IKEA comes to town....(Click here for some fun!).

Well it came, It saw, It bloody well conquered....

Well worth the hype, IKEA is now located in Westchester, just North of Cinci & about 40 miles from home so off we popped in after a safari in Jungle Jims (junglejims.com)

WE came out with thousands of ideas for our hovel plus a few sticks of furniture...her indoors was very pleased with a kitchen cart I espied as we were leaving, The young fella got a black-board & a train set plus a lot of other "odds n sods" for the home...the rugs are sensational...we bought one for the living room...the family room will have to wait for now!

Click the title above for some more fun from a disciple of the new store.

Cinci gets a makeover....

Sometime ago I wrote on Cincinnati and the lack of creativity vis a vis the Banks & new development. I hoped the then new mayor, Mark Mallory was going to make a difference but Cinci being Cinci – I held my breath.

Well it looks like the Mayor is delivering….

Last Friday Southern & Western announced their new Corporate HQ would be built downtown. Queen City II will be at 660 ft, 86 ft taller than the Carew tower. I think the aesthetic is stunning and will be a welcome and much needed addition to the local skyline.


Meanwhile the Banks development looks like it will happen. Anything built in the eyesore that lies between the two stadiums has to be a boon. The projected renderings though are disappointing to my eye anyway…

It feels like a tremendous opportunity has been lost to make a substantive statement for future generations. Compare it to shopping for a pair of jeans… do you go for the Levi’s or the “Steve & Barry’s”…I feel the city grabbed the “bargain buy”…it looks decent enough but soon loses it’s appeal, ages rapidly and becomes an embarrassment.


Anyway, here’s hoping the reality proves a lot different…well, one can hope!

St. Mullins, Graigue & the Barrow Valley.

About 40 minutes from Wexford Town is the Barrow valley and it's hidden jewels, such as Graiguenamanagh & St. Mullins, two idyllic spots set in two counties. A favourite drive of mine on a summer's evening.

St. Mullins is a little village just up the Barrow River from New Ross. A cousin of my dad - Trudy Morrell, lived on the Kilkenny or "the Graigue side" high up on the inclines of Brandon Hill looking down upon this scene which you have to concur is a most agreeable sight. Trudy had to move eventually into nearby New Ross, a case of the practical over the romantic as she did not have a car & had to rely on a bus to get to shopping etc.

Driving from Trudy's home, you arrive in the village of Graiguenamanagh or the Graigue as it's known to the locals, a gorgeous riverside village known for it's abbey and it's cut glass _"Duiske glass". Once you cross the bridge, you're in County Carlow, another picture postcard hamlet that looks pretty driving through but probably is a place that you can't wait to scat from if you're a young local. Here you can hire a boat or a barge and navigate the river up to the canal system or down to Waterford estuary, heading into the Atlantic.

Heading up from Graigue, you drive along a beautiful winding road which has some amazing vistas, very much hidden Ireland. We're in the foothills of the Blackstairs Mountains, rolling up to the wexford border. That is the beauty about The south east of Ireland, a region I consider to be the most beautiful in the country. Having Wexford as it's core stretching across to Waterford's eastern shores, west to the Barrow valley featured here and north to the garden of Ireland - Wicklow.

St. Mullins though takes the biscuit! There is a wonderful serenity to the place that you have to simply experience to believe. It has an impressive ecclesiastical history. The locality takes its name from St. Moling, a 7th century cleric, prince, poet, artist and artisan who built a monastery here with the help of "Gobban Saor", the legendary Irish builder.

In the 8th century manuscript, known as “The Book of Mulling”, there is a plan of the monastery, the earliest known plan of an Irish monastery which shows four crosses inside and eight crosses outside the circular monastic wall. It is said that St. Moling dug a mile-long watercourse with his own hands to power his mill – a task that took seven years! He became Bishop of Ferns, died in 697 and is buried at St. Mullin’s.

The St. Moling watercourse is still there, but the original monastery was plundered by the Vikings in 951 and was again burned in 1138. An abbey was built on the site later, in the Middle Ages.

A 9th century High Cross, depicting the Crucifixion and the Celtic spiral pattern, stands outside the remains of the abbey and there are also some domestic medieval buildings, including one that has an unusual diamond-shaped window. St. Moling's Mill and Well are a short distance away. Another notable monument in the packed little churchyard is a penal altar, used in the days when the anti-Catholic penal laws were in force.

A Norman motte, once topped by a wooden castle, stands outside the churchyard, and when Mass was being said at the altar some of the congregation would climb the motte to act as lookouts. Being a Catholic in penal times in Ireland was an offence punishable by death, depending on what mood the travelling magistrate was in. You could not own a horse, own property and as a result vote. No rights basically whatsoever.

The MacMurrough Kavanaghs, former Kings of Leinster, together with other Celtic Kings, are buried in the neighbourhood of the monastery. A famous "healing priest"Fr. Daniel Kavanagh, is also buried here. People still claim that to cure toothache you should take a pinch of earth from outside the churchyard and exchange it for a pinch of clay from F. Kavanagh's grave. Then say a brief prayer, pop the clay into your mouth and walk down the hill to wash it out with water from St. Molings Well.

