And Fitzy 
That’s not one she boasts about
I signed my life away for the sake of city centre apartment
Alison O’Riordan, a gung-ho first-time buyer purchased her city pad while the market was still buoyant but now struggles to pay the bills and a sizeable mortgage
[size=“4”]Sunday March 21 2010[/size]
TWO years ago I bought my apartment and swapped the leafy suburbs of my family home in Rathmines for life as a city slicker in the sought-after riverside location of Grand Canal Quay in Dublin 2.
When I began my search of properties in early 2008 I knew exactly what I wanted. A two-bed apartment designed for modern living with a roof garden and outdoor space with great views of the happening city. When I saw just this in May of that year, it accelerated my impulse to buy immediately, even though the market was softening.
The two-bed showroom apartment on the fifth floor of a six-storey building cost me €525,000 at the time which included a parking space in my development for €45,000. I now see my apartment devalue massively on a daily basis.
Hooke and McDonald have said the typical price drop for apartments in city-centre locations is 40 per cent.
When I contacted my property consultant HT Meagher O’Reilly this week to find out how much my apartment has dropped, they said these types of units would be on sale for around €300,000 to €325,000 at the minute. I didn’t even buy at the peak of the boom, but at a time when I thought things were at a more realistic level.
It was, however, weeks before the collapse in the middle of 2008, when prices tumbled. I ignored repeated warnings both from my parents and the Central Bank and instead ploughed in head first and handed over the money.
I have major regrets thinking about what I did, and what I could have done with all the surplus money that I will have to pay back for many years to come.
The cold wind of reality is never far from me and it constantly blows abruptly into my life. I have considered moving back home and renting out the apartment as the once affordable mortgage is not so affordable anymore with pay cuts and it has become a struggle to pay the bills and large mortgage.
But I worked hard to get here and put myself through tedious years of college so I could afford my own place, so I will persevere.
And also a big factor is that if I move out within two years of buying the apartment to rent it out my stamp duty exemption will be clawed back, so that is not an option.
And so I carry on being entangled in this web of struggle and hardship, trapped in negative equity with my dreams of city-apartment living turned sour.
The sleepless nights and bouts of anxiety will continue but hindsight is a very exact science and I can do nothing about that fateful day when I signed away my life and effectively put myself into my own financial prison.
- Alison O’Riordan
Sunday Independent
Trapped in a negative equity nightmare after dreams of city apartment living turned sour
When Alison O’Riordan splashed out on a trendy pad, she had no idea that it would end up becoming her very own financial prison
[size=“4”]Sunday June 28 2009[/size]
IT was supposed to be the most exciting time of my life – instead I’ve endured sleepless nights and bouts of anxiety and regret since that fateful day when I signed away my life without really knowing what I was getting into.
A year ago, I was ready to embrace apartment living and swap the leafy suburbs of Rathmines for life as a city slicker in the sought-after riverside location of Dublin 2.
“Contemporary designed apartments in an exceptional city-centre location” encapsulated it all for me.
Life was going to be good in the fast lane with what I envisaged would be an edgier and more cosmopolitan type of existence. I was a stylish professional, free from parents and time curfews, and now living in a bustling centre of activity: in my eyes, I had it all.
Surrounded by young hip singletons spilling out of the Ferryman pub in the Docklands on a Friday evening and an abundance of lively eateries and bars on my doorstep, what more could I want?
There would be no need to battle traffic on a daily basis with only a 10-minute stroll to work. I was young and childless, with not a care in the world in a rapidly changing part of the city.
When I bought my new home in May 2008, I knew exactly what I wanted. A two-bed apartment designed for modern living with a roof garden and outdoor space with great views of the city for holding summer barbeques on balmy evenings. When I saw just this, it accelerated my impulse to buy immediately, even though the market was softening.
The two-bed showroom unit apartment on the fifth floor wasn’t exactly affordable, considering I was buying alone, but with its sleek Scandinavian furniture and skyline views I was prepared to stretch my cash limits and fork out the €525,000 sum required.
Printed in bold on the pastel-coloured brochure at the launch of the complex was the slogan: “contemporary tailored apartment living that won’t cost you the shirt on your back”. Truth is, it’s costing me that and a hell of a lot more.
I now see my apartment devalue massively on a daily basis. Hooke & MacDonald have said 40 per cent is the typical price drop for new houses and apartments in Dublin. Trapped by negative equity, if I did decide to move, I would stand to make a massive loss on my investment. It has been reported that “those who bought a house in 2007 will have to wait until 2030 before they move out of negative equity”.
