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A DANCER. An artist. A joy.
Ask people to talk about how Sinéad Farrelly plays football and there’s an ebullient consensus.
“She’s kind of like an artist, you’re not sure what’s going to come out but you know that she’s very capable of making a great song or a great painting when she plays because she’s got that creativity. That is hard to teach,” her college coach Steve Swanson says during a recent phone call with The 42.
“It’s something just so natural and pure to watch you play,” her former teammate Michelle Betos tells Farrelly herself on the podcast, Counter Attack.
“And I think that’s a gift. It looks like dance. Like you’re dancing on the ball. Like you’re smooth as you go. It looks like what I believe it’s supposed to look like when you’re meant to do something.”
On the same show, her mom reminds her: “You loved chasing after something.
“You had a swagger about you. But win or lose, there was always a big smile on your face. It was fun to see.”
If this was a movie, there’d be one of those zip-back-through-time montages, and we’d see a young nine-year-old watching the US Women’s National Team win the World Cup in 1999. Farrelly and her best friend Bridget would be lined up outside their homes in Haverton, Pennsylvania holding posters to implore passing motorists to ‘honk for the 99ers’.
They’d look wide-eyed into the cameras and put plain words on their dreams: they were going to be footballers.
We truly believed that we were the next 99ers. They were just us, grown up. We were like, that’s what happens when we grow up.”
In a different, Disney-version of this film, the zip-forward montage would show a jubilant Farrelly, amongst more experienced teammates, lining out with the US national team at a World Cup aged just 21.
As with life, football comes with unwelcome plot twists.
The scene we land on, instead, is located in Haverton, PA. It’s post-Covid and Farrelly, somehow, hasn’t even touched a football in almost seven years.
“My soul is screaming at me so much to just follow soccer wherever that takes me and I’m reclaiming that because I felt like that was taken and I want it back,” she tells 99er Briana Scurry in the Counter Attack podcast during the summer of 2022.
She has just started kicking around a football for the first time since 2015.
“It was like screaming at me but also like a quiet whisper”: she expands on the theme with me in Dublin in summer 2023. “Do you know what I’m saying? It didn’t take until I quit my job and took time off. It was when I had no distractions, that I was like, ‘Wow, this is a really prominent voice’.
“It was always a hope. I wanted to play at the highest level and do this. But at the time, I just didn’t know what was possible and I had so much self-doubt.”
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star.
Back to May 2011. An injury had opened up a spot on the US women’s national team roster ahead of the World Cup and Farrelly’s sliding doors narrative takes shape.
To date, she was everything that the 1999 team wanted their legacy to be. A young girl, growing up with an eye to a future in football, a paid future. A more-than-stellar highlights reel from her time at university playing with the Virginia Cavaliers – and appearances for America at U15 right through to the U23s – would pave a path to a professional contract.
In the 2011 college draft, she was picked second after Alex Morgan, now one of the most decorated and famous footballers on the planet.
“I always knew she would be one of the most sought after players,” recalls Swanson, the head coach at the University of Virginia where Farrelly played between 2007 and 2010.
“She never had a bad year for us. She was always just getting better and better and better. And it wasn’t all of a sudden. Once she got to college, she instantly impacted [the team].
“Everybody knew what she could do. And then it was just a matter of okay, what kind of player do you want? Whether she would go one or two [in the draft]. I’ve coached a lot of very good players, and Sinéad, she’s just a special talent.”
What made her stand out?
“When I first saw Sinéad play, it was clear she was just so good with a ball at her feet. But she was also very agile – she could stop and start so quickly and could run all day.
“She’s got such a creative side because she’s so good on the ball. And she sees things that maybe others don’t. And then the other thing that stood out to me is just how much enjoyment she looked like she had when she was playing the game.
So she’s always had that kind of romantic, 10-year-old disposition when she plays.
“It always looks like it’s the most fun thing in the world for her to do is to play soccer.”
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star. A survivor.
Philadelphia Independence were equally sold on Farrelly’s ability in midfield, making her their pick in the draft.
Their coach, Paul Riley, himself had a growing reputation. In Farrelly’s own words, “He took good players and he made them great. He knew better than other coaches. He knew better than other teams. He knew what was best for you.
“The way that players talked about him, the way he was with his coaching staff… he was at the top. He made all the rules. Everyone listened, everyone respected him. He was in full power.”
The Englishman had big plans for Farrelly in Philadelphia. Speaking to reporters when she joined, he said: “A lot is expected of her and I’ll be shocked if she’s not in the lineup early in the season because she is the most complete player in the draft. She is the one thing that will make a team tick.”
Farrelly was performing at a level her family and friends always anticipated for her but away from the pitch, none of the standards that came with those predictions were being met.
As well as the professional league being in financial difficulties, Riley had zoned in on Farrelly as not only someone he could control on the field, but a player he could rule over in all aspects of her life.
