IRISH CARDINAL - The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Dr Seán Brady, is being made a Cardinal by Pope Benedict. Brady will become the fourth Irish-born Cardinal, joining Cardinal Desmond Connell, Cardinal Cathal Daly, and Scotland's Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who was born in Co. Antrim. Dr Brady is the Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland and President of the Irish Bishops' Conference.

 

BOOKER WINNER - Irish writer Anne Enright won this year's Man Booker fiction prize for her book "The Gathering". The prize is given annually to a novel written by an author from Britain, Ireland, or any of the 53 Commonwealth nations, and carries with it a check for about $102,000. Irish writer John Banville, who won the Booker in 2005, speaks at Seattle Arts & Lectures on Tuesday, April 29, 2008.

 

ENTERPRISE IRELAND - Irish government Minister Mícheál Martin visited Seattle last week as part of a five-day business mission to the US that also included stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Over 200 Irish companies now employ over 80,000 people in the US.

 

POLISH - A Polish magazine in Dublin is calling for the Polish language to join Irish and English as official languages in Ireland. Ireland has an estimated 250,000 Polish residents and Polish is the most commonly spoken foreign language. A constitutional amendment would be required to make Polish an official language.

 

NON-CITIZEN VOTERS - The Irish government is considering allowing some categories of non-citizen Irish residents to vote in general elections, believing this will help integrate newcomers. As part of the integration strategy, additional funding will be made available to political parties, local authorities, faith-based groups and ethnic associations. Non-citizen residents are already eligible to vote in local elections in Ireland.

 

WORLD DARTS - The Skybet World Grand Prix Darts Championship was recently held in Dublin. The competition involved 32 players, including four Irish qualifiers who defeated a record field of 549 in Dublin last month. The prize fund for the tournament was over $408,000 with the winner, an Englishman, receiving $102,000.

 

RYAN DEATH - Tony Ryan, the man who started Guinness Peat Aviation, once the largest aircraft leasing company in the world, and Ryanair, now one of the most world's most successful airlines, died recently aged 71. From Co. Tipperary, Ryan was Ireland's 7th richest person, with an estimated fortune of around $2.4 billion.

 

IRISH SOLDIER - Ashes of a US soldier killed late last month in Afghanistan were buried recently where she was born, in Beal a Daingean, Connemara, Co Galway. She was previously given full military honors at a funeral in Boston where her family now lives and where among those in attendance was US Senator John Kerry.

 

TROOP VISITORS - Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, over 1 million US military personnel have passed through ShannonAirport. Through the end of September this year, 1,457 flights carrying 184,462 US soldiers have stopped in Shannon.

 

TID-BITS

 * Lonely Planet Bluelist 2008 lists Ireland as the world's friendliest country with the US ranked as number two.

 * The last veteran of Ireland's War of Independence, 105-year-old Dan Keating, died on October 2. Keating was buried beside the church in which he was baptized in 1902 near Castlemaine, Co Kerry.

 * A total of 27,078 on-the-spot litter fines were issued by Irish litter wardens last year. On-the-spot fine amounts were recently increased from $180 to $215.

 * Transparency International's 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of domestic corruption, ranks Ireland as the 17th least corrupt country.

 * There are about 770 prisoners under protective custody in Irish prisons, out of a total prison population of 3,400 people.

 * The IrishRepublic has the seventh-highest youth suicide rate in the EU with twenty-three suicides by children reported in the last school year.

 * 48% of the 160,000 people who took their Irish drivers test last year failed the test.

 

TELEGRAPH ANNIVERSARY - 100 years ago, on October 17th, 1907, the first commercial wireless message between two continents was transmitted by Marconi from Clifden, Co. Galway, to Newfoundland. Half-Italian and half-Irish, Marconi soon thereafter started the first commercial transatlantic telegraph service, and received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909. Clifden was also the location for the crash landing of the first transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown in 1919.