I had a five-year plan of living in the city centre until I hit 30, and then I’d trade up and purchase the suburban house with the immaculate garden and the white picket fence – all the trappings of a family home.
However, month after month I tirelessly continue to make bank repayments which will amount to a lot more than what the property is actually worth. It especially doesn’t help
that in these early years all those monthly repayments appear to knock just fractions off the overall mortgage loan.
The initial ecstasy of making my first step onto the property ladder after a year of travelling and then landing my dream job have been replaced with pain and frustration
And with income slashed due to pay cuts and higher taxes, and rising utility costs, I really am finding it exceptionally difficult to make a living. Then there are the higher management company charges which individual apartment owners are facing because of the failure of developers to pay fees from apartments that have been unable to sell. A fifth of the apartments in my building remain unsold, the whole bottom floor is empty.
I didn’t even buy at the peak of the boom, but at a time when I thought things had begun to come to a realistic level.
It was, however, weeks before the collapse in the middle of 2008, when prices tumbled. I ignored repeated warnings both from my parents and the Central Bank and instead ploughed in head first and handed over the money.
I have to look no further than beside my building to see just how much the market has collapsed. I could not afford the two-bed apartments at The Waterfront on Hanover Quay, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, for €580,000 when I initially looked to buy. According to Mark Dunne of Hooke & MacDonald, they are now selling for an astonishing €450,000.
There would have been a lot let over in the kitty, let’s say, for a more luxurious pad if I hadn’t been so hasty.
When I was buying, parking spaces in my development cost an extra €45,000. You can imagine my fury when my neighbour informed me recently how the seller had thrown their car park space in for free at the same time as I had purchased in order to make the sale.
To make matters worse, in February I got a letter from the solicitors of the building informing me the current location of my car park space was to be altered in exchange for a car park space at the rear end of the car park.
I remember vividly looking on with envy at a friend at a bar buying rounds for everyone, boasting how he could afford it because of his generous variable rate in the current conditions. I was advised at the time by a number of knowledgeable people to go with a fixed rate of interest; the benefit at the time was the security of knowing exactly how much my mortgage would cost each month. And so with each successive interest rate cut announced by the European Central Bank since last October, my friend at the bar on the tracker mortgage has gleefully calculated how much extra disposable income he will have as a result, while I am locked into an expensive fixed-rate deal and all I can do is just grin and bear it.
The cost of breaking the fixed rate is €6,673 and my position is both depressing and far from unique. I will have 480 repayment instalments over the next 40 years; it really is an imprisonment of sorts.
But things could be worse – imagine if I was extremely unhappy where I was living, had lost my job and couldn’t afford my monthly repayments.
Then repossession would be on the horizon, and things would seem an awful lot worse. So I just have to remain calm and cross my fingers that things may improve – but I won’t be holding my breath.
Are they both from the Sindo?
Yip, just the same article rehashed :lol:
Brilliant stuff Runty. Some sniffing.
I have a few beauties from the Indo bookmarked for the sake of the historical record.
Here’s one:
[size=“3”]Regulation is ‘strangling the wealth creating flair of business’ says banker[/size]
By Cyril Hardiman
Friday June 22 2007
THE increasing burden of regulation and compliance is threatening to stymie the entrepreneurial drive and flair which have made this economy the envy of the world, a top banker warned yesterday.
“What concerns me greatly is that just at the time when our economic fortunes are on the wane, those who influence the environment within which we trade seem determined to exert much stricter control on us,” claimed Sean FitzPatrick, chairman and former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank.
“This move to a more heavily regulated economy needs to be challenged vigorously and challenged now,” he argued at a business lunch organised by Experian and held in Dublin yesterday. But Mr FitzPatrick conceded that business’ calls in this regard were not being helped by the behaviour of banking.
He cited “systematic overcharging of customers, the facilitation of tax evasion”, among other misdemeanours, as having contributed to the erosion of trust “to such an extent that it barely exists any more”.
“The banks seem to be doing nothing to try to win back this trust,” he added.
In terms of the regulatory climate, he even suggested that things may have gone too far.
“Have we reached a situation where the weight of compliance with the various financial reporting standards and other corporate regulations is now so heavy that entrepreneurs are no longer willing to bear it?”