Farrelly would eventually come to learn the word for it: coercion.
Publicly, Riley told reporters that he expected the Pennsylvania native to make the US Olympic team in 2012 but figured the World Cup of 2011 would be ‘too soon’ for her.
But it shouldn’t have been.
That May, Lindsay Tarpley injured her knee and was ruled out of the summer competition, and Farrelly was offered the spot. But instead of that nine-year-old seeing out the timeline she set for herself, she said no.
No – to the US Women’s National Team. No – to the World Cup.
“I remember I couldn’t understand what were some of the reasons why she wouldn’t take this opportunity,” Swanson tells me. “But now when you look back and you see the pressure that her coach at that time [put on her], it makes a little more sense but it didn’t at the time.”
This is how Farrelly tells it to Scurry in Counter Attack: “The World Cup was coming up pretty soon. Erica Walsh was the assistant of the US team at that time and she had come to the game to get me and she was like, ‘Lindsay Tarpley just got hurt and we think you’d be a good fit. I’m gonna take you to camp with me. I know it’s last minute, but I figured I would just like come get you and bring you with me.”
Riley was not happy, and made that clear to Farrelly. She could have a successful time at Philly or the USWNT. She couldn’t have both.
I remember when I turned down the national team being like, ‘I can’t wait to tell Paul, he’s going to be so proud of me.’ And he was.”
That was only one of the casualties from Riley’s alleged misconduct.
Aged 47 and married, he began to make sexualised comments to a 21-year-old Farrelly.
He eventually moved from the verbal to the physical. This particular playbook wasn’t new or particularly innovative. Revisiting the first time he touched her – by grabbing her hips – she is candid with Scurry about its impact.
“That was like such a pivotal moment. It flashes through my brain. Because it just felt like the moment that I felt completely, like, imprisoned. It was like this decision had been made by him and I couldn’t go back on it.”
Riley had sex with Farrelly four times over the course of the years she spent playing on his teams – Philadelphia Independence, New York Fury and the Portland Thorns. Amongst the other episodes which left Farrelly depressed, despondent and lacking any self-confidence, he asked her to kiss a teammate, Mana Shim, in front of him as they attempted to leave his hotel room.
Riley denies all allegations, claiming he and Farrelly never had sex.
But Farrelly remembers the incidents clearly. Such as the time – in her own words – she and another player walked into a hotel room with Riley at the end of a night.
“And we literally like laid on the bed and he had sex with both of us. I remember being like out of my body watching. And I was so confused and disgusted. And I just remember being like, ‘This has happened before’.
“To not even talk about it, and just to know, that that was the next step to the night. This isn’t the first time this had to have happened with them. I was like, ‘This is just how it is… this is how it is in the pros. This is how growing up is I guess.”
In some ways, Farrelly was right. While she suffered the mental and physical consequences of the inappropriate actions of her coach, she didn’t know that similar scenes were playing out across women’s football.
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star. A survivor. A whistleblower.
In September 2015, Riley’s actions caught up with him in some ways. A perfunctory investigation was carried out following a complaint from Mana Shim at Portland Thorns, but Shim and Farrelly felt the system was protecting Riley, and not them.
“I felt totally let down and… lonely and sad and insignificant. I just felt like it minimised my whole experience,” Shim says on Counter Attack.
Farrelly hadn’t been ready to tell anybody about what had happened with Riley and the reaction of the Thorns felt like vindication of her position.
“They called me into the stadium. I wasn’t treated like I had anything to do with the incident. They wanted to know if what Mana was saying was true. They wanted to know who I told because it wasn’t going to be good for the club for people to find out. And it was like 20 minutes and that was it.”
The club terminated Riley’s contract, and although he was out of a job, it was not for long. The Thorns had thanked him in their closing statement and in her independent review into sexual misconduct in US women’s soccer, Sally Yates notes that the Thorns failed to disclose any pertinent information despite queries from other clubs.
So within five months, he had moved onto Western New York Flash and then North Carolina Courage.
Shim travelled to Sweden to play her football there, while Farrelly, to her shock, was traded to Boston.
It was not Riley who would disappear from the sport but Farrelly.
A car accident in Boston put paid to any attempt to move on from Riley’s actions. Only 27 years of age but suffering from concussion, whiplash and other injuries, she quietly retired and slipped away from the sport.
She had always thought she would never tell a soul about Riley. That they would ‘take it to their graves’.
But then the world order shifted after Harvey Weinstein and MeToo happened. Women started talking, sharing and coming up with a language that more accurately portrayed their experiences.
Coercion. Grooming.
“I was fucking livid,” Farrelly says with venom in a particularly memorable episode of Counter Attack.
She started talking. To her mom. To Bridget. To a therapist. To Michelle Betos. And it was healing.
