Limerick Blogs.com

Some graffiti from Christiania, Copenhagen,......

Facebook is just another targeted marketing tool, no matter how many times I here about the control users have over the Privacy settings, unscrupulous developers can access account details. They have opened the platform to developers and they don‘t check the code and the code doesn‘t run from their servers, anyway I decided to delete my profile from Facebook, it‘s something that I have meant to do for awhile, I haven‘t used the site in months (and even then I was just using Scrabulous). When you do try a Deactivate your account your given a list of possible options, selecting an option will give you a tip designed to keep you on the site, some of them made me laugh, but having to enter a reason for leaving when selecting ‘Other‘ as an option annoyed me,...

Apologies if you've just spurted your precious morning coffee all over your keyboard, but the above graffito does indeed say what you think it says. Take another look. Yup, it's still there. To add an extra layer of intrigue (or, simply, seediness) I should point out that the piece was discovered beside a public toilet. Not only that, but it appears to have been written in nail varnish (a sample has been sent to the lab. Results not yet known).1 Though the message may seem garishly clear, the inclusion of the (author's?) name "Cathal" gives us some pause for thought and reflection.2 The stray "V" in the middle of the photo could be interpreted as "Versus". If that's the case then we're left with "Cathal Vs. Vaginas are Cool" - a Dadaist spin on the likes of Godzilla Vs. King Kong. 3...

I'm not sure to what extent "Grafitti Studies" has (as a discipline) permeated academic institutions, but I'd be surprised if the below offshoot of the artform has recieved much scholarly attention. The circumstances in which such graffiti is created are quite specific: customer enters a shop looking for a nice pen; customer decides to try out a selection before making a purchase; customer finds a scrap of paper reserved for pen testing and gets scribbling. The results of this activity are usually fairly unremarkable - squiggly lines, the individual's signature etc. Occasionally, however, the customer - faced with this opportunity to express him/herself - opts to engage in some quick doodling (a spurty penis perhaps?) or to compose a cryptic/crude message. I can never resist...

Pictured above is one of Irish sport's most enduring images: Packie Bonner in the act of palming away poor old Daniel Timofte's penalty (Genoa, June 25th, 1990). Not pictured anywhere on this page is the moment (4 years later) when Packie haplessly flapped Wim Jonk's speculative long ranger into his own net (Orlando, June 4th, 1994). Never mind. Even despite that rare lapse (in the dying moments of his international career) Bonner remains an Irish sporting colossus. The fact that his lively agility between the sticks wasn't matched by his remarkably stiff and rigid TV presentation style is a fact that need not detain us. We'll always have Genoa. "Dave F" appears (I think) to share our affection for the big fella, if this graffito (spotted on Harvey's Quay) is anything to go by:...

While beating the election target, the Taoiseach can produce a sound and his eye give out light. The pensioners were beaten the inside to can call. Tags: Clare Street, Limerick, Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil, Power is......

On Tuesday night, after an evening spent gulping back bellinis and spritzes, Jess and I managed to find our way back to our hotel in Venice without getting lost. Not much of an anecdote I know, but it was the first time it had happened…the not-getting-lost I mean. Getting lost in Venice at night is both exhilarating and spooky. One minute you're surrounded by tourists and locals, the next you're eerily alone on narrow, empty, canal-ended streets. It's hard not to imagine that you're about to catch fleeting glimpses of red rain-coated dead girls/killer midgets out of the corners of your eyes. While such horrors did not manifest themselves we were briefly stalked/surveilled by a tall trenchcoated guy with a small pocket knife. I tried reassuring Jess that even if he intended...

Few art critics (even the most stuffy, hidebound and be-monocled) would likely deny the viability of graffiti as a contemporary urban art form. Those that remain ambivalent or unconvinced, however, need look no further than the mean streets of Limerick for vibrant and provocative proof of the form's worth. The below graffito, for example, was discovered some time ago in an alley off Clontarf Place. The camera phone used to capture it does not really do the creation justice, but the image still hints at the "street art" riches that surround us: Graffiti cannot, of course, be spellchecked, so perhaps the agitating artist/author can be forgiven for three misspelled words in a four word sentence. By "Laural [sic] Hill" he/she presumably means "Laurel Hill": a reputable and ever so...