Ireland is to host the 2017 Womens Rugby World Cup, it was announced today. The competition will be held at venues in Dublin and Belfast.
At the time of entering their bid to host the tournament, the IRFU said it intended to host the pool stages at UCD before moving to Belfast for semi-finals and finals at Queen’s University Sport and the newly developed Kingspan Stadium at Ravenhill.
Apple Inc has announced that it has signed a lease on a Cork City centre office with capacity to hold 350 people. The move is a result of plans to expand its EMEA Customer Support operations in Ireland.
Apple has had a presence in Cork since a manufacturing operation was founded in 1981 and despite scaling back the manufacturing capacity in the late 1990’s has continued to grow as a major centre of the IT Giant’s global presence.
“Apple is one of the many global technology companies with operations in Ireland,” said an IDA spokesperson, “Since it established in Cork 30 years ago, it has been a significant employer in the southwest region.”
The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean Claude Trichet, said yesterday that Ireland’s sovereign debt and banking crises are not impossible to deal with and he believes the country can overcome its problems .
“My working assumption is that Ireland can do it, Ireland will do it,” he told MEPs in the European Parliament. He stressed that Ireland had to regain its credit worthiness and that the international community had backed the rescue plan.
In a warning to would be bondholder burners he added that the ECB is working off a policy that no eurozone country will default on its debt.
In a separate question, Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell suggested that the ECB’s low interest rates during the property bubble fueled Ireland’s problems.
However, Mr. Trichet hit back, hinting that Ireland’s issues were somewhat self-inflicted and in an apparent attack on the economic management of the previous government added that “National policies have to take [interest rates] into account, and to exert appropriate influence to cope with possible difficulties”
“You might say that interest rates were too low for Ireland, (but) they were the interest rates that were appropriate to deliver price stability as a whole.”
The Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released figures that show that Ireland’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose by 2.7% in the first three months of 2010. This small growth in Ireland’s GDP, the first for over 2 years, technically indicates an end to the recession in Ireland.
However the news was released by the CSO on the same day as they announced that the number of people unemployed in Ireland increased from 439,100 in May to 444,900 in June an increase of 37,200 compared with the same time last year. Unemployment in the Republic of Ireland has now reached 13.4%
Experts say that Ireland’s GDP rose due to a surge in exports and increased foreign investment.
Meanwhile, One of Ireland’s largest RealEstate companies, Sherry Fitzgerald, said last night that house prices in Dublin have dropped by more than 50% since the beginning of the recession while houses prices nationwide have dropped by 13% in the last year.
The Republic of Ireland will start their Euro-2012 qualifying campaign away to Armenia on 3 September with the new Aviva Stadium being the host the first home game of the tournament qualifiers against Andora four days later.
The campaign will end, as it started -against Armenia, in Dublin on 11 October 2011.
Republic manager, Giovanni Trapattoni, said in an interview: ‘The early fixtures represent good opportunities for us and it is always good to finish at home,” and he added: “On balance, these fixtures are better than those we had in the previous World Cup qualification campaign.
“I also think the squad will have benefitted from the significant steps forward made against top sides like Bulgaria, Montenegro, Italy, France and Brazil.”
The new Ferry Service crossing the Irish Sea between Swansea in Wales and Cork on the South coast of Ireland is preparing for its maiden voyage on March 1st next.
The ship that will be used on the Route is the MV Julia and is currently undergoing dry-dock work in Swansea ahead of its inaugural sailing from Cork back to Swansea.
The revival of the route between the UK and Ireland has become reality following a public campaign by tourism interests in West Cork to get a new service up and running. A Cooperative was formed by West Cork Tourism and investors from all over Counties Cork and Kerry along with some from South Wales contributed enough to see the purchase of a cruise ship for the route become a reality.
The revived Swansea to Cork Route will be an all-year-round service, which will carry passengers, cars, commercial freight, campers/caravans, bikes and pets and will run six nights a week, with additional sailings on the 154m-vessel in the high-season.
The Route is being operated by Fastnet Line, a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Cork Tourism Co-op. The company recently launched a new website and are taking bookings for the 2010 season.
Cork Airport is expected to be the beneficiary of a major announcement on new routes from budget airline Ryanair today. The announcement is expected to centre around a series of routes from Cork to a number of sun destinations according to this morning’s Irish Examiner. The enwspaper speculates that Ryanair will undercut Aer Lingus prices and could offer deals to the popular sun locations for €60 return.
Ryanair Chief executive Michael O’Leary flies into Cork this morning to make the announcement before he jets off to New York to address an airline conference.
The airline is also expected to base a new aircraft at Cork Airport. Mr O’Leary said yesterday that Ryanair plans to “swamp” the sun destination market over the summer months with a raft of low fares. “We have 11 aircraft to allocate for the summer and there’s a number of airports bidding for them,” he said.
