Nollaigí le linn laethanta óige m’athar!

Christmases during my father's childhood!

by | 2023/12/20 | Personal

Christmases during my father's childhood!

 

My father Peter Barrett passed away two weeks before Christmas, four years ago. The Christmas season was a special time for him, in terms of faith and tradition. He had wonderful Christmases growing up in Irrras in County Mayo - all magical occasions. Fortunately, he put pen to paper and shared with us his own memories of Christmases during his childhood days. Here is a piece he wrote in which he shared some of his memories with us:

When I think now of Christmases long ago, the memories come to me slowly, vaguely, at first, but after spending a little time fishing in the deep lake of the years, the same memories come back to me then in a clear, accurate outpouring. A flood of memories that makes the soul dance on a slab inside my heart.

Come with me, then, back to the end of the twenties, to the beautiful land of my youth, to Iorras na n'Iontas. The memories that swim to me now, on that wave of memories, are of bare, desolate fields. On the screen of memory, I see bright candles up through black, brittle clay of Iorras, as we used to spend our pre-Christmas days as boys chasing the wren - and I have to admit now, that we used to find not many wrens in those same desolate fields. I used to think that the wrens of Iorras would go into hiding at that time of year, just in case! Other birds used to be quite plentiful, starlings, sparrows, cranes, and the like. Rarely, then, did we manage to find a wren, in time for Stephen's Day, and in the end, we had no choice but to go out with a lantern, on Christmas Day night, to catch a sleepy old sparrow, in the eaves.

Sparrow or Wren?

Is soiléir a thagann cuimhní an ullmhúcháin do Lá an Dreoilín chugam anois. Aighthe fidil á ndéanamh agus á ndathú. Bataí, boscaí, agus buataisí á gcuardach. Amhráin, ranna, agus damhsaí á gcleachtadh. Ó, sea, agus gúnaí, hataí, agus bibeanna ár ndeirfiúracha, á dtógáil ar iasacht, do Lá draíochta an Dreoilín!

Bhímis ar ar gcois le moiche na maidine, agus bóthar buailte againn sula mbeadh deis ag gasúir eile na háite, airgead, uibheacha, nó ollmhaitheas, na comharsanachta a bhailiú chucu fhéin, mar chreach Nollaigiúil. Bhíodh tús bóthair againne orthu, agus bhímis sásta i gcónaí lenár gcreach, i ndeireadh an lae thiar. Nach ait an scéal é, ach i scannán sin an Dreoilín, ní airímse aon fhuacht, nó sioc, nó sneachta, riamh. Boige, úire, agus Earrachas, a shníonn chugam isteach ar thonn na cuimhne anois, i gcás an Dreoilín chéanna sin.

But let's drop it as a story, and let's return to those Christmases of memory, Christmases of dreams, because it was on them that I drew the story, in the first place. When I think of them now, I think first of the Christmas Season. That season, for us, began on the first day of December. On that day, we started with an old Irish custom, the ‘Áibhéanna’ custom. We believed that the one who said five thousand "Aibhés" between then and Christmas Day would get his wish. We were saying them everywhere, at school, at home, on the road and travel, yes, and we would give that wish as a gift to Mom, on Christmas Eve, when she was tired, exhausted, after buying and dressing the Christmas for us.

Memories returning

Other memories that come to me now are:-

•  The Great Christmas Fair in Belmullet on the 15th of December.

•  Margadh Mór na Nollag, ar an Satharn roimh Nollaig, ’chuile bhliain.

•  The Big Fire of Christmas, it was the big fire that was lit on Christmas Eve.

•  Christmas cakes, the cakes that Mom used to bake and cook for Christmas, cakes that contained raisins, spices, and other nice things, to lift our hearts, in the blessed season of Christmas.

•  The heat of the kitchen, decorations, charity, and above all, the big colored Christmas candle.

•  Us children also had another little habit in Iorras, at that time. We would get small tin boxes, and we would clean and wash them, then Mum would give us a small bit of dough from her big Christmas cake, and we would bake those bits for ourselves in the oven. That way, we used to have our own little Christmas cakes!

Merry Christmas to all our Readers!!

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SBF!

SBF!

by | 2023/12/13 | Current Affairs, International News

SBF!

I am surprised that more has not been written in Irish about Sam Bankman-Fried, who is known as SBF for short, and who is one of the worst fraudsters ever! As that is a significant oversight, here is my attempt to correct that problem!

Cé hé SBF?

Sam Bankman-Fried was born in California in the United States to two Stanford Law School professors in 1992. After attending secondary school in California, he graduated in physics and mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2014.

