title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: After a discussion of homosexuality at the Cuban Educational and Cultural Congress in April 1971, homosexuality was declared to be a deviation incompatible with the revolution. Homosexuality was considered sufficient grounds for discriminatory measures to be adopted against the gay community, and homophobia was institutionalized. Gay and lesbian artists, teachers, and actors lost their jobs. Gays and lesbians were expelled from the Communist Party. Students were expelled from university. Gays were prohibited from having contact with children and young people. Gays were not allowed to represent their country.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1975, the People's Supreme Court found in favor of a group of marginalised gay artists who were claiming compensation and reinstatement in their place of work. The court's ruling was the initial change in official attitudes towards gays and lesbians. In the same year, a new Ministry of Culture was formed under the leadership of Armando Hart Dávalos, resulting in a more liberal cultural policy. In addition, a commission was established to investigate homosexuality, leading to the decriminalization of private, adult, non-commercial and consensual same-sex relationships in 1979.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Cuban gays took the opportunity to leave Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. From the early stages of the massive exodus, the Government described homosexuals as part of the "scum" that needed to be discarded so the socialist society could be purified. Some homosexuals were given the ultimatum of either imprisonment (or extended terms for those already imprisoned) or leaving the country, although Fidel Castro publicly denied that anyone was being forced to leave.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1981, the Ministry of Culture stated in a publication entitled "In Defence of Love" that homosexuality was a variant of human sexuality. The ministry argued that homophobic bigotry was an unacceptable attitude inherited by the revolution and that all sanctions against gays should be opposed.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1986, the National Commission on Sex Education publicly opined that homosexuality was a sexual orientation and that homophobia should be countered by education. Gay author Ian Lumsden has claimed that since 1986 there is "little evidence to support the contention that the persecution of homosexuals remains a matter of state policy".


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1988, the Government repealed the "Public Ostentation Law of 1938" () and the police received orders not to harass LGBT people. In a 1988 interview with Galician television, Castro criticized the rigid attitudes that had prevailed towards homosexuality.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In a 1993 interview with a former Nicaraguan government official, Tomás Borge, Fidel Castro declared that he opposed policies against LGBT people as he considered homosexuality to be a natural tendency that should be respected. The same year, a series of sex education workshops were run throughout the country carrying the message that homophobia was a prejudice. That same year, the Government lifted its ban on allowing LGBT persons from serving openly in the military. Since 1993, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons may serve openly in the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. However, discrimination is still common in the Cuban military so LGBT people serving tend to hide their sexual orientation.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1994, the feature film "Strawberry and Chocolate", produced by the government-run Cinema of Cuba and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, featured a gay main character. The film criticized the country's narrow, doctrinaire ways of thinking in the 1970s and discussed anti-gay prejudice and the unjust treatment suffered by gays. The film provoked a great deal of comment and discussion among the public.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1995, Cuban drag queens led the annual May Day procession, joined by two gay delegations from the United States. In the same year, Fidel Castro recanted his previous anti-LGBT sentiment, saying: "I am absolutely opposed to all forms of oppression, contempt, scorn, or discrimination with regard to homosexuals".


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: According to a Human Rights Watch report, "the government [in 1997] ... heightened harassment of homosexuals, raiding several nightclubs known to have gay clientele and allegedly beating and detaining dozens of patrons." Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was reported to be among several hundred people detained in a raid on Havana's most popular gay discothèque, "El Periquiton". According to a United States government report, Cuban customers of the club were fined and warned of imprisonment if they did not stop publicly displaying their homosexuality. The foreigners who were detained were released after a check of their documents. Many of the Cuban gay and lesbian clientele were reportedly beaten by police. This crackdown extended to other known gay meeting places throughout the capital, such as "Mi Cayito", a beach east of Havana, where gays were arrested, fined, or threatened with imprisonment.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: After this crackdown, Cuban gays and lesbians began keeping a lower profile amid intermittent sweeps of gay and lesbian meeting places. Castro's apparent criticism of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and his last film "Guantanamera" during a speech in February 1998 seemed to cast a further chill over Cuba's gay community. Still, a number of clandestine gay clubs continued to operate sporadically in private homes.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In December 2000, half of all the Latin American films shown at the Havana Film Festival had gay themes. Gay and lesbian film festivals are now run in a number of Cuban cities, and in October 2005, a Sexual Diversity Cinema Week was held in Pinar del Río.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Yet, in 2001, the police operated a campaign against gay and trans people, and prevented them from meeting in the street, fined them and closed down meeting places.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2004, the soap opera "El jardín de los helechos" ("Garden of Ferns") included a lesbian couple as part of its plot. That same year, however, the BBC reported that "Cuban police have once again launched a campaign against homosexuals, specifically directed at "travestis" (transvestites) whom they are arresting if they are dressed in women's clothing."


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Carlos Sanchez, the male representative of the International Lesbian, Gay, Trans and Intersex Association for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, visited Cuba in 2004. While there, he asked about the status of lesbians and gays in the country and asked the Cuban Government why it had abstained from the vote on the "Brazilian Resolution", a 2003 proposal to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that would symbolically recognize the "occurrence of violations of human rights in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation." The Government argued that the resolution could be used to further attack and isolate Arab countries, consistent with "North American aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq". Sanchez also asked about the possibility of creating an LGBT organization in Cuba. The Government said that the formation of the organization would distract attention from national security in light of constant threats from the United States. After meeting with some Cuban LGBT people, Sanchez reported the following observations:


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2006, the state-run Cuban television began running a serial soap opera titled "La Otra Cara De La Luna" ("The Other Face of the Moon") in which a married man "discovers himself" through a sexual relationship with a male friend.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2012, Adela Hernandez became the first known transgender person to hold public office in Cuba, winning election as a delegate to the City Council of Caibarien in the central province of Villa Clara.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In his autobiography "My Life", Fidel Castro criticized the machismo culture of Cuba and urged for the acceptance of homosexuality. He made several speeches to the public regarding discrimination against homosexuals.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In a 2010 interview with Mexican newspaper "La Jornada", Castro called the persecution of homosexuals while he was in power "a great injustice, great injustice!" Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, "If anyone is responsible, it's me... We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments, I was not able to deal with that matter [of homosexuals]. I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions." Castro personally said that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country's pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In May 2019, the state-run National Center for Sex Education, or Cenesex, abruptly canceled its 12th annual march against homophobia (pride parade). CENESEX, led by Mariela Castro, said only that "international and regional tensions" meant the parade had to be cancelled. According to the Miami Herald, this abrupt change was also motivated by increasing resistance to LGBT protections by Christian groups in Cuba, with the government hoping to avoid violent confrontations with more conservative elements. LGBT Activists condemned the cancellation and organised their own demonstration, largely through social media. Cenesex told activists not to attend the event, with some reporting receiving calls from state security. The march went on, but after setting out the marchers came up against a large number of police and state security forces. At least three were arrested with the rest ordered to disperse.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In August 2019, Leandro Rodríguez García, director of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, was pulled from the departure lounge at the José Martí International Airport while awaiting a flight to Miami, Florida. Officials told him he was not allowed to leave Cuba and prevented him from boarding, despite him having obtained a US visa. In December, Journalist Maykel González Vivero, director and one of the founders of Tremenda Nota, the Spanish media partner for the "Washington Blade", was prohibited from traveling outside the country by the Cuban Interior Ministry. Nelson Julio Álvarez Mairata, an LGBTI YouTuber who had recently worked as a reporter for Tremenda Nota, was similarly prohibited from travel outside of Cuba. A series of hacks in 2019 targeted LGBTI reporters social media pages, with posts referencing their sexual orientation in a negative way and the release of private photos, often having sexual content.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2020, the state-run Cuban Institute of Radio and Television censored out the kiss scene between the lead male character and another boy in the 2018 U.S. film "Love, Simon". Activists criticized the decision and began to organize a "kiss-in" protest of the censorship. The government, shortly before the kiss-in, published an apology for the "mistake" of editing out the gay kiss and organizers cancelled the protest.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Where "machismo" and patriarchy are often conflated, it is important to note their difference. Patriarchy is a structure that allows for male superiority and male dominance but is generic whereas machismo has cultural implications that combines Latin American and Caribbean colonial history. Machismo is specific to Latin American culture. As a result of this culture, female sexuality was "mystified" and misunderstood, allowing many lesbians to escape prejudice where gay men could not.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Prior to the revolution, Havana was a popular tourist location. Homosexual men "received greater employment opportunities in the tourist sector, as they were often used to satisfy the prostitution needs of US military personnel and tourists." Because gay men were able to gain employment, they became the subject of scorn and disdain among many Cuban communist government who sought to eliminate what they perceived as "bourgeoisie". During the revolution, homosexuals did not fit into the structure of the revolution that was completely reliant on the family structure.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Private, non-commercial sexual relations between same-sex consenting adults 16 and over have been legal in Cuba since 1979.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: The Social Defence Code, which characterized "homosexual practices" as a "social threat" and imposed preventive measures to combat it, was repealed in 1979 by the Penal Code of Cuba. This Code did not criminalize homosexuality "per se". However, Article 359(1) criminalized those who made "public display of their homosexual condition" or bothered or solicited others with "homosexual requests". The crime of "public display of homosexual condition" was repealed in 1987 and the crime of bothering or soliciting with "homosexual requests" was amended in 1997 to refer only to "sexual" requests.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Prostitution in Cuba has always been legal but has gone through periods of restriction and regulation over the years. Because of this, sex tourism in Cuba blossomed in the post-colonial era, giving way to a different type of chosen family. However, prostitution in Cuba began a period of significant decline in 1998 and was no longer widespread or openly seen in Cuban tourist hotspots by 2007. In 2015, "Anthropological Quarterly" reported that through sex work, many gay Cuban men are able to gain autonomy and sex tourists sometimes ultimately support them and their families. The dynamic between sex workers and clients reportedly evolves into a gay kinship that expands to the Cuban family. This unique relationship is important to understand the connection between finances, gay Cuban men, and sex tourists.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: The Cuban Constitution does not ban same-sex marriage. Until 2019, Article 36 contained language defining marriage as between a man and a woman. This was repealed in a February 2019 referendum. The current Constitution states that "marriage is a social and legal institution. ... It is based on free will and equality of rights, obligations and legal capacity of the spouses."


