News of the World reports from Trinity!

It was 8 o'clock and I was casually late. I walked through the archway of Ireland's oldest college and asked a passer-by, "Do you know where the Dinning Room is?" Following the directions I hobbled over the cobble stones in my high heels and walked up the steps to what turned out to be the Chapel. There I met two grown men in long black overcoats from their english accents I guessed who they were and I asked them, "News of the World?" and they replied, "yes". As joint forces we found our destination.

I felt like I had drifted back in time to another era when I entered the vast dinning room. The room has an ancient look to it, the decor is minimalist, and the huge high ceilings added a hollow and empty feeling to the room. As the harp played soft melodies, the sound echoed around the room and I felt as though I was back in the Chapel. Everything was painted white with the exception of the large coloured portraits of the provosts who used to run the college hanging high up on the walls around the room. As I looked around I wondered what the provosts would have thought of the spectacle below them?

As a waitress walked by carrying a tray of drinks on one hand, Niall Marshall, the chief photographer with the paper stopped her in her tracks and got me a glass of white wine.

Then I met the editor, Nick Bramhill, and we chatted about various stories we had been working on. Nick told me how The Sunday World had followed up on my story of the lady, Nuala Geoghan, who believed she was possessed by the Devil. I was delighted to hear because she had literally been haunting me everytime I was at work, she was constantly ringing me asking if anyone had phoned in that could help her?

I was excited to see Bertie Ahern there and I made my way over to have a brief chat with him. Niall being a photographer never misses out on a snap shot and to my delight he got a photo of myself and Bertie.

After the meal, and the wine, we made our way to Lillie Bordellos. It was my first time in this club and really without the hype it is just a regular club. I enjoyed myself though, work parties are so funny, myself and Ilyod, the financial journalist took to the dance floor for most of the night. And the next time I'm at work it will probably be, "Hi", "Hi" on the way to our desks!

Merlot, Butlers Chocolates and the hiking of skirts...

What measures should journalists take to get that story?

All of the above do indeed have sexual connotations-

♥Pinot noir seduces wine drinkers thirsty for `sex in a glass'

♥Handmade chocolates from Butlers Chocolates. The finest gourmet chocolate and candy for chocolate lovers and gifts

♥ Hike up the skirt! Will this help?



But when one thinks about it, almost all aspects of life are loaded with sexual connotations so it is hard to know where the fine line between right and wrong fades. In this binary opposition one thrives to stay in the stable primary position of the privileged right however one can easily stray into the wrong zone.

In journalism there are no hard and fast guidelines. The judgement a journalist makes at any one time is vital. Analysing a situation and adapting to a scene are requirements for a journalist on the road.

If you are not clever enough in your critique of the situation you may not get an interview and at best you may get a half-hearted interview. So to prevent this one must plan ahead. Where will you meet them - somewhere convenient for them, their house or work place put yourself out. Would a gift help? If an interview with them is vital for your story let them know that you appreciate it- a gift can go a long way.

To build a good contacts book a journalist needs to get people on their side. After all how can you write a great story if somebody is not willing to tell it to you? As journalists, we are relying on people everyday to help us do our job.

People love gifts. Chinese are only too aware of this, if you go to any Chinese restaurant coming up to Christmas they will give you a little gift with your food which is always nice.

The National Vet Awards with an afterdinner of Pole Dancing, Excorcists and IRA men and what happened to the Sam Mc Guire Cup?

Pat Morrissey was overwhelmed when, RTE’s Sharon Ni Bheolain announced him the overall winner of the National Stronghold Veterinary Pet Care Award for 2005, at the Castleknock Hotel, Sunday 27. Flocks of letters flew in the door of the competition organisers, Pfizer Animal Health, chirping praises of The Riverside Veterinary Practice in Dungarvan. Pat the owner of the clinic attended Clongowes Wood College and furthered his education at UCD where he graduated in 1971 with a veterinary degree.

Only a few months out of college Pat was called to a farm to investigate a sick peacock. He told the packed room at the award ceremony how his career began: Travelling in the car to Ned Murphy’s farm, struggling to recall anything from the vast amount of chapters dedicated to peacocks he had studied at college, he was panicking. “Think of an illness a peacock could get, think of an illness a peacock could get…nothing came to mind. A turkey is like a peacock, turkeys are prone to Blackhead”. When Pat arrived at the farm he took one look at the peacock huddled up in the corner and said, “Oh that’s the Blackhead, Ned, a very serious illness, that peacock is going to die. He then proceeded to inject the poor peacock and quickly ran from the farm. Three weeks later Pat went into the local butchers and images of this day are still vivid in his memory. There were three women standing at the counter and to the right of them stood Ned. Pat asked Ned, “How is the Peacock?” Ned replied, “Oh, she died.” Pat stated, “It’s a terrible thing that Blackhead.” And to his shock, Ned said, “It wasn’t the Blackhead at all. I had the poultry inspectors round the next day, sur she was trying to lay an egg!”

