
@Brian D’Arcy: people write books. Nothing new in that. It’s the content that matters. And as reviewers pointed out at the time, o’broins ideas were not going to solve this or any other housing problems. No better than the govt’s ideas.
@Brian D’Arcy: Then they have the neck to call it democracy
Bacik is well able to point out the facts and show it all up. In my opinion, she is a great person to have in government, not once have i seen her ‘waffle’ like a lot of them!
@derek: Is that the same Labour that had the biggest house building plan in the history of the state in 2015?
@derek: Derek you give dereks a bad name
At at the end of all the waffle endless debates housing crisis increases marvellous work mountains upon mountains of hot air on a merry go round going nowhere.
The school brats are disrupting the class again.
11 weeks since the election and absolutely nothing to show from either the government or the main opposition parties.
@Thomas Sheridan: sure they are only back from there holiday there. The holiday that they just got after getting a few weeks of for Christmas. The fact that we sit there, and watch these politicians pay themselves 100k+ a year and expenses, then take months worth of holidays a year, and do nothing about it. It shows how we as a people are.
@Joe Willis: 100k+ and expenses is just the pin money to these shysters!
Why is that irrelevant leader of Labour getting a lot of coverage recently? She has all the problems but none of the answers, just like most of them barking from the sideline.
@Joe Willis: Ivana Bacik is not paid to have the solutions, the government are…. but don’t have anything. A dolly mixture government with as much integrity as a bag of Dolly Mixtures!!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: What is she paid to do? Stand there and point out everything that’s wrong and call it a day? She won’t get into government that way. The ‘opposition’ as they are called are supposed to incite voters to vote for them. No matter what party they are from. The way you do that is point out the problems (which they are already good at), then give your solution to fix the problems. If the public think you are speaking sense, and can fix their problems, they will vote for you. If you point out problems everyday, like every party does (as they should), but don’t give your solution, you’re just doing what parties like PBP do. That’s why they get about 3% of votes.
@Joe Willis: Labour are not in government for a reason, the ineptitude and arrogance of the current is a total off put to anyone with a conscience. Reading between your “line” you seem to be proposing an all party government, which in itself is undemocratic, except in times of extreme circumstances. As regards “standing there pointing out things that are wrong”, that is what opposition politicians do.
It would do you and some of your like minded FF/FG + dole trolls to urge your heros to listen to the Opposition. THEY do have brains!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: yes that’s why I said (as they should), I think you missed that part. No I don’t want a one party government at all. I want a single party who can fix our problems. I don’t support FF FG I didn’t vote for them, and I also think coalitions shouldn’t be allowed. My point was Labour do a very bad job in inciting the public to vote for them, because they have all the problems but none of the solutions.
Bit of a wet n windy storm coming for Saturday night, have your gennys on standby
The behaviour of TDs in the Dail is becoming increasingly puerile and unseemly. There are very few adults in the proverbial room! Surely, it should be possible to engage in civil debate without recourse to personal abuse and name-calling.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
What hope have we got with these phuking moroñs in charge?
@Chop Chop: And you the one constantly preaching about them, get real.
@Brian D’Arcy: What?
Never forget the fact that they are all as bad as each other. None of the parties in the Dáil have a coherent plan to solve the housing crisis in Ireland. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil created it with their centre-left Keynesian interventionist policies, high levels of regulation, and strict rent control. The left-wing and far-left parties in opposition want to make the problem even worse. The solution to solving the housing crisis is very simple: Cut the red tape. Eliminate bureaucratic roadblocks like zoning laws, building codes that are overly restrictive, and complex permitting processes. Abolish all forms of government housing subsidies. Housing assistance programs like HAP not only distort the market but undermine individual responsibility and self-sufficiency. Abolish all rent control.
@William Jennings: Ha ha, left-wing, get real son
@J B: Illegal immigration crisis you mean. Yes, that might play some role in it, but the problem is caused mostly by government intervention, as all economic problems in this country are caused by. Legal immigration isn’t a problem here though. We received 100,000 legal immigrants a year from Eastern Europe between 2003-2008 and there were no problems because they came here with proper documentation and integrated into our country property. The solution to your problem could be solved very easily. All the government has to do is start enforcing the immigration laws that are currently on the books like it was done 15-20 years ago. If you do not come to Ireland with proper documentation, you are deported back to your country of origin until customs can do a proper background check.
@Brian D’Arcy: You are such a plank Brian. You literally have no answers whatsoever to anything that anyone says on this site that you disagree with. Get real, the opposition parties are either left-wing or far-left. Some of them (Sinn Fein, Labour, Social Democrats) are openly Socialist and then PBP is an explicitly Marxist political party which wants to overthrow democracy. Read their manifestos and listen to the speeches of their politicians. All of them spout the same old recycled rhetoric which lacks any basis in reality and none of the opposition parties have any sort of clue about basic economic principles. Their policies would exacerbate the housing crisis. They would destroy our economy and put us back in the 1980s with high inflation and high unemployment.
Whether u like it or not ff and FG have been elected by the people.
They can do what they like
Micheál sticking it to them
Brilliant performance from a brilliant leader
Amazing how unvetted criminals are supported in our country
If they ALL put as much time & effort into trying to solve the housing crisis as they do into slaging each other off, then maybe just maybe they could ALL agree on a definite housing programme.
Feet on the street will stop these pantos
Micheal Martin a very bitter old man, he has the potential to infect anyone around him with bitterness hatred lies and intimidation..
We British in Ireland are shocked by the unparliamentary language heard from elected representatives but it wont deter us from becoming proud Irish citizens with shiny new passports!
have your say