EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we like to take a look at all the best comments left on the site by you lot over the past week.

This week there was a lot of talk about the government’s two year anniversary, the departure of the Off the Ball team from Newstalk and the discussion of social media before an Oireachtas committee. Then there was the strange cargo of the plane that landed badly at Dublin Airport, Facebook’s new News Feed, and all the latest on Croke Park 2.

So here, in no particular order, are the standout comments from the week that was.

The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week

1. Organisers “delighted” with turnout for Action on X rally (308 comments)

2. Poll: Are you happy with what government has achieved so far? (217 comments)

3. Poll: Which party leader should be Taoiseach after the next election? (214 comments)

4. Off The Ball team leaves Newstalk (197 comments)

5. The 13 absolute best shop names in Ireland (195 comments)

Some of the best comments left on the site this week

(Image via Imgur)

One of the more unexpected stories this week was about a road in the US which had to be closed due to a major spillage of Lego. Obviously readers treated this story with the respect it deserved – by wheeling out some amazing (and terrible) puns. Here are two of the most popular from Kevin Connolly and Alan Burke:

Road blocks…

Police are struggling to piece together the events leading up to the spillage

There were hundreds of comments from sports fans this week lamenting the departure of the Off the Ball team from Newstalk. Stephen Hayden was hurting deeply…:

This is what it must have felt like to have been a teenage girl in 1996 when Take That broke up.

… as was Mainstream Hysteria, who said the sense of loss was “horrific”:

Negative equity, unemployment, emigration, reduction in living standards and poor prospects for our children’s future. You’d think things couldn’t get any worse. Well they can and they just did! Despite all the bad news, there was always Off The Ball. I didn’t tune in all night every night but at some stage most evenings I would listen in to what the lads were saying. If I missed a show, I’d download the podcast and give it a listen later. To say it was my favourite radio show would be an massive understatement and I’m sure many more felt the same. I know of people in the states that listen in every afternoon while at work. I know of husbands who sit in the kitchens every evening listening while there wives watch their soaps. I personally used to practice the guitar in the bedroom with the Off The Ball crew for company. I’m numb with the shock at the moment. It’s like my favourite pet has died or a real meaningful relationship has just ended. The sense of loss is just horrific. I’m sure I’ll get over it, but it will take a long time and just like a bad break up, I’ll be hoping they will come back to me.

Last Saturday we published this photo essay showing the hardships of life on a Native American reservation in the United States. Anne Marie Cahalane had seen how bad things are for the people there:

Thank you for bringing attention to the Native Americans and how they live. My husband and I drove through New Mexico and Arizona a few years back, full of innocence about how the Indians lived and survived. History doesn’t tell the half of it. Any reservation we came across was in a dry, barren, desolate area, no one could eke a living out of the land although we saw some horses in corrals, but very little actual grass for feeding. The poverty was just heartbreaking and in the Navajo nation there are a lot of very talented artists and craftspeople but they too are just about eking out a living. No alcohol in sight, run down homes and trucks, people who seem to have lost their spirit. My heart was broken to think that the so called powers that be could do this to such a proud people and pretend it was for their own good? God help them, I don’t know how they keep going. You’d have to see it first hand to understand how bad it is.

Apologies in advance for this one. Ikea was this week investigating claims that authorities in China found a bacteria usually found in um, faecal matter in a cake destined for the furniture company’s restaurants. From Michael Murphy:

Apparantly it reduced production costs by up to a turd

Hippocrateeth reflected on things people hated as a kid but now love as an adult:

Watching Married With Children at age 10: sh!t car, sh!t job, nagging wife…sucks to be Al.

Watching Married With Children age 32: stable job, nice house, hot wife who wants to have sex all the time…damn I wish I was Al.

A lot of readers shared their stories beneath this article on memories of learning Irish in school (the tuiseal ginideach featured heavily). Sarah Casey‘s story resonated with a lot of people:

for the leaving oral I learned 24 pages of foolscap on intellectual topics such as the current problems of teenagers, the dangers of alcohol (mis)use, and the ceasefire in Northern Ireland. I could talk these up a storm. But she asked me what I did for my birthday. I had not seen that coming. I hadn’t a reasonable thing to say for myself.
I suppose that served to highlight the flaws of the system. sure I hadn’t a functional command of the language at all after 16 years.

Aer Lingus this week blamed the leap year for its fall in passenger numbers. John Connolly tweeted this theory to us:

5 of the comments which received the most thumbs up

The most popular comment this week came from from Niall Mulligan on a story about a Mum from Dublin who wanted to find and thank a man after he intervened when her son was being held at knifepoint. It got a massive 1,800 green thumbs.

Fair play to him and fair play to her for making the effort to say kudos.

Broad daylight mugging with a knife. Very serious and extremely concerning.

Also on the podium was Shane Carroll who received 990 thumbs up for his praise of Ronan O’Gara after the rugby star’s surprise exclusion from the Irish squad.

Can’t say I’m surprised unfortunately. Thanks for everything ROG. True legend!

Next in the top comments list is everlast mccarthy. Also on the article about the Niamh O’Carroll’s search for her son’s rescuer, (s)he said:

Typical – Foreign people coming over here and saving our kids, disgraceful ;)

He received 953 green thumbs, as well as this nice response from Garrett O’Brien:

Funniest comment I’ve seen in a long time Everlast. It annoys the hell out of me to see people write “lol” but I actually DID laugh out loud.

Gerry Corbett also made the top comments list for this week. He showed his support to members of An Garda Síochána who have decided to implement a work-to-rule protest against cuts.

When your income is being forcibly reduced and naturally your income no longer can meet your commitments to pay for the mistakes and errors of greedy bankers and developers when government do back room deals with fellow front line workers to divide and beat you down you are now fighting for your very survival
You have my support for whatever action you may need to take and indeed you should be supported by every worker in this country

Agree with that? 941 others did.

Last but not least, Bilbo Baggins did his best impression of an Irish telephone call. More than 900 people (well, 901 to be exact) were impressed.

Ok chat to you later , bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye … Bye.

The comment was in response to this excellent list from DailyEdge.ie – 9 Pointless things everybody does.

-Additional reporting by Sinéad O’Carroll

Spot any good comments? Let us know: mail christine@thejournal.ie with any suggestions for comments of the week.