Black Pea Cock

Standing up on the podium 36 years later accepting a prize acknowledging his impressive practice and consistent compassion for animals and pets its clear that the man has excelled in his field.

“At 57 –years-of-age I felt I was going to cry when I heard I won this prize. To hear that your hard work is appreciated by so many people is an extremely emotional thing. The clients are the people who went to the trouble of taking pen to paper, it’s always nice for someone to say thank you. Now I am just saying back to them ‘thank you’.

Pat also applauded the educators in the profession for offering such an excellent standard of on-going education. Since he graduated from college he completes three-day intensive courses regularly so he can now carry out orthopaedic, dental and many other specialised operations. Next weekend he will complete a course on orthopaedic surgery at UCD.

“What a nice, modest man, is that you’re father?” the man beside me asked. “Yes,” I replied. And so our conversation began. He started asking the usual, what do you do? And I told him, I’m doing an MA in journalism at DIT and work part time for The News of the World. He roared laughing and asked me what kind of things I write. I said I mostly cover events and write biographies on people.

Then my sister piped up saying that I called to the house of an IRA murder suspect, John Jordan who is on the run in Ireland for killing two people in a bomb attack. The man and his wife were shocked and asked me was I not scared. I told them that it was 11 years since he had done anything, and when I called to his door I reached out my hand to shake his and there was nothing he could really do but shake mine. It ended up that we got on quite well and he offered to do an interview with me at a later stage when the decommissioning goes through and he will return to the North to visit his family after so many years of being a fugitive. My sister, Ciara, seeing how much he enjoyed the story about the IRA man told him that I also wrote a story about the first Pole Dancing class in Dublin and on a woman who believed she was possessed and in need of an exorcist. Tears literally ran down his face as he laughed uncontrollably. “Never did I believe coming to a do like this that I would end up talking about Pole dancing,” he said, his face red from the laughter.

Blonde Pole Dancer

I couldn’t believe the joy people get out of hearing these stories, and Ciara whom he said I should hire as my PA, kept throwing fuel on the fire, the more he laughed, the more she threw in. She told him I was offered free classes in Pole dancing and all this jazz. I don’t think any of us thought a meal with strangers at such a formal do was going to be so funny. I told him I was meeting my boyfriend’s mother for the first time later in the evening and he said he would love to be a fly on the wall, and to tell her that I’m a Pole dancer and it would probably be the beginning and end of our relationship. Sharon Ni Bheolain was going by and heard this. She said to me it’s not what his mother thinks of you, it’s what you think of her. Now that is an interesting way of looking at it, I never thought about it like that before.

Our meal was coming to an end and Ciara said to the gentleman beside me, this is just the tip of the ice berg for this one, look out for her on TV3’s Ireland AM in the morning with Maura Derrane and Alan Hughes, she’ll be on doing the fashion slot for Celia Holman Lee.

The gentleman was impressed and both he and his wife said they’d both be tuning in to watch. They said they had a few stories I might be interested in like the time the Sam Mc Guire Cup went missing years ago when Dublin won it. He told me his wives uncle was the captain of the team and he actually cycled from Croke Park after the final with the cup on the carrier of his bike. Upon noticing that the cup was missing they retraced the muddy path he cycled home and find the cup on the side of the road with a little dint on it to mark the occassion.

Hilarious Cat Fight amongst TV rivals..

Check out this article.

And some people question how was it possible for Sky News Ireland's Grainne Seoige and TV3's Claire Byrne to get nominated for Best Personalities of the year when they are news presenters..

This isn't a dress rehersal...

Burlesque the DIT Fashion Show 2005 - my first show in Dublin.

I arrived in Vicar Street at 11am. All the models had to get spray-on tan the day before at a tanning shop and I always prefer to do my own. As you can imagine 60 seconds in a machine could hardly give you a good tan. So the day of the show I was off-white, lookily enough one of the girls had a bit of instant tan which I used, even though we were told not to for fear the clothes would get destroyed. But one thing you learn in life is that you shouldn't always do what you're told. Pout were on board to do the make-up and their stuff is so cute and funky. Most of the models in the show were DIT students however, a few models were professionals who work for John Compton.