The site includes a medieval church ruin, the base of a round tower and the former Church of Ireland church, built in 1811. Protestants and Catholics lie side by side in the churchyard, and a story is told in the village of the days when, because there were only a handful of Protestants in the neighbourhood, the local Church of Ireland Bishop was thinking of closing down the church. The distraught vicar had a word with the Catholic priest, who had a word with his flock, and on the day of the Bishop’s visit Catholic families filled the Protestant church, joining in the responses and lustily singing Protestant hymns. The Bishop went home delighted and the church remained open. I understand they used this story in "The Quiet Man" although it's said that this story is a common one in the South though not in the North - I wonder why.

That's about it for this reminisce of a Barrow Valley drive, Hope you liked the photos.

Moving Statues...pt 2.

To continue on with my earlier post regarding the statues of my birth city...a few more need to be covered. So here goes on one more for the moment;

The Millenium Spire:

As usual The Irish Government regardless of which party is in power always tend to feck things up, especially when it comes to the innocous and innocous is not what you would call this monument.

They decide to celebrate the millenium with....a 1,000 ft spike in the middle of O'Connell Street. Can you walk up it to view the City of Dublin & hinterland, er no...has it any useful purpose, er no but Bertie & his chums decreed, "we'll put up a spike anyway!".

It was to be beside the Anna Livia monument anyway so the wags were already letting fly with among others "The spike in the dike" & my favourite "Viagra Falls".

The City Fathers decided that there was not enough room for both structures so "Anna" was supposed to be moved to DCU (Dublin City University) or as the Dubs say, UCD for dyxlesics but I believe she will be placed beside the Liffey at Croppy's acre.

So now the spike stands sentinel in O'Connell street. The area which surrounds it is not exactly prosperous so it has been named the lovely "stiletto in the ghetto", the "spire in the mire", the nail in the pale"-( pale being the old Irish description of the Anglo controlled Irish territory of which Dublin was the centerpoint in the 16th century). Other names include "The Metropole", "the Rod to God", "the Pin in the Bin", "the Erection at the Intersection", "the North Pole" (O'Connell Street is on the northside of Dublin) and the wonderful "Stiffy by the Liffey."

There's a couple more edifices I'll write about but another day beckons for that.

Chicago in August!

A month later but some pictures of our trip to Chicago.

Even more than ever, we’re committed Chicago fans. I guess it is something to do with our familial links with the City. A part of Chicago dies at midnight tonight with the acquisition of Marshall Fields by Macys.

The Sledd Aquarium, The Field Museum, the Adler Planetarium, The Science & Industry Museum plus the Hancock Tower all part of the great deal offered by www.citypass.com.

From The Hancock, the view is simply stunning!

The little fellah loved it so much we returned the next day for a night-time viewing. Where else can you wander around a major world city at 12 midnight without fear. Simply a very exciting place to be.


The game was an anti-climax, though it was great to meet the lads and have a few chats with some old & indeed new friends. Hallo Mokes! A fellow blue that made the bus trip to Chicago from D.C.. That is what devotion is all about!

Last year at training in New Jersey, there were about 20 or so Chelsea Diehards…this year at the Chicago session, there was 7,000. Proof that the World has sat up & taken notice of us. Proof that the youngster is taking notice of us is his repeating of a phrase that 500 or so Chelsea fans exclaimed after Didier Drogba’s goal was dis-allowed, beginning with F ending in K’s and add a “Sake” to that and you get my drift!

Bridgeview is a lovely stadium; hopefully it will resurrect that area of Chicago and build Chicago Fire a real fan-base. The organization there are a wonderful bunch of people and very helpful to all. Some of the Security got over zealous with the Celery throwing, (a Chelsea tradition from the early 80’s)…the song is the funny part and no I am not posting the lyrics here.

Dirty old town

Covington's latest star

"The Ascent at Roebling's Bridge"

by Daniel Libeskind

Les Miserables

I remember a fellah called Les Dawson who was bloody hilarious but who is Les Miserables?, his Greek cousin?

Seriously, her indoors has never seen the show yet so as it is on its last legs…tour I mean, it will be coming to the Queen city on the 28th of this month so we’ll head down-town, I have already ordered the limousine from Brinks & taken out three more life policies as we venture into Cincinnati/nasty/natty.

It has all the qualities to be a lovely city but as always grasps defeat from the jaws of victory. Meanwhile across the river, Newport & Covington are fast developing into the type of City that Cinci wanted to be.

Daniel Libeskind, he of the new towers in NYC (to replace & commemorate the World Trade Center) has designed a beautiful 21 floor tower in Covington which will be built in the next year.

Other developments are taking place in the area, developments that should have been in Cincinnati. The “Banks” controversy, a searing indictment of the stupid politicking & no imagination that City Council has displayed in what really is an elegant city. Hopefully new mayor, Mark Mallory can knock some heads together, get a consensus on what is good for the city and bring her back. He seems a decent man and may be able to make Cinci the place to be …but don’t hold your breath.

Les Miserables, fitting isn’t it?