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Dave Oconnell

Dave Oconnell

Connacht Tribune

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There’s brass in muck and in sporting memorabilia too

A Different View with Dave O’Connell A great old friend of mine – all be he a man with more money than sense – was out one night in Kinsale...

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Dave Oconnell

Record reflections as vinyl reaches its 75th anniversary

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It’s 75 years ago this June that a small seven-inch or twelve-inch piece of black plastic, timed to rotate...

18.04.2024 20

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Can Rwanda show Gaza how to come back from the brink?

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It’s exactly six months since the barbarity carried out by Hamas triggered a completely disproportionate...

11.04.2024 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Big heavy overcoats are just wasted on the young

A Different View with Dave O’Connell The new coat was designed to keep the worst of the rain off the bottom half as well as the top, but it’s had...

04.04.2024 20

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Dave Oconnell

Banksy proves beauty is in the eye of the beholder

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It has always been true that one man’s thrash is another man’s treasure, but it was terribly evident on...

28.03.2024 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Docs can’t save lives but they can prolong them indefinitely

A Different View with Dave O’Connell A well-known medical consultant corrected me many years ago when I suggested it must be unbelievably rewarding...

21.03.2024 10

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Dave Oconnell

Waxing lyrical on candles and scent of strange things

A Different View with Dave O’Connell A small candle has mysteriously appeared in a tiny can on the kitchen table, proudly proclaiming itself to...

14.03.2024 20

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

What’s in a name when it comes to sports arenas?

A Different View with Dave O’Connell When you think of the hallowed old sporting venues around these islands, your mind immediately turns to Croke...

07.03.2024 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Best to live experiences – not just see them through a phone

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Galway is not a city to see; it’s a city to do; it’s not that we don’t have loads of places that are...

29.02.2024 10

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Dave Oconnell

Fronting up is the best way to mind your back

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Ben Dunne knew he was in trouble when police pulled him in from the balcony of an Orlando hotel, paranoid...

22.02.2024 50

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Dave Oconnell

Beer goggles still don’t give you 20/20 vision

A Different View with Dave O’Connell By now almost those New Year Resolutions to give up the drink have, like yourself, fallen off the wagon –...

15.02.2024 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Siblings drive you crazy – but you wouldn’t be without them

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It turns out that the Waltons were the exception rather than the rule – because while John Boy and the crew...

08.02.2024 10

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Dave Oconnell

Slip-on shoes and driverless cars are a feat for the feet

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It may have escaped your attention, but there’s a new shoe on the market that, on one hand, is designed to...

01.02.2024 9

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Day Ian Bailey rang to offer coverage of Sophie’s murder

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It was Christmas Day 1996 and a skeleton staff was looking after affairs of news and sport in the old Terenure...

25.01.2024 5

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Dave Oconnell

Memories of Eurovision glory in a rural showjumping area

A Different View with Dave O’Connell The annual publication of State Papers 30 years on from the events that they refer to always makes for...

18.01.2024 5

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

We’re further from 1984 than Orwell was when he wrote it!

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It’s now 40 years since 1984 – meaning that we’re now four years further away from that year than George...

11.01.2024 20

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Dave Oconnell

New soles can’t take the old soul out of your shoe

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Fans of classic comedy need no introduction to the Only Fools and Horses sketch – the one where Trigger...

04.01.2024 9

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Dave Oconnell

Dipping into highs and lows over the last twelve months

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Understandably, when historians look back on the year 2023 in a century’s time, the bookmarks will be the...

28.12.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

You don’t have to be born in a place to be from there

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Ours was never the most adventurous of families; we did what every other west of Ireland family did and had a...

21.12.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

Don’t write it down unless you want it haunting you forever

A Different View with Dave O’Connell There’s an old piece of advice that’s often offered – particularly to journalists but also to...

14.12.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

The Christmas songs that drive us all wild – or crazy

A Different View with Dave O’Connell As someone you thinks that the height of multi-tasking is walking and talking at the same time, I would find...

07.12.2023 9

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Dave Oconnell

Art of wine tasting is knowing to spit it out

A Different View with Dave O’Connell In fairness we weren’t much older than big boys at the time and the notion of a free night at a wine tasting...

30.11.2023 8

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Missing person pix show fragility of life for us all

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Every day in Ireland someone goes missing; some days there are more than a few. Most are missing for a day or...

23.11.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

False dawn to end of lifelong losing streak

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It had been a normal Monday evening until an unexpected email popped into the ‘in’ box – telling me that...

16.11.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

Taking your chances on thumbing to home

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Back in the day we never called it hitchhiking or even hitching – we were thumbin’ a lift, as we traversed...

09.11.2023 20

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Dave Oconnell

Covid naysayers relied on a pandemic of epidemiologists

A Different View with Dave O’Connell The guy behind the counter of the souvenir shop in Liverpool didn’t look happy to see me, but to be honest...

02.11.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

Let’s use a carrot instead of a stick to curb smoking

A Different View with Dave O’Connell Nobody will ever mistake me for a smoker – or indeed an advocate or apologist for the tobacco industry –...

26.10.2023 3

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Dave Oconnell

Remembering radio days as a nostalgic window into the past

A Different View with Dave O’Connell There’s a big old beautiful Philips radio that take pride of place on a shelf in the kitchen, gazing down...

19.10.2023 6

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Dave Oconnell

All together watching Man from UNCLE and ringing your aunts

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It was the recent death of the Man from UNCLE that prompted the conversation, of halcyon days when there might...

12.10.2023 6

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Dave Oconnell

Grandparents; the glue that keeps the show on the road

A Different View with Dave O’Connell What a poorer place the world would be without grandparents, the glue that keeps the family together – and...

05.10.2023 10

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Dave Oconnell

Dublin seems determined to destroy its golden goose

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It sounds batty but we’re rapidly getting to the point where, if you want to enjoy a night out in Dublin,...

28.09.2023 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Mid-life crisis is just bowing to the reality

A Different View with Dave O’Connell The real crisis with a mid-life crisis, according to the late novelist Martin Amis, is that the worst crisis...

21.09.2023 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Life span and health span are two very different things

A Different View with Dave O’Connell It’s all about health span, not life span, writes the great Richard Ford in his latest novel – and final...

14.09.2023 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

Staying silent or lashing out when you’re on the RAAC

A Different View with Dave O’Connell he UK’s Education Minister is experiencing a week to forget on many fronts – primarily because half the...

07.09.2023 10

Connacht Tribune

Dave Oconnell

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