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 there was a lot of talk about Making a Murderer, Tesco and water charges.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. During the week, Dean Strang defended Ray D’Arcy after the RTÉ host was criticised for how he handled an interview with the Making a Murderer lawyer.
Colin Byrne got 2,759 green thumbs for this comment:
Man, this guy just can’t help defending lost causes.
2. When it emerged that Tesco is seeking to place all staff of greater than 20 years service on new, vastly-reduced contracts, jamesdoyle wrote:
Big companies all going for the zero hour contracts and minimum pay.terrible to see the working person that’s given a lot of years of there life to a job being treated like this.
Some 1,831 of you agreed.
3. Ger Buckley‘s comment about D’Arcy’s interview with Strang got 1,774 green thumbs:
This type of broadcasting is the primary reason i resent paying my tv licence.
4. Also on the Tesco story, Boganity commented:
Another reason not to shop at Tesco
That one got 1,382 likes.
5. Rounding out the top five, Paul got 1,162 seals of approval for this observation about dogs in pubs:
They are cleaner than some of the humans who visit pubs.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Poll: Will you vote for Fine Gael? (377 comments)
2. What did God do before the world was made? The Pope has given an answer (356 comments)
3. Poll: Are water charges an election issue for you? (323 comments)
4. Pictures: Anti-water charge protests have been taking place all over the country today (239 comments)
5. Fine Gael councillor’s posters defaced with swastikas (230 comments)
Standout comments
Ruth Cullen was inspired by Rachael Cahill White’s column about her daughter Colleen, who has juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The nine-year-old has to take steroids and a chemotherapy drug, and get painful injections twice a week.
Well done Rachel for speaking out and sharing yours and Colleen’s story. Brave little girl. Services have to be improved for children like Colleen who have this lifelong condition and need timely intervention. I agree with Rachel the staff in hospitals are amazing and do the best they can, that is not the issue, the government need to intervene and do something to support children who are in daily pain. 4 years waiting list with no OT service when a child needs it is nothing short of cruel.
I am proud to be a member of i-can a parent led charity that supports parents of children with JIA and other conditions like my daughters. Without the support of other parents I would never have understood all the different interventions, needles, meds, steroids etc and would be lost.
After it emerged a medical centre in Tipperary has been operating without a GP for almost a week, Andrew Ohalloran wrote:
i have been leading this campaign since last October with a very strong committee. this issue is not just in Tipperary but across the entire country especially in the west of Ireland. The staff and the people of Bansha deserve great credit firstly from preventing the Health clinic closing for good, and secondly for raising awareness of this issue on a national scale. we have done something in Bansha that very few places have managed to do and that is overturn a HSE policy on rural Health centers.
As a result of our committee the position was re advertised and we are currently awaiting the outcome of those interviews. the staff deserve a lot of credit on this issue as they have endured a lot of set backs over the last few months with the retirement of a fantastic doctor who had to retire on health grounds.
so we are hopeful that by later today we will have good news regarding the position being filled.
Rory O’Neill had this to say about dogs being allowed in bars:
Unfortunately every bar, regardless of whether they serve food or not, is considered a “food premises” under the legislation. I own a bar in Dublin city centre, the only food we serve is packets of peanuts, and we are dog friendly. We’ve had two visits from the health officer about it who told me I couldn’t have my own small dog in the bar. The officer implied they’d had a complaint from a member of the public but I don’t really believe that – she also said she’d been passing the closed bar and saw the dog through the window. I was very firm about my position: the dog stays, and if they wanted to drag me in front of a judge and waste everyone’s time, they could go ahead. (the dog is hardly going to open bottles of beer and pee in them, and as far as I’m concerned a dog is no more a health issue than customers wearing their street shoes in). I haven’t heard from them again and that was about two years ago.
Under a poll about people leaving their houses unlocked, John Joe Collins shared this insight:
My wife leaves the radio on when we leave the house and a light on so that if burglars break in they can see what they are at and have a little dance when they are robbing my stuff……
Another poll started a debate about whether or not people’s real-life connection with others is damaged by the amount of time they spend online:
Del Bear commented:
Recently I went for lunch with a friend and she was on her phone all the time so I updated my facebook status with.. “Hate when you’re out for lunch with friends and all they do is check their phone” and I tagged her in the post. I put a winky face to make it look like I was joking.. but I was so not joking, I hate that, it’s soo unbelievably rude and yet its become so common place and normal that people no longer see how bad mannered it is!
To which John S replied:
It is absolutely pathetic that people cant put away their phone for an hour or two while people are talking, in a pub, etc without updating facebook, whatsapp, etc.
Or the even more annoying one, walking along the footpath with head buried in a phone, expecting everybody else to walk around this strolling zombie.
On the same thread, postman pat added:
As I do say when people ask me about being on Facebook I do say I don’t need 1076 friends I have REAL ones
Meanwhile, Abbi Cranky threw in her two cents on banning the word ‘hubby’:
I wholeheartedly endorse this.God awful term.Can I add that stupid term rose-mantic to the list.
I can’t abide it.
In a debate about giving up your seat on public transport for a pregnant woman or elderly person, Louise Hickey wrote:
It’s an unspoken rule! If you don’t, the bus fairies will ensure you’ll miss your next few buses or end up sitting by the chatty health nut who swears the elixir of long life is to eat raw garlic or worse, put your hand on a sticky handrail once held by the martyr who coughed, snotted and spluttered the whole journey…I’m not one to tempt fate… :)
For the record, the vast majority of you would give up your seat:
More weather warnings this week prompted casey to say:
WARNING……. Strong breeze today and rainfall. Take your coat wellies and an umbrella with you.
This is NOT a storm it’s Irish weather.
While Patrick Agnew looked on the bright side:
But sure at least there’s bit of a stretch in the evenings!
Finally, a lot of people were rightly impressed by Lego 1916 The Movie, a short animation made by third class pupils from Sunday’s Well Boys National School in Cork city.
There was time for puns in the comments section, with Shane Walsh writing:
One would say it was a “Block”buster.
Finally, Gus Lynch commented:
Everything about this is awesome.
See any good comments? Email them to orla@thejournal.ie.
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