He started his career in 2013 as an intern at Jane Street Capital – a trading firm with expertise in exchange traded funds – where he got his first work experience. He went to work full-time with the same company after graduating. In November 2017, he co-founded the quantitative trading firm Alameda Research with Tara Mac Aulay of the Center for Effective Altruism, where he briefly worked as director of development. Effective altruism, founded by two philosophers at the University of Oxford in 2009, is a philosophy in which people earn as much money as they can, so that they can donate more money to charity. That philosophy had a great influence on SBF, especially after he met their co-founder, William MacAskill. MacAskill is said to have convinced the brilliant mathematician SBF to maximize his influence by taking a high-paying job and giving away a large portion of it. It was because of this that SBF chose a permanent position with Jane Street Capital on Wall Street. He donated half his salary to charity while he was there.

Sa bhliain 2019, bhunaigh SBF an malartú cryptea-airgeadra darb ainm FTX.  Bhog Bankman-Fried ceanncheathrú a dhá chomhlacht go dtí na Bahámaí ag deireadh 2021 agus bhog sé é féin agus roinnt dá bhaill fhoirne isteach in árasán dín a cheannaigh sé ar $35 milliún. Faoin am seo, bhí SBF ar cheann de na daoine ba shaibhre ar domhan, agus an ceann ba shaibhre níb óige ná tríocha agus glanfhiúchas $26.5 billiún aige! Bhí luacháil FTX timpeall $40 billiún ag an am.  

Sins of SBF!!

In 2019, SBF founded the cryptocurrency exchange called FTX. Bankman-Fried moved the headquarters of his two companies to the Bahamas at the end of 2021 and moved himself and some of his staff into a penthouse he bought for $35 million. By this time, SBF was one of the richest people in the world, and the richest under thirty with a net worth of $26.5 billion! FTX was valued at around $40 billion at the time.

No other customer was allowed to maintain a negative balance. That negative balance meant that Alameda would be able to borrow FTX customers' money, without the knowledge of those same customers.

SBF and FTX also gave Alameda another advantage. FTX fulfilled any trade submitted by Alameda faster than other customers. That gave Alameda a big advantage, because in that business, time is money!

SBF also received personal loan money from Alameda – about $1 billion! And he borrowed $2.3 billion for his company 'Paper Bird'! FTX employees Nishad Singh ($542 million) and Ryan Salame ($55 million) also borrowed money from Alameda.

Also, SBF and FTX created their own cryptocurrency, named FTT. They kept most of it as collateral in FTX and when Alameda borrowed from FTX, often FTT tokens were used. Because FTX and Alameda had the majority of FTT tokens, FTT did not have a real exchange rate, as neither FTX nor Alameda would be able to sell many FTT tokens, without reducing the same rate. Therefore, FTT's token holdings were not realistic collateral, especially if they had to sell those holdings!

Catastrophic failure!

In November, 2022, the site 'Coindesk' published a report claiming that Alameda was heavily dependent on FTT. Therefore, the company Binance, which competed with FTX, and had a fair amount of FTT tokens, said that they were going to sell them all. That started the panic sale of FTT, and its value fell badly. FTX was short of money, and Alameda was unable to repay what they had borrowed from them. FTX was missing $8 billion and had to declare bankruptcy.

SBF was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States. He was accused of seven criminal charges, including electronic fraud and money laundering. He was found guilty of all charges. Other FTX and Alameda employees were also arrested, including Caroline Ellison. Those employees testified against SBF, so that they would receive leniency in their own cases.

Conclusion!

This is a foreboding story, no doubt. SBF may have started out full of good intentions, trying to practice 'effective altruism' to help others. But before long, all that was visible was his selfish predation. And finally, as always happens, the whole thing fell apart. SBF will be back in court next March, when he could be sentenced to up to a hundred years in prison.

A little verse to conclude:

The decline of the SBF empire

The world laid low and the wind blew like a dust,

Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and their co-conspirators;

FTX is grass; and look at how it stands with Alameda,

SBF will wake up in a prison cell every day.

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Urchair rabhaidh scaoilte!

Warning shots fired!

by | 2023/12/06 | National News

Warning shots fired!

It is as if many of us were dreaming but we are all awake now! We were not at all expecting what happened in the center of the capital recently.

Ionsaí Uafásach

Three children and their care assistant were joining a queue outside their school, Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Square, when they were attacked by a man. He stabbed them with a knife and seriously injured two of them – a five-year-old girl and the care assistant, a woman in her thirties. They are still in hospital receiving treatment, at the time of writing. As bad as things were, they would have been much worse without the bravery shown by people, especially two immigrants.

Caio Benicio

Mr Benicio, a native of Brazil, who was working for the Deliveroo service and was driving his motorbike at the time of the attack, said he slowed down when he saw what was happening.