Mr FitzPatrick attributed the economic turnaround on the “profound cultural shift” in how we did our business and the “pro-business environment” fostered by Government, including the reduction in taxation.
But having developed this marvellous entrepreneurial culture, which is delivering so many benefits in terms of employment and wealth to the country, Mr FitzPatrick warned of the danger that our regulatory environment has gone too far?
“Are we starting to shackle instead of encouraging the entrepreneurs who in turn generate more wealth not just for themselves, but for the country as a whole.”
He stressed he was not arguing for total deregulation of business. “Business success is firmly grounded in confidence, and this can only be created by an environment of adequate regulation,” he stressed.
"Among the more insidious aspects of the current regulatory environment is its apparent presumption of guilt on the part of entrepreneurs and business people generally.
"The whole structure seems to be geared towards something akin to an annual proof of innocence statement. This is corporate ‘McCarthyism’ and we shouldn’t tolerate it," he said.
- Cyril Hardiman
This article is the one that will never be forgotten. The Sindo at their most craven:
[size=“4”]The smart, ballsy guys are buying up property right now[/size]
[b]By Brendan O’Connor
Sunday July 29 2007[/b]
SO THE sky is falling in again. The Irish stock market is apparently in meltdown, because of the housing market, which is also apparently in meltdown. The level of property horror stories is at an all-time high and everyone is tripping over each other to predict even greater gloom than the next guy.
Tell you what, I think I know what I’d be doing if I had money, and if I wasn’t already massively over-exposed to the property market by virtue of owning a reasonable home. I’d be buying property. In fact, I might do it anyway. You don’t even need money to buy property these days. Imagine if you walked into the bank and said, “Listen, guys. I want to gamble a million on the stock market. I have 100 grand myself, will you guys lend me 900 grand at really low rates and I’ll pay you back over 40 years? In fact I won’t even pay off the principal, I’ll just pay off the interest.” They’d laugh you out of it. But substitute gambling on the property market for gambling on the stock market and they’ll fall over themselves to give it to you.
So why would I be buying property right now if I could? Well, for starters, property is good value these days. It’s certainly cheaper than it was six months ago. While the official figures on aggregate surveys are talking about drops of two to three per cent in property prices, anyone who is out there in the jungle will tell you that it is a buyer’s market bigtime.
If you’re smart and you have balls and you’re dealing with the right buyer you can knock 10 per cent or more off the price of a house these days. And that could well be a house that has already been reduced in price by 10 per cent or more in the last six months. Because while the big picture suggests a 3 per cent drop, the big picture is made up of lots of little pictures and you don’t knock 3 per cent off the price of your house if you can’t sell it. Individual house prices fall in substantial chunks.
John D Rockefeller famously said that the way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets. Buying into a boom is kind of a mug’s game, and, as we know, anyone can do it. The really smart and ballsy guys are the guys who are buying when no one else is. The guys who made real money on property in Ireland were the ones who bought property before everyone else, when it was unfashionable. They were in a minority. Most people who bought property bought it recently, in a seller’s market, for top dollar. Which makes no sense when you think about it. When you think about it, it makes sense to buy property now. Though of course some people say it always makes sense to buy property. There is no such thing as a good or a bad time to buy. It’s always a good time to buy.
Anyway, there is blood on the streets, or at least an impression of blood on the streets, and it’s time to buy. You can be guaranteed that’s what the smart guys are doing. Every smart, rich bloke (the two can, in fact, occur in the same guy) I’ve spoken to for the last few years has been, to some extent, hoarding cash, waiting for this. And now they’re around picking up bargains. Some of them might be waiting a little while more, in the hope that we haven’t reached the bottom yet. But lots of them know that the trick is to buy and sell stuff a little bit too soon. Lots of guys have gone broke waiting for the actual top or bottom of the market.
Not only is property better value now than when everyone was barrelling into it a year ago, it also provides better returns. Rents are booming right now. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it: right now you can buy property for less and it will yield you more. That’s a better deal than six months ago.
Money is also still cheap. OK, interest rates aren’t 2 per cent any more, but 5 per cent is still cheap money in anyone’s books and everyone seems to agree it’s not going to get much dearer.
This is not to say everything is rosy in the garden, but then you know that. The vultures of doom who have been circling for years waiting to be right eventually are having a field day.
It was another week of gloom and doom in the headlines.
After years of willing it, journalists who didn’t buy property when they should have think they’ve finally got what they wanted. And they are wallowing in the mire. They also know that bad news is good news and a headline that’s going to scare the crap out of people is more fun than one that just says things are still OK.
