Mícheál Casey

Here but not all there.

Any views expressed are my own.

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@souravdoc I am old enough to remember David starting as a fresh-faced child!!!!

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@BBCWorld The name of the country is Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is the name of a soccer team.

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

🕊 The missing Twin Towers returned to New York for a few minutes

A light show was held on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The drones first rose into the night sky in a spiral, then formed the outlines of the destroyed World Trade Center towers.

The installation used 2,977 drones — one for each person killed in the attacks.

[Hugh Harrop Wildlife @HughHarrop]

A stunning Merlin sat outside our Shetland garden first thing this morning. A daily sight for us at this time of year but these pint-sized falcons rarely stay in one place for long. #firstbirdofmyday

[Visit Galway @visit_galway]

Captured from the Inishbofin Fast Ferry yesterday evening! Wow! 🐋

📸 Inishbofin Ferry
📍 Inishbofin, Galway

[Marc Johnson @SolidEvidence]

Wastewater update.

Warning, I’m going to reveal information about an INDIVIDUAL from wastewater surveillance, and I’m even going to reveal their name without their permission.

This is usually frowned upon.
1/🧵

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@SteveCowlishaw @NoContextBrits That's on you, that is

[Candide Thovex @CandideThovex]

Tour de France

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@MarkSmyth1960 @BBCSpringwatch One exception Mark...that doesn't contradict the clear pattern that they generally return ahead of bad weather

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

In 1983 a Mexican pilot on a transatlantic flight from Newark to Munich, running dangerously low on fuel made an emergernecy landing on Mallow Racecourse in Cork. Captain Rubén Ocaña was flying a Gulfstream II executive jet on April 18, 1983 when his instruments showed it was running dangerously low on fuel.

His plan had been to refuel at Shannon, but thick fog made that impossible. With air traffic control guiding him, Ocaña scanned the countryside for a flat enough stretch of land. He located Mallow Racecourse against the odds, set down the plane on the grass.

The immediate danger was over but now the multimillion dollar Gulfstream jet was stuck. The ground was too soft to take off again, not just during the current weather but like ever again. There was even talk the jet might have to be dismantled and carted away piece by piece.

Captain Ocaña was accompanied by three crew members and four passengers, posh businessmen including Emilio Azcarraga-Milmo, who was the high-profile owner of Televisa, Mexico’s largest television network. Them four were whisked away to complete their journey shortly after the landing. Captain Ocaña and his crew had to await orders.

Wealthy insurers quickly did the maths and found it was cheaper to build a temporary runway than to take the yoke apart. Local men and women were hired, machinery was brought in, and a 3,000-foot tarmac strip began to take shape beside the racecourse ( oh and the local sugar factory). It took around six weeks. During that time, the charismatic Mexican Captain Ocaña and his crew became honorary Corkonians and were treated with the great hospitality of the Rebel County.

They were put up at the Central Hotel, Captain Ocaña was a regular at hurling matches, and even served as a judge for the “Rakes of Mallow” Beauty Contest (that Rakes polka festival is a fascinating rabbithole in itself btw).

By the time the makeshift runway was ready 39 days later, the jet had become a local landmark. Kids cycled out to see it and tourists came to take photographs, postcards were even printed.

When the day finally came for takeoff, around two thousand people gathered to see Captain Rubén Ocaña and his crew off. Before stepping aboard, he offered a few words as Gaeilge them they lifted safely into the air, and circled twice above the town in salute before vanishing into the clouds. The legendary event inspired the 2010 film The Runway,

Captain Ocañas adventure was commemorated forty years later with Ocaña Fest in April 2023 which featured an air show, Mexican mariachi music, and a screening of original footage captured by local enthusiast Alan Wilson.

The weekend reached a poignant conclusion when Ocaña’s four daughters fulfilled their father's final wish by scattering his ashes at the racecourse, marking a permanent return to the town that had welcomed him with such extraordinary hospitality decades earlier.

Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book https://t.co/U7jtCrOTtb

[Brendan May @bmay]

“And tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Hantavirus.”

[Edwina Guckian @EdwinaGuckian]

Don’t forget to sprinkle the May flowers across your doorstep tonight. Oíche Bealtaine! 🌼
For it is on this night, between sunset and sunrise on May Day, that na daoine maithe, the good people, are out and about with notions of their own.

If you’re wandering the roads late, it’s no harm at all to carry a small piece of iron in your pocket, just to keep your feet firmly in your world and not theirs. Because should you find yourself suddenly turned around, hedges where there were none before, roads multiplying at crossroads, and home nowhere to be found… well, you’ve likely had the misfortune of stepping on the stray sod.

And sure if that happens, don’t be making a show of yourself roaring and cursing the darkness. That’s exactly the kind of entertainment they’d be hoping for. Keep your wits, take off your jacket and turn it inside out.

And mind yourself with those little flickering lights dancing before your eyes. Harmless looking, but they’re the very light of the fairies. Sclimpíní! You’re never to follow them. Many a man has been led clean astray, chasing a glow that keeps just out of reach, until they’ve neither road nor sense of direction left to them.