She even called Paul Riley himself to tell him she had ‘finally figured out it was wrong’.
She reconnected with Mana Shim and, together, they blew the whistle.
Riley was still coaching. The league still didn’t seem safe for players. So they told them – the very top brass.
But not much happened. Bar excuses, of course.
There was more to be done. They approached Meg Linehan, a journalist with The Athletic.
“Sinéad called me maybe nine months before the story actually ran and told me,” remembers Swanson. “She was very open with me, there were a lot of tears that call because I think she just needed to get that out and I needed to listen to her.
“It made me incredibly sad to hear all the things that she went through but I was really glad that she could still trust and I was someone she could talk to and open up with.”
When The Athletic published in September 2021 after the months-long investigation, the consequences were seismic. People – many people – lost their jobs. A proper investigation and review process was established. Players, in the form of their association, started to amass true power.
Despite his denials, Riley is now banned from ever coaching in the NWSL.
Change was coming.
And not just for the league.
That voice inside Farrelly was getting louder and louder. By July 2022, it couldn’t be ignored.
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star. A survivor. A whistleblower. A footballer.
Riley, with his actions, had taken soccer and all of its possibilities and opportunities from her. It was time to reclaim it.
The start of the come-back looked like street ball – solo kicks against a wall and pick-up games with men.
Reflecting on those first few months, Farrelly uses phrases like ‘ups and downs’, ‘a rollercoaster’, and ‘not easy’.
“It’s been a lot physically but a lot emotionally and mentally as well. I think that I’ve had to fight a lot of demons on this road back,” she tells me in June 2023.
There was a strategy though: make sure the football (and the joy) is still there; get the fitness back; find a NWSL team.
“My college coach was really helpful to me on my journey back, even connecting me with teams in America to go train with and try out with.”
Swanson says there was little doubt about any of it.
“She came down and trained with us in Virginia… and I remember after a couple of weeks, I said, ‘Sinéad, I’m being honest here, but I feel like you’re just in college again.’
“For her, it was hard because her body is going through it – it was just harder for her to recover. But she looked every bit what I remember in college, and so I felt confident.
“I just felt it was a matter of time that Sinéad got played in – that she would do well at Gotham. What’s happening now with Sinéad does not surprise me at all. At all.”
Swanson and Farrelly had surveyed the landscape and NY/NJ Gotham FC had agreed to a try-out.
The club’s general manager Yael Averbuch West had played against Farrelly so knew the potential there.
She made the roster. Then she made the squad. And, now, she’s a regular – 11 matches under her belt between Gotham and Ireland.
“She’s doing amazingly,” says Averbuch West in Counter Attack. “She’s exciting to watch. She’s silky with the ball like the Sinéad I remember. I think the coolest part about watching her comeback is that she’s only at the beginning of the journey of who she can be again as a player.”
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star. A survivor. A whistleblower. A footballer. An Irish player.
Did you think your soul would lead you to Ireland?
“No,” Farrelly responded succinctly, but still thoughtfully, when I asked that question.
Swanson elaborated on the journey during which he echoed his 2011 sentiment to the player – “You gotta do this. You gotta give it a shot. You gotta go.”
He began with an email to Vera Pauw who he knew through his own international coaching. He acknowledges that he was probably part of a rush on the Dutch woman by people with Irish connections as qualification became a reality. But, he says, Farrelly’s Irish connections were always part of her story in Virginia.
With a father from Cavan, a stint living in Dublin as a child, and an obvious love for the country and its heritage, he felt it wasn’t a difficult sell.
“But I honestly would not have talked to her or reached out to her if I didn’t feel Sinéad could help,” he adds. “I knew that if Sinéad could get anywhere back to where she was; she can help any team. I felt that strongly about her.
“I just wanted to make sure that she knew about Sinéad, knew that Sinéad was interested, knew that Sinéad had citizenship and that she wanted to come back. And then my goal was to try to get Vera as much information about Sinéad as I could.”
That meant video. No modern day coach is going to waste real-life eyeballs on a player without doing their homework first.
But Sinéad hadn’t played in front of a camera for six years.
Swanson got the drones out at Virginia during that two-week camp. Farrelly was focused on her body with an eye to Gotham but Swanson had Australia/New Zealand in July 2023 on his mind: “We got just enough video where I felt I could give her a flavour of what Sinéad could do and sent it to Vera and to Juan Carlos at Gotham.”
Pauw has gone on record to say that short video was enough to more than pique her interest.
“At that moment, I said to my husband, ‘Come and have a look here’. Just those few touches; we saw it against USA that she buys time for others, not herself,” she said.
Now, she’s clear that Farrelly was the player this team had been looking for.
“It just shows her courage,” continues Swanson. “She did a great job. She just focused on one thing at a time. I think she focused on getting herself mentally in the right place, then physically in the right place. Then she focused on making an NWSL team in Gotham. And then she focused on Ireland and, thankfully, the timing worked out.”
