Join me for a walk along the River Slang Trail as I share some irish news and sports including rump’s tariffs, Occupied Territories Bill, Rosie O’Donnell’s heroic moment saving a life in a restaurant, the British and Irish Lions test match, Ben Healy’s win in the Tour de France, Katie Taylor’s triumph over Amanda Serrano, and a quick take on the Irish presidential race. All that and more on this overcast day.
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#WalkAndTalk #RosieODonnell #LionsWin #TourDeFrance #KatieTaylor #IrishPresidentialRace #BenHealy #IrishNews #SportsTalk #DailyUpdates
Hi everyone, welcome to my channel. Today I’m coming to you from the beautiful River Slang linear park trail that runs all the way from the Dundrum Shopping Center behind my back here to the Dublin Mountains right there at Marley Park. Today I want to talk about what’s going on in the world, particularly as it relates to Ireland. And we’ll start with Donald Trump. He has made it clear that he intends to put on swinging tariffs in the European Union. Then again, he’s been putting tariffs on everybody. So, it’s not just the European Union. But unfortunately, he’s uh mentioned, you know, Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry a number of times, and I had thought with the Irish American community over there that it would be difficult for him to target our industries, but it looks like he’s serious this time. So, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. We have delegations going back and forth trying to talk sense to the Americans and telling that it’s a two-way street. We’re all in this together. But apparently Donald Trump is not listening. So, it’s going to be I don’t know exactly how many what percentage of tariffs are going to be placed on the European product coming into America, but it’ll be significant enough that’s going to hurt our industries. So, that’s one whammy. But we have a double whammy coming up because the OTB, the occupied territories bill is winding its way through the legislature here in Dublin and that’s got the hackles of the Americans up. Yesterday there was numerous Congress people who were tweeting similar copy paste type uh tweets about Ireland. And in fact, uh, the ambassador to ISR AEL, Mike Huckerby, came out with an outrageous anti-Irish slur. I’m not sure if he was put in his face by the Irish American community. He seemed to be very dosile over there for some reason. You would have thought there would have been a major backlash that there’d been an Irish American Patrick Moyan type character, you know, Kennedy’s types powerhouse coming out and signing them back. But no, not a word. So, it looks like we’re on our own in this one. Not too many countries are uh looking like they’re going to join us here on this OTB road that we’re headed on. Now, I’d expect some serious repercussions because of what’s going on here. And the way they’re framing it as well, they’re making it out. It’s like a, you know, it’s a countrywide ban, which is not the case. It’s only relating to what the UN have described as a illegal territories. So, the UN, unfortunately, doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore. You pick and choose when it comes to UN policies. But so I definitely have a I have very big concerns here now for the Irish economy. Now I know that we have accumulated significant war chest in terms of our sovereign wealth fund and it’s ironic because the sovereign wealth fund I read today have been investing in companies doing business in these very same territories that the OTB is targeting. So, to show you how crazy it all is, they were saying two of the investment vehicles were cancelled by the Irish sovereign fund managers, yet four were additionally added. So, two steps forward, four steps back. It’s very difficult to know what’s going on there. I can’t understand why they would invest, you know, in controversial. There’s so many great investments in the world and yet they seem to be able to go out of their way to find the ones that are most controversial. Right. Well, these are matters that have yet to be resolved and like I say, I am very concerned about what’s likely to happen. Talking about Mike Huckerby, he made an Irish anti-Irish slurry. He was saying that what’s the matter Ireland, you fall into a vat of Guinness, sober up. Now that’s that’s outrageous. And like I say, I haven’t heard any Irish Americans coming out and supporting us or defending us. Maybe they have and we’re not hearing about it. But uh we’re certainly hearing from the other side of it. A lot of these uh Congress people are coming out with cookie cutter type tweets, the exact same tweet that’s obviously it’s been orchestrated for them by I’d imagine APAC or somebody like that, some organization. So, I won’t say too much. I’m already small enough as it is as a YouTuber. And I’m afraid if I say anything else, I mean, for example, I only had two views last night out of of all the 60 videos that I had. So, I don’t think this video is going to help me get any more. But I had to get say that anyway. I’m glad I did say it. So, talking about another American here in Ireland, that Rosie Donald, the heroine of the moment. Apparently, she was in a swanky five-star restaurant the other day with her in-laws and a elderly lady got into trouble with her food and started to choke. So, Rosie jumped up, took command of the situation, and instructed her cousin Mary how to execute the Heimlick maneuver. So apparently Rosie Donald saved the lady’s life or was instrumental in saving my life. And one, interestingly enough, funny enough, I should say almost that the lady in question, the elderly