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: A major public campaign by LGBT groups began in late 2017 to amend the Constitution to allow same-sex marriage. In July 2018, the National Assembly approved a new draft constitution which recognized same-sex marriage in Article 68. Amidst pressure from evangelical churches who opposed same-sex marriage—even though President Miguel Díaz-Canel expressed his support for same-sex marriage that September—the National Assembly withdrew the language on 18 December 2018. As a result of removing the article, same-sex marriage is neither prohibited nor regulated by the new Cuban Constitution. Had the article remained in the draft, it would have needed to go to a referendum in February 2019. Nevertheless, media outlets spoke of a "revolution within a revolution" or of a "rainbow revolution", and pointed out how quickly the political and societal landscape for LGBT rights has changed.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: The National Assembly and Mariela Castro have stated that same-sex marriage will be legalized through a Family Code amendment instead. In March 2019, the Government began popular consultations to look into legalizing same-sex marriage in the Family Code. A referendum on the proposed new Family Code, which would include same-sex marriage, civil unions, adoption by same-sex couples and altruistic surrogacy, was held in September 2022, and passed. The new family law was signed by Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel on 26 September 2022, and came into effect the following day, after being published on the Official Gazette.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Employment discrimination on account of sexual orientation is prohibited by law. The Labor Code ("Código de Trabajo") does not cover gender identity, and LGBT discrimination in other sectors of society – such as education, housing and public accommodations – is not addressed by the law. Mariela Castro, director of the National Center for Sex Education, had also sought to ban employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity, HIV status and disability, but this was rejected.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In July 2018, a same-sex couple, Brian Canelles and Arián Abreu, were kicked out of a Havana bar after taking a selfie of themselves kissing. A worker at the bar asked them to leave, saying: "The bar isn't interested in the gay public. We don't want that reputation." The case was widely criticized. Merely two days after the incident, Cuba's official gazette published a decree outlining that any private business found to discriminate against clients based on their gender or sexual orientation can be fined 1,000 Cuban pesos (around 860 euros/1,000 U.S. dollars) and shut down.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: The Cuban Constitution, amended in 2019, prohibits all discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity and sexual orientation, among others. Article 42 reads as follows:


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Since June 2008, qualifying Cubans have been able to have free sex reassignment surgeries under "Resolución 126" ("Resolution 126"). Opinion polling suggested the move was unpopular among the Cuban public.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: As many scholars suggest, the Cuban Government treats trans rights and sex reassignment surgeries as a health issue. Cuba operates under the idea that healthcare is a right to all, allowing trans people access to public health care.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 1979, the Ministry of Public Health (MIN-SAP) established the Multidisciplinary Commission for Attention to Transsexuals to provide both specialized health care and social services. Mariela Castro Espín describes it: "specialists in the care of transsexual persons, and … adopted internationally approved diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, which were incorporated as services offered free of charge by the [National Public Health System], along with courses to train sex therapists."


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: The resolution permitting sex reassignment surgeries consisted of 11 articles that outlined the ways in which the Cuban Government aimed to improve their treatment of the trans community. Article 5 explicitly states, that the state should provide comprehensive health care to "all transsexual citizens" and it is also relevant to note that "one of the articles contains a glossary that defines various terms associated with health care for transsexual and transgender persons."


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Previously, it was required that a person's gender on official documents reflect their sexual organs but CENESEX pushed for a modification of this law. In 2013, this allowed trans people to modify their official gender without reassignment surgery.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: Individuals seeking to donate blood must be in good health, have a regular pulse and must not have had a viral infection (catarrh or pharyngitis) within the past seven days. Men who have sex with men are not explicitly banned from donating.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association and other sources, one of Cuba's only gay and lesbian civil rights organizations, the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians ("Asociación Cubana de Gays y Lesbianas"), was formed in 1994 by eighteen people but was effectively shut down and its members arrested in 1997.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2013, a week of drag shows, colorful marches, and social and cultural events in Havana culminated with celebrations of the International Day Against Homophobia. Events have been held every year since.


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In 2015, the project "Nosotros también amamos" ("We love too") which advocates for the legalization of same-sex marriage, was funded by the human rights organizations "Corriente Martiana" ("Martian Current"), "Fundación Cubana por los Derechos LGBTI" ("Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights") and the gay project "SHUI TUIX".


title: LGBT rights in Cuba

text: In June 2016, "Babel", a socio-cultural Cuban LGBT project, declared, "all people are equal in dignity and rights beyond what differentiates us as race, skin color, sex, national origin, political, religious, ideological or sexual preferences, amongst other things"


title: Sergio Peris-Mencheta

text: Luis Sergio Peris-Mencheta Barrio (born 7 April 1975), better known as Sergio Peris-Mencheta, is a Spanish theatre, cinema, and television actor, as well as a theatre director.


title: Sergio Peris-Mencheta

text: Luis Sergio Peris-Mencheta Barrio was born on 7 April 1975 in Madrid, son to a Spanish father and a Moscow-born mother, daughter of Spanish exiles. A rugby player for the team of the Lycée Français, he also was part of international teams that won several championships, and was captain of his youth team. After finishing secondary school, he enrolled at the Charles III University of Madrid, but while participating in the university theater group directed by Inés París he discovered a desire to become an actor.


title: Sergio Peris-Mencheta

text: In 1998, Peris-Mencheta landed a role in teen drama television series "Al salir de clase", which earned him popularity. He played Dani Daroca, one of the students of the Siete Robles school.


title: Sergio Peris-Mencheta

text: He made his feature film debut in "Jara" (1999), in which he starred alongside the also debuting Olivia Molina and seasoned actress Ángela Molina. He portrayed Tato, a man who finds a mysterious and beautiful woman (Jara) living alone in the forest since she was a child, starting a murky relationship.


title: River Clyde

text: The River Clyde (, , , or ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. It is the ninth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third-longest in Scotland. It runs through the major city of Glasgow. Historically, it was important to the British Empire because of its role in shipbuilding and trade. To the Romans, it was , and in the early medieval Cumbric language, it was known as or . It was central to the Kingdom of Strathclyde ().


title: River Clyde

text: The exact etymology of the river's name is unclear, though it is known that the name is ancient: It was called or by the Britons and by the Romans. It is therefore likely that the name comes from a Celtic language—most likely Old British. But there is more than one old Celtic word that the river's name could plausibly derive from. One possible root is the Common Brittonic , meaning 'loud' or 'loudly'. More likely, the river was named after a local Celtic goddess, "Clōta". The goddess's name in turn derives from an older, Proto-Celtic word meaning 'the strongly flowing one' or 'the holy cleanser'.


title: River Clyde

text: Humans have settled along the Clyde since the Paleolithic era. Artifacts dating from 12,000 BC have been found near Biggar, a rural town close to the river. Biggar is home to an archeological site at which Britain's most ancient artifacts have been unearthed. Prehistoric canoes, used by ancient peoples for transport or trade, have been found in the river. There are a number of Mesolithic sites along the Clyde, especially in the Upper Clyde Valley. Permanent settlements and structures, including what is believed to be a temple to moon gods in Govan, were constructed in the area during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Celtic art, language, and other aspects of culture began spreading to the area from the south during this period, and prehistoric artifacts suggest that, by around 1000 BCE, they had become the dominant cultural influences there.


title: River Clyde

text: Before the legions of the Roman Empire arrived in southern Scotland, the river and the area surrounding it had been settled by the Brythonic-speaking Damnonii tribe. It has been suggested that a Damnonii town called "Cathures" was located there and was the precursor to modern Glasgow. The Damnonii tribe originally distributed power among individual chiefdoms, but at some point before 500 AD the tribe politically unified and formed a centralised kingdom known as Strathclyde.


title: River Clyde

text: None of the documentary or archaeological evidence from the period when the Roman legions arrived suggests that battles took place in the area. Therefore the Roman legions and Damnonii tribespeople are assumed to have been on good terms and to have co-operated by means of trade and the exchange of military information. The Romans did, however, construct several forts () in the area, notably on the banks of the Clyde. These include Castledykes, Bothwellhaugh, and Old Kilpatrick and Bishopton. The Romans also constructed several roads along the river, both small ones and larger ones designed to be used as trade routes and to carry entire legions. The Antonine Wall, which lies only a few miles from the river, was constructed later by the Romans as a means of defending the area against invasion by the Picts. Despite the strategic location and flat terrain of Glasgow and the surrounding Clyde basin, no Roman civilian settlement was ever constructed. Instead, the region mostly functioned as a frontier zone between the Roman province known as Britannia Inferior and the Caledonians, an indigenous group that was hostile to the Romans.


