Found.ie Blog: Posts Tagged "found"
Gardai put pictures of found items on Garda.ie
Saturday, November 13th, 2010
Website trumpets Garda auction
By Conall O Fátharta
Saturday, November 13, 2010
INDUSTRIAL saws, cameras, trumpets, flutes, laptops and golf clubs are just some of the lost and stolen items the gardaí are putting online as part of a new scheme.
The pilot project will allow members of the public to view online photographs of property in Garda possession that has yet to be claimed.
The initial roll-out of the scheme sees just a selection of items from Shankill, which covers Dundrum, Blackrock, Stepaside, Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey, Shankill, Kill O’Grange and Cabinteely Garda Stations; Store Street which covers Fitzgibbon Street, Mountjoy and Bridewell Garda Stations; Athlone and Terenure.
Included in the online gallery of lost and stolen items are some quirky finds.
As well as some 44 bicycles that are each individually photographed, there are car tyres, laptops, trumpets, flutes, a French Horn, an array of industrial saws, a cabinet of jewellery, a medical response kit, a wheelchair, a nail gun, a power washer, cameras and numerous laptops.
All of the items had been either lost or stolen. To date just two items have been claimed – a camera and a pink football jersey.
A statement released by the gardaí advised people who suspect that one or more item belongs to them to get in touch with the appropriate Garda station.
“If a member of the public sees an item they believe may be their property, they should make contact with the appropriate station, as listed in the photograph’s description, to arrange a viewing. If you have lost property or have had property stolen from you, and it is not listed in the photographs, please contact your local Garda station,” a statement read.
Gardaí also warned people to ensure they report all stolen property to the authorities and to make a note of their bike’s serial number and to keep it in a safe place.
Contact details for all of the Garda stations involved in the pilot scheme can be obtained at www.garda.ie.
This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, November 13, 2010
Diamond ring found in Croke Park at the 2008 Ireland-Argentina Rugby Match
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
Ad Lib – Padraic O Tuairisg, Arts Student, Inverin, Co GalwayThe sSory Behind The Personal Ads, Email adlib@tribune.ieWords: Claire Ryan Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/INPHO Ad placed at Donedeal.ie
‘One of the guys from my local rugby team offered me tickets for the Ireland vs Argentina match at Croke Park back in 2008. I said it to my dad and he was up for going to Dublin so we set off early on the Saturday morning of the match.
The tickets were pure chance and as it turned out we had excellent seats in the Cusack Stand. They were almost on the halfway line and about 15 rows from the pitch. The match was okay but not very eventful until Ireland got their first try and of course everyone went crazy. We were all standing up cheering and roaring “Go on, Ireland!”
It was while I was up on my feet celebrating the try that I felt this knock on the back of my ankle. I was like “What the hell was that?” I thought someone had thrown a coin at me or was messing when it hit the back of my ankle and went into my shoe. It felt like a two euro coin but when I picked it out of my shoe I discovered it was a ring. A pretty impressive ring, as it turned out. There were five diamonds in it. I thought to myself that somebody must be very pissed off that they lost this.
So I stood up again when everyone sat down and started waving and shouting “Did anyone lose a ring?” I kept shouting for a few minutes but no one claimed it. I asked the people beside me, behind me, in front of me but none of them had lost anything. In the end I gave up and sat down and put the ring in my wallet. I meant to drop it into lost and found on my way out but with the mass exodus after the match I totally forgot. We just wanted to get out of the crowds fairly rapid.
We didn’t stay in Dublin for the night. We headed out of the city and just stopped off in Athlone for food on our way back to Galway.
When I got home and took my wallet out I found the ring and realised I’d forgotten to drop it into the lost and found desk so I put it into my bedside locker that night for safekeeping and of course I forgot about it for ages and ages until I found it a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out my locker. I decided it was still worth putting up on the internet to try and find the owner.
Even though it’s a couple of years on I know that someone must be upset about losing it. I’ve had a couple of people contact me and claim the ring belongs to them but I don’t believe them. They couldn’t give me a full story and what they did tell me just didn’t add up. The ad has been up three weeks. I’ve also gotten a few offers from people to buy it but I explained that it’s not mine to sell and I’d much prefer to find the owner.
There’s no name engraved on the ring but it’s quite distinctive. It’s not your typical wedding band but my mum says it definitely is a wedding band. I think it could be a friendship ring or an engagement ring for a man but it’s definitely a man’s ring because it’s huge.
Ireland won the match in the end but I can’t remember the score. The person who lost the ring could have been out for a few pints after the match and may not have realised for a good while that the ring was gone.
If I don’t find an owner I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I don’t want to give it to the wrong person but eventually I’ll have to do something with it.”
October 24, 2010
Dentures, false limbs and a gravestone make way to Dublin lost and found
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Dentures, false limbs and a gravestone make way to Dublin lost and found 123A lost top hat is among the more novel items foundSeán Hyland sorts through bags in the lost property section of Dublin Bus in the city centreA selection of musical instruments parted from their owners.
A PROSTHETIC LEG, false teeth and a box of crickets are just some of the bizarre items that have been left behind on the capital’s public transport system. Other strange items that made their way to the lost and found departments include a glass eye, shark teeth, toupees, wheelchairs, crutches and white canes for the blind. Mobile phones are the most common item that passengers leave behind, according to a spokeswoman for Dublin Bus, who said about 40 mobiles ended up in the lost property department every week.