lady was non busted about the whole affair and finished off her plate afterwards. All I can say it must have been an amazing meal. Now we’re going on another path here and the pavement is a little bit rough and it’s kind of bounces my escooter around a little bit and my camera’s mounted on my escooter. So that’s what’s going on here. But it’ll be should be all right here in a second. So on to sports. We have Ben Healey. He’s an English man. He’s born and bred in England. parents were English, but his grandparents were Irish. So, he got to uh ride under the Irish flag in the tour to France. And lo and behold, he won a stage a stage the other day and wore the yellow jersey I think for two days in a row, which is the first time that has happened since 1987 when Steven Roach was the last Irishman to wear the yellow jersey. And in fact, I believe he went on to win the tour of France that year. And I believe we had another rider coming in fourth place. just can’t remember his name. So, right now, Irish riders are doing pretty good. No question about that. So, it’s interesting to see how he’ll come out in the end, but I don’t believe he’ll win it. There were the most more knowledgeable uh bicycle afficionados were saying that if he gets a top 10 place, he’ll be doing good. Now, I thought I might just park the east scooter here for a second and show you the the uh trail. So, this is an interior trail we just came on from and the river say much stream that runs to the left of us here right along along the pathway. So like this is one of really beautiful poncho. No matter what time of year it is autumn winter, spring, summer, it’s beautiful no matter what time of the year. So today talking about the weather is overcast, very humid. It’s about 17 to 18 degrees. Not that hot or anything like that. Very humid weather. and it’s been on and off drizzle all day long. Now, last week there was some scorching weather. In fact, there’s a video downtown city center video on my channel there. You can read it. You can see it if you don’t mind. And uh that was a beautiful day. One of the hottest days of the year so far. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And it was really something else, but we’re more really used to this kind of weather. I I like the hot weather, but just for a day or so, and then I prefer when it goes back to normal service. So, uh, what else is going on in sports? British and Irish lines are playing in the morning. They’re playing against Australia in the first match of their tist and they’ve had three games so far. They played pretty good so far and last week they played an outfit comprised of Australians and New Zealanders and they beat them handily 48 to7. I was rather surprised just how poorly the Australian New Zealand outfit played. You would imagine an Australian New Zealand combination would have done far better than 48 to7. But that’s the way that worked out. It was a reasonably okay game. It wasn’t that exciting or anything like that. the uh match tomorrow looks like we’re going to have eight Irish starting. So, that’s a big deal. Normally, I don’t pay any attention to the British and Irish lions, but this year I’ve uh definitely perked up because of uh the major Irish interest in it. the Irish coach is the uh British Irish lines coach and uh many of our great stars are on the team. Tyke V and just so many great players particularly M Hansen. M Hansen is fantastic. I don’t know if he’s going to be starting tomorrow for some reason or other but he’s a fantastic player. He’s one of the best players that ever played for Ireland in my humble opinion at least. So, um, who else? Katie Taylor. She won her bout against Srano. Amanda Srano from Portugal. That’s the third time they fought. And, uh, I think at this stage, Srano ought to give it up. She’s not going to beat Katie Taylor. Katie is just too strong for her. Okay, I’m going to turn around and go back the way I came. The reason being is if I continue on up that trail there, the the ground is a little bumpy and it’s going to jiggle around the camera and it won’t be as enjoyable for you. Which bring me to the point where I should ask if you would mind liking, commenting, and subscribing to my channel. That would be very very helpful to me indeed. So, uh, immigration to America from Ireland is down. The J1 student visas are down 25%. It’s really a shame really. These these opportunities are lost now for the young the young students to go to America and expand her horizons. America particularly is amazing place to go to, but apparently by all accounts right now it’s not a place to go to. Looks like they’re going through everybody’s stuff on the way in there and they’re checking their social media posts and so on and so forth, which is really scary for a lot of people. And for those who who are undocumented, Irish in America who are undocumented, there’s been already some really scary stories coming out. Just read there a couple of days ago of a an Irish tourist that was in the Guardian. and an Irish tourist had to overstay his visa for 3 days and was uh basically locked up for a couple months then ICE facility and then on onto a uh federal holding facility but the whole story was not really told. It wasn’t exactly clearcut exactly what happened, but apparently the individual in question had uh a domestic uh alter altercation with his girlfriend. Police were called and as a result he was taken in. So it’s not as clearcut as it may as it sounded. So, so it’s not, you know, it’s not all doom and gloom, but certainly one thing is for sure is it hasn’t, it has changed a lot. Years ago, you just jump in a plane, hop over there, and