"It was native instinct," said Caio. “I remember taking off my helmet to protect myself and use it as a weapon. I hit the attacker in the head with all my strength. And he fell down.”

Thanks to his sharp mind and brave action, that terrible attack was stopped, and the guards arrested the attacker. The attacker himself is currently in hospital.

Leo Villamayor

A Filipino nurse was walking to the Gresham hotel, when he saw the attack. Nurse Leo Villamayor said: “I saw this little girl, she was running and then everything stopped, and she fell in a heap on the ground. She had shortness of breath and was in urgent need of medical attention. I started doing chest compressions on her. Suddenly, I heard the ambulance behind us, I heard the defibrillator, and someone pushed me out of the way. Two men put the defibrillator on her chest, and then a woman next to me took over. It was like a scene from a movie, all in slow motion.” Leo may have saved that girl's life when he immediately jumped in to help her.

Riot

Around 500 rioters gathered after the attack and caused massive damage in the city centre. And that's no coincidence! Messages went out online on social media and chat groups, wrongly saying that the attacker was an illegal immigrant - an Irish citizen, living in the country for the past 20 years, and that they should gather in the middle of the city with anti-immigration protest rally. Several police cars, three buses and a light rail train were burned. More than a dozen shops were looted. Police said they arrested 48 people, most of whom were issued summonses for riotous behaviour, assault and theft. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said the government will introduce two key pieces of legislation within weeks. Police will be empowered to use facial recognition technology to track CCTV footage of the riot. They will also be empowered to prosecute the perpetrators of online hate speech.

Conclusion

You wouldn't believe something like this could happen here in Ireland. That was the instinctive response of many people. But on the other hand, there were signs that things were getting out of control in the last few years. For example, a few people were badly attacked in the summer in Dublin city centre. A Ukrainian actor was badly attacked in June just outside the Abbey Theatre. In July, an American tourist was attacked and seriously injured near his accommodation in the city centre. Afterwards, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said she had been in contact with the Garda about the investigation. "The message will be sent with a strong and firm response that we will not tolerate this bullying on our streets." When asked about the attacks on the Ukrainian actress and the American tourist, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said there would be "a strong response from the Government in terms of civil penalties and in terms of increasing Garda resources". But – they did nothing in the interim and look what happened! Right-wing extremists are radicalizing people and using the internet to incite and spread racial hatred. They organize violent protests every chance they get, including this recent protest. The government needs to be monitoring the internet to get early warning so they can protect the public from ugly violence like we've seen recently. Our government has been indifferent in carrying out its business up to now. If a strong plan is not put in place soon, things will get worse, and it will be much more difficult to solve this existential, threatening crisis then!

Ranganna Gaeilge beo ar líne!

Live Irish classes online!

by | 2023/11/29 | Language Affairs, Personal

Live Irish classes online!

Gaelchultúr

Is ar éigean a bhí mé ar ais i Meiriceá tar éis samhradh iontach a chaitheamh in Éirinn ná go raibh mé ag lorg deis nua mo chuid Gaeilge a chleachtadh agus a fheabhsú. Bhí sé i gceist agam rang nua a aimsiú ar líne, nach raibh déanta agam cheana féin. Nuair a bhí mé ag brabhsáil, tháinig mé ar shuíomh suimiúil a raibh cuma na maitheasa air. Gaelchultúr.com atá i gceist, agus tar éis dom sliocht a léamh faoi Ghaelchultúr, bhí mo spéis múscailte. Seo blas dá raibh ann.

"Coláiste na hÉireann/Gaelchultúr, established in 2004, is the largest provider of Irish language courses in the world and the first third-level institution entirely in Irish. Gaelchultúr is based in Dublin and serves language learners all over the world.

Gaelchultúr offers Irish language courses and learning resources of the highest quality, aimed at adults around the world who are interested in the language. Our goal is to offer excellent services to learners and fluent speakers to encourage them to improve and enrich their Irish. Gaelchultúr runs Irish language courses around the world, with talented teachers."

By God, I said to myself, they promised us the sun, moon and stars. But would they be as good as their word? That's the question! There was only one way to find the truth, and that was to try it. When I first started attending online courses, it wasn't too difficult for me to find a class that suited me, in terms of standards. But over time, as I did class after class, it became more and more difficult to find a suitable class. Although there was a large selection of classes at primary and intermediate level, there was a lack of classes at advanced level. There were two classes at the advanced level at Gaelchultúr, and I thought that was a good sign. So, I signed up for the class at upper level 2 with excitement. There were ten classes – each class two hours long.