But reading between the headlines, a more balanced picture emerges.
For example, Jim Power of Friends First was credited with giving a gloomy outlook for the economy and housing last week. In fact, Power was relatively upbeat about property. Is a 2 per cent drop in the market overall really going to kill us? Is that not a soft landing? And did Power not predict that prices would start to rise again next year due to less supply, more mortgage-interest relief and stabilising interest rates? If that’s what we regard as gloom these days, then clearly we’re spoilt.
The Central Bank’s version of gloom last week was to say that growth will fall this year - to 5 per cent. As falling growth goes, 5 per cent ain’t bad.
Unemployment is going to grow too - from 4.5 per cent to 4.75 per cent. It’s hardly the bad old days, is it? Four or 5 per cent unemployment constitutes practically full employment when you take into account frictional, structural and voluntary unemployment - the unemployment that always exists even if there are jobs for everyone.
And, yes, the Iseq is down 6 per cent this year, but balance that off against the 30 per cent it gained last year. The 6 per cent fall doesn’t even fully cancel out its gains of last December.
So, you know, maybe the sky is falling in, but maybe you should think twice before you follow the Chicken Lickens of the media into Foxy Loxy’s dark cave.
- Brendan O’Connor
He should be hanged
What a rubbishly written and generally shockingly articulated piece of tripe.
I’ll not do any justice to the cunt than to comment any further.
Can you imagine some poor fucker reading that and believing it?
Surely there is some obligation on newspapers to print factually correct articles
anyone who bought a property on the advice of a Brendan O’Connor article is a fucking moron and needs to be humiliated in public, preferably by means of a tabloid newspaper, lets say the sindo.
get to work brendan.
Words fail me
‘It seemed like a love triangle, like a revenge ploy against Glenda’
Aengus Fanning talks to Rosanna Davison about her controversial ‘moonlight flit’ to Marrakech with Johnny Ronan and her upcoming book
Sunday May 02 2010
Rosanna Davison, celebrity, graduate, illustrator, model, and Miss World when she was 19, walks the media tightrope, at 26, with a skill and maturity that must be the envy of Gordon Brown.
Trial by media is something she has lived with, but she has had the wisdom to learn from her experiences and to never lose sight of her dependence on the media in the celebrity jungle.
That being so, the frenzied coverage of her pre-dawn, post-‘Rumble in Ranelagh’ flight to Marrakech with Johnny Ronan in his private jet must have tested to the limit her determination to like and live by media.
When I interviewed Rosanna in Trinity College last week, I not only met the beautiful, elegant girl I knew from 1,000 pictures, but I also got to know a bright, engaging, charming young woman who is determined to make something of both her life and living, and has the gift of being possessed of awareness and self-knowledge beyond her years.
For the first time, she gave her own full and very personal account of the scandal-giving moonlight flit to Marrakech, and other matters, in a relaxed and open conversation on the sunlit lawn in Trinity’s quadrangle.
Aengus Fanning: “Now Rosanna, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview, one of the most beautiful women in the world.”
Rosanna Davison: “And you’re one of the most charming men in the world.”
AF: “Thank you, flattery will get you everywhere with me. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, a woman of great intelligence. You’ve been in the news recently. Have these stories been accurate?”
RD: “I’ve been at the receiving end of a lot of tabloid gossip as a result of a trip I went on to Morocco with Johnny Ronan. I was quite shocked by the level of interest in this story. My family were involved, my relationship was brought into it, my parents. It’s one thing me dealing with it, but when my family are involved, well, then it gets harder. I did have a tough time, yes.”
AF: “And can you in your own words describe to me what happened over that period.”
RD: “The period of the trip?”
AF: “Yes.”
RD: "I’ve no problem talking about it. I can go into every detail accurately. It was a Sunday and I was asked in for a business meeting in the Ritz- Carlton, so I met these two guys for lunch. I had my car with me so I wasn’t going to have a drink, but they ordered wine and said, ‘It’s OK, we’ll make sure you get a lift home later back to the family house,’ which is about five minutes’ drive down the road. I wasn’t working the next day so I decided I’d collect my car in the morning. So we finished up the meeting and then moved to the Ritz-Carlton Pub, which is called McGill’s.