title: River Clyde

text: Strathclyde was founded as an independent British kingdom, either during or shortly after the Roman occupation of Britain. The kingdom's core territory and much of its arable land was located around the Clyde basin. The kingdom was ruled from its capital, the near impenetrable Alt Clut fortress (Dumbarton Rock), which was situated on the river and overlooked much of the estuary. This fortress was noteworthy enough to have been referred to at the time in several letters and poems about Sub-Roman Britain, written by Gildas and others. Strathclyde remained a powerful kingdom during the early medieval period in Britain. It was also a reservoir of native Welsh culture: Its territory eventually expanded along the Clyde Valley, through the Southern Uplands and Ayrshire, and southward into Cumbria.


title: River Clyde

text: In the 7th century, Saint Mungo established a new Christian community on the banks of the Clyde, replacing Cathures. This community was the beginnings of what would become the city of Glasgow. Several villages on the Clyde that were founded then have endured to this day, and grown to become towns, including "Llanerc" (Lanark), "Cadzow" (Hamilton), and "Rhynfrwd" (Renfrew). The fortress of Altclut fell in the Siege of Dumbarton of 870 AD, when a force of Norse-Irish raiders from the Kingdom of Dublin sacked it. After that, the kingdom, now politically weakened, moved its capital to Govan. However, it never fully recovered, and in the 11th century it was annexed by the Kingdom of Alba.


title: River Clyde

text: In the 13th century, Glasgow, then still a small town, built its first bridge over the river Clyde. This was an important step in its ability to eventually grow into a city. The establishment, in the 15th century, of both the University of Glasgow and the Archdiocese of Glasgow, vastly increased the importance of the town within Scotland. From the early modern period onwards, the Clyde began to be used commercially as a trade route; trade between Glasgow and the rest of Europe became commonplace. In the centuries that followed, the Clyde became increasingly vital to both Scotland and Britain as a major trade route for exporting and importing resources.


title: River Clyde

text: The Clyde is formed by the confluence of two streams, the Daer Water (the headwaters of which are dammed to form the Daer Reservoir) and the Potrail Water. The Southern Upland Way crosses both streams before they meet at Watermeetings () to form the River Clyde proper. At this point, the Clyde is only from Tweed's Well, the source of the River Tweed, and is about the same distance from Annanhead Hill, the source of the River Annan. From there, it meanders northeastward before turning to the west, where its flood plain serve as the site of many major roads in the area, and then reaches the town of Lanark.


title: River Clyde

text: That is where the late 17th- and early 18th-century industrialists David Dale and Robert Owen built mills and the model settlement of New Lanark on the banks of the Clyde. The mills harnessed the power of the Falls of Clyde, the most spectacular of which is Cora Linn. A hydroelectric power station still generates electricity there today, although the mills have now become a museum and World Heritage Site.


title: River Clyde

text: The river then makes its way northwest, past the towns of Wishaw to the east of it and Larkhall to the west of it. The river's surroundings here become increasingly suburban. Between the towns of Motherwell and Hamilton, the course of the river has been altered to create an artificial loch within Strathclyde Park. Part of the original course can still be seen: It lies between the island and the eastern shore of the loch. The river then flows through Blantyre and Bothwell, where the ruined Bothwell Castle stands on a defensible promontory.


title: River Clyde

text: As it flows past Uddingston and into the southeastern part of Glasgow, the river begins to widen, meandering through Cambuslang, Rutherglen, and Dalmarnock, and past Glasgow Green. From the Tidal Weir westwards, the river is tidal: a mix of fresh and salt water.


title: River Clyde

text: The river has been artificially straightened and widened where it passes through the city centre. Although the new Clyde Arc now hinders access to the historic Broomielaw dockland area, seagoing ships can still come upriver by following the dredged channel as far as Finnieston, where the PS "Waverley" docks. From there, the river flows past the shipbuilding heartlands, through Govan, Partick, Whiteinch, Scotstoun, and Clydebank, all of which historically housed several major shipyards, of which only two remain today.


title: River Clyde

text: The river then flows west, out of Glasgow, past Renfrew, under the Erskine Bridge, and past Dumbarton on the northern shore and the sandbank at Ardmore Point between Cardross and Helensburgh. Opposite, on the southern shore, is the last remaining Lower Clyde shipyard, at Port Glasgow. The river continues on to Greenock, where it reaches the Tail of the Bank as the river merges into the Firth of Clyde. Here at the mouth of the Clyde, there is currently a significant ecological problem of oxygen depletion in the water column.


title: River Clyde

text: The strath of the Clyde was the focus for the G-BASE project executed by the British Geological Survey in the summer of 2010.


title: River Clyde

text: The economic prosperity that the Clyde made possible at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution was due to the location of Glasgow, as a port facing the Americas. Tobacco and cotton trade began to drive this economic engine in the early 18th century. However, an obstacle to further economic growth soon became evident: the Clyde was too shallow for the largest ocean-going ships to navigate into it, so cargo had to be transferred, at Greenock or Port Glasgow, to smaller ships that could sail upstream into Glasgow itself.


title: River Clyde

text: In 1768, John Golborne advised that the river should be made narrower and the scour increased by constructing rubble jetties and dredging sandbanks and shoals. Another obstacle to navigation that had to be solved was that the river divided into two shallow channels by the Dumbuck shoal near Dumbarton. After James Watt's 1769 report describing this problem, a jetty was constructed at Longhaugh Point to block off the southern channel. This turned out to be insufficient to solve the problem, so in 1773, a training wall called the Lang Dyke was built on the Dumbuck shoal to stop water flowing over into the southern channel of the river.


title: River Clyde

text: In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, hundreds of jetties were built out from the banks of the river between Dumbuck and the Broomielaw quay in Glasgow proper. In some cases, this construction had the effect of deepening the river, because the increased flow of the newly constrained water wore away the river bottom. In other cases, dredging was required to deepen the river.


title: River Clyde

text: In the mid-19th century, engineers took on the task of a dredging of the Clyde much more extensively. They removed millions of cubic feet of silt to deepen and widen the channel. The major stumbling block encountered by that project was a massive geological intrusion known as Elderslie Rock. Because that rock increased the project's difficulty, the work was not completed until the 1880s. Around this time, the Clyde became an important source of inspiration for artists, such as John Atkinson Grimshaw and James Kay, who were interested in painting scenes that depicted the new industrial era and the modern world.


title: River Clyde

text: The completion of the dredging was well-timed, because the channel finally became navigable all the way from Greenock to Glasgow just when the steelwork industry had begun to grow in the city. Shipbuilding replaced trade as the major activity on the river, and shipbuilding companies started rapidly establishing themselves there. The Clyde soon gained a reputation for being the best location for shipbuilding in the British Empire, and grew to become the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centre. The term "Clydebuilt" became an industry symbol of high quality, and the river's shipyards were given contracts to build prestigious ocean-going liners, as well as warships. The "Queen Mary" and, in later years, the "Queen Elizabeth 2" were built in the town of Clydebank.


title: River Clyde

text: Between 1712, when the Scott family's shipyard was built at Greenock, and the present day, over 25,000 ships have been built on the River Clyde, its firth, and its tributaries, the River Kelvin and the River Cart, by many boatyards, including those at Maryhill and Kirkintilloch on the Forth & Clyde Canal, and Blackhill on the Monkland Canal. Over the same time period, it is estimated that more than 300 firms have engaged in shipbuilding on Clydeside, although probably at most 30 to 40 firms were operating at any given time.


title: River Clyde

text: The shipbuilding firms became household names on Clydeside, and even around the world to some extent. These included, among many others, John Brown & Company of Clydebank, Denny of Dumbarton, Scott of Greenock, Lithgows of Port Glasgow, Simon and Lobnitz of Renfrew, Alexander Robertson & Sons of Linthouse, Fairfield of Govan, Inglis of Pointhouse, Barclay Curle of Whiteinch, Connell and Yarrow of Scotstoun. Almost as famous were the engineering firms that supplied the machinery needed to drive these vessels, including the boilers, pumps, and steering gear, including Rankin & Blackmore, Hastie's and Kincaid's of Greenock, Rowan's of Finnieston, Weir's of Cathcart, Howden's of Tradeston, and Babcock & Wilcox of Renfrew.


title: River Clyde

text: One shipyard that was known as a 'Clyde' shipyard was not actually located on any of the Clyde's waterways: Alley & MacLellan's Sentinel Works in Jessie Street at Polmadie is around half a mile distant from the Clyde. It is said to have constructed over 500 vessels, many of which were assembled and then 'knocked down' to kit form for despatch to a remote location, such as "Chauncy Maples". Clyde shipbuilding reached its peak in the years just before World War I: It is estimated that, in the year 1913 alone, over 370 ships were completed.


title: River Clyde

text: The first recorded Clyde racing yacht, a 46-ton cutter, was built by Scotts of Greenock in 1803. The pre-eminent Scottish yacht designer William Fyfe did not start designing yachts until 1807. The first yacht club on the Clyde was the Northern Yacht Club, which was established in 1824 and received its Royal Charter in 1831. The club was founded to organise and encourage the sport of yacht racing. By 1825, Scottish and Irish clubs were racing against each other on the Clyde. By the mid-19th century, yachting and yacht building had become widely popular.


title: River Clyde

text: The Clyde became famous worldwide for its significant contribution to yachting and yachtbuilding, and was the home of many notable designers: William Fife III, Alfred Mylne, G. L. Watson, E. McGruer, and David Boyd. It was also home to many famous yacht yards.


