July 26, 2018

Lunchtime Photo

This is a small copse of daisies at Knockreer House in Killarney National Park. I shot this on the way out, just after taking a bunch of pictures of the famous Knockreer red deer.

UPDATE: I am informed that these are not daisies, but a “noxious weed” known as Tansy Ragwort. Really? It doesn’t look all that noxious to me.

MORE ON RAGWORT! “In the Republic of Ireland, the Noxious Weeds (Thistle, Ragwort, and Dock) Order 1937, issued under the Noxious Weeds Act 1936, declares ragwort as a noxious weed, requiring landowners to control its growth.”

September 25, 2017 – County Kerry, Ireland

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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