enjoy yourself, and you finish and just come back home. Now, those who are undocumented in Ireland should understand if you’re looking at this video, ready to be shocked when you come back to Ireland because first of all, if you don’t have a place to live, chances are not good. Plus, the cost of everything is just through the roof. And it seems like every day the price is going up for no apparent reason really. Just that there’s an opportunity for a lot of these supermarkets to make big money for some reason. They seem to get away with it. So I’m coming down to the underpass here. And what I’ll do is I’ll stop under the underpass and we’ll have a quick look at the river slang. Like I say, it’s really more of a stream than a river. But normally they keep it very clean and clear. Water is usually very is usually pristine. But there has been a lot of concerts lately and this is the road or trail that they walk up to the concert. So they’ll be stopping having sort of mini parties on the way up along the trail here. And so there’s been a lot of rubbish, a lot more than usual. So we’ll see. Usually, like I say, this area is pretty clear of rubbish, of trash. I just keep my screw here and have a look at the river. The camera will follow me around as I go around here. So, this is the trail river slide and I can see there is rubbish in the river. They have a carton, no carton. The beer can looks like plastic bag in the middle of the river and uh cigarette cartons, plastic cups, straws. So, it’s not that clean. But I expect once the concert season is over, they’ll come down here and they’ll give it a good clean. There won’t be any rubbish laying around. Right. So, what have I talked about? We just have a little recap and wrap things up. So, we talked about Donald Trump. So, we got a little a little a little problem maybe here. Not sure what’s going on. [Music] Come on, CL. So, might as well say hello to YouTube. Oh, hello YouTube. Here you go. How many views you got, gentlemen? Not a lot. Not a lot. I don’t give my consent. Now you’re screwed. You’re screwed. I didn’t get your consent. I need to have you sign the waiver. Damn right. But only your manager can sign it. Well, hey, Esquire. Esquire. You’re the You’re your own manager, right? Good for you. Good for you. Esquire indeed. But no, it’s simple as that. If you do not give your consent, you’re breaking, you know. That’s right. The uh universal code. The universal code of justice. Karma, I’ll be right on your back. I think it’s called the GDP, the general directive on something privacy or something like that. I would totally don’t be looking in windows. No being a people. No, no, you wouldn’t mind me doing that. All right, I’ll continue on. Okay. What are you talking about? Oh, we’re just talking about uh Donald Trump. What a man. And uh orange he is. Is he orange today? Just talking about that and sports and anything to do with Ireland. Totally. What’s your first name? [Music] I don’t know you well enough. All right. I’ll call you Michael. Totally. Totally. Mick. All right. Patty, I’ll talk to you after. You think they’ll win that tomorrow, the rugby? I was talking about that. I was talking about the British and Irish lines, actually. But we’re not British. No, but I have British and Irish lines. Here they are. They changed it there, didn’t they? Uh, well, they did, and that’s fair enough to them. If I was English, I’d be very upset. I don’t think they’re upset at all. And then I was just saying uh that eight of the team starting tomorrow are Irish. I hope they lose. Well, Egg chasers. They’re chasing an egg. You know that king bounces on the floor and you don’t know where he’s going to go. That’s what makes it so exciting. Oh no. Yeah. Chasing an egg. There was a few go back road 30 years ago. Rugby nowadays. Just cuz you started to become successful at something, you know. Oh yeah. Well, yeah. Watch out for them. Well, you’ll be in that in the daughter before you know. That That’s the river slang. Slang. It runs down to the river daughter. Oh, the dandy daughter. Slang. The river slang. Don’t be calling it a slang. No, no, no. Slang. S l a n g. slang. I like your slang. Slang. Slang. That’s right. Okay. Listen, this is lovely, mate. Good night. God bless. You’ll be on the internet. You’re going to be famous. Good night. God bless. Good night. See you later. Entertaining right there. Um yeah, he was talking about the British and Irish lions exactly what we were talking about. So it’s interesting the British and Irish lions have got a lot more attention now lately from Ireland. So which is a good thing. You know Irish people are very reticent about when they hear the word Britain or British. A lot of our feelings get conflicted a little bit. But hopefully a lot of that will be thing of the past. But am I right? Talking about the Irish population there recently. I did a video about it. It’s interesting video. Just uh discussed the record numbers for the Irish population. It’s the highest has been since the uh since the famine. Now, I didn’t talked about immigration too much, just p on passing, but I got a lot of comments on that and they were all very much to do with how upset they are with the current government’s stance on immigration. Uh, a lot of the comments were making quite clear that the immigration is out of control. So, I thought that was interesting. And I I say I I didn’t discuss the immigration aspect of it too much. just the numbers and the increase over the years and the difficulty we’ve had in you know as a country over the last 150 years with our population being so low but now like I what used to be around about 3.2 million when I was a