That timing saw Farrelly join the Ireland team for their US training camp in April where Denise O’Sullivan described her as the best player during training.
“I knew seeing Sinéad coming into camp that she brought something to the team,” she tells me a couple of months later.
“She was technically fantastic with the ball at her feet and obviously she hadn’t played for a while so I was like, ‘Wow, this girl is is really good.’ Like, coming in here and not playing football for a while and to shine like that in camp was great to see. She made an impact from the minute she came in.”
In Pauw’s Ireland team, organisation and defence are key even for attack-minded midfielders.
Swanson believes she won’t be found wanting, especially in a results business like the World Cup group stages.
“Sinéad understands her role on the defensive side. Ireland are going to have be a good, well-organised, defensive team. They’re going to need everybody to defend. I think she’s always done the work, but can she find her moments to break teams down and to help create and to score goals? I think she can.
“Sinéad loves to get forward. I think she likes the freedom to express herself on the field. She can solve pressure. So what I would say is, when I look at her and I look at Ireland… They’ve got some really good players. They’re very organised but Sinéad is spontaneous and can solve pressure and can break teams down. I would say this for a lot of teams – a lot of teams don’t have some of the qualities that Sinéad has. They don’t have a player of her quality.”
Everyone who saw a beaming Pauw being interviewed after the April game in the US knew Farrelly had sealed a place on the plane to Brisbane with the Irish squad. Everyone except Farrelly herself.
“It was always a hope,” she says. “I wanted to play at the highest level and do this. But at the time, I just didn’t know what was possible and I had so much self-doubt. I can look back and be like, ‘it was there’, but 99% of me just didn’t think I could ever play soccer again in general. So I just had no idea, this is such a surprise,” she said a few minutes after being presented her official World Cup jersey.
“I think all of us who play at this level, we’re just anxious – like always. We want to be the best and perfect. There’s a lot of self doubt. For me, I have… patterns of negativity and criticism and self-doubt.”
Some of that anxiety was evident during her 75-or-so minutes playing France in Ireland’s send-off game earlier this month. But a few misplaced passes masked some of the less-showy strings to her bow, as well as her leadership, particularly during the first 30 minutes when the team kept pace with much higher-ranked opposition.
The job now is to banish the self-doubt and the anxiety, and to free that nine-year-old girl.
“I think I was stuck in the things that happened to me for a long time and it didn’t feel possible and now I’m kind of, not on the other side, but I’ve just broken through more than I thought was possible,” she says. “So I just want to let people know that they can do that as well.”
What does Farrelly think of football now?
“It’s been a rollercoaster since I’ve been back. It’s been amazing. I’ve felt so much joy, at times, with soccer. And that’s why I wanted to come back, to reclaim that for myself…
“I think it’s part of my healing process and I wouldn’t have chosen a different path. I just feel so grateful and blessed that I even get the opportunity to do that. Overall, it’s been amazing and beautiful.”
Swanson is rooting for that child-like spirit to emerge at Stadium Australia on Thursday evening. A smile on her face, friends by her side and a nod back to those 99ers and their most dedicated fans.
“With Sinéad, the more free she is, the more fun she’s having, the better for her,” he says with the animation you can imagine from a college coach who has stuck around for his kids for decades.
‘It’s an amazing story. And, you can probably sense it in my voice – I’m really proud of her. Every athlete has to go through adversity. They have to… but the adversity that she’s gone through, you don’t wish that on anybody. She’s been very courageous, very brave. She’s fought back and it’s what sport is all about.
“But she wants to be a part of it [with Ireland]. She wants to help. She wants to do what she can to help Ireland win. And that’s what she’s thinking. That’s what I love about her. That’s what everybody should love about her.
“And I think Ireland should feel great that they have somebody who loves the country, loves her heritage and plays hard all the time. You want somebody to play with the freedom that Sinéad plays with and play with a smile on her face. If she can do that, I think Sinéad could turn a lot of heads in Australia on 20 July.”
A dancer. An artist. A joy. A college star. A whistleblower. A survivor. A footballer. An Irish player. A World Cup debutant.
***
This piece was originally published on The 42. The Journal publishes the biggest breaking news in Irish and international sport but for all of The 42‘s insightful analysis and sharp sportswriting, subscribe here.
Listen to the Religion of Sport podcast Counter Attack here.
Can the providers please update their coverage first… I have no coverage most of the time at home and at work, ridiculous at this day and age paying for a service that is not even functioning!!!
Change your provider
Same problem, We have been with Vodafone, Meteor and 3 at this stage and the same shite coverage.. Next option at this stage is to move house!!!
In all fairness, Bernie, you live nearly in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (west, west, wesht Kerry).
