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EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about the refugee crisis, the Rugby World Cup and the ploughing.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. Conor Power‘s take on a recent employment case ruling received 2,510 thumbs up.
Glad to see common sense prevailing, which doesn’t always seem to be the case at these things. Good policy re: not excluding other employees seems a fair policy.
2. We think this was the entire world’s sentiment summed up after Japan beat South Africa last weekend (yes, that really did happen). It got 2,320 green thumbs for Brian Brian.
Holy sh*tballs!!!!! What a game!!!]
3. Alan Conroy received 1,858 thumbs up for not empathising with a transgender woman after she missed her flight because her penis was flagged as an anomaly in a full-body scan.
“The TSA agent asked Petosky to go back through the body scanner with it changed to a male calibration setting, something she refused to do. ” So all this person had to do was to go back through the machine with a different setting and refused to? Non story
4. Colin Moran has a zero tolerance approach to crime – and at least 1,506 you agree.
Want to stop people breaking into your house? Keep the bustards locked up the first time they do it!
5. And, finally, Peter Keenan doesn’t want an extra Bank Holiday to celebrate the same-sex marriage referendum. Either do 1,475 of those who gave him a thumbs up.
All for same sex marriage but Jaysus, let’s not get carried away.
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. ‘They’re overrunning us’ – Hungary PM as army gets sweeping anti-migrant powers (311 comments)
2. Sinn Féin councillor defends calling people who run Irish rugby ‘West Brits’ (291 comments)
3. Overcoming opposition, EU approves plan to relocate 120,000 migrants (274 comments)
4. Poll: Who will you vote for in the next election? (264 comments)
5. A transgender woman made to miss flight after penis appears on body scanner (247 comments)
Other standouts
Eddie Barrett paid a lovely tribute to the late judge Paul Carney.
Headline? Farmers want prenups to protect them from ‘gold diggers’
This was inevitable so, right?
Earlier this week, we posted this video on Facebook of students from a school in New Zealand who treated customers and staff of Junction 14 Mayfield, Kildare, to a display of the haka. The comments were mostly positive but a couple of people didn’t appreciate the ritual, to which Denise responded:
My name is Denise and I am the manager of the Wairoa college Rugby Academy and First XV. Firstly I want to confirm that this group of young men are 100 per cent Maori and secondly to respond to the negative comments on this post.
Our boys, while at Supermacs met a New Zealander working there who requested a haka, the manager agreed and our boys thought it would be great to give him a taste of home. We perform songs and haka a our way of thanking your country for your hospitality while we are here and to share our culture.
I never expected to see negative comments from a country that shares similarities to us in the preservation of our culture and language in our own countries. These boys are proud young men who have worked hard to travel half way round the world to play rugby and make lifelong friends and memories.
It would be appreciated if you didn’t leave negative comments because I don’t want our boys to think that saying thank you in our culture is wrong. Not all haka are the same, this one that they perform is about our college and where we are from. Cheers Denise
Finally, DailyEdge.ie discovered this inane post on Facebook during the week.
The perfect responses here…
See any good comments? Send them on to orla@thejournal.ie
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There is ALWAYS more than one reason for an accident, blaming the driver entirely is wrong in my opinion. For instance, a reckless individual would have been noted by somebody else in the company at least once in the past 13 yrs. We will have to wait for the final report to know ALL the factors that caused this tragedy.
He woke up on thursday mornin as a train driver.. He went to sleep with a charge of reckless manslaughter of 78 people hanging over him..
His life is ruined no matter how guilty or innocent he is.. Along with all the other families who lost loved ones…
I wouldn’t make my mind up about any incident like this until a full technical report about the track/train was published,this seems all a bit too quick,he’s still in hospital FFS
Agreed. Let the man recover a bit first before charging at him with axes and burning torches.
This man should be put down after this act of negligence! Bragging on his Facebook page about goin 200 kph you would think he was a teenager. Hope he never sleeps again thinking of what he did
Have you forgotten the possibility that it may not be his fault ? An unlikely possibility maybe but angry mob mentality will do nobody any good.
I think there is the possibility that the Facebook page was a fake.
Have to agree with you there Patrick. And @ the journal.ie… why did you report yesterday that he had been charged with reckless homicide and now he faces “possible charges of reckless homicide”!? Same guy, two different qoutes??
I presume the driver didn’t get up in the morning and say ” I’m going to kill a load of passengers today” ……….
I have to agree there with the comment @ Journal. Come on guys – you’ve got a great news portal already without resorting to sensationalism. Leave that to the experts at Sky.
Hi there,
I don’t think any article yesterday said the driver was charged? There was one which said he had been detained since Thursday “for the alleged crimes of reckless homicide” but there was no mention of charges.
Hi Jennifer,
My apologies… It wasn’t here on The Journal that I read that. Got them mixed up. Damn, I hate my obsession with the news :)
Sorry Jennifer.
Ah, that’s what you get for reading your news elsewhere ;) No worries, guys.
From what I’ve read in the Spanish media, the accident occurred pretty much at the point where the train moved from AVE (high speed) lines with very advanced signaling that controls the trains’ speed and won’t allow a driver to exceed speed limits to a conventional normal speed line where signaling systems wouldn’t control the train speed but only advise the driver of it.
I think we need to wait for the dust to settle and allow the technical investigation to run its course before we jump to any conclusions about the driver.
The investigation will be very through and that’s a very high tech train so it will have onboard camera and data recorders.
They’ll go through this much like an air crash investigation.
Innocent ’til proven guilty, eh ? Oh, sorry, wrong way around for some on here. As others have said;, ignore the media speculation and wait for the full report. Media speculates to sell their product, regardless of fallout to any individual, the driver in this case. Benefit of the doubt, people, benefit of the doubt.
Innocent ’til proven guilty, eh ? Oh, sorry, wrong way around for some on here. As others have said;, ignore the media speculation and wait for the full report. Media speculates to sell their product, regardless of fallout to any individual, the driver in this case. Benefit of the doubt, people, benefit of the doubt.
have your say