title: River Clyde

text: Robertson's Yard started repairing boats in a small workshop at Sandbank in 1876, and went on to become one of the foremost wooden boat builders on the Clyde. The 'golden years' of Robertson's yard were in the early 20th century, when they started building classic racing yachts. More than 55 boats were built by Robertson's in preparation for World War I, and the yard remained busy even during the Great Depression in the 1930s, as many wealthy businessmen developed a passion for yacht racing on the Clyde. During World War II, the yard was devoted to Admiralty work, producing large, high-speed Fairmile Marine motor boats (motor torpedo boats and motor gun boats). After the war, the yard built the successful one-class Loch Longs and two challengers for the America's Cup, designed by David Boyd: "Sceptre" (1958) and "Sovereign" (1964). Because of difficult business conditions in 1965, the yard turned to doing GRP production work (mainly building Pipers and Etchells), and it closed in 1980. During its 104-year history, Robertson's Yard built 500 boats, many of which are still sailing today.


title: River Clyde

text: Two other notable boatyards on the Clyde were Silvers, which operated from 1910 to 1970, and McGruers, which operated from 1910 to 1973. They were situated on the Rosneath peninsula on the banks of the Gare Loch, within half a mile of each other. McGruers built over 700 boats. Both yards built many widely-known and classic yachts, some of which are still sailing today.


title: River Clyde

text: The Glasgow Humane Society is responsible for the safety and preservation of life on Glasgow's waterways. Founded in 1790, it is the oldest lifesaving organisation in the world.


title: River Clyde

text: During and immediately after World War II, the Clyde's importance as a major industrial centre rapidly declined. During the war, the Luftwaffe singled out Clydebank for bombing, and its buildings sustained heavy damage. In the immediate postwar period, the sharp reduction in warship orders was initially balanced by a prolonged boom in merchant shipbuilding. But by the end of the 1950s, other countries had begun to establish well-capitalised and highly productive shipbuilding centres that were able to outcompete many of the European shipbuilding yards. Several Clydeside yards booked a series of loss-making contracts in the hope of weathering the storm, but their unprofitable circumstances continued for too long, and by the mid-1960s they faced potential collapse. Harland and Wolff's Linthouse yard went under, and Fairfields of Govan faced bankruptcy. The government tried to limit the decline by creating the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders consortium, but the consortium became mired in controversy and collapsed in 1971. After that, James Callaghan's Labour government implemented the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, which nationalised most of the Clyde's shipyards and grouped them with other major British shipyards, such as the firm British Shipbuilders.


title: River Clyde

text: Today, two major shipyards on the Upper Clyde remain in operation. They are both owned by a naval defence contractor, BAE Systems Surface Ships, which specialises in the design and construction of technologically advanced warships for the Royal Navy and other navies around the world. The two yards are the former Yarrow yard at Scotstoun, and Fairfields at Govan. In addition, the King George V Dock is operated by the Clyde Port Authority. Ferguson Shipbuilders, at Port Glasgow on the Lower Clyde, is now owned by the Scottish government. It is the last survivor of the many shipyards that once dominated Port Glasgow and Greenock. Its core business is now the construction of car ferries.


title: River Clyde

text: , the Clyde Waterfront Regeneration project was expected to attract investment of up to £5.6bn in the area from Glasgow Green to Dumbarton. Market gardens and garden centres have sprung up on the fertile plains of the Clyde Valley. Tourism has also brought many people back to the riverside, especially in Glasgow, where former docklands have given way to housing and amenities on the banks in the city. Examples include the Glasgow Harbour project, the Glasgow Science Centre, and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. The commercial Port of Glasgow has been moved downriver to take advantage of the deeper waters of the Firth of Clyde. And the river, which used to be plagued by pollution and sewage, has been extensively cleaned up to make it suitable for recreational use.


title: River Clyde

text: The Clyde Walkway, completed in 2005, is a foot- and mountain-bike path that follows the course of the Clyde between Glasgow and New Lanark. Scottish Natural Heritage has designated it one of Scotland's Great Trails.


title: River Clyde

text: The British Geological Survey has identified and evaluated organic chemical pollutants in the sediment of the Clyde estuary.<ref name="Chemical Signatures of the Anthropocene in the Clyde Estuary, UK: Sediment hosted Pb, 207/206Pb, Polyaromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) and Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Pollution Records."></ref> Surface sediments from the Glasgow reaches of the Clyde and Cuningar to Milton, were previously found to contain polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) from 630 µg/kg to 23,711 µg/kg and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in the range of 5 to 130.5 µg/kg, which puts these sediments in the range classified as "non-toxic." However, a later study showed PCB concentrations as high as 5,797 µg/kg, which is above published threshold levels for such chlorinated compounds. A comparison between individual PAH compounds that have different thermal stabilities shows that the source of PAH pollution in the Clyde is different in different parts of the river. PAH in the inner Clyde (Cuningar to Milton) are from combustion sources (vehicle exhaust, coal burning), whereas PAH in the outer Clyde are from petroleum spills.


title: River Clyde

text: The amount and type of sedimentary pollution in the Clyde reflects the area's industrial history. In order to assess how the nature of the pollutants has changed over time, from 1750 to 2002, seven sediment cores of one metre's depth were collected, and dated using lead concentrations and changing lead isotope ratios. The sediments showed a long but declining history of coal usage and, beginning around the 1950s, an increasing reliance on petroleum fuels. The decline of hydrocarbon pollution was followed by the appearance of PCB concentrations in the 1950s. Total PCB concentration levels peaked in the period 1965 to 1977, and declined beginning in the 1990s. The Polmadie Burn, which flows into the Clyde at Richmond Park, remains heavily contaminated by hexavalent chromium, to the extent it turned bright green in 2019, and yellow in April 2021.


title: River Clyde

text: Although pollution from heavy industry and power generation has been decreasing, there is evidence that man-made pollution from new synthetic compounds in electrical products and textiles has been increasing. The amounts of 16 polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) compounds used as flame retardants in televisions, computers, and furniture upholstery were measured in sediment cores collected from six sites between Princes Dock and Greenock. Comparison of the amounts of PBDE compounds revealed a decline in certain compounds, in line with the European ban on production of mixtures containing environmentally harmful PBDE with eight and nine bromine atoms. At the same time, there was an increase in the amounts of the less harmful mixture, composed of ten bromine atoms.


title: River Clyde

text: The Clyde plays an important role in the "Para Handy" novels of Neil Munro, and subsequent adaptations. It also features in novels by Alasdair Gray, Matthew Fitt, and Robin Jenkins. It is mentioned in the "Ossian" poetry of James Macpherson, as well as the works of John Wilson, William McGonagall, Edwin Morgan, Norman McCaig, Douglas Dunn and W.S. Graham. It also features in the work of many visual artists, including William McTaggart, J.M.W. Turner, Robert Salmon, and George Wyllie.


title: River Clyde

text: The Clyde appears prominently in the films "Young Adam", "Sweet Sixteen", "Just a Boys' Game", and "Down Where the Buffalo Go", and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning film documentary "Seawards the Great Ships". It is referenced in the traditional folk songs "Clyde's Water" and "Black Is the Color (of My True Love's Hair)", as well as "Song of the Clyde", which was popularised by Kenneth McKellar.


title: River Clyde

text: The River Clyde, or more accurately the Clyde Estuary, has significant potential as a heat source. The flow rate downstream alone is around 50 m/s. Reducing this temperature by 3 °C would enable river heat pumps to extract 188.1 MW of heat. Since river heat pumps typically have an efficiency of 3.0, the heat deliverable is 1.5 times the river component. As a result, the estuary could deliver 282 MW of heat. The temperature of industrial heat pump delivery is typically 80 °C.


title: River Clyde

text: In 2020, West Dunbartonshire Council deployed a river source heat pump scheme in the area called Queens Quay. It is the first large heat pump scheme in Britain to deliver at 80 °C. The heat pumps were supplied by Star Refrigeration Ltd, who manufactured them in their Glasgow factory. The project was delivered by Vital Energi.


title: American manual alphabet

text: The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language.


title: American manual alphabet

text: The letters and digits are signed as follows. In informal contexts, the handshapes are not made as distinctly as they are in formal contexts.


title: American manual alphabet

text: The manual alphabet can be used on either hand, normally the signer's dominant hand – that is, the right hand for right-handers, the left hand for left-handers. Most frequently, the manual alphabet is signed just below the dominant shoulder of the signer. When used within other signs or in a context in which this is not plausible, this general rule can be disregarded.


title: American manual alphabet

text: J and Z involve motion. J is I with a twist of the wrist, so that the little finger traces the curve of the printed form of the letter; Z is an index finger moved back and forth, so that the finger traces the zig-zag shape of the letter Z. Both of these "tracings" are made as seen by the signer if right-handed, as shown by the illustrations in this article. When signed with the left hand, the motions are in mirror image, therefore unreversed for the viewer. However, fluent signers do not need to "read" the shapes of these movements.


title: American manual alphabet

text: In most drawings or illustrations of the American Manual Alphabet, some of the letters are depicted from the side to better illustrate the desired hand shape. For example, the letters "G" and "H" are frequently shown from the side to illustrate the position of the fingers. However, they are signed with the hand in an ergonomically neutral position, palm facing to the side and fingers pointing forward.


