Monday, February 1st 2009

MOONEY'S MONEY!
All this week on Mooney you can win €1,000!

Albert Niland
Albert Niland left his native Galway, at a nineteen, for London. Shortly thereafter, he went to San Francisco in 1994 for a couple of weeks, and settled for seven years. Quickly finding numerous residencies, as a singer and guitarist, he played seven nights a week in the clubs of San Francisco. Growing up a lover of the Electric sounds, it was here he first started to listen to the acoustic traditions of his Ireland. After hearing a record by Freddie White called "Straight Up", he threw away the electric, and fell in love with the acoustic.

In 2003, Albert had enough of touring, and left to write, what was his essentially debut album "Dirty Day" with strong traces of Flamenco. It achieved critical acclaim, with everyone from the Irish Radio DJ's to Jools Holland, praising it.

Albert joins Derek in studio.

For more information click here

Greeting the President
Last Friday, the Mooney Show was invited to Aras an Uachtarain where the President hosted a forum entitled "Resilience in Tough Times - Civic Society's Response". This was the latest in a series of events which the President has hosted during her time in office.

Next year will of course be President Mary McAleese's last year in office - in both her inaugural speeches - that of 1997 and that of 2004 - she spoke of the prosperity of the country and she even worried about the effects of consumerism on our community.

However, for reasons not properly anticipated - many of which we already know only too well by now - we now find ourselves in very different circumstances to those that made us the envy of the world only a few years ago.

Added to our current troubles, we have had people suffer further hardship with the recent spate of flooding and bad weather.

Derek met Mrs McAleese on Friday morning.

Click here to read the Presidents Speech

FORUM AT ARAS - Fergus Sweeney
"Social Entrepreneurs Ireland" was one of a number of voluntary and community organisations that took part in Friday's Forum at the Aras.

Sean Coughlan, CEO of "Social Entrepreneurs Ireland" spoke about how people with passion, creativity and drive - qualities normally associated with business entrepreneurs - apply these attributes to their local communities to help families and individuals in the face of adversity.

"Social Entrepreneurs Ireland" provide support for people like Victoria Mackechnie who set up "Kids in the Kitchen".

www.kidsinthekitchen.ie

www.socialentrepreneurs.ie

Galway Girls
All the single ladies listen up, if you are wondering where to go to meet a nice fellow, Galway should be on your list. A web site called Single Minded Women has voted Galway in the top five holiday destinations in the world for single women, ahead of New York, Rome, Rio and the rest.

So, on the Mooney show we said we will put this to the test and last weekend Brenda brought 2 well known singletons out on the town. Nuala Carey and Ciara Carroll kindly volunteered their services to check out the Galway hotspots!

MOONEY'S MONEY WINNER
We congratulate Cathy Nolan from Longford Town on winning today's Mooney's Money