title: Alfred Molina

text: In November 2019, director Jennifer Lee confirmed that she is in a relationship with Molina. They were married in August 2021.


title: Alfred Molina

text: For his portrayal of Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody in "Not Without My Daughter", Molina was once assaulted on his way to a rehearsal by a man who mistook him for Mahmoody.


title: Irish language

text: Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century. Irish is still spoken as a first language in a small number of areas of certain counties such as Cork, Donegal, Galway, and Kerry, as well as smaller areas of counties Mayo, Meath, and Waterford. It is also spoken by a larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second-language speakers. Daily users in Ireland outside the education system number around 73,000 (1.5%), and the total number of persons (aged 3 and over) who claimed they could speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, representing 39.8% of respondents.


title: Irish language

text: For most of recorded Irish history, Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people, who took it with them to other regions, such as Scotland and the Isle of Man, where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada, with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland, a unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century.


title: Irish language

text: With a writing system, Ogham, dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. On the island, the language has three major dialects: Munster, Connacht and Ulster. All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography. There is also a "standard written form" devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet, a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters, has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords).


title: Irish language

text: Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland, and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but the standard modern written form is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. The modern-day areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken daily as a first language are collectively known as the .


title: Irish language

text: In ("The Official [Written] Standard") the name of the language is , from the South Connacht form, spelled prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of , the form used in Classical Gaelic. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent in . Older spellings include in Classical Gaelic and in Old Irish. Goidelic, used to refer to the language family, is derived from the Old Irish term.


title: Irish language

text: Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: ' in South Connacht, '/' or ' in North Connacht and Ulster Irish, and ' or '/ in Munster Irish.


title: Irish language

text: In English (including Hiberno-English) the language is usually referred to as "Irish", as well as "Gaelic" and "Irish Gaelic". The term "Irish Gaelic" may be seen when English speakers discuss the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). "Gaelic" is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic.


title: Irish language

text: "Goidelic" is a synonym of Gaelic, used mainly in linguistic typology and historical linguistics. Goidelic and Brittonic together constitute the Insular Celtic languages.


title: Irish language

text: Written Irish is first attested in inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh, including ecclesiastical terms: examples are (bishop) from , and (Sunday, from ).


title: Irish language

text: By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle. From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man.


title: Irish language

text: Early Modern Irish, dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, as attested in the work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating, may be said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on.


title: Irish language

text: From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors:


title: Irish language

text: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By the mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, the prohibition of Irish in schools had the sanction of parents. Once it became apparent that emigration to the United States and Canada was likely for a large portion of the population, the importance of learning English became relevant. This allowed the new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. It has been estimated that, due to the emigration to the United States because of the Great Famine, anywhere from a quarter to a third of the immigrants were Irish speakers.


title: Irish language

text: Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them a cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards, the language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language.


title: Irish language

text: This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of the revival was the Gaelic League (), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature.


title: Irish language

text: Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in a religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman , commissioned by Bishop Bedell, was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival.


title: Irish language

text: It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by the end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Seán Ó hEinirí, of Cill Ghallagáin, County Mayo, who died 26 July 1998, was possibly the last monolingual Irish speaker.


title: Irish language

text: Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and debates are conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his inaugural "Declaration of Office" in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect.


title: Irish language

text: In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication.


title: Irish language

text: From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of the Republic of Ireland), a degree of proficiency in Irish was required of all those newly appointed to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, including postal workers, tax collectors, agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc. By law if a Garda was stopped and addressed in Irish he had to respond in Irish as well. Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement.


title: Irish language

text: Although the Irish requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called . The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English for entry to the Garda Síochána was introduced in September 2005, and recruits are given lessons in the language during their two years of training. The most important official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by , the Irish language ombudsman).


