It’s Newport Beach for this girl! This week in between reading and sleeping on the beach I’ve been dipping my feet in the cool and refreshing pacific ocean waves. Only occasionally applying sunblock and I’ve got to get better with that!

There is a cute bar called the Beachcomber just steps away serving drinks at your spot on the beach along with a full menu if you forgot to pack a lunch. Anyways if you haven’t heard me say it already…I Love Newport Beach!

More later!

-A

Last April we drove from the midlands in the Republic of Ireland up to Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland to take in the sites at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Saint Patrick founded his first stone Church in Ireland on the site which is now occupied by St. Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, known as Sally Hill, in the year 445. But the hill where the twin-spired Catholic Cathedral now stands is not without Patrician associations. The Book of Armagh, relates a beautiful tradition which is also depicted in the lower portion of the Cathedral’s great east window. When St Patrick was able to acquire Sally Hill he was alerted when a deer with her fawn allegedly leaped from the bushes. His companions wanted to catch and cook the young fawn but the Saint would not allow this. St. Patrick instead picked up the fawn over his shoulders and carried it, followed by its mother, to Tealach na Licci (Sandy Hill), the site of the present Catholic Cathedral. The incident has been fondly construed as a prophetic reference by Patrick to the building of another Cathedral in his honor 1400 years later.

The Archbishop William Crolly (1835-1849) negotiated the current site for the Catholic Cathedral of St Patrick in Armagh from the Earl of Dartrey. The original architect was Thomas J. Duff of Newry. The work of construction lasted from St Patrick’s Day 1840, when the foundation stone was blessed and laid, with occasional intermissions until the year 1904 when the solemn ceremony of consecration took place. One of the longest gaps in construction took place during the years of the Great Famine. With the dreadful prospects of hunger and disease looming over the country, Cathedral funds were understandably diverted to the more pressing cause of famine relief. Indeed the cholera disease claimed the primate himself and in 1849 his body was laid to rest, at his own request, under the sanctuary of his unfinished Cathedral.

It was a Spring evening in Newport Beach, California and we all met up at a restaurant called The Ritz. Now it’s not the Ritz Carlton hotels, no it’s simply a fine dining establishment across the street from Fashion Island offering one of the greatest bars and an arms length menu of designer cocktails you’ve until now only dreamed of. Suffice to say by the time we were seated at our table we were all in very high spirits and having a bit of fun with each other.

The food at this family run business was timeless and super delicious! I’d recommend this place to anyone who is a resident of Newport Beach or weekend visitor. The service is like you imagine it in the movies and the decor is straight out of 1930′s Hollywood. It’s an eclectic and memorable place that friends and family will be talking about for many years down the road.

The bar is a great place to get started, get chatty and people watch while waiting on your table. Be sure to have reservations as this restaurant is a popular destination among locals. You can visit http://www.ritzrestaurant.com/ for more details.

They offer a menu keyed to any holiday that is being celebrated. Hint…hint…it’s Mother’s Day weekend!

Sláinte everyone!

This gorgeous, adventurous and inviting garden is arranged along the banks of the tiny and winding River Vartry. Mount Usher Gardens has been designed in what’s known as the Robinsonian style, meaning trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants have been brought together from around the globe and planted in harmony with woodland and shade loving plants. Think of it as groomed but not coiffed. A little more rock and roll and less formal English garden, where nature has the upper hand and yet it’s obvious someone is attending to the surroundings providing for that perfect secret garden look.

You wouldn’t want to make the trip with out a tea and scone at the world famous Avoca Garden Cafe located on the garden grounds. In addition there is a welcoming Shopping Courtyard open year round providing ideas for personal gifts or home decorating.

Mount Usher Gardens is only 40 minutes from Dublin and open all year. You can visit the Mount Usher Gardens website for more details.

