My Blog (Eugene Ward)

A collection of photos of Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Ireland 1. Photos from Christmas Dinner   2 Photos from Christmas Day   3 Photos of Boxing Day A good time was had by all

Here was Christmas 2023 for us CHRISTMAS EVE Ready to go out for breakfast and meet Santa Meeting Santa Liam posting the letter to Santa Then time to get ready for the evening meal. The Turkey Forgot to take any dinner photos. Too hungry. Kids go to bed. CHRISTMAS DAY Watching mass from Strabane at 6.30am Panetton for breakfast Opening presents Typical  Irish Christmas lunch at Molly's Irish Bar Dinner in the evening, of which there are no photos. BOXING DAY Boxing Day means football.  Playing with toys 2024 is a leap year so 365 days to the next Christmas Day Christmas is as far away as ever now Hope you had a good Christmas

So Israel is bombing Gaza again. Gazans were told to move South when the bombed the North, now Israel plan to bomb South Gaza and have told the residents to evacuate. But where to? They will be shot if they try and go north so there is nowhere to go. This is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing and genocide.  Apparently Hamas are in the South now. This has nothing to do with Hamas but is the execution of a plan to drive the Palestinians from their land that started before Israel became a state in 1948 Gazans are effectively in an open air prison with no means of escape and are facing arial bombardment and a ground invasion.  It may not be gas chambers, but it’s the wiping out of a civilian population. The same end result as what the Nazis tried to do to the Jews 80 years ago. And what about 7th October, as some journalists often ask?  The New York Times by no means a pro-Palestinian publication has reported that Israel knew about this in advance. Israeli eye-wi...

I can't believe some of media reporting at the moment. Palestinians being slaughtered.  How many now, 11000 12. When will it end? All the mainstream media can ask is do you condemn Hamas? What everyone is failing to point out is that Hamas was actually backed by the Israeli regime when more moderate Palestinian groups were attempting to negotiate a settlement. The more extreme Israelis realised that they needed a terrorist group in control of Gaza and on their borders in order to justify a military solution. In this sense the right-wing regime in Israel is at least partly responsible for the death of those innocent Israelis that it is now using to justify the killings of thousands of innocent Palestinians. The Israelis have been using genocidal language for a long time but now they are talking about the Gaza Nakba, a final solution. It’s insane that we have got to this point, that the Israeli government haven’t been reigned in. And some of the revisions of history that I have heard...

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex one. It's origins lie in a British government declaration in 1917 to set-up a Jewish state in Palestine    Key words for me in the text are these: "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine",   After the First World War the British controlled Palestine and from then, but particularly from the the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian have been losing land. Israel didn't just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding ...

I can't comprehend what's happening in the Middle East at the moment. Those who opppsed a ceasefire, what lack of humanity? Palestine is being cut off from the world so that a mass slaughter can take place  In the first half of the 20th century we had a pandemic, a major economic crash and a genocide. We've already had a pandemic and an economic crash, now it seems that genocide is taking place. I always remember former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 "enough of blood and tears" enough. He was murdered by an Israeli settler in 1995, a Netenyahu supporter. In the last few years these settlers have been running amok in the West Bank, murdering Palestinians and taking their land. So what about Hamas, a lot people would be surprised to know that Natenyahu's political party funnels a lot of money to Hamas, via Qatar. Why? Because Netenyahu and his party don't want peace. I remember in the 1990s he was seen as a paraih, a right-wing zealot. It was v...

  I enjoyed watching the rugby on Saturday.   It was a great win for Ireland against South Africa but no prizes are being handed out yet.   Ireland topped the pool in 2011 and 2015 to lose the Quarter Final to Wales and Argentina respectively. Those teams are projected to meet in the Quarter Final and the winner will play Ireland should we beat the All Blacks.    You would expect the finalists to be the winners of the bottom two quarter finals but you never know. Fiji beat England recently and are projected to meet them in the Quarters so they have a good chance of getting to their first Semi-Final.      It should make for interesting viewing. From an Irish point of view, I wouldn't be getting too carried away as a very difficult Quarter Final awaits.

So the  Rugby World Cup is upon us. I'm not really a rugby fan, although I watch the Six Nations. As long as we beat the English I don't care. My most memorable World Cup moments, ironically, were in Spain. Watching France v New Zealand in 2007 with a Kiwi and that year's final, England v South Africa with an Englishman. I was supporting England in that game and got a lot of criticism for doing so. In 2011, I went for breakfast with Kiwis, English people and a Scot to watch some of the games.   Ireland  scored a point a minute earlier today and there will be other one-sided games so I wonder, are there too many teams in the group stage? Surely 16 would suffice? 4 groups of 4 and it means no team would have to sit out a match day. The Irish Examier asked the question the other day,  is rugby Ireland's most popular sport?  I don't know about that but it is certainly enjoying a period of growth, buoyed by the national team's success. As for Ireland's chances, ...

So here it is, the World Cup Final, is football coming home? Will La Roja clinch it? We will see on Sunday morning. England It's not normal for Irish people to support England but my feelings towards them are neutral. Bar the Nigeria game their path to the final has been smooth. I see from social media that the English have been getting behind their team. Some have called for the women's coach to coach the men's team and some have called for a Bank Holiday if England win. Spain Spain, on the other hand have already lost in the tournament, going down 4-0 to Japan. I watched their game with The Netherlands and they played well, it was a good game. Too close to call The bookies have made Spain slight favourites    I'm not going to support either team but looking forward to what should be a good game. I've watched a fair bit of the tournament and it has been of a decent standard.