title: American manual alphabet

text: Several letters have the same hand shape, and are distinguished by orientation. These are "h" and "u", "k" and "p" (thumb on the middle finger), "g" and "q" and, in informal contexts, "d" and "g/q". In rapid signing, "n" is distinguished from "h/u" by orientation. The letters "a" and "s" have the same orientation, and are very similar in form. The thumb is on the side of the fist in the letter "a", and in front for "s". When used within fingerspelled English words, letters of the manual alphabet may be oriented differently than if they were to stand alone.


title: American manual alphabet

text: When fingerspelling, the hand is at shoulder height; it does not bounce with each letter. A double letter within a word is signed in different ways, through a bounce of your hand, a slide of your hand, or repeating the sign of a letter. Letters are signed at a constant speed; a pause functions as a word divider. The first letter may be held for the length of a letter extra as a cue that the signer is about to start fingerspelling.


title: American manual alphabet

text: Fingerspelling is primarily used for borrowing words from English. It is typically only used in a specific set of circumstances. The following are words that might need to be fingerspelled: proper names, brand names, place names, and all other words that do not have a conventional sign. In other instances, use fingerspelling sparingly.


title: American manual alphabet

text: Like other languages, American Sign Language is constantly evolving. While changes in fingerspelling are less likely, slight changes still occur over time. The manual alphabet looks differently today than it did merely decades ago. A prime example of this pattern of change is found in the "screaming 'E'". Older generations of deaf individuals still insist that the "E" handshape requires that the thumb make contact with the tips of the index and middle fingers. Meanwhile, younger generations are beginning to produce a handshape that separates the thumb from the other fingers on the lower end of the palm.


title: American manual alphabet

text: Since fingerspelling was originally developed in order to incorporate the English language into sign language, it is very closely linked to English. Studies have shown that deaf individuals process reading and fingerspelling similarly. As a result, fingerspelling has had a profound impact on the literacy of deaf and hard of hearing children. This conclusion is widely accepted, but the debate lies in which methods of teaching best utilize this relationship.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: Scarecrow is a 1973 American road movie directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. The story involves the relationship between two men who travel from California seeking to start a business in Pittsburgh.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: At the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, the film tied for the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, the highest honor. While it fared poorly commercially, "Scarecrow" later gained cult status.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: Two vagabonds, Max Millan, a short-tempered ex-convict, and Francis Lionel "Lion" Delbuchi, a childlike former sailor, meet on the road in California and agree to become partners in a car-wash business once they reach Pittsburgh. Lion is traveling to Detroit to see a child whom he has never met and make amends with his wife Annie, to whom he has sent all of the money that he had earned while at sea. Max agrees to take a detour on his way to Pittsburgh, where the bank to which Max has been sending all his seed money is located.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: While visiting Max's sister in Denver, the pair's antics land them in a prison farm for a month. Max blames Lion for their incarceration and shuns him. Lion is befriended by a powerful inmate named Riley, who later tries to sexually assault Lion and physically savages and emotionally traumatizes him. Max rekindles his friendship with Lion and becomes his protector, eventually exacting revenge by fighting Riley.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: After their release, Max and Lion continue to have a profound effect on each other, although they have both undergone personal transformations and their roles have shifted. Lion is still traumatized and no longer carefree or able to smile, and Max loosens his high-strung aggression, performing a mock striptease to defuse a fight at a bar and make Lion laugh again.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: When Max and Lion finally arrive in Detroit, Lion finds a payphone and calls Annie, now remarried and raising their five-year-old son. Annie is still furious with Lion for having abandoned her, and lies that she miscarried their son. Lion is devastated but feigns joy with Max about having a son. Shortly afterward, Lion experiences a breakdown while playing with children in a city park and later becomes catatonic. Max promises Lion, now in a psychiatric hospital, that he will do anything to help him, and boards a train to Pittsburgh with a round-trip ticket.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: Warner Bros. approved the project, looking for a small-budget film after executives became less confident in the success of larger projects. Director Jerry Schatzberg's preference for the roles of Max and Lion were Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, as Schatzberg had worked with Pacino on "The Panic in Needle Park" (1971).


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: To understand their characters, Pacino and Hackman donned costumes and posed as beggars in San Francisco. However, Pacino, an advocate of method acting, found his techniques conflicted with those of Hackman, who would be silent before shooting while Pacino paced. Although Hackman enjoyed the production, Pacino later commented, "It wasn't the easiest working with Hackman, who I love as an actor."


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: At the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, the film won the interim equivalent of the Palme d'Or, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, shared with "The Hireling," directed by Alan Bridges. It also won Best Non-European Film at Denmark's 1974 Bodil Awards. In the U.S., "Scarecrow" proved to be a box-office bomb.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars, comparing the story to those of "Of Mice and Men" and "Midnight Cowboy", and positively reviewed the performances of Pacino and Hackman, the writing and setting. In "The New York Times", Vincent Canby called Max and Lion "classic drifters" and "marvelously realized characters."


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: In a review of "Scarecrow" upon its 2013 rerelease, Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" described the film as "a freewheeling masterpiece," describing Hackman and Pacino as giving "the performances of their lives." Peter Biskind has described the film as of "secondary" significance in his book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls".


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: By 2012, "Scarecrow" was among the best-reviewed films in Schatzberg's career. After gaining a cult following, Schatzberg recruited Seth Cohen to write a sequel, and a screenplay was completed by 2013. The sequel would be set years after "Scarecrow", with Max and computer worker Lion reuniting, and Lion learning that his son is alive. The sequel project was complicated by the studio's lack of support and Hackman's retirement from acting.


title: Scarecrow (1973 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 76% from 33 reviews with the consensus: "If its dramatic dressings are a tad threadbare, "Scarecrow" survives on the strength of its lead performances and Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography."


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws (Torah). Since the 16th century, it has generally been treated as a separate book within the Bible. Before that date, it had been included in the Book of Ezra; but in Latin Christian Bibles from the 13th century onwards, the Vulgate Book of Ezra was divided into two texts, called respectively the First and Second books of Ezra; a separation which became canonised with the first printed bibles in Hebrew and Latin. Mid 16th century Reformed Protestant Bible translations produced in Geneva were the first to introduce the name 'Book of Nehemiah' for the text formerly called the 'Second Book of Ezra'.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The events take place in the second half of the 5th century BC. Listed together with the Book of Ezra as Ezra–Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The original core of the book, the first-person memoir, may have been combined with the core of the Book of Ezra around 400 BC. Further editing probably continued into the Hellenistic era.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king in Susa, is informed that Jerusalem is without walls, and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor of Judah and he travels to Jerusalem. There he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israel's enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with the law of Moses. After 12 years in Jerusalem, he returns to Susa but subsequently revisits Jerusalem. He finds that the Israelites have been backsliding and taking non-Jewish wives, and he stays in Jerusalem to enforce the Law.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The book is set in the 5th century BC. Judah is one of several provinces within a larger satrapy (a large administrative unit) within the Achaemenid Empire. The capital of the empire is at Susa. Nehemiah is a cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes I of Persia – an important official position.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: At his own request Nehemiah is sent to Jerusalem as governor of Yehud, the official Persian name for Judah. Jerusalem had been conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and Nehemiah finds it still in ruins. His task is to rebuild the walls and to re-populate the city. He faces opposition from three powerful neighbours, the Samaritans, the Ammonites, and the Arabs, as well as the city of Ashdod, but manages to rebuild the walls. He then purifies the Jewish community by enforcing its segregation from its neighbours and enforces the laws of Moses.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The single Hebrew book Ezra–Nehemiah, with title "Ezra", was translated into Greek around the middle of the 2nd century BC. Slightly later a second, and very different Greek translation was made, in the form of 1 Esdras, from which the deeds of Nehemiah are entirely absent, those sections either being omitted or re-attributed to Ezra instead; and initially early Christians reckoned this later translation as their biblical 'Book of Ezra', as had the 1st century Jewish writer Josephus. From the third century the Christian Old Testament in Greek supplemented the text of 1 Esdras with the older translation of Ezra-Nehemiah, naming the two books Esdras A and Esdras B respectively; and this usage is noted by the 3rd century Christian scholar Origen, who remarked that the Hebrew 'book of Ezra' might then be considered a 'double' book. Jerome, writing in the early 5th century, noted that this duplication had since been adopted by Greek and Latin Christians. Jerome himself rejected the duplication in his Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin from the Hebrew; and consequently all early Vulgate manuscripts present Ezra-Nehemiah as a single book, as too does the 8th century commentary of Bede, and the 9th century bibles of Alcuin and Theodulf of Orleans. However, sporadically from the 9th century onwards, Latin bibles are found that separate the Ezra and Nehemiah sections of Ezra-Nehemiah as two distinct books, then called the first and second books of Ezra; and this becomes standard in the Paris Bibles of the 13th century. It was not until 1516/17, in the first printed Rabbinic Bible of Daniel Bomberg that the separation was introduced generally in Hebrew Bibles.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: In later medieval Christian commentary, this book is referred to as the 'second book of Ezra', and never as the 'Book of Nehemiah"; equally citations from this book are always introduced as "Ezra says..", and never as 'Nehemiah says..".