The Class

The day of the first class finally arrived and eight of us started attending the class using the Zoom app. We had a teacher called Maitiú Ó'Coimín. He lives in Inveran in County Galway. He is a very capable man – Maitiú is an actor, journalist, writer, presenter, editor, adventurer and teacher and, of course, a great native Irish speaker!

He had an informal style and in that way maintained a relaxed atmosphere in the class, something I think is very important. We were all comfortable together, so we were able to speak easily and freely in Irish. We are all Irish by birth, from all over – six living in Ireland, one man living in Germany, and myself in America. Everyone was fluent in Irish, and all types of dialect to be heard from us. We got to know each other in the first class and I have to say that I really liked everyone in the class, including Maitiú.

The teaching material for all the course was made available to us in advance, and that was very useful in terms of preparation and study. Although the classes had the same structure, each class had a different content. There was also a nice balance, with an emphasis on spoken Irish, as is right in a class like this. Every week, we had a different topic. For example, here are a few weekly topics we had: Art and the Arts, educational matters, politics and Irish history. At the beginning of the class, after we went through the answers to our homework, we used to have vocabulary to learn, focused on the topic of the week.

Maitiú used rooms in Zoom effectively, to break us up into small groups of two or three. We were able to practice our spoken Irish well that way, and everyone had a chance to talk. Matiú came in and out of the rooms, listening and giving us advice and help. We used to have an agenda, and questions about the topic of the week to discuss. After each session in the rooms, we would gather back in the great room and share summaries and comments together. We had at least three sessions in the small rooms every week. At the end of each class, when we all gathered together again, there was a bit of grammar to learn, and then we would get homework for the next class.

Conclusion

I would recommend this class without hesitation to anyone who is reasonably fluent in Irish, and who is keen to develop and expand it. If you get Maitiú as a teacher, that would be an added advantage!

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I dTeagmháil le Liam arís!

In touch with Liam again

by | 2023/11/22 | Personal, Opinion

In touch with Liam again

I have to admit that I have not been in frequent contact with my former colleagues, especially after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As it happened, one of them, a great friend of mine called Liam, contacted me last week.

He sent me a message on Facebook Messenger out of the blue, and let me know right away that he had been let go from Qualcomm, after more than thirty years at the company. Liam is a first class engineer and senior director. His manager told him that his next project had been canceled and therefore his job had also been eliminated. His manager, the vice president of engineering ,was also let go, as well as many of the engineers working on the same project. Wasn't it cruelly ironic that Liam had received an email the week before from the human resources department, thanking him for his thirty years of dedicated service to the company? Isn't it really braindead for the company to do that with one hand and then throw him out the door with the other immediately after? Things are even worse, because Liam has been extremely loyal to Qualcomm, year after year. Poor Liam suddenly found out that his company’s words were nothing but lies and lip service, unfortunately. Poor Liam is not only in low spirits but also in real trouble, because he has to find another job soon and that won't be easy at all. Workers in the high-tech sector are discriminated against on the basis of age all the time, and Liam is now 55 years old. Not only will it be difficult for him to find a new job, but even if he does find a job, it will undoubtedly be difficult for him to find the same salary and working conditions. I personally think it is unethical for a company to treat workers in that way. Although there are laws in place in California to protect workers over the age of 40, companies end up skirting the rules. In this case, with the company trying to implement sharp cuts, certain expensive projects were cancelled, projects that are not central to the company's strategy. The company finds other jobs for many workers, but it is not so easy to move the leaders, because there are not many such roles to be found. It is no coincidence that the most senior workers - those who earn the highest wages - are let go. In this way, companies are able to let members of the high income group who are over 40 years old go without breaking any law. I saw this when I was working, and sometimes I saw the same projects resurrected with a new team after a short while later.

  A Person of Principle!!

Liam, myself and our spouses, met for dinner right after I spoke to him on the phone. It was still difficult for Liam to accept what happened to him so abruptly. But he was enthusiastically looking for work in the area, and contacting other former colleagues who were working in other companies. He had done a few interviews and was hopeful that he had done well in one of them. Liam said he was very grateful for me spending time with him on the phone, giving him advice. Sometimes, you don't know how important it is to talk together, especially when things like this happen. What kind of great advice did I give him? The most important thing I did was to listen with empathy to him - that's all. We have a strong relationship and he trusts me completely, and vice versa. It turned out that Liam had not been happy in his job for the past three years but despite that, he continued to work because he was loyal to the company, and he wanted to protect the people who worked for him, because he saw increasing risks on the horizon. He did not surrender his principles, even when his livelihood was in danger. The bottom line is that I have the utmost respect for Liam, and it's a shame that Qualcomm didn't treat him with respect after his spending his life in their service, working hard and benefiting them all that time . Shame on you, Qualcomm!

 

 

 

 

 

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