title: Irish language

text: The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE/GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students born outside of the Ireland, those who were born in the Republic but completed primary education outside it, and students diagnosed with dyslexia. NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of the vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). The university faced controversy, however, in 2016 when it was announced that the next president of the university would not have any Irish language ability, staged a number of protests against this decision. It was announced in September 2017 that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, a fluent Irish speaker, would be NUIG's 13th president.


title: Irish language

text: For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in mainstream (English-medium) schools to achieve competence in the language, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few speakers and some incredulity while speaking only Irish in Dublin. He was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary "No Béarla".


title: Irish language

text: There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction: such schools are known as at primary level. These Irish-medium schools send a much higher proportion of pupils on to third-level education than do "mainstream" schools, and it seems increasingly possible that, within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish will typically be members of an urban, middle class and highly educated minority.


title: Irish language

text: Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in the other official language, if not already passed in both official languages.


title: Irish language

text: In November 2016, it was reported that many people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project".


title: Irish language

text: There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language. These regions are known individually and collectively as the "Gaeltacht" (plural ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 2030,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it is only in "Gaeltacht" areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent.


title: Irish language

text: According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, "Gaeltacht", Sport and Media, only 1/4 of households in "Gaeltacht" areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". "The Irish Times", referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000."


title: Irish language

text: In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as "Gaeltacht". Today, the strongest "Gaeltacht" areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara, the west of the Dingle Peninsula, and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as the (true "Gaeltacht"), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish.


title: Irish language

text: There are larger "Gaeltacht" regions in County Galway (), including Connemara (), the Aran Islands (), Carraroe () and Spiddal (), on the west coast of County Donegal (), and on the Dingle () and Iveragh Peninsulas () in County Kerry ().


title: Irish language

text: Smaller ones also exist in counties Mayo (), Meath (), Waterford (), and Cork (). Gweedore (), County Donegal, is the largest "Gaeltacht" parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the "Gaeltacht" are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to "" and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.


title: Irish language

text: The Act was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the amount and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the "An Coimisinéir Teanga" (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in the Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions.


title: Irish language

text: The Official Languages Scheme was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the "Official Languages Act 2003". The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the "Department of the Taoiseach," it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build a better future for Ireland and all her citizens."


title: Irish language

text: The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including:


title: Irish language

text: The general goal for this strategy is to increase the amount of speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run.


title: Irish language

text: Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years the political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to Irish an official language alongside English, the bill is currently awaiting Royal assent.


title: Irish language

text: The Irish language has often been used as a bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as .


title: Irish language

text: Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages.


title: Irish language

text: While an official language of the European Union, only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on January 1, 2022, making Irish a fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history.


title: Irish language

text: Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish.


title: Irish language

text: The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora, chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.


title: Irish language

text: The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies. Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them.


title: Irish language

text: Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but manuscripts in the language were brought to both Australia and the United States, and it was in the United States that the first newspaper to make significant use of Irish was established: . In Australia, too, the language found its way into print. The Gaelic revival, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches of being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated.


title: Irish language

text: The decline of Irish in Ireland and a slowing of emigration helped to ensure a decline in the language abroad, along with natural attrition in the host countries. Despite this, small groups of enthusiasts continued to learn and cultivate Irish in diaspora countries and elsewhere, a trend which strengthened in the second half of the 20th century. Today the language is taught at tertiary level in North America, Australia and Europe, and Irish speakers outside Ireland contribute to journalism and literature in the language. There are significant Irish-speaking networks in the United States and Canada; figures released for the period 2006–2008 show that 22,279 Irish Americans claimed to speak Irish at home.


title: Irish language

text: The Irish language is also one of the languages of the Celtic League, a non-governmental organisation that promotes self-determination, Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, known collectively as the Celtic nations.


title: Irish language

text: Irish was spoken as a community language until the early 20th century on the island of Newfoundland, in a form known as Newfoundland Irish. Certain Irish vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features are still used in modern Newfoundland English.


title: Irish language

text: The 2016 census data shows:The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, a slight decrease (0.7 per cent) on the 2011 figure of 1,774,437. This represents 39.8 per cent of respondents compared with 41.4 in 2011... Of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas.