Your expectations of good coverage are a little high?
Do you want your own mobile tower for you and your neighbor (singular) all to yourself? ;-)
And is it too much to expect to get the same services that the rest of the country get even if I do live next to the Atlantic ocean, the country is not that big for God’s sake… Does that mean that San Francisco or anywhere on the far western seaboard in the USA should’nt expect to get decent coverage or services ‘cos they live nearly in the middle if the Pacific ocean’!!! Get real in this day and age and in this era of so called technology!!!
Sorry bernie but there is a thing called supply and demand. If you have phone line there is options to increase your mobile signal locally. You might look into that option.
Not just a rural problem, I was in Ballyboden last week & had to go outside to get a mobile signal.
Doesnt work like that bernie.
If it was financialy viable to erect a cell in your area they would.
Though if they did folk out ‘wesht’ would no doubt protest about the waves frying ur brain or something.
When the far west is a city the size of san fran, then you can expect good coverage. My point is not how near you are to the sea, it is that you are in a remote region with very sparse population.
I imagine it is a lovely place to live, but living in an isolated area will have its drawbacks. You cannot expect to have it both ways – delivering services at the same level of a city is very costly.
Bernie, you are asking for the same treatment as the rest of the country… Well how about when we in Dublin each get our own phone mast then you can have one too? I’m probably right in guessing that there are less people using your mast than there are using the one nearest my home.
I live in Dublin 15…..no coverage in house, neighbours report same problem
Joey’s right. Some idiot would be about protesting about radio waves. Idiots.
Look I and all of my counterparts pay just as much taxes as you people in Dublin, but yet we do not get the same services, come on let’s be honest about this… I also pay “USC” tax, Prop Tax, Car Tax(for shite roads) at least you have good roads.. all I am saying at this day and age is it not too much to expect to at least have good coverage all over the Country for mobile phones…oh yea on the 5th Oct 2013 there was NO coverage where I live all because we had a “Féile Bia” and that attracted at least 7000 ppl into the penininsula.. And you tell me about Demand and Supply!! I know that is for one day but I can assure you it happens a way more than that on a normal day!!! Why do they take our money if they cannot deliver the service???
Why do you give them money if they don’t deliver a service?
Another silly thing Apple do to control their products
You’re an idiot.
Even my samsung S3 has 4G capability!! Apple will always be playing catch up
Yes but do you have 4G running on it? No, you don’t. That’s the point.
The iPhone 5, 5C and 5S all have 4G capability
@enda Are you sure? Do you have the Lte version?
@karol How do you know he doesn’t? There’s nothing stopping him, 4g SIM on a 4g network and he’s away.
Ha ha…. but do you live in a 4g area…. bet you didn’t think of that one… :-/ android all the way…
You can live without 4G. The 3G speeds in certain parts of Dublin City are more than enough for general users. I’m sure that the “verification” by Apple is to ensure a top user experience. Can’t complain with that.
… Apple fan boy
Android fan boy
Steve jobs would hate apple if he was born again today, a huge company that controls everything the users can do, try download U torrent on iTunes store. You can’t, while its on the play store for all the rest of us and we can download all the free albums and movies we want for free. I read his autobiography he invented apple for to take down the big corporate company that saves all your information and look at what they have become.
I have no interest on watching films on my phone. And I have a fantastic app called Anyplay that streams every single album there ever was for free to my phone. So I don’t need utorrent at all. Enjoy downloading a nice aul virus your dirt phone. I’ll enjoy a secure, beautiful, perfect piece of technology.
The way you are talking about your phone is pretty creepy man.
Karol, tell me more about this anyplay app.
Karl that’s cos your tiny iPhone screen is too small right?
I think you’ll find it was Wozniak that want everything for free with apple. (Open source. Not sure if that’s the right term.) Jobs didn’t. He wanted to control everything. What happens when artists stop making music because they are no longer making any money because you and all your android mates are downloading it for free
Yeah I’m here downloading kanye west and the likes new albums I don’t think they have enough money maybe we should start up a fund and do a whip around the poor lad is broke. Anyway I’ll keep going with my free ebooks, music and movies that I can all put through my tv(not just watching on my phone). And you keep buying apples “new” phones and being limited.
Daniel, having a slightly bigger screen wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to me. I don’t even watch films on my Ipad. I like a big tv screen for that.
Emmet,
The app no longer exists. I assume because it’s like a free version of spotify and was taken down. It still works fine though as long as you have it. Sorry to disappoint you but it is by far the best app I have ever had.
It can no longer be downloaded…and you are defending apple for being amazing and they take away a great app…FACEPALM.
It’s not on android either. FACEPALM..
Could ye all stop wrecking heads please, ye sound like yer 8.
Thought we have been through this already… Don’t need the app can download all the music I want straight to my phone no need to stream.
@jack not everyone that has a smartphone lives in dublin.