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The combined book Ezra–Nehemiah of the earliest Christian and Jewish period was known as Ezra and was probably attributed to Ezra himself; according to a rabbinic tradition, however, Nehemiah was the real author but was forbidden to claim authorship because of his bad habit of disparaging others.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The Nehemiah Memorial, chapters 1–7 and 11–13, may have circulated as an independent work before being combined with the Ezra material to form Ezra–Nehemiah. Determining the composition of the Memorial depends on the dates of Nehemiah's mission: It is commonly accepted that "Artaxerxes" was Artaxerxes I (there were two later kings of the same name), and that Nehemiah's first period in Jerusalem was therefore 445–433 BC; allowing for his return to Susa and second journey to Jerusalem, the end of the 5th century BC is therefore the earliest possible date for the Memorial. The Nehemiah Memorial is interrupted by chapters 8–10, which concern Ezra. These have sometimes been identified as another, separate work, the Ezra Memorial (EM), but other scholars believe the EM to be fictional and heavily altered by later editors. Both the Nehemiah and Ezra material are combined with numerous lists, Censuses and other material.


title: Book of Nehemiah

text: The first edition of the combined Ezra–Nehemiah may date from the early 4th century BC; further editing continued well into the following centuries.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: Fox Entertainment Group was an American entertainment company specialised in filmed entertainment owned by 21st Century Fox. Following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, the group's assets were folded into various Disney units. The film studios 20th Century Fox (now known as 20th Century Studios), Fox Searchlight Pictures (now known as Searchlight Pictures) and Blue Sky Studios were transferred to Walt Disney Studios, whilst Fox Star Studios (now known as Star Studios) transferred to Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: Its former owner, 21st Century Fox, was formerly known as News Corporation, which acquired all the stock of Fox Entertainment Group in 2005. In 2013, News Corporation was renamed 21st Century Fox and its publishing assets were spun off into the newly formed News Corp as part of a corporate re-organization.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: It was named after William Fox who created the original 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (alongside Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck).


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: Fox Entertainment Group formed in the 1980s after the purchase of the Metromedia-owned independent stations by the 20th Century Fox film studio, at the time jointly owned by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and Denver billionaire Marvin Davis. These stations would later become the foundation of the Fox television network (launched in October 1986), which would become the foundation of the company (named after the TV network) itself. Not long after the Metromedia deal was made, Murdoch purchased Davis's shares and News Corp assumed full control of the film studio, which was then placed within Fox Entertainment Group.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: In 1995, Saban entered into a joint venture with the Fox children's television network to form Fox Kids Worldwide, which was best known for the first ten "Power Rangers" series. In 1997 it was renamed Fox Family Worldwide. On July 23, 2001, it was announced that Fox Family Worldwide (now ABC Family Worldwide Inc.) would be sold to Disney from News Corporation and businessperson Haim Saban. On October 24, 2001, the sale was completed.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: On August 14, 1998, Fox launched an initial public offering as a publicly traded company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE,) while Fox Entertainment Group's address has been moved from Los Angeles to New York City. The company has traded on the NYSE since its launch under ticker symbol FOX until its acquisition in 2005 by News Corporation.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: In January 2005, shortly after News Corporation reincorporation in the United States, News Corp announced that it was buying out Fox. The maneuver delisted Fox from the New York Stock Exchange; Fox Entertainment Group traded on the NYSE under the ticker FOX.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: In 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corporation would be split into two publishing and media-oriented companies: a new News Corporation, and 21st Century Fox, which operated the Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Century Fox and other studios. Murdoch considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the 20th Century Fox's heritage as the group advances into the future.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: In January 2017, Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Century Fox formed FoxNext, which would handle video game developments, VR experiences and theme park businesses.


title: Fox Entertainment Group

text: After Disney completed the acquisition of the 21st Century Fox assets on March 20, 2019, Fox Entertainment Group assets became Disney properties and are now reorganized under other Disney units. The Fox Entertainment name would later be used by the Fox Corporation for its entertainment assets.


title: Manner of death

text: In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic. Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distinction is made between the cause of death, which is a specific disease or injury, versus manner of death, which is primarily a legal determination versus the mechanism of death (also called the mode of death) which does not explain why the person died or the underlying cause of death and can include cardiac arrest or exsanguination. Different categories are used in different jurisdictions, but manner of death determinations include everything from very broad categories like "natural" and "homicide" to specific manners like "traffic accident" or "gunshot wound". In some cases an autopsy is performed, either due to general legal requirements, because the medical cause of death is uncertain, upon the request of family members or guardians, or because the circumstances of death were suspicious.


title: Manner of death

text: International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes can be used to record manner and cause of death in a systematic way that makes it easy to compile statistics and more feasible to compare events across jurisdictions.


title: Manner of death

text: A death by natural causes results from an illness and its complications or an internal malfunction of the body not directly caused by external forces, other than infectious disease. For example, a person dying from complications from pneumonia, diarrheal disease or HIV/AIDS (infections), cancer, stroke or heart disease (internal body malfunctions), or sudden organ failure would most likely be listed as having died from natural causes. "Death by natural causes" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "dying of old age", which is considered problematic as a cause of death (as opposed to a specific age-related disease); there are also many non-age-related causes of "natural" death, for legal manner-of-death purposes. (See )


title: Manner of death

text: An unnatural death results from an external cause, typically including homicides, suicides, accidents, medical errors, alcohol intoxications and drug overdoses. Jurisdictions differ in how they categorize and report unnatural deaths, including level of detail and whether they are considered a single category with subcategories, or separate top-level categories. There is no international standard on whether or how to classify a death as natural vs. unnatural.


title: Manner of death

text: "Mechanism of death" is sometimes used to refer to the proximate cause of death, which might differ from the cause that is used to classify the manner of death. For example, the proximate cause or mechanism of death might be brain ischemia (lack of blood flow to the brain), caused by a malignant neoplasm (cancer), in turn caused by a dose of ionizing radiation administered by a person with intent to kill or injure, leading to certification of the manner of death as "homicide".


title: Manner of death

text: The manner of death can be recorded as "undetermined" if there is not enough evidence to reach a firm conclusion. For example, the discovery of a partial human skeleton indicates a death, but might not provide enough evidence to determine a cause.


title: Manner of death

text: In the United States, a manner of death is expressed as belonging to one classification of a group of six possible:


title: Manner of death

text: In some jurisdictions, some more detailed manners may be reported in numbers broken out from the main four or five. For example:


title: Manner of death

text: In the United Kingdom, when people die, either a doctor writes an acceptable natural cause of death medical certificate, or a coroner (procurator fiscal in Scotland) investigates the case. Coroners are independent judicial officers who investigate deaths reported to them, and subsequently whatever inquiries are necessary to discover the cause of death, this includes ordering a post-mortem examination, obtaining witness statements and medical records, or holding an inquest. In the unified legal jurisdiction of England and Wales, most deaths are certified by doctors without autopsy or coroner involvement. Almost all deaths certified by the coroner involve an autopsy but most do not involve a formal inquest.


title: Manner of death

text: In England and Wales, a specific list of choices for verdicts is not mandated, and "narrative verdicts" are allowed, which are not specifically classified. The verdicts aggregated by the Ministry of Justice are:


title: Manner of death

text: Some jurisdictions place deaths in absentia, such as deaths at sea and missing persons declared dead in a court of law, in the "Undetermined" category on the grounds that due to the fact-finder's lack of ability to examine the body, the examiner has no personal knowledge of the manner of (assumed) death; others classify such deaths in an additional category "Other," reserving "Undetermined" for deaths in which the fact-finder has access to the body, but the information provided by the body and examination of it is insufficient to provide sufficient grounds for a determination.


title: Manner of death

text: The Norwegian Medical Association classifies what other jurisdictions might call "undetermined" as "unnatural":


title: Manner of death

text: A death ruled as homicide or unlawful killing is typically referred to police or prosecutor or equivalent official for investigation and criminal charges if warranted. Deaths caused by capital punishment, though homicides, are generally assumed to be lawful and are not prosecuted. Most deaths due to war are not prosecuted, unless there is evidence of a war crime, in which case troops on foreign territory might be prosecuted by the military justice system, domestic law enforcement, or the International Criminal Court.


title: Manner of death

text: Some insurance contracts, such as life insurance policies, have special rules for certain manners of death. Suicide, for example, may invalidate claims under terms of such a contract.


title: FanMail

text: FanMail is the third studio album by American girl group TLC, released on February 23, 1999, by LaFace and Arista Records. The album title is a tribute to TLC's fans who sent them fan mail during their hiatus. "FanMail" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, selling 318,000 copies in its first week of release, and spent five weeks at number one.


title: FanMail

text: The album received eight nominations at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards, including one for Album of the Year, winning three. It has been certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and has sold 10 million copies worldwide. "FanMail" is TLC's second-best-selling album after their 1994 studio album "CrazySexyCool". To promote the album, TLC embarked on their first concert tour titled the FanMail Tour. It was the group's final album released in Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes' lifetime before she died on April 25, 2002, as she was killed in a car crash prior to the release of their fourth studio album "3D" (2002).


title: FanMail

text: After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 3, 1995, the group went on a recording hiatus. The suit was eventually settled on November 25, 1996. Preliminary work on their third studio album was delayed when friction arose between the group and their main producer Dallas Austin, who was at the time dating member Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, and helped to raise their son Tron. Austin wanted $4.2 million and creative control on the project, resulting in a stand-off between him and the group. TLC eventually entered recording studios in April 1998 to start work on their then-untitled third album with Austin, who returned with a handshake agreement. While he contributed the most to the album and served as the executive producer, they also collaborated with long-term producers Babyface and L.A. Reid, as well as with Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. "FanMail" was initially scheduled for release on November 10, 1998, but was delayed to the first quarter of 1999.


