VOTING ABROAD - On September 28-29, the Convention on the Constitution of Ireland will address the issue of "giving citizens resident outside the State the right to vote in Presidential elections". Irish citizens resident outside Ireland are invited to submit their views by completing a short survey. The deadline for responses is this Wednesday, September 18. The Convention was established in July to make recommendations to the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) on how to make the Constitution more relevant to the Ireland of the 21st Century. For more information, visit constitution.ie.

TEEN VIDEO PROJECT - As part of its "Life's Like This" project, Irish TV broadcaster RTE 2 is asking teenagers (13 to 19-years-old) to film themselves for two minutes on Friday, September 20, and to upload the film to the RTE website. RTE 2 will create a user generated documentary to capture life through the eyes of teenagers on that day. If you would like to submit a video (cellphone video is fine), or know a teenager who might like to contribute, visit rte.ie. The deadline for submissions is on or before September 24, but the video must be made on Friday, September 20.

HAPPY IRELAND - The World Happiness Report 2013 ranks Ireland 18th in the world with an average happiness score of 7.076 (out of 10) for the years 2010 to 2012. Ireland ranked only marginally below the United States(17th) and above the UK (22nd). The report was compiled at Columbia University in New York, and measures variables such as health, longevity, income, productivity, and social solidarity using the survey results of different countries to arrive at the results. Some 97.1% of Irish people report having somebody they feel they could rely on in times of troubles, the second best in the world.

COMBINED BANDS - In another sign of the strengthening ties between Ireland and the UK, members of a British army band and the Irish Army No 1 Band recently performed together at a garden party in the British ambassador's residence in Dublin. British and Irish soldiers are also serving together in a combined unit in the west African country of Mali as part of an EU mission to bring stability to the region.

IRISH-AMERICANS - The 2010 US census reported 39.6 million Americans claiming Irish heritage, five million of whom are of Scots Irish heritage. That number is almost seven times larger than the entire population of Ireland (6.3 million). After German, Irish is the most common ancestry of Americans. With 12.9% of its residents claiming Irish ancestry, New York has the most concentrated Irish American population. At 20.4%, Boston has the most-concentrated Irish population for a city, while Miami, at 1%, has the least.

IRISH REPUBLICANS - Former Vice Presidential candidate Congressman Paul Ryan will be the guest speaker at the first ever Irish Republican caucus breakfast in Washington, DC, on September 18. Hosted by the newly organized Irish Republicans in the Senate and House (IRISH), the event is co-sponsored by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and IrishCentral.com.

IRISH PASSPORTS - Irish embassies and Consulates outside of Ireland issued 94,363 passports (new and renewals) in 2012, of which 12,540 were issued in the USA. A total of 3,094 were issued through the San Francisco Consulate which handles Washington State applications. The most Irish passports issued outside Ireland was in London - a total of 52,550. Anyone who has at least one Irish-born grandparent is entitled to claim Irish citizenship and ultimately carry an Irish passport.

HACKETT BRIDGE - From Heuston Railway Station east to the sea, there are now eighteen bridges crossing the River Liffey in Dublin.The newest bridge, which crosses the Liffey at Marlborough Street, will be named the Rosie Hackett Bridge, the first time that any bridge over the Liffey has been named for a woman. Hackett was a well-known trade unionist who co-founded the Irish Women Workers' Union in 1911 when she was 18. She was later sacked for her role in the 1913 Lockout and was a member of the Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Easter Rebellion. She was 82 when she died in 1970.

CULTURE NIGHT - On Friday September 20, locals and visitors across Ireland will enjoy a night of free entertainment, discovery and adventure in 28 towns, cities, counties and islands in Ireland. Museums, galleries, churches, historic houses, artists' studios and cultural centers will open their doors late into the evening welcoming people of all ages sample their cultural delights for free. There will even be performances on Dublin Buses and Trams! For more information, visit culturenight.ie.

IRISH POLES - Ireland has the third highest number of Polish migrants in the world, with 120,000 Polish-born people living in Ireland. Polish is the second most widely spoken language in Ireland and the number of Polish weekend schools in Ireland has doubled in the past three years to about 24 teaching about 4,000 students each weekend. At the weekend schools, sponsored by the Polish ministry of education and by the Polish community, the children learn Polish culture and language.

COLLUSION QUESTIONS - At last weekend's British-Irish Association conference, Ireland's Tánaiste (Deputy PM) says the Irish government is prepared to investigate allegations that the Irish State could have done more to thwart the activities of the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland from 1968 - 1998. While claiming that "the Irish State has a very honorable record in that regard", and that he was not accepting any allegation of Irish State culpability in the actions of the IRA, he said the government acknowledged that there are people in the unionist community who raise questions about whether or not enough was done.

