Share some tips for tourists to Ireland on 16 Oct.
PDX HIBERNIAN INDEPENDENT 16 October 2025
More than an email. Less than a newspaper. Now delivered every Thursday. Published by The Portland Hibernian Society
TONIGHT @ KELLS RESTAURANT ON SW FIRST – HIBERNIAN OPEN MIC NIGHT. LIVE CONVERSATION AND MUSIC.
You're invited to join the conversation with your thoughts and comments about BEING A TOURIST IN IRELAND - BEST PRACTICES, MICHAEL COLLINS, THE HOUSE OF GUINNESS. Tunes provided by Mike Phillips and Todd Bayles. Treats provided by your PHS. No host dinner at Six P.M. Program at Seven P.M. Failte.
Presidential Politics Irish Style – One Week To Go
The tenth President of Ireland will be elected next Friday (Oct. 24). Because of a stunning development in the campaign ten days ago, there are only two contenders instead of three. So, the next President will be either Catherine Connolly, an Independent TD backed by Ireland’s parties on the left, or Heather Humphries, a political veteran of the center-right Fine Gael Party. Jim Gavin, the candidate of the Fianna Fail party, who’d never been elected to anything but is a GAA legend, dropped out of the race for the Aras (White House). Ireland’s next President will be the third woman to hold the office, following Mary Robinson (1990 - 1997) and Mary McAleese (1997 - 2011). According to an RTE poll this morning, Connolly holds the lead. Voters in Ireland still go to the polls to vote on election day.
Heather Humphries (l) and Catherine Connolly (r)
Front Runner Connolly Once Ran a 3:36 Marathon
She’s a member of the Irish Parliament (TD) from Galway and grew up in a family of athletes. Her impromptu exhibition of keepie uppies for some school kids went viral. What’s a keepie uppie, you ask? Just watch. The leading candidate calls them something else. “My disappointment over what I call solos, and ye call keepie uppies, is that I only managed about ten. I used to be able to do a hundred.” She says she’s run more marathons than she can remember. Her personal best? “3:36.00 was my best. We were trying to break three thirty, my husband broke it that year.” She also ran a marathon called the Streets of Galway when she was five months pregnant.
Ireland’s World Cup prospects grim
Ireland kept its hopes of coming to America (and Canada and Mexico) next June for the World Cup alive Tuesday night with a 1-0 win over Armenia. But it’s going to be a tough go. Here’s a rundown of the ways Ireland might make it. “Permutations” they’re called. The short version is that Ireland needs to beat Portugal, a team they lost to 1-0 in the 90th minute last Saturday. In other words, Ireland needs a miracle. At some point we may have to look at whether to support the other team from the island or even England in World Cup 2026.
Hibernian Book Club Coming Soon
The November 13 meeting of the PHS will be about books. PHS steering committee scholar Ed Curtin will tell us tonight about this literary initiative to bring to your attention Irish books worth reading. Bring your own recommendations to the November meeting and tell us what you liked about them. Hibernian Brian Doherty checks in with this, “For a well written life in the poor town of Faha Ireland, Niall Williams weaves together some great prose. No espionage but you can smell the peat and love his phrasing of all the big and little things in This is Happiness.
Halloween the way it used to be in Ireland here in Portland
Brendan Gleeson's Gripe
In the run up to the release of his latest film, H Is For Hawk, Brendan Gleeson says he’s tired of seeing bad dads on the big screen. “I think dads have got an awful hard time lately. And I don’t believe that every dad is toxic, and I don't think anybody else does either.” He plays a dad in his latest, co-starring with Clare Foy (The Crown) as his daughter. “I think I suddenly got very tired of watching fatherhood portrayed as something that was almost an abuse....where you had these emotionally stunted people walking around that couldn’t hug their kids, whatever it was.” Gleeson has never been one of the “bad boys" of Irish film (O’Toole, Harris, Farrell, Keogh, etc). Married to the same woman for 43 years, he’s the father of four sons, all of whom have successful careers in show business. H Is For Hawk will have a limited opening in the US in December so it can qualify for Oscars. Not sure if that means it will play in Portland. The PDX HI will let you know.
Brendan and Mary Gleeson (nee Weldon) married in 1982. They have four sons and two grandkids.
Canada takes Failte seriously
Next time you’re in Dublin, stop by the Canadian Embassy. You could get a tour and the Ambassador might even take your photo. “People stop at the gate and take photos so I’ll pop out all the time and open the gate and say, ‘Oh, come on in. Do you want to get your picture taken in front?’” Canada’s newest ambassador to Ireland, Dennis King, tells the Irish Times. And it’s not just any stately old Irish mansion, his Embassy is the historic Ranelagh property in Dublin with links to Patrick Pearse was built between 1848 and 1851.Ambassador King was in Aghagower, Co. Mayo not long ago looking into the family connections between that small town and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. (I know because JP, the owner of Scott’s pub/post office/gas station in Aghagower, showed me King’s business card when I was there the other day.)