I couldn't believe it at the show when I met Una Healy left, she models for John Compton, and is also a singer/ songwriter. The last time I met Una was at Mary Immaculate college, she was studying to become a primary school teacher and I was studying media and english. Una left college in first year when she got to the final 9 in the Irish version of Pop Idol. She didn't make the final cut and just missed out on being in the band Six. Una is still living for the music and presently she is very busy promoting her own music and playing gigs in the city and around the country.



Which is probably more than she would be doing if she got selected to perform as part of the pop-group Six. This bands fame lived as long as a tea-light flame probably due to the fact that Louis Walsh dressed them all in the same clothes, stripping them of their individualism and programming them to be something they weren't.


Click on the Six hot link and you'll see a big transformation in the style of Emma O' Driscoll right and the style of her in the band where she is dressed from head to toe in white just like all the other band members.

Emma transcended from the pop band Six to TV. For a girl who also dropped out of Mary Immaculate in first year she is doing well for herself presenting The Den on RTE One.

The fashion show kicked off at 8 o'clock and following all the rehersals that day we were ready to rock the stage. To the electro sounds of Silverscreen by Felix, Sarah Mc Govern standing under a spot light, wearing a bikini, opened the show. Sarah who used to be the student president at DIT, now models for Assets.

My first outfit was provocative. I was dressed in knee high boots and lace underwear all from Jigsaw. Two days before the show I went into Jigsaw with the other models for fittings. The stylist firstly had us dressed in long skirts to the ankles and wooly jumpers. Then suddenly it dawned on her that the theme of the show was Burlesque and decided it would be more appropriate if we lost the majority of our outter garments bar the boots. Well it was all good fun and in aid of charity and the following day the Independent published a photo of myself and Jane Wilde (above) with the caption- Students get Stripped for Charity.

I must of done something right because at the end of the show it was announced that I won the modelling contract. Throughout my under grad I modelled for Celia Holman Lee in Limerick and since the show I now also work for John Compton. He organised for me to do a photoshoot last weekend with Peter Evers ,which will make up my Z-card. The photo shoot went well until the Peter insisted that, although it was 7 o'clock at night with freezing cold temperatures that the shot had to be taken outside because the clothes were too funky for the setting inside. There was a light crunching noise as we walked across the icy pavement and a long trail of white air came out of my mouth every time I breathed. I havn't seen the photos yet but lets hope they were worth it!

Anyway back to the after party of the show. I met Helen O' Reilly there an old friend of mine from back in the day when I used to run competitively. Myself and Helen battled it out in many All- Ireland and Munster long distant running championships. The last time I bumped into Helen was in New York when she walked into the restaurant I was working in and asked for a job! We are all peas eating out of the one pod so no matter where we go we will still cross one another's paths- that's life- and it's not a dress rehersal it's the real thing...

A Point about Dylan

A glimpse of what makes Bob Dylan a legend is all we got. I didn’t feel relaxed at his concert in The Point , Ireland's premier music venue on Saturday night. I felt like the gig never got going. I know Dylan likes to sit and play his music and keep interactions with the crowd to a minimum of literally just introducing the band but I must admit I was disappointed. I'm not sure if my feeling were due to the fact that I thought The Point was a totally unsuitable venue. I was up the front to the side of the stage and I still felt a million miles away. I would like to have seen Dylan pick a more intimate venue like Vicar Street or The Olympia Theatre. One would ask if Dylan is all about the music and not the commercial aspect why did he not pick a more intimate venue? The Point is so ridiculous, I got a drink and couldn't bring it inside, then my friend wanted a cigarette and couldn't bring his drink outside so we were literally stuck in limbo in the lobby of The Point hearing Bob on one side and the wind and rain on the other while trying to quickly finish our drinks and get back for fear of missing too much of an already very short show. A concert put on for avid fans I would say. For me a fan who knows a lot of his stuff I was left wondering, what song is this? a few times throughout the concert. My friend saw him last year in Galway and said there was no comparison. I heard great things about Dylan's concerts however I didn't experience them.

Art Art Art

Art Art Art How can one begin to describe it? Words are art.
Everyone has the ability of expressing themselves through the colour and form of their hand writing.

Your handwriting reveals a
remarkable amount of information
about your personality. Take a look!

Also speech which consists of words is an art. One word can have a major effect on how you feel, depending on the tone in which it was said in and how many times it was said.