Aer Lingus operate flights from Cork to Alicante, Faro, Lanzarote, Malaga and Tenerife but Ryanair is expected to offer prices for significantly less than what Aer Lingus are offering. Mr O’Leary said Ryanair will “explode” Aer Lingus’s market. He said fares to sun destinations will be higher than average but lower than others charge in those markets.
Ok, another day has come where I feel the need to list our observations:
1. Green Graveyard set to open in County Wexford
2. myguideIreland gets a mention in the papers
3. Our founder and former CEO was ararded Cork Person of the Year for 2009
4. Irish Polished Porcelain Tiles supplier, woof.ie, sets up Cheap tiles direct in the UK
5. Government announces new chairperson of Dublin Port Company
The Lonely Planet has included Cork in its list of the ‘Best in Travel 2010’.
The listing of Cork inthe influential guide will come as a massive boost for tourism in the region.
El Salvador, Germany and Greece are among the best countries in the world to features, but there is no place for Ireland on the list.
The Irish representation comes in the category of top cities – where Cork is listed alongside Abu Dhabi, Istanbul and Singapore.
The guide says visitors should be able to find inspiration in each city.
Cork Airport is the perfect access point to include Cork in your Ireland vacation.
The Lions team for Saturday’s game against South Africa in Pretoria has been named with 7 players from Ireland included. Paul O’Connell will captain the team but is only one of 2 Munster players on the team however Ronan O’Gara has been named among the replacements
Team:
R Kearney, T Bowe, B O’Driscoll, J Roberts, L Fitzgerald, S Jones, M Phillips, G Jenkins, M Rees, A Jones, S Shaw, P O’Connell, T Croft, D Wallace, J Heaslip.
Substitutes:
R Ford, A Sheridan, A-W Jones, M Williams, H Ellis, R O’Gara, S Williams.
Britvic PLC’s Irish division has reported zero profits for the six months to April 12th, down from €4.8 million for the same period last year.
Irish revenue fell 13.8% although a weak pound saw a 1.6 per cent increase to £101.1 million when converted to sterling. The company said that it was well-placed to take advantage of the eventual upturn in the Irish soft-drinks market.
Britvic owns Irish brands Ballygowan, Club Orange, MiWadi and Cidona as well as Robinsons, J2O, Britvic and Tango. They also have the bottling and distribution contracts for Pepsi and 7UP for the UK and Ireland and Gatorade in Great Britain.
Sales of soft drinks in large grocery stores were up 4 per cent over the period while sales in the more profitable “impulse and licensed markets were down 15 per cent and 20 per cent”.
While announcing record profits for the Britvic group overall, the company noted that its sales in the Republic had been depressed by foreign exchange differences between the North and South, “with increased imported volumes from GB and Europe evident”.
At myguideireland, we have been selling Ireland vacations for over 10 years and never before have we been able to access such great value for our Guests.
This year has seen hotels and airlines along with car rental companies offer us unbelievebale value for Ireland vacation packages. As a result we have been able to make vacation packages available at the lowest prices in nearly a decade. Already this year we have had a special offer at $499 (+air taxes) including round trip flight, car rental, car insurance and accommodation for a full week.
Our latest special offer was launched yesterday (April 13th) and again includes incredible value: Flight, 7 day Car rental (incl all fees, insurance and taxes) , accommodation in 5 star hotels (incl 1 castle) for $1099 plus air taxes. (includes the Shelbourne Hotel, Kingsley Hotel and Adare Manor Castle Hotel)
last year that same package would have cost between $1500 and $2000 meaning a saving of more than $400 at a minimum.
Check out our Ireland vacation specials for the latest in exceptional value for travel to Ireland!!!
Fighting bravely after a 9th minute goal from Italy, Ireland went on to snatch a point in the closing stages of tonight’s world cup qualifier in Bari in Southern Italy.
Following the disappointment of losing 2 points to Bulgaria on Saturday night, Robbie Keane was the hero with a 94th minute strike to keep Ireland within 2 points of Italy.
All of us at myguideIreland would like to take this opportunity to wish the thousands of people who have travelled to Ireland with us over the last ten years a very very happy and peaceful Christmas and every best wish for a prosperous 2009.
And to all who are planning to travel to Ireland next year, we hope you too have a very happy Christas and enjoy your adventure wherever it takes you when you come to our beautiful country in 2009.
Breaking news:
Seán Fitzpatrick, chairman of Anglo irish bank, this evening announced his resignation.
A statement from the bank siad the resignation was in relation to directors loans in excess of €80million over a number of years.
Guide to all things 'Ireland' 