Sorry Johnny,
Forgive me,
I’m 9 by the way
Yes but leave the cretins alone to buy the ios kit whilst we reap the rewards of uncontrolled media content. They aren’t computer literate. They have iTunes we have wrzko.
Good lad Elvis.
Hey popey ye got out of jail yesterday.remember my prediction I made during the summer?are you worried yet?
It may surprise you elephant but I don’t remember your prediction. Probably because I couldn’t give a bollix. What happened to your picture
I’m sure Apple couldn’t give fiddlers about the user experience “verification”, a nice thick brown envelope stuffed with cash is what they are really after.
I’m undergoing a makeover at the moment.does mid table team jog your memory?
No, it doesn’t. 6 points is nothing nelly the elephant. Nothing I tell you
Ha!ye couldn’t even score in the champions league during the week.why did the players congratulate Rooney for hittin the post before the og?things are bad when the pat him on the back for hitting the post
Ha ha you’re insane. Who else would they congratulate. He murdered the team turned them inside out and hit the post with a beautiful effort. Lethal player
He didnt score though.will they congratulate him for turning up next?clutching at straws
The last person the touch the ball before the og always gets congratulated. #stoptalkingshite
Apple fan boy? It’s Samsung fan boys and iPhone w@nkers!
Yes Karl but u can plug your android into your big screen I have my I pad my I phone 4 but my s3 plugs into my TV no Netflix r anything needed
Now now Daniel Wilson, don’t be slagging Karol’s tiny screen, it’s perfectly well designed to fit in his handbag.
So you condone theft then Paul? Or did I misinterpret you??
Yes they do……
Both Apple AND Samsung insist on certifying their devices for use on LTE/4G networks. The tests focus on generous continuous coverage, data speeds and handoff to seamless legacy technologies.
I’m surprised with Meteor/Eircom already launched that certification is still going on – might say something about the speed the rollout of their 4G.
You clearly have no clue about the role Steve Jobs played in making apple the closed proprietary ecosystem it is today.
This country has the worse Internet infrastructure I’ve ever witnessed! They have high speed broadband on top of Everest, in the outback in Oz, in tiny huts in Africa and were only a fraction in size and we can’t cover the area! We’re a laughing stock! Dial up all over again!
I have never heard such complete bullshit.
You need to move to a hut in the outback of Everest Karol.
You’ll hear it all from there.
Ireland is in the top 85% globally with our broadband.. you haven’t clue!
The only internet connection achievable on top Everest would be -
Satellite
Poor bandwidth, poor latency
The only internet connection available in somewhere remote like the Oz outback would be again (Satellite)
What exactly do you know about Internet infrastructure in Africa? Internet connectivity, from my experience, is moderate to poor even in the largest cities (Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg) I think you’re talking out of your ass!
We have excellent Data Communications infrastructure in this country why do you think we have huge IT net companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter establishing their European bases here, do you think their data centers are connected over dial up?
The problems in Ireland are the bureaucracy and bullsh*t in bringing the service to ordinary customer, largely impeded by Eircoms monopoly over the years and poor planning.
Jaysus you’re full of $hite
The smell a ya
Everest base camp and Ethiopia both have an internet service running 3g… I can’t attest to the other locations but it wouldnt surprise me. So it’s really not complete bullshizz, unlike your comment.
@Dave King. 3g service is a merely a delivery medium, it does not guarantee x bandwidth at x latency! Even in Ireland 3g connectivity can range from 7Mb/s in Dublin to 50kb/s in Leitrim. Most African cities have 3g (Check out mtn.com) but a 3g network is only as good as the data network that supports it.
We actually have excellent backbone data infrastructure in this country (Check out http://www.e-net.ie/), the problems are allowing the consumer access to the network and at competitive price!
I think you’ll find that you’re the laughing stock with limited comments such as those
@Kieran
Top 85% globally? That doesn’t sound like a very good stat. That means we could be in the bottom 15%.
Luke,
Being in the top 85% means we are in the top 85%.
Being in the bottom 15% means we would be in the bottom 15%.
Please tell me you’re not that dumb. Please.
Why would anyone provide 3g for the top of everest or a mud hut in Africa?
For all the people who who think we’ve a great Internet system you obviously haven’t stepped outside a major town
Clown
Clown!
@ larry you are deluded my poor chap
@Kieran. I imagine you know very little about the internet, Data Networks or very much about anything for that matter. WTF is an ‘Internet System’?
@john f: I know enough that if you’re in a rural area in this country you’re Internet/broadband/mobile network is pretty much non-existent! The geography of our broadband infrastructure is so lob sided that it suits only a certain few! If you can prove that to be incorrect then you’re the first and only person to do so! Fair play to ya!
