On this week last year (Mar 31 to Apr 6, 2007):
- How much petrol could you buy for the same price as a litre of bottled water?
- In a survey of teenagers in the midlands and north-east, what was the average age that they first got drunk? And how many said they had been drinking on at least six of the previous 30 days?
- What was unusual about the decision that a former Circuit Court judge was to receive a lump sum payment from the State of €57,000, and an annual pension of €19,000?
- Who arrived in Dublin and said: “I have to shake this man’s hand. I’ll give him a grip,” and who was he talking about?
- What happened to former Fianna Fail Councillor, Michael Fahy, the day before he was due to begin a 12 month jail sentence for misappropriating funds from Galway County Council?
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March 31, 2008
On this week last year (Mar 24 to Mar 30, 2007):
- Which Green Party TD called for an end to ‘crass cronyism’ in the way appointments are made to public bodies, and added that if there is to be a change in Government, ‘there has to be a change of culture too’?
- Which Green Party TD, a few months later, lost his seat in the General Election and was then appointed to the Senate by Bertie Ahern?
- What proportion of Irish businesses did Office of Tobacco Control report were in breach of the smoking ban?
- What proportion of public houses did Office of Tobacco Control report were in breach of the smoking ban?
- Which former Fianna Fail Minister said on RTE that, after twenty years in office, he now had to ‘actually find where the Aer Lingus desk is and join the queue like everybody else’ at airports, and also ‘look at things that I didn’t know existed, which are monitors which show your arrivals and departures and the times and the boarding gates - that is all totally new, a totally new world.’
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March 24, 2008
Sadly, another week has passed during which real life has interrupted my blog posting. However, nothing can stop the Monday Quiz. On this week last year (Mar 17 to Mar 23, 2007):
- Which Government Minister cost most to travel on their Saint Patrick’s Day junket - Martin Cullen going to San Francisco, Noel Dempsey going to Dallas and Houston, or Mary harney going to Scandinavia?
- Which Junior Minister cost most to travel on their Saint Patrick’s Day Junket - Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher going to Atlanta and Philadelphia, Michael Ahern going to Kuala Lumpar and Singapore, or Tom Parlon going to South Africa?
- Why was former Fianna Fail Councillor Michael ‘the Stroke’ Fahey of Galway jailed for twelve months and fined €75,000?
- Whey were 400 prisoners or former prisoners suing the State?
- What shock did passengers on two Aer Lingus flights to Rome get?
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March 17, 2008
On this week last year (Mar 10 to Mar 16, 2007):
- How did a young Dublin beggar change a law introduced during the famine?
- Who was Falmouth Kearney, and why was he in the news?
- What territorial occupation did the Minister for the Environment oppose?
- Why did Bebo remove pages by Limerick teenagers?
- Who distributed 50,000 free books at public events and through letterboxes in Dublin South East?
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March 10, 2008
On this week last year (Mar 3 to Mar 9, 2007):
- How many Irish people wanted to lose weight, and how much weight on average did they want to lose?
- How many Irish people said that watching television was their most common way of passing time outside of work?
- How many people were on the Irish sex offenders’ register?
- How many Irish people were being infected with the MRSA superbug every year?
- How many helicopters were registered in Ireland?
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March 3, 2008
On this week last year (February 25 to Mar 2, 2007):
- Why did former broadcaster Gay Byrne cause a stir when he posed for a photograph beside a TD who was launching his re-election campaign?
- Why did former rugby star Peter Clohessy apologise to English and Irish rugby fans about an incident in his bar?
- What imaginary group of people did Bertie Ahern accuse of betraying the best traditions of Irish republicanism?
- What was unusual about Junior Health Minister Tim O’Malley’s announcement that he was going to close down a mental health facility in Cork?
- Who did Bertie Ahern say would have to ‘wait his turn’ for extra staff?
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February 25, 2008
On this week last year (February 18 to February 24, 2007):
- Why were 1,000 Gardai policing Croke Park for the singing of a song?
- What future event did Irish Psychics Live fail to predict?
- Who said in Dublin that gay culture threatened the survival of the human race?
- How did a spoof dictionary of Waterford slang cause the owner of a hotel to win €50,000 in a libel case against the Sunday World?
- What happened when the North Dakota Congress debated a motion paying tribute to U2’s Bono?
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February 18, 2008
On this week last year (February 11 to February 17, 2007):
- What General Election candidate started his campaign by appearing in court charged with assault and threatening or abusive behaviour?
- What political party made an emotional start to its General Election campaign?
- How much interest would an Irish borrower pay on a €500 loan from a legally registered moneylender, compared to a building society?
- Who described what as ‘a kind of Celtic celebration of the eastern European revolutions and their eventual outcome, including the presence in Ireland of thousands of beautiful Polish, Czech, Slovakian and Latvian women’?
- What was unusual about a kidnap attempt that the police foiled in Tallaght?
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February 11, 2008
On this week last year (February 4 to February 10, 2007):
- Why were police in Cork seeking an armed cyclist who had pink smoke and dye trailing from his backpack?
- Des O’Malley told an RTE programme about Jim Gibbons TD being severely beaten up in 1982 - he was knocked down, kicked in the face and head, then attacked again as he tried to get to his car. What was unusual about the location of the attack?
- Protesters in County Clare failed to block planning permission for a statue of which actor?
- Why did the Standards in Public Office Commission call two Killarney Town Councillors before a public hearing?
- Five years after the end of the Irish Punt, how many Irish punts were still in circulation and had yet to be exchanged for euros?
