No, this isn’t the landfill site near the Kinsale Road, Cork. It’s the beautiful beach at Myrtleville in County Cork last Tuesday. Disgusting isn’t it? My wife met a friend there who said that last year 3 people would clean the beach each day but this year, because of cuts, only one person was available. Apparently that morning he had filled up three sacks after the crowds the day before.

What you don’t see here is the used nappy on the road above, the half full carton of rotting salad, the plastic bags and other rubbish. You can’t smell the acrid burning rubbish in an overflowing bin near the slip way. You also missed the Gardai who took away two inebriated underage girls who had been singing and staggering across the beach or the man who was manhandled to the ground outside the gate to Bunny Connellans and probably arrested by the Gardai who ran passed me. A typical day at the beach?

What the hell? What’s up with people? Are they that ignorant of their environment? I remember watching that episode of Mad Men where the Draper family have a picnic in a picturesque green park. Their shiny new car is behind them. Everything is spotless and neat. Then when they get up to leave, the kids are tidied but afterwards the parents toss their rubbish on the pristine lawn. I wasn’t the only one to notice. Great comments on that blog post.

Shame we haven’t moved on since the 60′s.

Related Posts

• Ruby on the beach
• Springer at Fountainstown
• Kilkee Beach

This is another photo of Ruby, a springer spaniel that lives in Myrtleville. This time she followed us over to Fennell’s Bay where she dashed off into the shallows after stones. She was deliriously happy!

Unfortunately the same could not be said for a group of teenagers higher up on the beach who threw stones at us and into the water very close to us. Their malevolent laughter spoiled that moment for us and put us in real danger. They weren’t locals and by their accents it wasn’t hard to figure out where in Cork they were from.

There’s more of Ruby here and here. We were down in Myrtleville last weekend and didn’t see her at all. I hope she’s ok and was tucked up at home in front of the fire instead of at a cold and wet beach.

Congratulations to Gavin@Headphoneland for winning best photoblog at last night’s Irish Blog Awards! Get well soon!

There’s definitely something up with Flickr’s “Blog This” function. The URL of the image it passed to my blog was borked and displayed the infamous, “This photo is currently unavailable”. I reported it yesterday but I guess it’ll take longer than that to fix.

The ever vexxing question of privacy arrises on Kevin’s blog here and here. In the USA it’s perfectly ok to use someone’s image for non commercial usage as long as the photo was taken in a public place. I can understand why that woman is suing Yahoo! but I guess it’s the money she wants rather than protecting her privacy. (Is there a difference?) I covered the issue in the past, where things could be a little different in Ireland – the expectation of privacy extends to a private conversation in a public place. Vexxing indeed!

The Digital Photography Show interviewed Bert Krages, the author of the PDF, The Photographer’s Right on the subject of photographer’s rights. I haven’t listened yet but it should be good as he knows his stuff. Obviously laws will change from place to place so do some research locally before shooting on the street! The interview is also mentioned here and here.

Related Posts

• Springer at Fountainstown
• The patient springer spaniels
• Ruby on the beach

Ruby, a Springer Spaniel we met last year in Bunnyconnellan, is still down in Myrtleville! Her owner must be living down there somewhere. We threw a stick for her a few times and then walked over to Fennell’s Bay and she followed us with her tail wagging!
It was a pleasure walking with her only spoilt by the idiot teenage girl who threw stones at us from high ground. She and her group of friends didn’t hang around when they saw us returning back towards them. Very brave.

Related Posts

• Kilkee Beach
• Emergency at Kilkee Beach
• Hurling on the beach