title: Irish language

text: In 1996, the 3 electoral divisions in the State where Irish has the most daily speakers were An Turloch (91%+), Scainimh (89%+), Min an Chladaigh (88%+).


title: Irish language

text: Irish is represented by several traditional dialects and by various varieties of "urban" Irish. The latter have acquired lives of their own and a growing number of native speakers. Differences between the dialects make themselves felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features.


title: Irish language

text: Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas which survive coincide roughly with the provinces of Munster (), Connacht () and Ulster (). Records of some dialects of Leinster ("") were made by the Irish Folklore Commission and others. Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, had a form of Irish derived from the Munster Irish of the later 18th century (see Newfoundland Irish).


title: Irish language

text: Munster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of the counties of Cork (), Kerry (), and Waterford (). The Gaeltacht areas of Cork can be found in Cape Clear Island () and Muskerry (); those of Kerry lie in and Iveragh Peninsula; and those of Waterford in Ring () and Old Parish (), both of which together form Gaeltacht na nDéise. Of the three counties, the Irish spoken in Cork and Kerry is quite similar while that of Waterford is more distinct.


title: Irish language

text: Historically, Connacht Irish represents the westernmost remnant of a dialect area which once stretched from east to west across the centre of Ireland. The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is to be found in Connemara and the Aran Islands. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway () and Mayo (). There are a number of differences between the popular South Connemara form of Irish, the Mid-Connacht/Joyce Country form (on the border between Mayo and Galway) and the Achill and Erris forms in the north of the province.


title: Irish language

text: Features in Connacht Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in , e.g. instead of , "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation of the area with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings gives it a distinct sound. Distinguishing features of Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of word-final broad as , rather than as in Munster. For example, ("mountain") is pronounced in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to in the south. In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster, e.g. is used for "we were" instead of .


title: Irish language

text: As in Munster Irish, some short vowels are lengthened and others diphthongised before , in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant. This can be seen in ' [cɑːn] "head", ' [kɑːm] "crooked", ' [gʲɑːr] "short", ' [] "sledgehammer", ' [gɑːl] "foreigner, non-Gael", ' [iːntəs] "a wonder, a marvel", etc. The form , when occurring at the end of words like ", tends to be pronounced as [iː].


title: Irish language

text: In South Connemara, for example, there is a tendency to substitute a "b" sound at the end of words ending in "" , such as ', ' and ', something not found in the rest of Connacht (these words would be pronounced respectively as "shiv," "liv" and "" in the other areas). This placing of the B-sound is also present at the end of words ending in vowels, such as ' (pronounced as "acub") and ' (pronounced as "lyohab"). There is also a tendency to omit the [g] sound in words such as ', ' and ', a characteristic also of other Connacht dialects. All these pronunciations are distinctively regional.


title: Irish language

text: The pronunciation prevalent in the Joyce Country (the area around Lough Corrib and Lough Mask) is quite similar to that of South Connemara, with a similar approach to the words ', ' and ' and a similar approach to pronunciation of vowels and consonants but there are noticeable differences in vocabulary, with certain words such as ' (difficult) and ' being preferred to the more usual ' and '. Another interesting aspect of this sub-dialect is that almost all vowels at the end of words tend to be pronounced as [iː]: ' (other), ' (feet) and ' (done) tend to be pronounced as ', ' and " respectively.


title: Irish language

text: The northern Mayo dialect of Erris () and Achill () is in grammar and morphology essentially a Connacht dialect but shows some similarities to Ulster Irish due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following the Plantation of Ulster. For example, words ending - have a much softer sound, with a tendency to terminate words such as ' and ' with , giving ' and ' respectively. In addition to a vocabulary typical of other area of Connacht, one also finds Ulster words like ' (meaning "to look"), ' (painful or sore), ' (close), ' (hear), ' (difficult), ' (new), and ' (to be able to – i.e. a form similar to ').