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February 4, 2008
On this week last year (January 28 to February 3, 2007):
- Why did the Gardai have to drop charges against a man suspected of rape, despite DNA evidence matching his own being found at the scene?
- What major Irish institution returned to work after a six-week Christmas break?
- A new law was proposed to curb pyramid schemes. How many people lost how much money in the previous year in pyramid schemes in Cork, Kerry and Clare?
- What Irish film won an Award at the Sundance Film Festival?
- A report revealed that how many Irish births are delivered by Caesarean Section?
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January 28, 2008
On this week last year (January 21 to January 27, 2007):
- For what price were €43.70 Westlife tickets on sale on eBay?
- A three-day ‘Friends of Father Ted’ festival was announced for February on the Arran island of Inis Mor. What events was the festival to include?
- Which other Arran island claimed they should host the festival, and why?
- Why did Junior Minister Tony Killeeen have to apologise to the Taoiseach?
- Why did the Taoiseach accept his apology?
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January 21, 2008
On this week last year (January 14 to January 20, 2007):
- Which of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s ‘digout’ pals had his company liquidated with debts of nearly €1 million?
- What racially loaded term did former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds use to describe the Democratic Unionist Party?
- What racially loaded term had Senator Mary O’Rourke used the previous year to describe her election workers?
- What racially loaded term had Junior Minister Conor Lenihan used the year before that to describe Turkish workers?
- Of which political party are all of the above members?
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January 14, 2008
On this week last year (January 7 to January 13, 2007):
- What did a Killarney businessman say was like a Taliban regime?
- Why did a Dublin law firm apologise for any offence it may have caused in a press advertisement?
- A study by DCU found that what percentage of a random sample of banknotes had traces of cocaine?
- How much more did smokers pay than non-smokers for life insurance?
- Why was the airfield at Dublin Airport unexpectedly closed for half an hour?
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January 7, 2008
On this week last year (December 31, 2006 to January 6, 2007):
- What was unusual about a report in which 40% of those questioned said they were bullied in Irish schools?
- Why was the adoption of Irish as an official working language of the European Union delayed?
- How many smuggled cigarettes did Irish customs officers seize in 2006?
- Why was a pub in Cork, the Joshua Tree, fined €4,000?
- In a radio interview, Richie Ryan said that his former Ministerial colleague Paddy Donegan was drunk in 1976 when he caused the President of Ireland to resign by calling him a ‘thundering disgrace’. Later reports suggested that Donegan had actually been more explicit. What might he have called the President?
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December 31, 2007
On this week last year (December 24 to December 30, 2006):
- How much was spent by Irish shoppers over Christmas 2006?
- How much, on average, did each shopper spend?
- How much was spent every minute on Christmas Eve?
- How much was the Christmas Day Lotto worth?
- How much was the Dec 29th Euromillions draw worth?
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December 24, 2007
On this week last year (December 17 to December 23, 2006):
- What pop star became the latest Irish Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire?
- How many minutes in total did Irish people spend on the phone in 2005, and how many text messages did we send?
- Why were the Revenue Commissioners seizing Christmas presents sent to Ireland by post?
- The Moriarty Tribunal found that Charles Haughey took payments of how much between 1979 and 1996, and granted favours in return?
- How many trucks used the Dublin Port Tunnel between midnight and midday on its first full day of operation?
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December 17, 2007
On this week last year (December 10 to December 16, 2006):
- What four Irish towns or cities were named as litter blackspots after a survey by Irish Business Against Litter?
- Three surfers in danger off the Cliffs of Moher were criticised for refusing to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. Why did they refuse?
- How many millions of bottles and cans of alcohol, filling how many Olympic sized swimming pools, would be drunk in Ireland over Christmas?
- How many tonnes of cardboard and paper would be sold over Christmas, and how many African elephants would it take to weigh the same?
- What was unusual about the route of a ten kilometre race in Dublin, that ten thousand runners took part in?
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December 10, 2007
On this week last year (December 3 to December 9, 2006):
- Inventor Paul Stokes was in court after escalating his campaign against RTE for not highlighting his new invention to prevent motor accidents. How did he follow up on interrupting the Late Late Show the previous week?
- What did Junior Health Minister Tim O’Malley say about hospital waiting lists that infuriated consultants?
- What website did students in Limerick vote to ban from their campus during college hours, and why?
- What unusual sporting award did Bertie Ahern get this week?
- As Christmas shopping started, how much shopping cash was in circulation, and how many people (and trains) were expected in Dublin every day?
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December 3, 2007
On this week last year (November 26 to December 2, 2006):
- Fair City aired its 2,000th episode. When was the first episode shown, and who were the five cast members who had been in the show from the start?
- Fine Gael complained that a marketing campaign for Irish whiskey was in bad taste. What was the brand?
- What Irish connection did the final of the Australian Idol talent show have?
- It was revealed that how many voters had been wrongly deleted from the Electoral Register?
- The Government introduced a bill to fund the running of the Oireachtas for the next three years. Would this cost (a) €50 million; (b) €150 million; (c) €190 million; or (d) all three added together?
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November 26, 2007
On this week last year (November 19 to November 25, 2006):
- Ireland was the only country in Europe where schoolgirls were greater cannabis users than schoolboys. But what were the figures?
- Why did Linda Martin fear that Pat Kenny might be attacked with a knife, live on air, on the Late Late Show?
- Why did the High Court order John Gill from Clare to remove material from his website, or else face up to four years in jail?
- How did the judge react when one of Mr Gill’s supporters snorted, and told the judge that ‘the cat’ had made the noise?
- Why did two dyslexic leaving certificate students win a case against the Department of Education at the Equality Tribunal?
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November 19, 2007