  So Derry lose on penalties. Gutted for the Candystripes. Grateful to LOITV who, at the last minute, gave fans around the world access to the game. Grateful to my daughter too who slept through most of it. They had chances. It's stating the obvious but if they had got a 2nd goal in the first half they would have progressed.    Derry City v Tobol Kostanay     The team played well and were unlucky. There were many great performances. Duffy and Connolly did really well. Brian Maher has had such a good season, it's a shame he is the one that missed the decisive spot-kick, Ben Doherty didn't convert either of course so he is not alone.     A lot has already been said and written about having to play the game in Dublin. Tallaght Stadium looked rather empty. I wonder what the attendence was. The cost of tickets and travel on a Thursday night I'm sure put people off. Had it been played in Derry, with a full Brandywell roaring the team on, in my opinion t...

 1 5th August 1998. Omagh. 25 years ago. Rem ember the day well and hearing news of the bomb on that Saturday afternoon as I was having a cup of tea. It was the year of the Good Friday Agreement and we thought bombs were a thing of the past. The Manic Street Preachers had a sort out at the time, If you tolerate this your children will be next.   Hard to belive its 25 years, where does the time go? I wasn't in Omagh much in those days but in 1999 and from 2001 to 2005 I worked there. Great people, great town, great community. Thinking of all those affected by that dreadful day,

  Good luck to Derry City in Kazakstan as they try and get through another round of the UEFA Conference League. Derry have faced such a long trip and will be hoping to get a positive result to take back to Ireland next week   . It was disappointing that they were not allowed to play the second leg in Belfast, the IFA said yes, Linfield said yes, it was UEFA that said no. Playing the 2nd leg at Windsor Park would have been interesting given the history Derry has with Linfield and the IFA, but UEFA rules wouldn't allow it https://www.rte.ie/.../1398991-uefa-turn-down-derry.../   The idea of playing at Windsor Park make me think..What if Derry rejoined the Irish League? Wouldn't an All-Ireland football league be better than the current situation? Is a summer season or Friday night games really best for football in Ireland?   Playing the second leg in Dublin puts Derry at a major disadvantage in the tie and it takes away from the enjoyment of reaching this stage of the...

Another day of shame for the police here in Peru as students are attacked in their university campus  Students attacked at San Marcos University There has been protests against the president Dina Boularte who came to power last month after former president Pedro Castillo was impeeched. Protests across Peru which have been going on since early December have claimed close to 50 lives. Protests in Peru The presidential election of 2021 saw Castillo, who is popular in much of Peru but not in Lima finish ahead of right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori. Her supporters, similar to Donald Trump and Brazils's Jair Bolsonaro, have always contested the outcome of the election despite international observers agreeing that it was free and fair. Peru Elections 2021 Castillo's time in office was turbulant. He had his enemies in parliament who have tried to oust him several times, finally succeeding on 7th December 2022 after he tried to close the parliament in a failed self-coup.  F...

France v Argentina. World Cup Final 🇫🇷🇦🇷 FIFA say it has been the best World Cup ever. Everyone has a favourite World Cup dependent on whether their team is in it, how they did, and memories of watching the games. My favourite World Cup was Italia'90. I know it wasn't the best tournament in terms of the games but Ireland qualified for the first time and got to the Quarter Finals, although  the team only scored 2 goals in 480 minutes of football. 1990 was the first World Cup I was truely excited about. I remember Mexico'86, I have vague memories of Northern Ireland v Brazil and the final but 1990 was the first I watched with interest. 2002 also stands out, the early morning games.  In the Fir Trees Hotel at 0730h to watch Ireland-Cameroon. Celebrating Robbie Keane's equaliser against Germany. The heartache of a defeat to Spain on penalties. There has been a few shocks this year but the final pits the current World Champions against the winners of the Finalissima; the...

 A little bit on the February we had. It was an action-packed month with birthdays, anniversaries and various trips to the beach. The height of summer here in Peru.  There was the historic moment on 14th when Liam lost his first tooth. There was no need to search outside McGarrigle's shoe shop in Strabane for this one.  I had my 22x2 birthday and our 2x2x2 wedding anniversary on 22/2 And March started with one of the greatest days of the year, Pancake Tuesday The world news is dominated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what it means for the future. There have been scenes of great suffering in Ukraine which of course is terrible. Of course the Ukranian people need the help of Western governments, and the show of solidarity with them is to be welcomed. The Palestinian people however, have been suffering in a similar way for decades and the world has turned a blind eye. Many even criticise those who try and help the Palestinian people or show empathy with them. Indeed,...

 January is the month when the contrast between the Northern and Southern hemisphere is greatest. Back in Europe, it's cold, wet and dark but in the Southern Hemisphere it's the middle of summer. Sitting in the heat of Lima watching Gaelic games played in winds and rain brought home the contrast.  The first month of the year, it was a month of new beginnings and with a few problems. Swimming lessons and a new class for Liam, a new morning summer school; but on the downside there was illness and there were power cuts. Managed to walk over 50km during the month and we had a few trips to Starbucks  Liam enjoyed the swimming even though he ought to pay more attention to the teachers. So that's the first month of the year chalked off, a month of ups and downs. On to February