Daft Property - Irish Property News

St Patrick's Day revellers paint the town green... IT is the time of year again to don green garb, tune your fiddle and dance a merry jig. St Patrick's Day is upon us, and never mind if you aren't Irish. Don't think it's only Australians who go slightly mad in their celebrations. Practically the whole world claims Irish ancestry on March 17, all in the name of a good party. Besides, St Patrick himself wasn't Irish. What is St Patrick's Day? You could do worse than celebrate St Patrick's Day in Ireland, although traditionally the holy day was marked only by church and charity functions. In Dublin, there's now a week-long festival that includes street performances, a fun fair, treasure hunts, exhibitions and fireworks. In recent years celebrations have also been promoted in towns such as Cork, Limerick and Killarney. And in Galway, a St Patrick's Day parade meanders through the narrow cobbled streets and the town is filled with pipe bands, perform

Irish use of resources not sustainable, says Gormley... IRISH PEOPLE are "living beyond our environmental means" and are using too much of the planet's resources, Minister for the Environment John Gormley will tell a sustainable development conference today. Mr Gormley was referring to a recent report commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which found that if everyone in the world consumed as much as an Irish person, three planets would be needed to sustain the world's population. The report also found that meeting policy targets in relation to the reduction of the State's "ecological footprint" would not be enough to live within the capacity of global resources. Speaking ahead of his address to the annual conference in Dublin today of Comhar, the sustainable development council, Mr Gormley said Ireland must rein in its consumption of resources. " We are living beyond our environmental means. If everybody in the world consumed as