Have a look at irelandoffline.org and then come back Johnny
Who cares? I have 120 Meg UPC! :D
Call UPC and they will give you a free upgrade to 150mb :)
The sooner the better. All I’m hoping is that 3 IRL’s LTE signal is a lot better indoors than their 3G. Switching to ‘No Service’ or back to GPRS in central Dublin just isn’t good enough.
If HSDPA was rolled out properly with sufficient network bandwidth behind it…. No one would care about 4G.
Apple take the absolute and always believe they’re the cream of the crop, but that’s changing.
It’s hilarious, every time an article about Apple comes out you have all the android trolls coming out from under their bridges trying to justify their hatred for the superior Apple products.
No one cares lads. Go back to your bridge believing your shitty little android phone is better. Ha ha.
hypocritical much?
Trolling? Coming from the man who at the minute who has 7 comments
Each to their own Karol, you like apple as do many others, others like android, some like both. You’re entitled to your opinion, as is everyone else! Live and let live, each to their own. Just because people don’t agree with your opinion doesn’t give you the right to be a troll, or a hypocrite for that matter also.
;) all in good fun lads
Karol care to put up a complete list of the iPhone 5s spec vs the Galaxy S4 spec to back up your argument? Bottom line is that with the rather marginal differences in the handsets it largely comes down to personal preference.
@karl I have both u obviously don’t android is light years ahead of my I phone 4.
@Laura, why not take the time to read your earlier comment Laura? And now you say each to their own.. God I can’t believe I’m allowing myself to get drawn into this, obviously bored
Yawn
@Karol spot on the Andriod trolls are on here in droves samsung love ripping off apple ideas watch the next S5 come out with a 64bit processor again playing catchup to apple!
@mac samsung ripping off Apple? How’s iOS7 working out for you? Looks more than a little like Android ice Cream Sandwich don’t you think? Also Samsung are not catching up to anyone. Any quick search for info will inform you the the tide has turned in favour of Samsung and Android.
Apple without Steve Jobs is a company in freefall. Not a single innovative idea since Jobs passed.
Android, IOS & Windows are all fine systems. Which one is best for you depends on your requirements.
I have used both android & IOS but will be getting the new nokia 1520 whenever it is available.
Richard,
You are comparing a current android phone to an iPhone 4, really? The 4 is nearly 4 years old, compare to the current crop of phones, in benchmarks the 5s is much faster, and as apps are released to make use of the 64bit chip will only get faster.
Actually a spec sheet is a pointless comparison, android is inefficient compared to ios, it needs more ram and a higher clocked cpu to perform even close to ios, this is because it’s apps run in a vm.
bench marks (which samsung has been shown to cheat on) are a measure of performance, in many cases the 5s is twice as fast as the s4.
http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/5
In fact in many cases the older 5 beats the s4
@smv I’m sorry show me a 64 bit OS and processor in a current gen Andriod phone?oh wait is that the sound of silence? Come back to me when Samsung come from behind Again!
@larry, have I forced my opinion on anybody? Have I slandered apple? Have I slandered android? Like I said each to their own…..it’s no excuse for trolling or karols behaviour. You might be bored and obviously a bit tired because you most certainly did not read my comments. Maybe you should read them again yourself before suggesting I do so. I work in telecoms and provided accurate insight as to why this scenario arose with apple in Ireland. Not speculation, not my opinion, just the facts.
My behavior? Have a day off Laura.
I rarely see a 3G signal! Why run when our providers can’t even walk or even crawl? We pay for premium service and get a sub standard service and that goes across all telecommunications services in Ireland.
I reckon if you are paying for 3G and cannot get the coverage you shouldn’t have to pay the full price.
Only in Internet speeds can you pay the same price as someone who is getting 4 or 5 times the value as you.
It would serve as an incentive to get all the lines upgraded that’s for sure..
I thought only women used iphones
Even the hipsters are switching to Android
Thats it Apple will launch 2 new models soon. Iphone 6 and iphone 6 s :)
And allllllllllll the stupid will line up again …
Jesus but fanboys be they apple or android are boring!!!
I know this one!…. apple wont test until 4g goes live, unlike other manufacturers who test while it’s in development and roll out software updates to support 4g at launch. Even the existing iphone5 is 4g compatible, not just the new 5s and 5c and none of them are LTE (4g) enabled yet. Be curious to see how long it takes them to roll out the 4g to their handsets, might be a nice xmas pressie for all the apple fan boys!! :-)
This is funny, because 4G has been supported at launch in a number of other European countries. Last one I can think of is Bouygues Telecom which launched its 4G network in France at the end of September and got 4G support on the iPhone 5 the same day as long as people had updated to iOS7.
More likely explanation:
- The Irish carriers have been pretty slow at carrying out the tests requested by Apple (which rightly or not would be more demanding than other manufacturers – I am getting information from my brother who did work on these things at Bouygues Telecom)
- Apple is not making too many efforts either as Ireland is a small market with limited competition which is clearly not their top priority
“Ireland is in the top 85% globally with our broadband.. you haven’t clue!”