"Johnny Ronan turned up, because he obviously is heavily involved in the hotel, and one of the guys left, so it was the three of us at the time – me, Johnny and this guy he knew, a friend of his. So he just suggested we sit and chat and catch up, and it was a very relaxed sort of Sunday afternoon, I’d a few drinks and at about 8.30pm/9pm I just texted my friend Sarah Leckie, who is my UCD friend and she lives across the road from the house in Enniskerry, and I said, ‘Why don’t you come down’ – I hadn’t seen her in a while. So she came down and we just sat there for ages just the four of us in this sort of booth area in the pub.
"Then it got to about 12.30 or so and we’d all had quite a few drinks at this stage, I won’t lie, and somebody suggested that we’d go somewhere else because the staff wanted to close up the bar.
“Johnny suggested that we go somewhere in the jet because it was on standby, and then my friend Sarah said, ‘Oh, I’ve never been to Marrakech, let’s go to Morocco.’ She was very convincing, as she is, so it all seemed like a fabulous idea at the time. We decided that we’d just hop into Johnny’s car, which was outside, and pop into our respective houses, which are on the same road, and get our passports and anything else we needed and then go to the airport. It was as easy as that.”
AF: “And what time was that?”
RD: “I suppose it would have been about 2am/2.30am (Sunday night/Monday morning). So basically the whole bar was invited. It was an open invitation, it was the four of us that ended up going, but. . .”
AF: “And who were the four?”
RD: “It was me, my friend Sarah Leckie, Johnny and then his friend.”
AF: “What was his name?”
RD: "He was called Barry. So, you know, everything seemed like a good idea after a few drinks and anyone I’ve talked to said they would have done the same thing, that’s how innocent it was.
"Obviously Glenda Gilson’s publicised relationship with Johnny Ronan – which as far as I understood, and everyone else understands, broke up around the New Year – and of course this fight, ‘The Ranelagh Rumble’, which she had had with him the night before, made a wonderful story I suppose. I don’t remember knowing anything about the fight until we were actually in Morocco after and a friend texted me looking for a number for someone else. Later that day Johnny talked about it because he anticipated that it would erupt in the tabloids the next day, which it did on the Tuesday.
"I don’t regret any aspect of the trip. I don’t regret the spontaneity of it. I found it liberating. I found it exciting. I really believe in grasping every opportunity in life, and when you’re faced with that sort of opportunity you don’t stop and think, ‘Oh God, will there be dire consequences?’ and maybe it was naïve of me and perhaps that was the one mistake in all of this. I was naïve to think that there wouldn’t be any consequences.
“I don’t usually let my guard down, but I suppose in this situation I thought I was close to home, it was a very sort of private corner, the four of us were in this bar, because otherwise when I’m in town I don’t let my guard down at all. I never get to a point where I’ve drunk so much that I can’t make rational decisions.”
AF: “You felt safe.”
RD: “Yes,I felt safe.”
AF: “And did you anticipate the publicity that followed?”
RD: “Absolutely not. I’m not stupid or anything, I’ve learned quite a lot about the media in the past six or seven years, and most of the time I’m able to anticipate the outcome of whatever I’ve said or done, or anticipate how a picture will look. I suppose because our decision-making abilities were impaired I didn’t go into it being able to anticipate the consequences – and that, I admit, was naïve of me.”
AF: “How long were you in Marrakech then on that trip?”
RD: "It was just a night, I suppose a day-and-a-half. We arrived there on Monday morning. We landed at 7am and just went straight to the hotel, me in a room with Sarah and then Johnny and his friend had separate rooms. We slept for most of it and then just had an afternoon bite to eat and sat in the sun for a while and then had dinner. We were all in bed before midnight on that Monday night, we were so tired from the night before.
“The next day we just sort of had a sleep-in, had lunch and then went to the airport. So it was a very relaxed trip and really very pleasant.”
AF: “Was it Johnny Ronan’s own plane you went in?”
RD: “Yes.”
AF: “The perception of it, as far as you are concerned, I’m speaking about it now as a member of the public, I didn’t read it in any great detail but just a general perception that I picked up, was that it was kind of a party – you know, you went off with Johnny, he had a row with Glenda the night before. So what you’re saying is it was innocent, it wasn’t sexual.”
RD: “Oh God no, I’m in a committed relationship and a long-term relationship and I’m not at all interested in anyone else at all, so it was complete innocent fun.”
AF: “Well, that perception was there.”
