Paddy Moran

John Maher: ‘Every player can’t be a Matthew Thompson or Oisin Conaty’ irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid…

California's Central Valley produces 80% of the world's almonds. Each almond requires 3.2 gallons of actual irrigation water to grow. Not rainfall. Actual tap water pumped from aquifers. One gallon of almond milk requires 162 gallons of irrigation water. Compare that to dairy milk at 8 gallons of tap water per gallon, with the rest being rainfall that falls on pasture anyway. But here's where it gets properly grim. Almonds bloom for exactly three weeks in February. During those three weeks, California needs every pollinating bee in North America transported to the Central Valley or the crop fails entirely. Commercial beekeepers truck in 31 billion honeybees. That's two-thirds of America's entire managed bee population, all concentrated in one valley for three weeks. The bees are packed into trucks, driven across the country, dumped into almond groves drenched in pesticides, worked to exhaustion, then packed up and shipped to the next crop. The mortality rate is catastrophic. Beekeepers report losing 30 to 50% of their hives annually. That's billions of bees dead. Not from natural causes. From being used as disposable pollination machines for your almond milk. The pesticides don't help. Almond groves are sprayed with neonicotinoids which scramble bee navigation systems, fungicides which weaken their immune systems, and herbicides which eliminate the wildflowers they'd normally forage on between almond blooms. Meanwhile the aquifer depletion is permanent. The Central Valley has sunk 28 feet in some areas from groundwater extraction. That water took 10,000 years to accumulate. It's being drained in decades for almond milk. Your vegan latte killed more bees and used more water than a year's worth of dairy milk. But it's got "plant-based" on the label so you're definitely saving the planet.

“You can say so much more in one line of Irish than you can in English” The story behind one of the finest speeches I’ve heard in an awful long time from an All-Ireland winning captain, it struck a chord with many The Football Pod Club in Dingle, out now

🚨 GLOBALISM JUST DIED IN DAVOS Howard Lutnick just walked into the lion’s den — and told the World Economic Forum exactly what they didn’t want to hear. “Globalism has failed.” Not whispered. Not softened. Declared — on their own stage. He dismantled the entire WEF doctrine in minutes: • Offshoring hollowed out the West • Cheap labor destroyed innovation • Net Zero made Europe dependent on China • Sovereignty begins with borders • Nations must control their industry, energy, and medicine Then came the line that shook the room: “Why would Europe agree to Net Zero when they don’t even make a battery?” That’s the truth globalists can’t answer. Green agendas without industry. Climate pledges without sovereignty. Moral posturing while outsourcing power to Beijing. America First isn’t isolation. It’s independence. And Lutnick made it crystal clear: The old model is finished. The globalist experiment has failed. And the future belongs to nations that put their people first. Davos just heard the obituary — live.

A trio of premiership Cats is jetting off to the other side of the globe to watch a teammate chase a lifelong dream. It's reignited calls for the return of the International Rules Series. @cleary_mitch @7AFL

Our Games can’t happen without Referees. Take the whistle. Take the lead. Find out how to get involved at gaa.ie/referee

This is great. Asked Darragh Ó Sé what it feels like to have his own club An Ghaeltacht and their west Kerry rivals Dingle making an assault on Croke Park. He didn’t disappoint. irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-g…

🧵THREAD: The CSO has published its 2025 figures. They are devastating for Irish workers. This is not opinion. It is the State’s own data. Ireland looks rich on paper. In reality, working people are being slowly crushed. Let’s go through what the data shows.

'I put my last three years into Athenry camogie and in the back of my mind every time was Kate Moran' Athenry manager Joe Rabbitte remembered the late Kate Moran after his side beat St Finbarr's to win the All-Ireland club title

This is whats destroying Europe. Not the Russians, Not China, Not Iran. This.

John Shortt is the RTÉ Sport Young Sportsperson of the Year for 2025 #rtesportawards #rtesport @rteone @rteplayer

@EwanMacKenna I thought that was a Leinster beanie hat at first glance

And now we move onto walking (well, learning to again). After the physical comes the mental. You pray in pain that it stops, and when it does what takes over is a crippling fear that every mundane thing you do will result in a return to it, thus a brutal panic and stress. Odd.