The Irish State will have to pay up to €200 million to compensate Waterford Crystal workers for the loss of their pension benefits. The European Court of Justice found in favour of the Waterford Crystal workers who took a case against the State for the loss of their pensions when the company collapsed.

There are concerns that the Government will now have to extend the controversial levy imposed on private pensions in 2011 and due to expire next year. This levy funds a compensation scheme for companies that become bankrupt with underfunded pension plans.

There are nearly 200,000 workers in Ireland in defined benefit plans, but most funds do not have enough funds to pay the pensions promised.

A lone slithery reptile went slithering up St.Mary’s Street in Dublin city center this week. Many shoppers and passersby got quite a fright to see the foreign body making his way up the popular shopping street.

It turns out the youngster was merely a 1 year old mixed breed boa constrictor, who posed no threat to public health and welfare. The mongrel snake was quite comfortable amongst the curious crowd and seemed very at home with human contact. He showed no signs of defensiveness being well spread out.

The gardaí were quickly on hand though to save the day. They managed to coax the reptile into a cardboard box unharmed. Snakes are not known to exist in the wild in Ireland and the inclement weather does not suit them.

A Longford father of two who scooped over €1m in Saturday night’s national lottery only purchased his winning ticket because of a last minute decision to visit his local butcher.

Ger Hand only made his way into Lanesboro with the view of picking up a few items from the south Longford village’s sole meat specialist, Terry McLoughlin.

But it was also an apparent lack of car parking availability on what was a typically busy Saturday that ultimately convinced the Newtowncashel man to try his luck in the national lotto.

“I was on my way into Lanesboro and just said to myself I’d go into the butcher. There was a line of cars in the town and the only space I could get was just down from Joe O’Brien’s (Corner Shop).

“I remember pulling out €15 from my pocket, getting a mineral and about to do a €10 quick pick. Whatever came over me I changed my mind and said ‘ah sure I’ll do a €12 one instead,” he recalled less than 48 hours after his €1.25m win.

As it turned out, that late change of heart had little affect as Ger’s winning numbers appeared on the ticket’s penultimate line, allowing him to scoop one half of last Saturday’s €2.5m jackpot.

Reflecting on those events on Monday, the Bord Na Mona employee said the trip to butcher Terry McLoughlin led to his good fortune!

“There’s no doubt about it,” he bullishly put it. “If Terry wasn’t there I wouldn’t have done it (lotto).”

And in a further twist, Ger revealed he didn’t actually check his ticket until the following morning.

“We were at a function in the Peer Inn in Newtowncashel when Margaret Gillen, our local hairdresser, mentioned that Joe O’Brien had sold the winning ticket.

“To be honest, it didn’t really enter my mind to check the ticket until the next morning. When I got up I said to my wife Ann ‘I think I have won the lotto’,” he said. However Ann wasn’t convinced and it was onlyl when Ger ventured downstairs to check the numbers on the home computer when reality finally began to set in.

“I just knew,” he continued, his voice raising in excitement by the second.

“Ann-Marie, my daughter then came in thinking it was some kind of wind up.”

A quick visit down to O’Brien’s confirmed what Ger had suspected all along, paving the way for widespread celebrations.

Asked how he intended spending the money, Ger confided both he and his family were still weighing up their options.

One decision he has made his mind up about, however, is his day to day work with Bord Na Mona.

“Oh be God, I’ll keep working” was his frank and sprightly reply.

“Nothing is decided yet, but I’m not going to go around and start leaping around the place.”

The one bonus, he said, was the fact he could now give his two daughters, Ann-Marie and Laura the future he had always longed for.

“At least I have their education secured. That, to tell you the truth, is a weight off my mind especially with the way the economy is going,” he added.

A few miles down the road in Lanesboro, winning lottery selling agent Joe O’Brien said news of Ger’s win was not the only stroke of luck his shop encountered at the weekend.

“We had another man who won €25,000 after he got five numbers and the bonus, so it’s been a great few days,” he said.