RD: “It made a good story because it seemed like it was a love triangle, it seemed like it was a massive revenge ploy against Glenda, and I totally accept that it was seen that way. If I had known about the fight or if I had been able to anticipate how it would have looked from a romantic point of view, then I wouldn’t have bothered to make the decision to go. But because it was just so innocent it didn’t even cross my mind, and it took a few days even to understand that that’s what people actually thought.”
AF: “Was there a lot of drinking on the trip?”
RD: “Not on the trip. It was literally only on the Sunday evening in the Ritz, and as I said I’m usually very guarded about what I do in public, but it was just the situation, it was safe, it was close to home, it was very cosy and very quiet.”
AF: “And has the whole episode cost you much pain?”
RD: “God, I never cried over it or lost sleep over it but it was certainly stressful because, well, I tend to be an awful worrier. But also I didn’t want to bring that sort of stress on to my family or friends or boyfriend. It was stressful from that point of view.”
AF: “And have you met or spoken to Johnny Ronan since then?”
RD: "I haven’t, no. He sent me one text message making sure I was OK and that Wes was OK. People have said to me, ‘Why would you have gone away with a man who was involved with a fight?’ and as I said I didn’t know about the fight until we were there. I never judge people based on what I read about them.
“He was overall very kind, very, very generous to me and to Sarah, so I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about him.”
AF: “I know you can say you’ve got life to live, and an impulse comes and you go with something spontaneously.”
RD: “Absolutely, it’s not like I’ve kids or a nine-to-five job that I had to be in at nine in the morning, so that’s what I love about the flexibility of my life. I’m always having to go away on last-minute business trips, so it doesn’t mean anything to me, I’m always on a plane, every week.”
AF: “And if you’ve to sit down and examine every impulse and have an internal debate about whether you will or you won’t, it’s very hard to do anything.”
RD: “I love the spontaneity. I love being young and expressing myself, and I suppose I’m a vivacious woman, I’m an Aries woman, typical, hot-headed, not hot-headed but impatient, sort of.”
AF: “I’d say you’re hot-headed enough.”
RD: “I can be, but I think as you get older you learn to control those impulses.”
AF: “And what about Glenda Gilson, do you know her?”
RD: “I know Glenda, but it was reported that we were best mates. I like her a lot. I’ve a huge amount of respect for her. She’s really worked hard her whole life, and we’ve worked together a lot, but we’re not friends in the sense that we wouldn’t hang out together at the weekends. I haven’t seen her since, but I’m sure she understands that the situation was innocent and that I wasn’t trying to steal her ex-boyfriend.”
AF: “And you weren’t trying to steal her boyfriend.”
RD: “Absolutely not. It’s that unwritten rule with girls that you just don’t do that.”
AF: “It’s unwritten, but it’s not always obeyed.”
RD: “Exactly.”
AF: “Now I’ve actually run out of questions on Marrakech, but if there’s something more you want to put on the record. . .”
RD: "Well no, it was just to get my side of the story straight, because at the time it blew up there was so much rumour, and Dublin being a small town there’s an awful lot of gossip, so it’s been great to set the record straight.
“It’s ironic that last year my dad was booked to play a concert in Marrakech and as it ran over the weekend of my birthday, April 17. He asked me did I want to go along, just as a birthday trip. And so I said yes, and that was last weekend, April 15-19. We were supposed to go and we were meant to go back to the same hotel that we’d stayed in with Johnny, but unfortunately due to the volcanic ash crisis we never actually made it over.”
AF: “When was that planned?”
RD: “It was made last year. I read somewhere that I cheekily decided to bring my family back to the same hotel, but that wasn’t the case – it was booked last year.”
AF: “You’re one of Ireland’s biggest celebrities and the media is eternal in your life: you’re photographed, you’re written about. You’ve learned to handle that, have you?”
RD: “I suppose so. There have been times I’ve wanted to step back. At some stage last year I didn’t really talk to any journalists for a couple of months, yet they still wrote about me.”
AF: “Your career – how’s it going, Rosanna?”
RD: “Well, since the recession things have certainly slowed down in the commercial side here. There are lower budgets for advertising and PR and fewer lunches, and that was the bread and butter for a lot of girls here. But I’m lucky that I can go abroad and work, and I have been working quite a bit in Europe, I’ve been involved, well the face of, a confectionery company called Lambertz. I’m the front of their annual exclusive calendar for 2010. I was dressed as Marilyn Monroe in this amazing chocolate dress for their big party back in February. I’ve also been approached to design a range of bags for a German company.”
