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 water charges, Temple Bar and selfies.
So here are the standout comments from the week that was.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. This week, Temple Bar was voted one of the most disappointing tourist destinations. Wayne O’Fathaigh – and 1,714 readers who gave him a green thumb – can’t understand the attraction either.
Why anyone would go to Temple Bar and pay €7.50 a pint when they could be sitting on Grogans, the Stags Head, or a host of other pubs in Dublin is beyond me
2. Gizmo mac makes it into the Top 5 with a pretty smutty joke about the US Airways porn photo tweet. There were 1,669 thumbs up for this one.
First time a plane was found in a black box!
3. We need a visual aid to explain this week’s third most voted-up comment. This selfie was used as a reason by DailyEdge.ie about why we should all be done with selfies. Sierra is pictured on a sun lounger with her granny’s ashes in a tiny urn.
Stephen replied – and got 1,663 green thumbs.
Poor Nana, must have been a dwarf you’d get more ashes from a john player blue.
4. Pat Mcrotch (we see what you did there Pat) replied to the above, and also got over 1,600 pats on the back from readers.
If the granddaughter is anything to go by,that vase is only holding grandma’s nipples.
5. Just sneaking into the top comments with 1,427 thumbs up is Colette Kearns with this offering about the summer’s weather following predictions of an El Nino phenomenon.
So its either going to be a hot summer or a wet one, suppose it will be one or the other then!
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Male students and teachers at French school to give DNA sample after toilet rape (280 comments)
2. It’s official: The Government has cancelled its Midlands wind energy export plan (261 comments)
3. Unmarked armoured vehicles carrying Russian flags spotted as Ukraine increases military action (239 comments)
4. Diarmuid Martin says priests feel hurt over yesterday’s Irish Times cartoon (214 comments)
5. Poll: What’s a fair price to pay for water each year? (190 comments)
Some of the best comments left on the site this week
Yesterday, Jill Meagher’s husband Tom wrote brilliantly and courageously about men’s violence against women, about how ‘ordinary men’ disassociate themselves from the problem because they see the culprits as ‘monsters’ such as Adrian Bayley. The piece is a must-read and Sinéad Hanley’s reaction was appropriate and highlighted the power of the blogpost.
Everything about Thomas Meagher impresses me. All the pictures of them together show how deeply in love they were. He loved his wife deeply and he still loves his wife. He wouldnt have harmed a hair on her head.
There are tears in my eyes writing this cos its so rarely that you will find a guy who comes out in public defending womens rights to feel safe and be safe.There have been times in my life that i havent felt comfortable or safe around some men. I just put it down to “thats life”. This blog of his has opened my eyes.
I think Jill would be very proud of him.
Irish Dads are the best. There were some brilliant and heartwarming stories told on this piece that we loved this week. First up, caramelcamel had this absolute cracker:
When my dad got his first mobile phone he thought you put credit on it by plugging it into the wall. He assumed the money would be on his next ESB bill. When we explained that was for charging the battery he was mightily confused – he was under the impression phones used “normal” (aa) batteries. “Sure havn’t I a packet of batteries out in the shed? Your mammy got them in Dunnes.”
Sticking with Dad stories, Catherine Sims gave us a reality check about growing old.
I see this first hand with my father. None of my family really bother with him apart from me and my kids. He gets really lonely and depressed . I am in every day but he really needs others to chat to. It seems to be very hard for men. They don’t want to do elderly clubs or anything like that whereas his older sister Who is 89 is never home. She is off on every available outing and club there is. You have to make an appointment to see her :) . If there were more men’s interest clubs you would definitely get more men going. Also a lot of elderly people would go to events if they knew about them but many don’t. They don’t do Internet and just don’t know what’s out there .
Highlighting what a good community, TheJournal.ie‘s comments section can be, molly coddled and Ross Stewart had really helpful suggestions.
Did you know that fruit flies are just like fighter jets? On hearing this, Liam Ó Séicspéir, shared this wonderful story.
I lived in an apartment in Dublin which had a lot of fruit flies in it. I used to sit among them and call myself The Lord of the Flies. I’ve never read the book so I didn’t realise how stupid that was.
Paul Heffernan began something wonderful with this on an article about a Suas reference.
Well, sir, there’s nothin’ on earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail! What’d I say?MONORAIL, MONORAIL, MONORAIL!!
Click here to see what followed.
In a similar vein, here’s what happened on DailyEdge.ie‘s collection of unmistakable signs that it is Holy Thursday.
S kicked things off:
Zaccheus was a greedy little man,
He cheated all the people in the land…..
Dan Harrington followed up:
When their debt they could not pay, he would take their farms away, and their furniture and everything they had!
And Oliver Flood added:
He was good at climbing trees!!
Staying with the Holy Week theme, Evin Lee told us why he is grand about Good Friday drinking rules.
I know what you mean and I love drink and all but at the same time it’s kind of cool that there’s part of our heritage still in law, particularly when it gets a whole pile of non-alcoholic events popping up all over the place. Would be pretty deadly if we were known for non-alcoholic celebrations like Good Friday could be rebranded, as well as the giant piss-up that is Paddy’s Day.
Charlene Hogan got a wake-up call on the emergence of the sun and good drying on Sunday.
I have 3 loads of washing done….I stood in my kitchen with a cup of coffee looking at the clothes flap in the breeze and then realised how sad my life has become….happy because I can dry clothes outside!!!??!!! I am now outside a restaurant having lunch with a glass of wine….this is the life :)
British Pathé released some brilliant Irish footage to YouTube this week, including numerous archived videos of All-Ireland finals from bygone days. This one from 1934, featuring a priest throwing in the ball, was explained to us by Diarmuid.
That would have been the Archbishop of Cashel throwing in the ball, as was tradition until 1979.
Spot any good comments? Send them through to us by email at sinead@thejournal.ie.
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