Language networks, literary translation and the friars in late medieval ireland

Dublin, Trinity College MS 667 (olim F 5 3) is something of a meeting point of languages and traditions, representing one of the most significant witnesses to Latin exemplars for vernacular translations to survive from medieval Ireland. What is more, the translated texts appear to travel in groups, with several Irish-language manuscripts bearing close comparison to Trinity 667 in the texts and versions of texts they contain. Examining these texts and the contexts in which they circulated in Irish can give us a sense of the sorts of historical and cultural currents to which such translation work appears to have been responding.

Exploring the role of reanalysis data in simulating regional wind generation variability over Northern Ireland

As wind generation increases, system impact studies rely on predictions of future generation and effective representation of wind variability. A well-established approach to investigate the impact of wind variability is to simulate generation using observations from 10 m meteorological mast-data. However, there are problems with relying purely on historical wind-speed records or generation histories: mast-data is often incomplete, not sited at a relevant wind generation sites, and recorded at the wrong altitude above ground (usually 10 m), each of which may distort the generation profile. A possible complimentary approach is to use reanalysis data, where data assimilation techniques are combined with state-of-the-art weather forecast models to produce complete gridded wind time-series over an area. Previous investigations of reanalysis datasets have placed an emphasis on comparing reanalysis to meteorological site records whereas this paper compares wind generation simulated using reanalysis data directly against historic wind generation records. Importantly, this comparison is conducted using raw reanalysis data (typical resolution ∼50 km), without relying on a computationally expensive “dynamical downscaling” for a particular target region. Although the raw reanalysis data cannot, by nature of its construction, represent the site-specific effects of sub-gridscale topography, it is nevertheless shown to be comparable to or better than the mast-based simulation in the region considered and it is therefore argued that raw reanalysis data may offer a number of significant advantages as a data source.

Reform of the planning system in Northern Ireland: your chance to influence change

Consultation on the Reform of the Planning System in Northern Ireland commenced on 6 July 2009 with the publication of the long awaited proposals paper: 'Reform of the Planning System in Northern Ireland: Your chance to influence change'. A 12 week consultation period followed during which time a series of consultation roadshow events were undertaken. This report is an account of that strand of the reform consultation and the discussions that took place at the roadshows during a three week period in September 2009. The roadshow events formed the central part in a process of encouraging engagement and response to the Reform Proposals before the closing date of 2 October 2009. They were organised and facilitated by a team of event managers and independent planners who, together with key Planning Service personnel, attended a mixture of day and evening events in each of the new eleven council areas to hear the views and opinions of those who came along. Aside from being publicly advertised, over 1,500 invitations (written and e-invites) were issued to a wide range of sectors, including the business community,environmentalists, councils, community and voluntary groups and other organisations, and 1,000 fliers were issued to libraries, leisure centres, council offices and civic centres. In total almost 500 people took up the invitation and came along to one or more of the events.

A radar-based rainfall climatology of Great Britain and Ireland

The Met Office 1km radar-derived precipitation-rate composite over 8 years (2006–2013) is examined to evaluate whether it provides an accurate representation of annual-average precipitation over Great Britain and Ireland over long periods of time. The annual-average precipitation from the radar composite is comparable with gauge measurements, with an average error of +23mmyr−1 over Great Britain and Ireland, +29mmyr−1 (3%) over the United Kingdom and –781mmyr−1 (46%) over the Republic of Ireland. The radar-derived precipitation composite is useful over the United Kingdom including Northern Ireland, but not accurate over the Republic of Ireland, particularly in the south.