1916 COMMEMORATIONS - In 2016 when Ireland will celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rebellion, Ireland's Tánaiste says that British royals, politicians and Unionist leaders will be invited to Dublin to participate in the commemorations. The Irish government also wants all sides to respectfully remember those who gave their lives at the battle of the Somme, including the thousands of Irishmen who died fighting in a British uniform.

NI PARADES - In 2013 so far, Northern Ireland's Police Service (PSNI) has spent more than $23 million policing parades and protests, and in the last 12 months, 689 PSNI officers have been injured while policing parades and protests. From April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012, the Parades Commission authorized 4,182 parades in Northern Ireland, an area slightly smaller than the Olympic Peninsula. 60% (2,493) of the parades were organized by Loyal Order / Protestant / unionist groups with 4% (158) being organized by nationalist / republican groups. The other 36% were considered non-political and non-sectarian, e.g., charity, civic, rural and sporting events, or individual church parades.

REDHEAD DISTRIBUTION - The redhead DNA genes in Ireland range from 34% of the population in Connacht to 36% in Ulster and 38% in Munster and Leinster. However, 40% of the people in Edinburgh, Scotland, carry one of the three common red hair gene variants, and 34% of the population of parts of the north of England are also carriers. To coincide with last month's Redhead Convention in Crosshaven, Co. Cork, a map of Ireland and the UK was published showing where the redheaded genes are concentrated.

CIVIL WAR SPLIT - This year's speaker at this year's Béal na Bláth commemoration, at the site in West Cork where Michael Collins was assassinated in August 1922, suggested the possibility of political parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil combining to form a future Coalition Irish government. The two parties owe their origins in large part to the dispute over acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that was supported by Michael Collins and was opposed by Eamon de Valera. Collins was killed during the 1922 Irish Civil War that was fought over the Treaty.

IRISH SPACMAN - Dubliner Bob Geldof will become the first Irishman in space as one of the first ever Space XC astronauts in 2015. Tickets cost about $100K and the 61-year-old former frontman for the Boomtown Rats has begun training in a space flight simulator based in Holland. In 1984 Geldof helped found the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, and later organized other charity concerts called Live Aid and Live 8. He also helps fellow Irishman Bono with the ONE Campaign. The Boomtown Rats last performance was in Dublin in 1986.

BLOODY SUNDAY DEATH - The British Army colonel who was in charge of the troops that fired during the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in 1972 has been shot dead during an apparent robbery while on holiday in Nairobi, Kenya. On Bloody Sunday in 1972, 13 civilians taking part in a civil rights march were shot and killed by his soldiers. The Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday events found that the then Major "had no idea what was actually going on", and "assumed that his soldiers had come under attack from republican paramilitaries and were responding".

O'CONNELL FILM - Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis have expressed interest in making a movie about Daniel O'Connell, the Irish lawyer who campaigned for and won Catholic emancipation in Ireland. O'Connell was elected to the British Parliament in a by-election for Clare in 1828, but, as a Roman Catholic, was forbidden to take his seat. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, passed by the British Parliament in 1829,for the first time permitted Catholic Members of Parliament at Westminster. Before then, the law required all MPs to swear an oath stating 'that the sacrifice of the Mass, and the invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary, and other saints, as now practiced in the church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous.'

LIGHTHOUSE VACATIONS The Commissioners for Irish Lights, which manages 75 lighthouses around the coast of Ireland, plan to add more of their lighthouses to the 6 lighthouses currently available as tourist accommodation. Each lighthouse has accommodations attached, in some cases up to 5 houses, that can now be offered to tourists. The expansion is part of a plan to create a new All-Ireland Lighthouse Trail.

FREE GENEALOGY - The September issue of Irish Lives Remembered Genealogy e-Magazine can be read at irishlivesremembered.com. This month's magazine focuses on Tracing Your Ancestors in Cavan and also reports that Findmypast Ireland has released 15,000 new Irish military records from the National Roll of Honor, 2.5 million court records, and an unusual archive of over 500,000 Irish Dog Register licenses.

SOCCER RECORD - Two Irish teams have set a world record for the longest five-a-side soccer match, playing a 53-hour non-stop competitive game with a final score of 695 goals to 601. Played in Portlaoise, the game has been verified by Guinness World Records as being the longest five-a-side game in the world, beating the previous record of 43 hours. The teams were drawn from a squad of 15 men and one woman which so far has raised almost $25,000 for charity.