AF: “International work as well. How old were you when you won the Miss World?”
RD: “I was 19.”
AF: “That was a very fast learning curve?”
RD: "It was I suppose compared to my friends. I look at my brother now, who is 19, and I wonder how on earth I did it. But it was an extremely interesting, an extremely educational learning curve, from everything. . . meeting heads of state, we worked a lot with the Chinese government and the tourism board. . . from doing that to public speaking.
“I used to arrive in a country like Canada or Sri Lanka and be brought straight to a function and told to get up on stage and address the audience of 500 people, with minimum details about a charity or an organisation involved, or a sponsor – so I really learned very quickly how to speak.”
AF: “And if I could ask you the unforgivable question, how old are you now?”
RD: “I just turned 26, I’m getting old.”
AF: “Do you mind if I ask you – your previous trials by media, when your dad was involved in tabloid coverage how old were you then?”
RD: “I was about nine or 10.”
AF: “And do you remember it?”
RD: “I do remember it. It’s not something I really want to talk about now because it’s in the past, dead and forgotten.”
AF: “And you handled it and came through it.”
RD: “Well, when I won Miss World and I found myself in the whole world of media and the spotlight, I wouldn’t say I learned a lot back then but I was lucky to have a father who knew a lot about the industry and could advise me on issues about media and business.”
AF: “But somewhere in your subconscious lessons were learned.”
RD: “I suppose so, yes. I feel lucky I grew up with some sort of influence of media, some sort of knowledge. I think it all helps, as you said, subconsciously.”
AF: “It’s not easy for a person in the public eye to deal with the media inside in your own psyche. You seem to have managed well.”
RD: “Well. I’ve sorted it out. A couple of years ago I had this epiphany. I was just like, ‘Why would it affect me when the person that they are reading about is not me, it’s a glamorised sort of self-projection of me.’ I suppose I can play up to it sometimes if I want to, and again I’ve worked hard to counteract the stereotype of a blonde model-type bimbo. I’ve tried to represent women in a different light by getting a degree, and having different interests.”
AF: “I think very wise, Rosanna, and you’ve learned an awful lot for a beautiful young girl of 26 – and I mean that. Now tell me, you and Marisa Mackle have a wonderfully exciting project that you’re launching.”
RD: “It is, and it’s a wonderful departure from what I usually do. It’s a children’s book called The Girl in the Yellow Dress. It’s a lovely story; it’s got evil characters and good characters, and ultimately there’s a moral of course in it as well. I was asked by Marisa to come on board and do the illustrations, because she had heard that I used to teach art at my old school, Aravon. When I was 17 or 18 I taught art in the summer camp to a group of children, and actually I finished up the teaching job the day I entered Miss Ireland. So my two lives moved from one to the other. It’s a really lovely project to be involved in, and hopefully when I have children, if I have children, I will have them reading.”
AF: “So you’ve done the illustrations and Marisa has written the story.”
RD: “Yes.”
AF: “Lovely.”
Sunday Independent
Aengus Fanning is an outrageous cunt.
That is gobsmacking. What an outrageous cunt-fest.
Spidey, you ruined my evening posting that up. Christ!
That entire coterie of cunts should be just poisoned the way you’d poison a few crows that were eating grain or something.
That’s just wonderful. A few of my favourite parts.
I was lucky to have a father who knew a lot about the industry and could advise me on issues about media and business.
But not lucky enough to have a father that wouldn’t fuck the babysitter.
I’ve tried to represent women in a different light by getting a degree, and having different interests.
As it happens, I know a lot of women, most of them have degrees and they all have ‘different interests’.
And the final exchange needs no further comment.
AF: “So you’ve done the illustrations and Marisa has written the story.”
RD: “Yes.”
AF: “Lovely.”
I hear the Gerry Ryan lovefest today was spectacular
Have a read of that beauty. Whatever about Ryan but there must be something sick in that woman’s head to have loved two of the greatest cunts to have ever lived in the country - Harris and Fanning. To complete the cuntfest they all work together…
its unbelievable shite.
it also contained another key Sindo cunt trait and that is the the name-dropping of a nobody into the conversation to help introduce that said cretin to the celebrity environment
a few times Davidson throws in the name of her friend and states each time her full name “sarah leckie”
this is more than likely some media crazy whore who will suck and do anything in order to get her name in the Sindo, it is shameless stuff.