Competitive eater Randy Santel eats his way around Ireland

Randy Santel, competitive eater.

One of the world's foremost competitive eaters, Missouri-born Randy Santel, capped off a tour of Ireland and Europe by demolishing one of the country's largest fry-ups yesterday morning.

Tony's Bistro's largest breakfast offering was no match for the former college football star who finished the mammoth meal in a new record of just 47 minutes - beating by well over an hour the previous record of over two hours and ten minutes.

The feat topped off a month spent travelling around Europe in which the professional eater participated in a huge variety of food challenges, including all of Ireland's most notoriously large fry-ups.

A previous outing in Cavan has seen the food star finish  10 rashers, 10 burgers, 10 eggs, 5 white puddings, 5 hash browns, and 10 slices of toast.

The 27 year old drew coverage in the Irish Times for his unusual competitive techniques at a food challenge in Kildare, which saw him mashing french fries into a paste to aid the digestion process.

Other luminaries in the world of competitive eating sport their own idiosyncratic techniques: the Japanese-born Takeru Kobayashi is famous for his trademark wiggle, which he claims frees up space in the stomach to help him cram down more food.

Randy's European odyssey, the 'Atlas vs Europe' tour, is believed to be one of the first times the American-dominated 'sport' has come to European, and Irish, shores.

In addition to the successful Cork outing, Randy successfully finished mammoth quantities in of food in Athlone, Waterford, Dublin, and Campile, failing a challenge only once in Belgium, where two burgers got the better of him. The other twenty European fixtures were, without fail, successes.

American professional eating is noted for its relative professionalism, with a tiered ranking system, high profile contests, and increasing number of 'professional', full-time, eaters, but the sport has been less enthusiastically adopted in Europe.

Randy is one of the sport's poster boys: a frequent fixture on the Food Network's Man vs Food, he has won over 140 food challenges, and maintains the domineering figure of a professional athlete through a rigorous exercise regime, something which undoubtedly fuels the prodigious metabolism needed to match his astronomical calorie intake.

Despite the glamour and glitz of a life lived in the public eye, Randy gave a candid insight into the ups and occasional downs of his alternative lifestyle.

Commenting on his Facebook page, Randy told of how one challenge in Waterford had gone less well than planned:

"The restaurant apparently has a Facebook wall of fame but nobody even watched or took photos."

"Tonight was the first time I have had to take a selfir for the after-pic," the eater lamented.

Enda Kenny urges Britain to stay in EU at packed London School of Economics address

Kenny: urges Britain to stay in
European Union in key
London address

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny used a highly anticipated speech at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) yesterday afternoon to urge Britain to stay in the European Union (EU) and to set out Ireland's vision for the remainder of its presidency of the organization.

"We regard Britain's contribution to the EU as being of exceptional importance," the Prime Minister told the packed crowd.

"And I share Prime Minister Cameron's view that Britain should remain a part of the Union."

Kenny - who like most Irish political leaders wants Britain to remain in the European Union despite a promised referendum on the matter - said that the countries' shared history meant that membership of the Union was a matter of common interest for the two neighbours.

"We have traveled a great distance together with Britain, and are of like mind on so many issues that the Union faces."

The speech was delivered before a capacity audience at the school's central London venue and preceded the Taoiseach's visit to Downing Street as part of his one day State visit.

Kenny met Prime Minister David Cameron after the series of meetings, held to mark the beginning of St Patrick's week.

The Taoiseach had earlier spoken to the British Irish Chamber of Commerce.

He also used the address to reminisce fondly about Queen Elizabeth II's historical visit to Ireland in 2011, and reciprocated the Queen's famous use of the Irish language during the State banquet held in Dublin Castle.

"The start of St Patrick’s Week is a fitting time to reflect on those remarkable days, two years ago, when her Majesty Queen Elizabeth - to us  Banrian Eilis a Do - came to visit Ireland."

"With two words she brought healing across our too-divided history:  she addressed us as 'a chairde', friends. These are words that no English monarch had used before."

Kenny divulged for the first time that after the historical 2011 visit, the Queen had told him that of all her State visits, the Ireland trip was the one she had most wished to do.

Painting the historical context behind that momentous moment of reconciliation between the two peoples, Kenny described the Good Friday agreement - which largely brought about an end to the wrangling between the British and Irish governments over Northern Ireland - as "the bedrock upon which much progress has been made", adding that the two countries should "build further" to continue to strengthen their relationship.

However, despite offering a hopefully optimistic portrayal of Ireland's emergence from its economic slump, the PM admitted that unemployment remained a key problem, saying that Ireland's protracted levels of joblessness, alongside continuing high levels of youth emigration, risked causing mass hopelessness among its young generation.

Many of that young generation already find themselves overseas, and some of those had taken time off work, in central London, to be among the audience hearing the speech.

For them, Kenny's words on an Ireland emerging from an unemployment crisis must have rung somewhat hollow, but they were undoubtedly intended as an encouraging glimpse at a future not marred by a straining social support system and legions of young people reckoning among the long term out-of-work.

"Recently we have started to see improvements in the unemployment situation in Ireland," Kenny said.

"We have recorded a modest increase in private sector jobs."

The Prime Minister also re-iterated the government's plan to emerge from the bailout programme during 2013 and resume normalized bond issuance next year.

Concluding his remarks at the end of the twenty minute address, Kenny ended on what may prove to be a prescient prediction when results from the next General Election come in: "the people are always right".