Click the link for all Fixture Details for: 🔹Upcoming @fbd_ie League 🔹2026 Senior Championship 🔹2026 U20 Championship 🔹2026 U17 Championship #ConnachtGAA connachtgaa.ie/connnacht-inte…

@movementcoachkm Castlehaven did it with Tompkins and it’s romanticised now,it’s been going on for years and it will continue to happen,90% of it is organic,How did Tomás O Sé end up at Nemo??he knew Billy Morgan very well through UCC,sometimes what we think is there isn’t

Super clubs in Dublin recruiting leading IC players from other counties is a terrible look and is tainting any success those superclubs have, considering the resources

This is half of what was allocated to all sports infrastructure last year. It's the same as the early years childcare funding increase. It could have gotten world leading treatment for all the kids with spina bifida. Could have added 25 per cent to winter fuel allowance. But no.

Ryan Cup Semi Final Full Time University of Galway 1-14 @UCDGAA 2-8 @MayoGAA @unigalwaysport @ConnachtGAA @Galway_GAA @HigherEdGAA

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@HigherEdGAA Senior Football Div 1 Qtr Final University of Galway 6-13 @StMarys_Belfast 1-4 Semi final now vs @UCDGAA at 6:30pm in Dangan on Thursday. @ConnachtGAA @MayoGAA @Galway_GAA @gbfmsports @unigalwaysport

📺 MATCH HIGHLIGHTS @maighcuilinn overcome blistering @LeitrimGaels start to set up Connacht Club Final showdown with @StBrigidsRos! #ConnachtGAA

Wise words “My name’s Frank. I’m 64, a retired electrician. Forty-two years I spent running wires through houses, fixing breakers, making sure people had light in their kitchens and heat in their winters. Never once did anyone ask me where I went to college. Mostly, they just wanted to know if I could get the power back on before their ice cream melted. Last May, I was at my granddaughter Emily’s school career day. You know the drill — doctors, lawyers, a software guy in a slick suit talking about “scaling startups.” I was the only one there with a tool belt and work boots. When it was my turn, I told the kids, “I don’t have a degree. I’ve never sat in a lecture hall. But I’ve wired schools, hospitals, and your principal’s house. And when the hospital generator failed during a snowstorm in ’98, I was the one in the basement with a flashlight, keeping the lights on for newborn babies upstairs.” The kids leaned forward. They had questions — real ones. “How do you fix stuff in the dark?” “Do you make a lot of money?” “Do you ever get zapped?” (Yes, once, and it’ll curl your hair.) When the bell rang, one boy hung back. Small kid, freckles, hoodie too big for him. He mumbled, “My uncle’s a plumber. People laugh at him ’cause he didn’t finish high school. But… he’s the only one in the family who can fix anything.” I looked that boy in the eye and said, “Kid, your uncle’s a hero. When your toilet overflows at midnight, Harvard ain’t sending anyone. A plumber is.” Here’s the thing nobody told me when I was young — the world doesn’t run without tradespeople. You can have all the engineers you want, but if nobody builds the house, wires the power, or lays the pipes, those blueprints just sit in a drawer. We’ve made it sound like trades are what you do if you can’t go to college, instead of a path you choose because you like working with your hands, solving problems, and seeing your work stand solid for decades. Four years after high school, some kids walk away with diplomas. Others walk away with zero debt, a union card, and a skill they can take anywhere in the world. And guess what? When your furnace dies in January, it’s not the diploma that saves you. A few weeks ago, that same freckled kid’s mom stopped me at the grocery store. She said, “You probably don’t remember, but you told my son trades are important. He’s shadowing his uncle this summer. First time I’ve seen him excited about anything in years.” That’s the part we forget — for some kids, knowing their path is respected changes everything. It’s not about “just” fixing wires or pipes. It’s about pride. Purpose. The kind that sticks with you long after the job’s done. So next time you meet a teenager, don’t just ask, “Where are you going to college?” Ask, “What’s your plan?” And if they say, “I’m learning to weld,” or “I’m starting an apprenticeship,” smile big and say, “That’s fantastic. We’re going to need you.” Because we will. More than ever. And when the lights go out, you’ll be glad they showed up.”