title: FanMail

text: Meanwhile, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes wrote and composed eight songs for the album, all of which Austin rejected, stating that they were "inferior" since she had never written a song before. Consequently, Lopes told MTV News in July 1998 that she decided to work on a solo album assisted by Erick Sermon, which was planned to be released before "FanMail", further causing tension among the group. During an interview with "Vibe" in 1999, Lopes publicly derided her involvement in TLC:I've graduated from this era. I cannot stand 100 percent behind this TLC project and the music that is supposed to represent me. This will be my last interview until I can speak freely about the truth and present myself on my solo project.


title: FanMail

text: During the recording of "FanMail", the group were offered many songs that would eventually be recorded by other artists such as 702's "Where My Girls At?" (1999), Whitney Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel" (1998), and Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" (1998). Thomas stated that the group considered recording each track but were worried that it did not represent them well. Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins reiterated Thomas' reasoning in an interview with MTV News, stating that "...Baby One More Time" was not good for them despite appreciating and respecting Spears' decision to record it.


title: FanMail

text: Watkins decided to begin writing poetry to deal with her emotions after being in and out of hospital due to sickle cell disease. She took her collection of poems to Austin, who helped her adapt one into the song "Unpretty", while another was adapted by Babyface into "Dear Lie". While writing and recording "I'm Good at Being Bad" in Minneapolis, Watkins had been inspired by grunge band Nirvana's loud and soft dynamic shifts in their discography, and wanted to create a song in a similar style for TLC. Jam encouraged her to hum the melody while he played the beat in the recording booth, which was unlike her usual process of listening to the beat and writing out the lyrics. She stated that the technique influenced her as a songwriter. She sought to have Lopes rap the pre-chorus herself, but Lopes insisted that Watkins' thicker voice should be used for the track. Watkins also contributed to writing two more songs for the album, co-writing "If They Knew" and "Shout" with Austin and Lopes. Two of the album's tracks, "Come on Down" and "I Miss You So Much", were originally written for Watkins to sing lead. However, she decided that Thomas would be more suited as the lead vocalist after attempting to record them. During the recording of the latter, Thomas was suffering from a sinus infection. She asked to re-record the song the next week despite it being near the album's deadline, but Babyface decided that the vocal take she had recorded would be suitable for the final version. "No Scrubs" was one of the final tracks recorded for the album. It was originally written by Kandi Burruss, Tameka Cottle, and Briggs for the former two artists to record together as part of the girl group Xscape. However, Austin persuaded Briggs to give the song to TLC as their first single for "FanMail", with Thomas singing the lead vocals. Austin further emphasized that it was a breakthrough for her, as he believed that she was more capable than being relegated to a secondary vocalist.


title: FanMail

text: "FanMail" took on a new, futuristic style, due to the rapid advancement in technology heading into the new millennium such as the Y2K bug and Napster. This was effectively portrayed in the album's most popular song "No Scrubs" along with the music video, which embraces a modern emphasis on female strength and independence. The album contains several tracks featuring vocals by the computer modulated voice Vic-E, a talking android which is reminiscent of the "tour guide" on A Tribe Called Quest's 1993 studio album, "Midnight Marauders". Initially, the android was created through the Macintosh's greeting voice as a replacement for Lopes, as she refused to work with the group. However, once she reconciled with them, she approved of the android and decided to include it on the album as a character.


title: FanMail

text: "FanMail" is an R&B and urban soul album, which includes tracks featuring funk, hip hop-inspired dance-pop, and ballads. Several producers were involved in the album's production, including Dallas Austin, Babyface, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis. Throughout 17 tracks, TLC brought up issues of sexuality, insecurities, self-reliance, and vulnerability with resistant messaging. It fused elements of "new jill swing" and sounds created from a Roland TR-808, to form a "cyber-R&B masterpiece". On the first track "FanMail", Austin used multiple samples from the internet and movies in order to create a "space sound" that "will sound like what the album cover looks like". The background noise consisting of typewriters and printers was incorporated to represent the fan letters and fan mail, while Austin added a sample from an interview with Lopes commenting "all these conflicting fan mail", and created a hook with it. The song consisted of a sneaking bassline, vocal stutters, and glitches similar to that of dial-up Internet. However, in contrast to the album's dominating technological sound, "Unpretty" is an alternative pop song that describes the insecurity caused by body-shaming. The song was inspired by a poem written by Watkins. "Communicate (Interlude)" establishes the connection between the thoughts and feelings of people nearby through technology. The lyrics from the song, "There's over a thousand ways/ To communicate in our world today/ And it's a shame/ That we don't connect" describe the lack of interaction between humans, which in turn has increased the rate of depression among adolescents. It combines the typing of a keyboard in the background with Left Eye's vocals, "will you communicate with me?".


title: FanMail

text: The "FanMail" cover featured a custom font design, and cover art with decode-able binary code which included images of the TLC members in metallic skin tones. The photographer, Dan Levy, shot the silver-painted group members without any digital alterations. Writing for "i-D", Annie Lord described the members on the cover as "three digitised, disembodied cyborgs from another dimension", and compared the binary code across their faces to "The Matrix". The CD insert folds out to form a large poster featuring a picture of the three TLC members and the names of thousands of people who sent them fan mail throughout their career. A limited edition of the album was released, which had an insert with a lenticular version of the cover placed in front of the original booklet in the jewel case.


title: FanMail

text: The album title is a tribute to TLC's fans after their five-year hiatus. It came from Lopes, who also coined the group's first two album titles "Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip" and "CrazySexyCool", and initially wanted to name the album "Fan2See". She stated to the group, "let's write and sing one big fan letter. Let's put fan names on everything – all the singles, the album cover, T-shirts, mugs. Just show our appreciation".


title: FanMail

text: "FanMail", "Silly Ho", "I'm Good at Being Bad", and "My Life" served as promotional singles for the album. Those songs charted on the US "Billboard" R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.


title: FanMail

text: "No Scrubs" was the official lead single and topped the US "Billboard" Hot 100 for four consecutive weeks, becoming TLC's biggest commercial success in years. It also ranked at number two on "Billboard"'s Year-End Hot 100 of 1999.


title: FanMail

text: Follow-up single "Unpretty" also topped the "Billboard" Hot 100, spending three weeks at number one and placing at number 20 on the Year-End Hot 100.


title: FanMail

text: Originally, "Shout" was planned to be a single in the United States, while "Dear Lie" would be a single internationally, but only the latter would end up being released as a single with an accompanying music video. It peaked at number 51 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: FanMail

text: TLC embarked on the FanMail Tour to promote the album. It was their first headlining tour, and their first tour in five years. As part of a sponsorship with MP3.com, the group released "I Need That", with proceeds sent to the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America. The song was described by the producer Rico Lumpkins as "more R&B than hip-hop". The stage and costumes were all designed by each TLC member. The FanMail Tour became the highest-grossing tour by a girl group, as it grossed over $72.8 million. It was the final tour with all three members together.


title: FanMail

text: Writing for "Muzik", Tony Farsides stated that "FanMail" was "a real grower" in comparison to other albums released during the time. "NME" writer Roger Morton compared the album's "cyber concept" to Prince's electronic funk discography and opined that TLC were not diminished by other girl groups such as Honeyz, All Saints, and the Spice Girls.


title: FanMail

text: Ann Powers of "Rolling Stone" opined that elements of "FanMail" were "fragmented" despite sounding more "sharper [and] aggressive" than "CrazySexyCool", but praised the TLC members for taking "brave" risks. Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that the group were attempting to imitate the production of "CrazySexyCool" although he noted the album's versatility. "Los Angeles Times" staff writer Marc Weingarten negatively stated that the vocals were "wispy [and] flat", and that all members were "severely limited singers". However, he commented that the album's production managed to overpower their vocals with "sinewy beats and startling arrangements".


title: FanMail

text: David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" criticized TLC's "startlingly faceless and homogeneous" vocals and opined that "FanMail" was an "endless parade of hooks" without the essence of R&B. He acknowledged that their vocals were typical of some R&B artists in the 1990s who "warble in the same half-asleep murmur" and lamented that the genre is "curiously dispassionate". Writing for "Spin", Joshua Clover stated that the album was "a burning, physical message that looks like a spectacle but reads like sexual politics" and criticized the producers for attempting to resemble Timbaland's production.


title: FanMail

text: In the United States, "FanMail" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts with 318,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming TLC's first number-one album on both charts. On June 21, 2000, it was certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album had sold 4.8 million copies in the United States as of June 2017; it had sold an additional 877,000 copies through the BMG Music Club as of February 2003. Internationally, the album reached the top 10 in New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of February 2019, "FanMail" has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 55 times since making its debut at the contest in Naples, missing only two contests since then ( and ). The contest final is broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One. Ireland has a record total of seven wins, and is the only country to have won three times consecutively.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland's seven wins were achieved by Dana with "All Kinds of Everything" (), Johnny Logan with "What's Another Year" () and "Hold Me Now" (), Linda Martin with "Why Me" (), Niamh Kavanagh with "In Your Eyes" (), Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan with "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" () and Eimear Quinn with "The Voice" (). Johnny Logan is the only performer to have won twice and also wrote the 1992 winning entry. Ireland, who also finished second with Sean Dunphy (), Linda Martin (), Liam Reilly () and Marc Roberts (), has a total of 18 top five results.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Since the introduction of the qualifying round in , Ireland has won the contest twice. Since the introduction of the semi-final round in , Ireland has failed to reach the final ten times, and has twice finished last in the final, in and . Ireland's only top 10 result in the last 15 contests (2007–22) is Jedward's eighth-place in .


