A chairde, friends,

Our very own Conn Fagan, secretary of Norwegian Irish Society, will be on NRK P2 Kulturhuset Monday 16. talking about Roddy Doyle who is launching a book in Norwegian this coming week. Program starts at 1400.

An episode of the popular reality television show – ‘Norway’s Next Top Model’ – was filmed in Dublin in summer 2010 and will be aired on Norway’s TV3 on March 14^th at 20.30.  The episode will be uploaded to the TV3 website after the broadcast. The programme was supported by Tourism Ireland.  The show will be a great opportunity for viewers to discover Dublin as a modern, vibrant city and it will showcase the newest part of the Docklands, which includes the  Grand Canal Theatre,  as well as the Guinness Storehouse, and a fun-filled afternoon aboard the Viking Splash Tour.

Green-Graph is a community project started by volunteers in the London Irish Centre. The aim of this project is to promote Ireland and the Irish diaspora. From February 1st to March 17th of this year they are holding a photography competition. All photographs must reflect the experiences of Irish people abroad, their memories from home and their way of life in the country where they now live. The winners of this competition will be given cash prizes and the photographs will be exhibited at the St Patrick’s Day festivities in London. In the longer term they hope to create a publication of the best entries and sell this with all proceeds going to help local Irish emigrant charities around the world.

For more information about Green-Graph please refer to the website: www.green-graph.com.

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service are continuing to trace women who received BTSB Anti-D immunoglobulin in the periods 1977 to 1979, and 1991 to 1994.
The attached notice gives further information.

The web team of Norwegian Irish Society are proud to announce a new feature of this website: The NIS forum. To accomodate the Irish community in Norway and an ever increasing traffic of questions, comments and tips to this website, we have set up a forum where anyone can register to post any topic of interest, be it work related,  sports, activities, leisure, socials, accomodation, living in Norway, etc. This forum is for everyone; if you are new to Norway, lived here for thirty years, maybe you have questions, maybe you have answers, maybe you just want to comment – whatever is on your heart, post it on the forum!

On Friday 29 October, RTE’s Derek Mooney devoted a whole programme to Norway and Ireland. The Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Øyvind Nordsletten, was interviewed on a wide range of subjects. Great PR for our “adopted country”! Many similarities and contrasts between Norway and Ireland were discussed and the comments from listeners are quite amusing and very complimentary. Norway’s role in the re-introduction of the white-tailed sea eagle to Irish skies was given particular attention. The whole programme is well worth listening to on podcast : http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2010/pc/pod-v-29101048m38smooneyeagle.mp3

This post was written by Nora Nordan, who kindly sent it using the website contact form.

Oslo GAA is proud to host the first ever competitive Gaelic Football game in Norway.

On Saturday the 10th of July Oslo GAA play against the two most successful teams in the Scandinavian Cup, Stockholm Gaels and Malmö GAA.

The Irish Ambassador, His Excellency Gerald F. Ansbro, will start the proceedings at 12pm.

So come down to Voldslokka, Sagene for what promises to be a brilliant day.

Alternatively you are more than welcome to come down and have a few after match drinks with us. The Party starts at 7 and the venue is the Ferryman Pub. www.ferryman.no If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact oslogaa@hotmail.com or join our Facebook group

Many Norwegians don’t know Cork – Jewel of the Irish Riviera, Athens of the north, Ireland’s real capital. Location of the only banks in the country that definitely have not contributed to the economic downturn – the Banks of My Own Lovely Lee.

Some may dismiss these nicknames as another instance of second city syndrome, familiar in places from Bergen to Birmingham. Nothing could be further from the truth! The evidence that there is something about Cork is building steadily.

Exhibit one: Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel 2010” lists Cork as number three – as reported in Dagbladet. The city’s attractions include friendliness and charm, a series of good museums and art galleries, and excellent restaurants. The cluster of culinary excellence that has developed around Cork and Kinsale, light years removed from the stodgy fare of yore, is well know in Ireland, but much less so in this part of the world.

Exhibit two: Cork is chosen as the host city of this year’s Paddy Games, as reported recently in Aftenposten. We are fed up with being at a disadvantage both in the Winter Games, because we don’t have a real winter. Come to think of it, we could say the same about the Summer Games. So it was perfectly sensible to invent the Paddy Games, where we have a sporting chance of striking gold.

Need more? Exhibit three is that Cork is home of the only Irish entry in another new tourist book: The 101 worst places to visit. The Blarney Stone features here, thanks to the author’s dismay at the prospect of leaning backwards over a precipice hundreds of feet above the ground, in order to kiss a stone supposedly bearing the saliva of any number of previous visitors. Despite this, it is expected that tourists will continue to flock to this magical stone, which grants the gift of eloquence. Because there is nowhere quite like Cork. And that’s no blarney.

Declaration of interest: the author is from Cork. And he has kissed the Blarney Stone.

Photo: efioa

Would you and your family like to host two children from Northern Ireland during the summer holidays this year?
Project Children has been inviting children from Northern Ireland to Oslo each summer since 2002.
The children come from an agricultural area outside Newry in County Down that historically has felt the effects of economic downturn and inter-communal conflict. The opportunity to travel to Norway for a week in the summer is a welcome break from everyday tensions and a very enriching cultural experience for the children.

Please contact Dolores Hantsch at dolores@online.no for more information or call 99 52 25 60.

According to Statistics Norway, there are 621 Irish citizens in Norway. We know the real number is much higher, for a couple of reasons: firstly, many children of Irish and Norwegian parents are not included; and secondly, we have a time-honoured practice of counting as Irish those who want to be Irish, or who have an interest in Ireland. And when it comes to Patricks Day, if you are wearing something green, you are in. We are not really very exclusive.

A group of us in Oslo recently decided that the time was ripe for a new Irish Society in Norway, and the first fruit of this initiative is this new website. We hope it will have something for every kind of Irishwoman and man. We see it as a meeting place for those who have come from Ireland to Norway, recently and less recently; to those with family links to Ireland; and to those interested in the Emerald Isle.

Thanks to Chris and Eirik Grinde, we have a beautifully designed website. Thanks to an impressive group of ildsjeler (find and Irish word for that!) we will run sections on a wide range of activities within and around the Irish Community. The aim is to provide a dynamic and up to date resource for friends of Ireland in Norway. The more that get involved, the better it will be; so if you have something to contribute, get in touch!