youngster and uh now many many moons later the numbers here in the south of Ireland is up to somewhere around about 5.2 2 million. A lot of that has to do with obviously non-Irish coming into the country to live here. Within the Aana, you’d expect that with an economy that we’ve have had here for the last 20 years, which is pretty much booming, has been almost every year. So, we definitely need numbers in here to keep the economy going. My view of it is that uh it’s got to be done in a manner that’s fair and equitable to everybody. That includes those who are already here. But, uh, like I say, I’m going to try and keep my video as uncontroversial as possible cuz I’m trying to get to 100 subscribers and I’m right about 90 now, 92. And if I say anything, I just won’t get any views whatsoever from YouTube, which is really really difficult. Uh like for example, just to give you a sort of a whining session here, I have about 60 videos up on YouTube and last night from 12:00 night, so when I woke up, so for about 8 hours, 9 hours have had a grand total of two views. So don’t know don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. Doesn’t doesn’t make any sense. So, um, what else? Well, I suppose I should think about putting wrapping wrapping the video up here. And to do that, I’ll just recap what we discussed, and that is Donald Trump’s tariffs. Donald Trump is definitely targeting Ireland. There’s no question about that. And I would have thought that with the upcoming midterm elections that he would have gone easy on Ireland given the sizable Irish-American community who like to vote. But uh Irish American community are very quiet lately and especially with regards to the OTB, the occupied territories bill. Haven’t heard a peep out of them in defense of the country. Ireland’s doing a uh a solo run here, so there’s no other countries rolling behind us. Irish American community is very quiet. There’s a lot of fear in the air. So unfortunately, we’re going to, as I said earlier on, we’re going to we are going to feel the heat because of this OTV and the Irish government look determined to go follow through on it. It’s interesting that they would go out take such a strong stance alone knowing what’s knowing full well the uh potential damage it’s going to do to our economy. But then again, there’s certain things people just cannot uh endure. So I can understand both sides very clearly. I talked about didn’t talk about the Irish presidential race which I might just mention just before we find each other. We had two entrance into the Irish presidential race there the other day. One was Mar McGinness, the former commissioner for the EU who did very well in the Brexit. She stood up to Nigel Farage and his reform party and made quite a name for herself. A lot of respect for her for for what she did there, but I don’t think that she’s presidential candidate material or at least presidential material. We also have Katherine Connelly. She’s had a high profile, but I can’t say one thing that she ever did. So, I don’t know where she’s getting her profile from. She hails from Gway, which is the same county that the current outgoing president is from. So that’s any indication that she should be make a good president cuz the outgoing president Michael D. Higgins was probably one of the best presidents we’ve had in living memory. I can’t remember myself. You have to go all the way back to somebody like Deair or something like that to get somebody comparable. But I’m not holding my breath to get a good president this year. Donald um Conor McGregor said he was going to enter the race for in when he met Donald Trump in the White House last St. Patrick’s Day, but I don’t see him I don’t haven’t seen any or heard anything about that since. But then again, Nolan McGregor, it’s possible that he might just at the very end of the of the day decide it up. I’ll throw my hat in the ring, throw in a 50 million, maybe 100 million just to keep my hand in there, raise the profile, see how he does. If he did enter the race, he he would get quite a number of votes. There’s no question about that. I’d give him, let’s say, you know, not knowing who’s in the race, but I’d give him maybe 20 20% of the vote. 20 more, 25% even. You have uh also the former the shock Bern mulling racing but I going into the race but I don’t see him getting into the white into the arson. I really don’t see it happening whatsoever. His uh financial irregularities have left a lot of bad taste in people’s mouths over the years. It just his money was just resting in in his account. that doesn’t go well for a future president. So, it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out. Talked about sports, like I said, about Christian Irish Lions, about Ben Healey, the super job he’s done racing this week in the tour to France, keeping things interesting for us Irish, despite the fact that he is English, parents are English, his grandparents came from Ireland, so on that basis, he’s an Irish man. That’s fair enough for me. When you do well in in this in in Ireland, no matter where you’re from, you’re Irish. Fair play to bed. And I talked about Katie Taylor and how well she’s done. All right. Now, I’ve come back to where I pretty much started on the Riverstein Trail. And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. There’s the trail that I just came around the corner here when the Dundam Shel Center is right there in front of us. Right. Well, I’m sure glad you joined me. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to my channel. And I’m looking forward to seeing you on the next one. So, thanks for joining me today. And we’ll see you Anan. Bye.