Does that not mean we’re in the bottom 16%?
Hi boris, your brother is right but its not solely up to the networks, the manufacturer has to develop and test their 4g software before rollout. Most do it when the infrastructure is in development, but you hit the nail on the head. “Little old ireland” syndrome. Apple wouldn’t complete this testing until it went live first to test real time parameters and stability. I work in telecoms also.
Spot on Laura, do you want a job? pm me
Lads, seriously? They are both great phones and it really depends on personal preference. I don’t think anyone commenting under a Journal article about 4G is going to change anyone’s opinion on either phone.
It certainly would I’d imagine, 4G will be a big benefit to many people, if it wasn’t they wouldn’t be spending 100′s of millions rolling it out. And if you want 4G you won’t be buying the new iPhone. But there is plenty of options available for 4g so I’d imagine anyone that wants it just won’t buy an IPhone. Unless extremely brand loyal.
Sry read ur comment wrong, yeh commenting here is just a bit of a firefight for the fanboi’s to pass their Sunday.
The technology is there. why do they not invest in it. Also in Hi fiber Broadband. Many places in Ireland have not got Broadband at all.
Got to love the myrmidons who come on here, immediately re-iterating their love for all things Apple, or samsung…. A nation of narrow-minded walking cliches….
4G…..mere peasants I call thee. LTE +A…… I’m sure Ireland will get it…. In about 10 years
YouWinThePrize.jpg
Did London not just get 4g a few months back ?? R am I mistaken. Anyway im waitn on the blame Enda people to come forth !
Ah ya can’t beat the auld Nokia :)
Good to go on my BlackBerry z10
4G in Ireland – Big marketing slogan and that’s all. Why?
3G is more than anough for anything you would normally do on smartphone or tablet (www, email, using various apps, skype, youtube, etc.) for 99% of people.
However if you really need 4G this most likely means you are transferring extraordinary amounts of data, much more than average person (perhaps HD streaming, uploading large numbers of high res photos on the go, etc.). I can only imagine that could be someone like journalist, photographer, some folk that report on live world events, etc.
But then, there’s catch – largest data bundle on Meteor package is 6GB allowance per month.
Considering your 4G works at rate of 20 Mbit/s (just average assumption) – then if you constantly download / upload some multimedia – your monthly allowance of data will be breached in less than 1 hour. Yes, in less than 60 minutes you could be out of your bundled data plan for full month.
This is real problem, not that Apple is checking something :)
Ok. What about an update of Civil Unions to afford more rights to partners, similar to the rights one would have in a marriage?
I’m not bigoted, a homophobe, or religious but I believe marriage should remain solely for male/female relationships, its a been a cornerstone to our society for thousands of years and I think it should remain that way and I would imagine many people (each with their own view) share my opinion.
Oh lol, wrong thread.. fail fail, damn you hangover! :P
When are phone manufacturers going to produce all their phones with dual sim capability & upgrade the ancient sim cards which only hold just over 200 numbers, drives me bonkers trying to back up all my numbers to the phone because the sim card has a crap memory!
Samsung/HTC are more advanced & have better tech specs, cameras etc- but a fall from 2ft & they break to pieces- apple lower spec but tough & cheaper to repair screens etc (which are less likely to break anyhow), depends what your after- reliability or better tech specs- personal taste! !
I was in Vietnam recently & the cost of unlimited broadband is just about €2.99 per month & Wi Fi is free in all hotels & restaurants. Clever people they are!
Can anybody explain why the internet allowance cap is so small in Ireland? I was looking I to getting an iPhone when I return home from abroad as I’m using one now happily.
With meteor it’s €60 for 6GB of data per month and €50 for 3GB!!
A big chun of that is going to pay for the phone. E-mobile have a sim only plan with unlimited calls texts & data for about €30 a month
No bad, I’ll look into so. And also first about getting my phone unlocked!
3s flexi packages give you 20gb.
Even their €20 per month prepay gives you 15gb.
They have newer unlimited packages for under €40 a month for everything, calls, texts and data.
I found their coverage better in some parts of Wicklow and Gorey than O2.
It’s best, albeit a little patchy around Dublin (and to be fair – I don’t find it any more patchy than I found O2 around Dublin).
Our home broadband is pretty poor as we are some distance from the exchange, so I use my 3G for uploading as the speeds are better (which is probably more an indication of how poor our DSL connection is than anything else!!)
@Giz.. Three give a high data allowance because the performance of their data service is so terrible you’d never be able to consume the 20GB, even if you left it downloading 24/7
Apple is a hoe ….Peruod
Are you on your peruod?
Love my little Nokia ;)
Love my little Nokia
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