Now, if you hear music playing above in the hills, you’d want to be cautious. Don’t hop the hedge for a nose. They’re out celebrating the turning of the year. And they might call you in. “A tune?”, they’ll say. “Or throw a step for us?” Sure what harm? And isn’t it hard to refuse when the music is so good?
If you do refuse outright, they might take offence. Never a wise move. You could end up with a hump on your back for good. But if you do join them… well… time has a habit of slipping away. A reel could last a minute, or a year and a day.

Best advice? If you’re drawn in, keep one foot in your own world. Don’t eat, don’t drink, and don’t let them slap you on the back as if you belong there. Praise their music, their dancing. Give a polite step amongst them, then put your hand around that piece of iron in your pocket and edge your way out like you’ve remembered the spuds are boiling on the fire at home.

Come May morning, wash your face in the dew for a touch of eternal youth, your hands to untie any knot, and your feet to keep the magic in them for dancing all the days ahead.

And if you wake with sore legs and no memory of the night at all, the shoes still on you inside in the bed, the balls of your feet worn out through the soles of them… well now, maybe you kept better company than you thought.

[Edwina Guckian @EdwinaGuckian]

The Conference of the Birds is taking place this week in Kilnagross, Co. Leitrim before they head up to the fairy tree on Sheemore to celebrate Bealtaine.

At today’s AGM chaired by the barn owl, the Hedge Committee opened proceedings with grave concern over the “tidiness epidemic” sweeping the countryside. The blackbird gave a heartfelt address on the loss of winter berries, while the wren described certain hedgerows as “nothing short of ecological deserts, trimmed within an inch of their lives.”

A delegation of robins presented findings on soil quality, noting that “worms are harder found by but the future is looking bright with so many farmers turning organic.” This was followed by a stirring contribution from the curlew (attending remotely from her nest on Shanley’s bog), who reminded all present that what happens in the hedges does not stay in the hedges.

One of the week’s highlights was the selection of the Birds’ Farming for Nature Ambassador. Tommy Earley of Mount Allen Farm was awarded the prize. Many other Leitrim farmers were highly commended with the skylark praising “those farmers who farm with nature, who cut late if at all, and who understand that a hedge is not a boundary line, but a living world.”

The Bird in Residence Bursary was given to the corncrake who will begin her 5 month residency on Mount Allen Farm next spring.

A controversial presentation was delivered on the latest in hedge-mowing technology, referred to by several birds as “The Great Flattener.”
A willow warbler demonstrated, with unsettling accuracy, the speed at which a hedge can be reduced from a rich habitat to a bare scaffold by the flail. Gasps were heard. One elderly blackcap fainted briefly.

A motion was passed on Dawn Chorus Standards:

“That no mechanical noise, leaf blower, chainsaw, or the over-enthusiastic strimmer shall commence before the conclusion of the morning chorus.”
Proposed by the Song thrush. Seconded by the blackbird at 4:47 a.m.

Proceedings were temporarily disrupted when a large group of meadow pipits arrived with placards “Not My Egg, Not My Job!”
A spokesperson for the group said:
“Year after year we are selected without consultation to be the cuckoos nurse.
We are told this is tradition. This is nature.
But where is the support? Where is the union? We want to resign from this role immediately.”

The magpie tabled a motion for the next meeting:
That the cuckoo be formally requested to clarify its housing policy, including but not limited to nest ownership, tenancy rights, and the ethical implications of outsourcing parental responsibilities.

Other exciting events coming up this week at the conference include a Dawn Chorus Competition and a workshop on Advanced Nest Camouflage in Increasingly Sparse Hedges (fully booked).

The gathering concludes with the highlight of the week. A trip up Sheemore to the fairy hawthorn tree to celebrate Bealtaine. The children of Kilnagross National School will make their way by bicycle to the hill, travelling through the living hedgerows that have been at the heart of the week’s discussions. Along the route, the birds will accompany them with all swallows leading the way.

The celebration itself promises music, song and dancing on the hillside, as children and birds alike mark the arrival of summer together. It is hoped that the gathering will not only honour the turning of the year, but also renew a shared understanding of the land, of hedges left to grow, and of the small but very important lives that depend on them.

A project by Mairead Hurley and Trinity College Dublin with artist Edwina Guckian and Kilnagross N.S Co. Leitrim.

[Vintage Maps @vintagemapstore]

Every lighthouse in Ireland, with accurate timings, flash patterns and colours. Map by Neil Southall.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Passengers on a commercial flight captured the launch of Artemis II on camera

The plane happened to pass near the launch trajectory at the exact moment of liftoff, giving passengers a rare view of the rocket launch right from their windows.

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@Protect_Wldlife Too bad this is illustrated with external nest boxes, which are not what's entailed here, it's bricks built into the fabric of the building, with only an entrance visible

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@Matthew47487400 @Protect_Wldlife What are bird lice illnesses?

[Happy Motorhead @HappyMotorhead]

Who knew? #WhoKnew

[Mícheál Casey @Micheal_Casey]

@MickPuck looking forward to the Fisherman's Blues era Waterboys gig in Dublin next year, with the return of some key names. Hope there are more still to be announced....as Julius Caesar almost said, "veni, vidi, vici, VINNY!"

[Dublin Civic Trust @dubcivictrust]

Every President of Ireland except the incumbent, Michael D. Higgins, has been inaugurated using a remarkable piece of historic Irish furniture. The presidential inauguration chair first used in 1938 for signing Douglas Hyde into office, is older than the State itself 🧵