“Strangely, we also get quite a lot of dentures left behind,” she added. And while passengers have to pay a €2 levy for the return of lost property, it’s a small price to get one’s limb, teeth or pet back, says the spokeswoman. Joe Elliot, who has worked in the lost and found department of Dublin Bus on and off for the last 15 years, said the strangest item he ever came across was a live rabbit. “The owner never even claimed the rabbit, so one of the girls working here took it home.”
“Fifteen years ago, umbrellas were the most popular item left behind. We would get hundreds of them. Now it’s mobile phones.” Most items are kept for a month and then either scrapped or donated to charity. Mr Elliot said more valuable items such as jewellery are kept for a year and a day and then given to a charity shop. Money is also kept for a year and a day before being sent as a reward to the person who found it. A spokeswoman for Veolia transport said mobiles, wallets, gym bags and school bags were the most regular items left on the Luas. Hearing aids, dentures, baby buggies and wheelchairs were among the more unusual things left behind.
“We often get joke calls from kids asking have we found their grannies,” she said. One woman kept leaving handbags on the Luas. “She left a handbag behind every day for two weeks. In each bag she left her story, which was typed up, detailing personal information such as where she was living. We soon realised she was deliberately leaving the bags for someone to contact her.”
A memorial stone for a grave was the strangest thing left behind by a passenger at Dublin airport, said a spokeswoman for the Dublin Airport Authority. “The passenger most likely left it behind after they discovered how much the excess baggage charges were,” she added.
The Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1005/1224280400848.html
Found.ie in the Sunday Tribune Magazine – Sep 19 2010
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Words Claire Ryan Photograph Mark Condren Ad placed at www.found.ie & Evening Herald
My friend’s son was on his way home from football training and found a tortoise walking in the middle of the road in Lucan. As you can imagine, he was a bit surprised to spot a tortoise in Lucan. It’s not something you see every day, so he picked it up and took it home to keep it safe. Then he put up some ads in local shops but didn’t get any response and wasn’t sure what to with it because he didn’t know anything about caring for tortoises – plus he was going on holiday. In the end, his dad remembered that myself and Pauline had a tortoise that was quite old, so they asked us to mind the little one that had been found and we said yes. It was a grand little tortoise. It fitted in the palm of my hand and was very small in comparison to ours, which would probably weigh about 5lbs. Seeing them together was very funny – little and large.
Our tortoise, Jennifer Juniper as she’s called, is about 40 years old. She was given to a family member when he was 12 years old and she was two – he’s 50 now. He gave her to us about 11 years ago when he moved down the country and we’ve looked after her ever since.
Years ago, tortoises used to arrive in this country in crates and be sold for 10 shillings in town. The ones that didn’t die in transit died soon after they were sold because people didn’t know how to care for them and tortoises aren’t suited to our climate. That kind of importation is banned now and Jennifer Juniper was well-cared-for so she’s still going strong, although she did have anorexia a few years ago – something you wouldn’t dream of. We had to hand-feed her with a tube for the whole of the winter and keep her from hibernating until she had enough nutrients inside her to survive hibernation.
It wasn’t her lack of eating that had worried us – they actually eat very irregularly and can go anything from a few days to a few weeks between feeds. It was the fact that her eye was discharging pus and the vet didn’t know what was causing it. We ended up contacting Bairbre O’Malley, a reptile expert, who used to be on the BBC’s Animal Hospital with Rolf Harris and lives in Bray. She said that Jennifer Juniper was anorexic and showed us how to tube-feed her: we had to stand her up on her back legs and prise open her mouth, then insert the tube. It was very difficult to do and took two people but she survived and has recovered completely. People don’t realise when they take on unusual pets that they require a lot of extra care. Sometimes she burrows herself in the ground and we have to go searching for her – it’s a lot of work and if they get ill, it can cost a lot to find out what is wrong.
In terms of our little fostered tortoise, I put an ad in the Evening Herald and on www.found.ie and got a few genuine people offering to take it: like the young garda who had a tortoise already and the gentleman who’d lost a different tortoise. Then there was the one fool who made a few ridiculous calls to annoy me. I was kind of giving up on finding the real owners when I got a phone call from Lucan garda station and they gave me a number of a man who’d contacted the station about a lost tortoise –he turned out to be genuine. He had another one and was delighted to get the two of them back together, so it was all thanks to the guards in Lucan.
The tortoise had gotten out when a cousin was looking after his house and left the side gate open. Tortoises will wander off very easily. They move surprisingly quickly and in the wild, or in Lucan, as the case may be, they can roam for miles and miles.
http://www.tribune.ie/magazine/interviews/article/2010/sep/19/ad-lib-frank-lynch-retired-dublin-12/
Found items in Garda Stations
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
It’s amazing how much stuff is found and handed in to Garda stations. I’ve been in to a few Garda stations while researching Found.ie and there are boxes filled with mobile phones, jewellery, glasses, passports and tonnes of other personal and valuable stuff.
If you’ve lost something, check out all your local garda stations. People are basically good, and do hand stuff in.
And tell them about Found.ie
If all the Garda stations used Found.ie, more people would get their stuff back, and it would be great positive thing for the Gardai.
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