By far the store’s biggest lottery win, Joe said the double success was not entirely out of the ordinary.

“We had a syndicate that won €250,000 before this. Hopefully though next time I can win, never mind sell one,” he joked.

Story courtesy of The Longford Leader.

The Commitments, the hugely successful and popular film directed by Sir Alan Parker based on the bestselling book the same name, is heading to the stage. The story follows a group of working-class Dubliners who form an unlikely soul band. It has taken the writer Roddy Doyle 25 years to realise what a great musical it would make.

Roddy Doyle thought he did not like musicals. “I’d never been to one,” he said whilst announcing the show in London this week. The Booker prize-winning novelist said he’d had something of an epiphany when he began attending musicals once his children grew up.

After battling away around 20 requests to bring The Commitments to a live audience, Doyle finally gave in and previews will begin in September at the Palace theatre, where Singin’ in the Rain closes in June. The Commitments began to take over Doyle’s life at one point and he began to resent it. “I dismissed The Commitments for a long, long time to the extent I forgot I had anything to do with it.”

Doyle has admitted he has deliberately not watched the movie in a long time. It was when his kids got older and told him how much they loved to film that he decided to call back the producers he had earlier rebuffed. The new show is produced by Phil McIntyre and directed by rising star Jamie Lloyd, currently working with James McAvoy in Macbeth.

All preview tickets will be half price.

Find yourself in Dublin and want to learn more about the culture and history of it’s people? Well then have I got an idea for you! The National Library is located in the city center and offers world class exhibitions about the world renowned Irish poet, playwright and all around funny man, William B. Yeats.

The current exhibition, Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats, I would describe as probably one of the most detailed and fascinating exhibits covering not only the life of Yeats and his legacy but also the lifeblood of the people and politics of that time. The exhibit staging of photos and video play like an award winning documentary. And the entrance fee is cheap as chips! If you’ve ever been to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York then you’ll understand the quality of detail and entertainment in this show.

Since opening the library doors, over a quarter of a million people of all ages and nationalities have delighted in exploring the multimedia rich experience of the Yeats award-winning exhibition.

History of the National Library

Just a block or two from the fun bustle of pubs and lively music scene in Temple Bar is the National Library. Now I know what you’re thinking, but it’s an extraordinary library! A most beautifully architecturally designed building, created by Thomas Newenham Deane in 1877 via the the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act, which mandated that the bulk of the collections in the possession of the Royal Dublin Society, should be vested in the then Department of Science and Art for the benefit of the public and of the Society, and for the purposes of the Act.

The mission of the National Library of Ireland is ‘To collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the documentary and intellectual record of the life of Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge.

Like the United States’ Library of Congress, Ireland’s National library is a reference or research library, and books are used only on the premises by members of the public. It has a large quantity of Irish and Irish-related material which you can peruse free of charge; this includes books, maps, manuscripts, music, newspapers, periodicals and photographs. Included in their collections is material issued by private as well as government publishers.

Be sure to visit the National Library website for opening times and prices http://www.nli.ie/

Irish director Neil Jordan had a near death experience last Friday when he was allegedly clipped by a Dublin bus while crossing the junction at Dawson street and St Stephens Green.

The Dalkey based filmmaker recently had surgery on his knee and was walking with the aid of a crutch. The Oscar winning director took a dangerous tumble which saw him lying motionless at the side of the road before wincing in pain. He was then spotted in a heated discussion with the driver of the bus.

Several onlookers came to the directors help as Jordan was visibly shaken after the near miss. An ambulance was called to the scene and he was taken to a nearby hospital to receive medical treatment for his injuries but no further information is known. The incident is being investigated by Dublin Bus.

Jordon won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for ‘The Crying Game’ in 1992. The Sligo born director is taking a break from filming ‘Byzantium’ starring Saoirse Ronan which will get its Irish premier in Dublin’s IFI on April 28.