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14 game-changing moments of 2011

These were the catalysts for some of the upheavals at home and abroad this past year…

WAS IT THE moment Enda Kenny gave the Vatican what for? The moment Tripoli fell to Libyan rebels? The day Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to set foot on the turf at Croke Park since the 1920 Black and Tans massacre there?

This was a year of momentous change, of upheaval, instability and revolution – and these were some of the catalysts:

Queen Elizabeth II visits Croke Park
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  • Queen Elizabeth II visits Croke Park

    Queen Elizabeth ll's first official visit to Ireland had several landmark moments but one of the most emotive was when she set foot in Croke Park on May 18, 2011. The stadium was the scene of a massacre by British Black and Tans troops in 1920. (Anwar Hussein/EMPICS Entertainment/PA Images)
  • Barack Obama tells Ireland it is inspirational

    US President Barack Obama's speech at College Green, Dublin, on 23 May tried to instill some national pride back into the country and said that "America will stand by you". (Maxwells/PA Wire)
  • The baton of power changes hands

    Labour and Fine Gael's coalition government took power on this day, 9 March, after February's general election which saw Fianna Fáil decimated and Sinn Féin gain a number of seats. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
  • Greece fights against austerity

    Riot police and protestors at Syntagma Square in Athens were separated by a cloud of tear gas on 29 June as protests against austerity measures hit a climax. Greece has since changed government and teetered on the edge of financial default. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
  • David Cameron refuses to sign EU fiscal agreement

    The UK found itself lost in translation as it became the only one of the 27 EU to outright refuse a new EU fiscal agreement this month. The euro, meanwhile, continues to hold on - but for how long? (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
  • Nature is not selective in its fury

    This man, Yoshikatsu Hiratsuka, grieved for his mother who was killed in the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Despite its reputation as one of the most advanced countries in the world, some towns were completely levelled in the face of the natural disaster. It has been pointed out, however, that the death toll would have been even higher had it happened in a less developed country. (AP Photo/The Yomiuri Shimbun, Hiroto Sekiguchi)
  • Tunisian President becomes first leader to fall in Arab Spring

    Two men try to remove a torn photo of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the centre of Tunis on 16 February as he finally flees to protests and flees the country. Tuniais gets its first multiparty government - and other Arab nations are inspirated to follow. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
  • UK riots reveal a divided society

    Some locals in Tottenham, north London took to the streets after a 29-year-old man was shot dead by police on 4 August. Riots spread to other UK cities in the following week as looting and vandalism infiltrated the protests and an underclass of disaffected young people showed their hand. (Lewis Whyld/PA Wire)
  • #Occupy protests go global - and this picture dominates

    This photograph of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, pepper-sprayed in the face at the Occupy Seattle anti-capitalist/banking protest struck a chord with similar protests around the world - but also with previously disinterested onlookers. (AP Photo/seattlepi.com/Joshua Trujilo)
  • When we realised that famine hadn't gone away...

    Aid agencies made a huge effort to alert us to the famine in the Horn of Africa - this child was treated for malnutrition in Dadaab, Kenya on 23 July - more than two million children were on the cusp of starving to death. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
  • The rebels advance on Gaddafi...

    This picture from 23 August shows rebel Libyan fighters trample on a statue head of Moammar Gaddafi inside his captured compound in Tripoli. The city's Green (now Martyrs) Square had been seized the previous day. Gaddafi was killed on 20 October. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
  • The moment of Osama bin Laden's death

    US President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton react to live footage of US Navy Seals attacking bin Laden's compound in Pakistan on 1 May. (The White House/Flickr.com)
  • The moment State separated from Church?

    Taoiseach Enda Kenny's strong criticism of the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Ireland following the release of the Cloyne report in June was taken badly by Rome - but very well by the Irish public. (Screengrab from Dáil footage)
  • Terrorism can strike from the inside

    The massacre of scores of people on Utoya island and in Oslo horrified the normally stable society of Norway - especially when the chief suspect turned out to be a lone Norwegian called Anders Behring Breivik. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Read other articles in TheJournal.ie’s Review 2011>

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8 Comments
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    Mute Proinsias Ó Foghlú
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:38 AM

    iPad is without doubt one of the best devices I have ever owned, I love it.

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    Mute Mike
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:03 AM

    You love it? Wow.

    27
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    Mute Joe Jackson
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:38 AM

    I would guess most people had held out for the last 2-3 months on buying an iPad as the new models were being announced last week.

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    Mute Cpm
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:02 PM

    iPad sales had seen a massive drop in their last earnings report too. It will be even bigger this time next year, people don’t own large-screened phones and use tablets too, it’s pointless. I could see the point of owning both when the iPhone screens were tiny, not now though.

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    Mute Chris Mansfield
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:10 AM

    I would imagine people change phones more often than they change a tablet, so the top-end of the tablet market may be suffering some saturation at the moment before it settles into a normal renewal cycle.