BOG BODY - New tests on the remains of a preserved body found in a Co Laois bog have revealed that it is the oldest bog body ever discovered in the world. The remains are of a young man who was killed in human sacrifice around the year 2000 BC. The chemical makeup of bogs can preserve human bodies for thousands of years. Older bog bodies have been discovered elsewhere but none as mummified or as well preserved as this example.

THUNDERSTORMS - Here are some recorded Sferics (atmospheric signals occurring as a result of lightning discharges) over Ireland and western Europe between 23-29 July when there were major thunderstorms throughout Ireland. For more information and details, visit Armagh Observatory.

LANDLOCKED FISH - Known locally as the 'goureen', the Killarney Shad is a herring-like fish that does not exist anywhere outside of Lough Leane in Killarney, Co. Kerry. As the ice retreated following the ice age, some of the fish got 'landlocked' in freshwater lakes and the fish has become so adapted to its new habitat that no migration to the sea is needed for the completion of its life cycle. It is now so unique that it is genetically isolated from its ancestors.

100TH BIRTHDAY - Fr. Joseph Mallin, the last surviving child of any of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, celebrates his 100th birthday this week. His father, Michael Mallin, was Chief of Staff of the Irish Citizen Army and was second-in-command to James Connolly during the Rebellion. Joseph was 2½ years old when his mother brought him to visit his father in Kilmainham Gaol on May 7, 1916, the night before Michael was executed by firing squad. Joseph later became a Jesuit priest and currently lives in Hong Kong where he taught at a boys High School run by the Irish Jesuits.

1916 REBELLION -In the days after the 1916 Rebellion in which about 300 people were killed, 112 Irish Rebellion leaders were sentenced to be executed. However, after the protracted almost daily executions of 15 leaders over the first 12 days of May 1916, there was a huge shift in public opinion regarding the Rebellion and outrage was also expressed in the British House of Commons. That caused a halt to the executions and the sentences for the 97 other leaders were subsequently commuted to terms of imprisonment. For more details, visit the National Library of Ireland's online exhibition on the 1916 Rising: Personalities and Perspectives.

CHURCH STREET COLLAPSE - On September 2, 1913, two tenement buildings on the horrifically overcrowded Church Street in Dublin, collapsed without warning, leading to 8 deaths and injuries of dozens of residents who had been living in what James Connolly described as "perfectly hellish" conditions. A subsequent British government commissioned "Dublin Housing Inquiry" revealed that 97,117 people (nearly one third of the city's then population) lived in tenements or small houses that were deemed either unfit or almost unfit for human habitation.

• A survey by Virtuoso Life magazine asked readers to reveal their ideal destination, travel experience and ultimate trip of a lifetime, and Ireland is one of the top 'dream destinations' picked by the magazine's readers
• Readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine have voted Kilkenny as the 9th friendliest city in the world
• The Washington Post wonders, Can Ireland's Celtic Tiger roar again??
• Three new Irish stamps feature James Connolly, Constance Markiewicz and Jim Larkin to mark the centenary of Dublin's 1913 Lockout and Strike
• 200,600 Irish people have emigrated since 2008, 25% to the UK and 17.3% to Australia. At the same time, 120,600 Irish people have returned to live in Ireland.
• The population of the Irish Republic is now 4,593,100, of whom 240,500 are aged over 75.
• Irish men are about three and a half inches taller than they were a century ago. The average Irish male born in 1980 is now 5ft 9ins tall.
• A 93-year-old widower has become the world's oldest wingwalker, flying from Scotland to Derry strapped to the wing of a 1943 Boeing Stearman biplane flying at about 1,000ft.
• At Coláiste Lurgan, an Irish-language summer college in Indreabhán in the heart of the Connemara Gaeltacht, students and staff performed their take as Gaeilge of Avicii's hit Wake Me Up.
• The highest round tower in Ireland is the 170ft O'Connell Tower in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery that was erected over the grave of Daniel O'Connell who died in 1847.
• New evidence appears to link Early Bronze Age Ireland to the Southeastern United States
• A mailman in Cork had his speeding ticket waived after telling the judge that he never received the ticket because it got lost in the mail!
• A worldwide Molloy Clan Rally & Reunion will be held August 15-17, 2014 in Tullamore, Co. Offaly. Details at  omolloy.com
• A Cork farmer who hit some cows while driving on the road one morning, later got a serious telephone call about the incident