At a recent Marianne Faithful gig at Vicar Street shivers ran over my body as she sounded one word- ‘guilt’. This short but powerful word struck a nerve in me as she repeated and repeated it, each time her tone getting louder and more aggressive. The lights flashed on and off as she chanted and eventually we were left in the dark and all was silent for a moment. The word guilt is such a loaded word and when Marianne let it loose in the small venue it hit a nerve in everyone.

The person beside me felt guilty because of the alcohol binge session he indulged in the night before, another felt guilty because she had not been in much contact with her close friends from home since she moved away to college, a couple felt guilty because they felt their busy work schedules slightly distanced them from their beloved children, an overweight person felt guilty about the double cheese burger, large chip and extra- large coke he consumed at dinner time and a pretty, young, working class, girl felt guilty over her shopping spree as she tapped the heals of her new €600 leather boots from Brown Thomas.

The effect that word had on everybody shows that how someone speaks and the way they speak is a work of art.

At the Dail on Wednesday I spoke with a secretary for one of the TD’s. He spoke in a soft but firm voice. I thought what a wonderful skill this man has because by doing this everyone around the table was drawn close to him, to hear what he was saying of course! But through his soft voice he still managed to maintain an air of authority about him. It’s a skill a few of my secondary school teachers should have thought about investing in.

It’s engaging to hear words spoken beautifully from a passage. When someone reads a passage vigorously the words dance out of their mouth and the meaning comes alive.
It’s just like when a great traditional Irish band get going, they express themselves through such energetic vibrant performances that the music comes alive.

What really got me thinking about art was the sale of a brown envelope for over £250 million in London yesterday. This brown envelope is special because it is an original, unique work of art. Inscribed on both sides of the envelope are the words that make up John Lennon’s famous song, “Give Peace a Chance”. The history and the meaning behind these words are so powerful because they represent the feeling of Lennon and Yoko Ono during their ‘bed-in’ protest for peace in 1969.

Lennon’s strong belief in the possibilities of peace being achieved by the year 2000 has got to be admired, although those who criticised him for his naiveté in believing it was possible were in some way right. However, he continued to speak and preach the word of peace throughout his life and although he is dead now a little part of him lives on through his works of art. And with the media spot light shining on the sale of this brown envelope the idea of peace is once again brought to the forefront of people’s minds. And Lennon will continue to pop up every now and then and pull this word out of our sub conscious and make up consciously think about it.

"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all." - John Lennon

Fairytales + Cocaine

Cocaine, it’s the most prominent drug in the media limelight today because of the celebrity nature of many of its victims.

This stimulating drug is used by thousands of party goers because it increases their energy levels enabling them to party harder for longer. Kate Moss (right) a well known user of the drug parties constantly.

Did you know that, “Cocaine delivers an intensity of pleasure – and despair- beyond the bounds of normal human experience.”

I noticed an anti-drug advert for cocaine in the ladies toilet of a pub over the week end. The satiric wit of the advert made me laugh at first but then it made me think:

The advert was colourful and looked like a page torn from a nursery book-
But it read like this:

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To snort a line of coke,
Jack felt horny,
So did Jill,
But unfortunately Jack cannot maintain an erection,
No matter how turned on he is.

The message is: there are no fairytale endings with cocaine.

One might laugh at the surface meaning and think what fairytale ending is sex?
However, the hidden message is that cocaine could almost be personified as a demon that creeps around readily available for its next victim. If unaware you may fall a victim to this deadly drug that has the potential to come between you are your boyfriend. It eats at the core of relationships and eventually cracks and destroys them.

Therefore cocaine is definitely not recommended as a suitable gift to give someone you love this Christmas. It is well known that there is no cure for cocaine addiction, so even if you and your friends plan on getting hooked just for a while, to kill your curiosity and get a few thrills over the festive season remember that once you let it in, it will not kindly let you alone when you decide. Once you try the drug, addiction strikes randomly, like the Irish postal service!!

So before trying the drug, really think, is a moment of pleasure worth a lifetime of pain?




And for a less glamorous account of drug taking in celebrity circles
read the biography of Anthony Kiedis (right) (Red Hot Chili Peppers) or Marianne Faithful (below) or any other highly acclaimed performer that spent a life time fighting drug addiction and came out the other end to tell the wicked tale.

"This is the evening of the day,

I sit and watch the children play,
Smiling faces I can see but not for me,

I sit and watch as tears go by."

My favourite of her lyrics from song 'As Tears Go By'