{"id":604793,"date":"2026-07-26T09:28:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604793\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:28:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:28:21","slug":"no-israel-boycott-for-irish-football-team-but-elite-frisbee-throwers-see-things-differently-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604793\/","title":{"rendered":"No Israel boycott for Irish football team \u2013 but elite frisbee-throwers see things differently \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Limerick<\/a>, a year ahead of golf\u2019s Ryder Cup at Adare Manor, another prestigious tournament is scheduled for next month. It is the World Ultimate Club Championship, a clash of the elite teams in the rising sport of ultimate frisbee.<\/p>\n

Ultimate frisbee is a tactically complex sport, but suffice to say it involves teams adversarially throwing a frisbee around a field. Despite its free-spirited hippie origins in the late 1960s \u2013 there is no referee, traditionally \u2013 it is not immune to geopolitics. An Israeli<\/a> club is scheduled to participate in the competition, causing disquiet.<\/p>\n

Ranelagh Ultimate, whose eight Irish titles and one European gold since being founded in 2011 might make them the most successful Irish sporting outfit of all time, issued a statement during the week expressing their opposition to the inclusion of New Age, the Israeli national champions.<\/p>\n

Highlighting atrocities in Gaza<\/a>, the Dublin southsiders called for the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) \u2013 the frisbee Fifa \u2013 either to suspend all Israeli teams from competitions until \u201congoing large-scale violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza have ceased and accountability mechanisms are in place\u201d or to force a neutral designation on the team, ensuring no Israeli flag. <\/p>\n

New Age have faced difficulties in international competition before, having been excluded from a youth tournament in Belgium in 2024 over security concerns after graffiti reading \u201cBoycott Israhell now\u201d appeared on a wall near the playing fields.<\/p>\n

The Ranelagh club\u2019s stance is more hardline than that of the men\u2019s football team, who will fulfil their Nations League fixtures against the Israelis. But those will take place in neutral territory, in Hungary and Serbia<\/a>, rather than at the University of Limerick, where the frisbee organisers promise an opportunity for players to \u201cimmerse themselves in the Irish culture and to experience the Limerick charm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Overheard asked the WFDF whether it planned any action, but hasn\u2019t heard back. <\/p>\n

Mixed signals on MetroLink\"AnAn artist’s impression of the proposed entrance to the Charlemont Metrolink stop, behind Dartmouth Square. Photograph: Metrolink.ie <\/p>\n

Once upon a time, there was a man named Sean Sweeney, a Kiwi with an Irish name like All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick. With a boldness rare in Irish public-sector circles, he carried off the coup of the century. <\/p>\n

Instead of fighting the Dartmouth Square residents\u2019 objections to the disruption of the MetroLink<\/a> station behind their back gardens in Dublin 6, he just bought the houses<\/a>, which will no doubt remain very desirable when they are 20 minutes from the airport for trips to Capri and Courchevel. <\/p>\n

Sweeney returned to his family in New Zealand<\/a> earlier this year, and some cracks are starting to appear. One resident in the mighty metro\u2019s path received a letter dated June 30th from the project\u2019s \u201cproperty-owner protection scheme\u201d (Pops) instructing them to sign up no later than June 30th.<\/p>\n

Luckily for the perplexed homeowner, a further letter was sent on July 10th informing them that the June 30th deadline \u201cwas an error\u201d and that there was no cut-off. Nonetheless, they should sign up \u201cwithout delay\u201d, with construction works in their area due to begin \u201cbefore the end of 2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

The scheme is for people who live within 30m of the line or 50m of stations, to deal with harm to homes. Those who come out top of the Pops (sorry) on damage assessment can receive up to \u20ac75,000 in compensation from the fund.<\/p>\n

So you wouldn\u2019t want to miss it because of mixed signals. <\/p>\n

Not necessarily leprosy\"ScreenshotsScreenshots of Baile Beo <\/p>\n

Northeast of the N3, somewhere between Cavan town and the Border, lies the townland of Drumalure More. This, of course, doesn\u2019t mean anything<\/a> until you get into the Irish<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Logainm.ie, the repository of official placename research in Ireland, tells us that a Droim is a ridge, M\u00f3r means big and Lobhar \u201ccould refer to the sufferer of any type of virulent skin disease, not necessarily leprosy\u201d. Druim an Lobhair M\u00f3r: Great Leper Ridge, or the Great Ridge Of Sufferers Of Any Type Of Virulent Skin Disease, Not Necessarily Leprosy, to be completely accurate.<\/p>\n

In an effort to restore this sort of understanding to the plain people of Ireland, developer Dave McGinn has produced an app, Baile Beo<\/a>, which allows users to check what\u2019s near them based on their location and load up on the knowledge contained in the names. <\/p>\n

McGinn returned to learning Irish a few years ago, and his newly sharpened skills caused him to look at road signs differently. <\/p>\n

\u201cIrish placenames started to make more sense to me, and it became clear that they are describing very local features of the area \u2013 geography, topography, fortifications, people, sacred and religious sites \u2013 and by the same token it made it very obvious that the English placenames are crude phonetical interpretations of the Gaeilge,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems so egregious and contemptuous of a long and rich history, and it started to irritate me a bit.\u201d <\/p>\n

Overheard likes to stick close to town in order to keep a close eye on the Government, so we have only so far managed to tick off Dublin, the town of the hurdle-ford. But the Baile Beo app does contain 60,000 placenames and a growing amount of local community knowledge of the caiseals and crannogs of all corners of the island.<\/p>\n

No accounting for taste\"TheThe bar at the Abbey Theatre on Dublin’s Marlborough Street. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh <\/p>\n

\u201cAll the thought in Ireland for years past has come through the Abbey,\u201d the playwright Se\u00e1n O\u2019Casey<\/a> once told the theatre\u2019s co-founder Lady Gregory.<\/p>\n

But for thought to have impact, it must have an audience, and for an audience to show up, it must have refreshment. A good thing, then, that the Abbey Theatre has issued a tender for someone to provide its bars with wine for the next year or more.<\/p>\n

Abbey habitu\u00e9s, notwithstanding the odd morality riot, are people of taste and the tender\u2019s terms reflects this: the quality of the product accounts for 45 per cent of a provider\u2019s score, with pricing accounting for only 20 per cent. <\/p>\n

How will the theatre assess this quality? By trying the wine, of course. <\/p>\n

Samples are to arrive at the stage door by August 28th. Required from each potential supplier for appraisal are a bottle each of sauvignon blanc, albarino, Pinot Grigio, Malbec, tempranillo, merlot, prosecco, champagne, ros\u00e9 and non-alcoholic wine. You\u2019d never see the match of it for flows of drink, as someone once said on the Abbey stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Limerick, a year ahead of golf\u2019s Ryder Cup at Adare Manor, another prestigious tournament is scheduled for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[112771,18,3761,19,17,71,1844,4852,6634,132],"class_list":["post-604793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-abbey-theatre","tag-eire","tag-gaza-strip","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-limerick","tag-metrolink","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116985576137767611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}