    I’m genuinely surprised how little iTunes contributes to their income.

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    Mute Will Too
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:13 AM

    Android is still too buggy , there are too many cheap android devices that can’t perform basic tasks.
    Anyone can operate an iPad whether they are 3 or 83 , the older generation have embraced apple tech much easier than android!

    62
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    Mute Mike
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:22 AM

    Get yourself a Samsung. So much better. Ive used ipads before the Samsung. So slow. Im not surprised sales are falling.

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    Mute Ablitive
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:04 PM

    I would totally agree.

    The fact that you cannot add SD card memory was my turning point.

    The 10.1″ Galaxy NOTE 2014 would kick any IPad in performance.

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    Mute Mike
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:27 AM

    I prefer using the Samsung. Haven’t used the ipad since.

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    Mute The Doctor
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:12 PM

    Tablets are used more for watching TV on. Ipads are far too restrictive in what you can and can’t watch.

    An android with mobdro and you’re good to go.

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    Mute Orela Krawczyk
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:53 PM

    Writing this on an iPad that’s 3 1/2 yrs old although it can’t be updated anymore it’s still one of The best bits of Tech I’ve ever owned

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    Mute Blind Faith
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:39 AM

    I wish they’d change the iTunes interface, it’s such a pain in the hole.

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    Mute Ben Gunn
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:47 AM

    Is the large version of iphone 6 being used as an alternative to the ipad mini?

    32
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    Mute Loop De Loop
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    Oct 21st 2014, 1:18 PM

    Yes, I would imagine you are correct. Certainly wouldn’t be a massive difference now between the phones and the iPad mini.
    Great phone by the way, the Samsung killer I would say.

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    Mute richard fennessy
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:33 AM

    Is Apple the cult Tom cruise and John travolta are involved in. (Wrote on my iPhone)

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    Mute vv7k7Z3c
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:54 AM

    Some people might be holding out for the new iPads, but Apple has been losing ground to Android-based tablets for the past two years: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/Android-dominates-tablet

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    Mute David Fortune
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    Oct 21st 2014, 3:50 PM

    I’d say they’re fine losing market share to the €100 Android tablets that you see knocking about, the people buying those were unlikely to get an iPad. I’d like to see a breakdown of the flagship tablet market.

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    Mute Thomas Quintis
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:55 PM

    Wasn’t Apple heavily dependant on iPod sales at one stage too…

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    Mute Kustin J Crush
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    Oct 21st 2014, 10:53 AM

    Love Apple computers, don’t like their phones!

    17
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    Mute Denis
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:18 PM

    That’s odd in the last apple story there was a guy who’s friend worked in a mobile phone shop and apparently they couldn’t sell any iPhones at all.
    I was sure that was a reliable source for sales figures.

    14
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    Mute Ciabhán Ó Murchú
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    Oct 21st 2014, 1:25 PM

    Being a user of both, I can definitely say that Apple is to restrictive and therefore useless in a lot of ways. Once they have you, they want to enslave you into buying all their products. To many frustrations. Would definitely not recommended Apple. Don’t become an Apple zombie!

    11
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    Mute Armonline
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    Oct 21st 2014, 2:01 PM

    Have both myself also , but do not find any real restrictions on IOS. Depends how you use them I suppose. Both are great, but if generally find Apple a better interface and build quality.

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    Mute faillandia
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:51 AM

    I haven’t come across an interesting new app for ages. It’s good to see the hardware improving but the software people seem to have hit a brick wall. It seems to me that the industry needs more personal information from us to develop but we are getting more careful and taking the privacy option where possible. The U2 album fiasco showed that what we want is not what they want to give us. We want to draw back from the always on connected world and to pick and choose how we interact.

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    Mute Michael cunnane
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    Oct 21st 2014, 12:34 PM

    Htc have a new range of tablets Comming out on November 3rd and if they are anything like the HTC One M8 phone They will storm the tablet Charts.Sd card will mean a lot more storage freed up on the tablet itself.

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    Mute Armonline
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    Oct 21st 2014, 1:49 PM

    HTC One M7 & M8 are great phones but unfortunately they do not sell very well HTC made a big loss on the M7, have improved with the M8, but still nowhere near the likes of Samsung.

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    Mute Stephen Doyle
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    Oct 21st 2014, 11:45 AM

    Don’t really like Apple myself(except I-tunes, where theres no choice) think Sony is much better all round.

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    Mute John Heffernan
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    Oct 21st 2014, 1:07 PM

    I think the fizz has left Apple recently, it’s not big news anymore.

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    Mute Chuck Eastwood
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    Oct 21st 2014, 7:24 PM

    Always used iPhones but today i upgraded to an S5. Vodafone are out of stock with no date for new iPhone 6 handsets and it would have cost me 250 blips. S5 is free with the same if not better specs. Total no brainer

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