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) is Ireland's representative broadcaster at the contest. The semi-finals are broadcast on RTÉ2, with the final on RTÉ One.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland has sent 50 entries to the Eurovision Song Contest; of these, seven have won and eighteen have finished in the top five, making Ireland the most successful country in the contest overall as of 2021. Since its debut in , the country has missed only two contests: the in Munich and the in Tallinn. A strike at RTÉ in 1983 meant that the station lacked the resources to send a participant, so RTÉ broadcast the contest with the BBC commentary feed. Ireland was relegated in 2002, but in keeping with EBU rules since they intended to return in 2003, RTÉ broadcast that year's event and a TV commentator was sent to the contest in Tallinn. Ireland have hosted the contest on seven occasions; all were held in the Irish capital Dublin except for the , which was staged in Millstreet, a town in north-west County Cork with a population of 1,500 people. All of Ireland's entries have been performed in English with the exception of the entry, "Ceol an Ghrá", which was sung in Irish.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Seán Dunphy finished second at the , behind Sandie Shaw, followed by Pat McGeegan finishing fourth in , before Dana gave Ireland its first victory in with "All Kinds of Everything". The country's next best result of the 1970s was in , when The Swarbriggs Plus Two finished third. This was followed by fifth-place finishes for both Colm C.T. Wilkinson () and Cathal Dunne ().


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Johnny Logan brought Ireland its second victory in with "What's Another Year". Girl Group Sheeba then finished fifth in . Logan went on to write the entry "Terminal 3", performed by Linda Martin, which finished second. In , Logan returned to the context as a performer, and became the first and (to date) only entrant to win the contest twice, achieving his second victory with the self-penned "Hold Me Now".


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland's most successful decade to date in the contest is the 1990s, beginning with Liam Reilly finishing joint second in . Ireland subsequently achieved an unequalled three consecutive victories in the contest: in , the 1984 runner-up Linda Martin returned to win with "Why Me?"penned once again by Johnny Logan, giving him a total of three victories as either a performer or writer; in , Niamh Kavanagh was victorious over the 's Sonia with "In Your Eyes"; and in , Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan won with "Rock 'n' Roll Kids". The streak was broken in when Hiberno-Nordic group Secret Garden, representing Norway, won with the almost entirely instrumental "Nocturn". The group does contain an Irish member, Naas-born Fionnuala Sherry. The decade would see yet another victory for Ireland in when Eimear Quinn won with "The Voice"; Marc Roberts would also finish second for Ireland in , which marked the end of Irish domination of the contest.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: In the 21st century, Ireland has fared less well, achieving considerably poorer results in comparison to the 1990s. The country's only top 10 placement of the 2000s came when Brian Kennedy finished tenth in . At the , Ireland's representatives were Irish folk group Dervish performing "They Can't Stop The Spring"; having automatically qualified for the final, the group finished last with five points (all from Albania), becoming the first Irish entrants to come last in a final. In , Dustin the Turkey failed to qualify for the final with his song "Irelande Douze Pointe"; the same fate befell Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy in .


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: In , Ireland's luck changed when "X Factor" finalists Jedward finished in eighth place with 119 points, thus making them Ireland's most successful entry in 10 years. Their song "Lipstick" topped the iTunes charts in Austria, Germany, Ireland and Sweden. Jedward represented Ireland again in with "Waterline", but after making it through to the final, they were awarded only 46 points, finishing in 19th place. In , Ireland came last in the final for the second time.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: In 2018, Ireland qualified for the final for the first time since 2013 with Ryan O'Shaughnessy and "Together", but in , Sarah McTernan finished last in the second semi-final with "22". Since her song received fewer points than the worst-scoring song of the first semi-final, it therefore came last overall, making it the worst placing for Ireland to date. Following the cancellation of the , Lesley Roy, who was due to compete with "Story of My Life", was re-selected to compete in with "Maps". She also finished last in the first semi-final, however did not come last overall. saw another non-qualification in Brooke with "That's Rich", finishing 15th out of 18 countries in the second semi-final.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Seven singers have represented Ireland more than once at the contest: Johnny Logan (, ), Linda Martin (, ), Niamh Kavanagh (, ), Tommy and Jimmy Swarbrigg (as "The Swarbriggs" in and part of "The Swarbriggs Plus Two" in ), Maxi (as a soloist in and as part of Sheeba in ) and Jedward in and .


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Eight people have written and composed more than one Irish entry: Brendan Graham (1976, 1985, 1994, 1996), Johnny Logan (1984, 1987, 1992), Tommy and Jimmy Swarbrigg (1975, 1977), Liam Reilly (1990, 1991), Joe Burkett (composer 1972, lyricist 1981), and Niall Mooney & Jonas Gladnikoff (2009, 2010).


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: In the years when the live orchestra was present in the contest, almost all of Ireland's Eurovision entries were conducted by Noel Kelehan. The exceptions were 1965 (Italian host conductor Gianni Ferrio), 1970 (Dutch host conductor Dolf van der Linden), from 1972 to 1975 (Colman Pearce), 1979 (Proinnsias Ó Duinn), 1994 (no conductor, although Kelehan conducted three other entries from Romania, Greece and Poland) and in 1997 (Frank McNamara was the musical director for the contest staged in Dublin, but the Irish entry was played with a backing track with no orchestra).


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland holds the record for the most victories: seven wins including three consecutive wins. The country has also achieved second place four times and third once.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland is one of the few countries to have achieved consecutive wins (along with Spain, Luxembourg and Israel) and the only country to win consecutively three times, and the nation won again in 1996, thereby accumulating four victories in five years.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland is the only country to host the contest consecutively and is one of eight countries never to turn down the chance to host the event.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Out of 55 appearances and 45 finals, Ireland has reached the top ten 31 times and the top five 18 times. As of 2022, Ireland has not reached the top five since 1997.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland holds the record for most points from one country in a year (alongside France) in the 'one point per juror' voting system, achieving nine votes out of a possible ten from Belgium (in ). France had achieved this same feat in .


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: During the first semi-final of the 2014 contest, it was revealed that the duo Jedward hold two Eurovision records: the highest hair (18.9 cm) and the biggest shoulder pads.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland was one of two countries to have two entries entered into "", with the entry "What's Another Year" and the "Hold Me Now". Co-host of the contest Ronan Keating appeared. Johnny Logan performed his single "When a Woman Loved a Man". Irish winners Eimear Quinn, Charlie McGettigan and Linda Martin performed as backing singers to most of the songs with Jakob Sveistrup who represented in 2005. Marty Whelan provided commentary of the contest for Ireland on RTÉ.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Ireland is the only country to have hosted multiple contests in succession; three in a row between 1993 and 1995. Six of the seven contests held in Ireland have been held in Dublin; three at the Point Theatre, two at the RDS Simmonscourt and one at the Gaiety Theatre. In addition, the 1993 contest was held in Millstreet, County Cork. Dublin holds the record for hosting the most contests of any Eurovision host city.


title: Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest

text: Over the years RTÉ commentary has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Larry Gogan, Jimmy Greeley, Gay Byrne, Ronan Collins, Pat Kenny and Mike Murphy. However Marty Whelan has provided the RTÉ Television commentary since 2000 although Whelan himself had previously commentated for the 1987 event. Ireland did not participate in the 1983 edition in Germany, nor did they send a commentator to Munich that year, but instead broadcast the BBC feed of the contest with Terry Wogan as commentator, who welcomed viewers in Ireland during his introduction. RTÉ Radio, however, did provide commentary by Brendan Balfe.


title: X video extension

text: The X video extension, often abbreviated as XVideo or Xv, is a video output mechanism for the X Window System. The protocol was designed by David Carver; the specification for version 2 of the protocol was written in July 1991. It is mainly used today to resize video content in the video controller hardware in order to enlarge a given video or to watch it in full screen mode. Without XVideo, X would have to do this scaling on the main CPU. That requires a considerable amount of processing power, which could slow down or degrade the video stream; video controllers are specifically designed for this kind of computation, so can do it much more cheaply. Similarly, the X video extension can have the video controller perform color space conversions, and change the contrast, brightness, and hue of a displayed video stream.


title: X video extension

text: Most modern video controllers provide the functions required for XVideo; this feature is known as "hardware scaling and YUV acceleration" or sometimes as "2D hardware acceleration". The XFree86 X display server has implemented XVideo since version 4.0.2. To check whether a given X display server supports XVideo, one can use the utility codice_1. To check whether the video controller provides the required functions and whether the X device driver implements XVideo for any of them, one can use the codice_2 program.


title: X video extension

text: Video playback programs that run under the X Window system, such as MPlayer, MythTV or xine, typically have an option to enable XVideo output. It is very advisable to switch on this option if the system GPU video-hardware and device drivers supports XVideo and more modern rendering systems such as OpenGL and VDPAU are unavailable – the speedup is very noticeable even on a fast CPU.


title: X video extension

text: While the protocol itself has features for reading and writing of video streams from and to video adapters, in practice today only the functions codice_3 and codice_4 are used: the client program repeatedly prepares images and passes them on to the graphics hardware to be scaled, converted and displayed.


title: X video extension

text: After video has been scaled and prepared for display on the video card, it must be displayed. There are a few possible ways to display accelerated video at this stage. Since full acceleration means that the video controller is responsible for scaling, converting, and drawing the video, the technique used depends entirely on what the video is being drawn onto.