title: Irish language

text: Irish President Douglas Hyde was possibly one of the last speakers of the Roscommon dialect of Irish.


title: Irish language

text: Ulster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht regions of Donegal. These regions contain all of Ulster's communities where Irish has been spoken in an unbroken line back to when the language was the dominant language of Ireland. The Irish-speaking communities in other parts of Ulster are a result of language revival – English-speaking families deciding to learn Irish. Census data shows that 4,130 people speak it at home.


title: Irish language

text: Linguistically, the most important of the Ulster dialects today is that which is spoken, with slight differences, in both Gweedore ( = Inlet of Streaming Water) and The Rosses ().


title: Irish language

text: Ulster Irish sounds quite different from the other two main dialects. It shares several features with southern dialects of Scottish Gaelic and Manx, as well as having many characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to see present-day Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. Northern Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish.


title: Irish language

text: One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx is the use of the negative particle in place of the Munster and Connacht . Though southern Donegal Irish tends to use more than "cha(n)", "cha(n)" has almost ousted ' in northernmost dialects (e.g. Rosguill and Tory Island), though even in these areas "is not" is more common than ' or '. Another noticeable trait is the pronunciation of the first person singular verb ending ' as ', also common to Man and Scotland (Munster/Connacht ' "I walk", Ulster "").


title: Irish language

text: Down to the early 19th century and even later, Irish was spoken in all twelve counties of Leinster. The evidence furnished by placenames, literary sources and recorded speech indicates that there was no Leinster dialect as such. Instead, the main dialect used in the province was represented by a broad central belt stretching from west Connacht eastwards to the Liffey estuary and southwards to Wexford, though with many local variations. Two smaller dialects were represented by the Ulster speech of counties Meath and Louth, which extended as far south as the Boyne valley, and a Munster dialect found in Kilkenny and south Laois.


title: Irish language

text: The main dialect had characteristics which survive today only in the Irish of Connacht. It typically placed the stress on the first syllable of a word, and showed a preference (found in placenames) for the pronunciation where the standard spelling is . The word (hill) would therefore be pronounced . Examples are the placenames Crooksling () in County Dublin and Crukeen () in Carlow. East Leinster showed the same diphthongisation or vowel lengthening as in Munster and Connacht Irish in words like (hole), (monastery), (wood), (head), (crooked) and (crowd). A feature of the dialect was the pronunciation of , which generally became [eː] in east Leinster (as in Munster), and [iː] in the west (as in Connacht).


title: Irish language

text: Early evidence regarding colloquial Irish in east Leinster is found in "The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge" (1547), by the English physician and traveller Andrew Borde. The illustrative phrases he uses include the following (with regularised Irish spelling in brackets):


title: Irish language

text: The Pale () was an area around late medieval Dublin under the control of the English government. By the late 15th century it consisted of an area along the coast from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk, with an inland boundary encompassing Naas and Leixlip in the Earldom of Kildare and Trim and Kells in County Meath to the north. In this area of "Englyshe tunge" English had never actually been a dominant language – and was moreover a relatively late comer; the first colonisers were Normans who spoke Norman French, and before these Norse. The Irish language had always been the language of the bulk of the population. An English official remarked of the Pale in 1515 that "all the common people of the said half counties that obeyeth the King's laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit and of Irish language".


title: Irish language

text: With the strengthening of English cultural and political control, language change began to occur but this did not become clearly evident until the 18th century. Even then, in the decennial period 1771–81, the percentage of Irish speakers in Meath was at least 41%. By 1851 this had fallen to less than 3%.


title: Irish language

text: English expanded strongly in Leinster in the 18th century but Irish speakers were still numerous. In the decennial period 1771–81 certain counties had estimated percentages of Irish speakers as follows (though the estimates are likely to be too low):


title: Irish language

text: The language saw its most rapid initial decline in counties Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Wexford, and Wicklow. In recent years, County Wicklow has been noted as having the lowest percentage of Irish speakers of any county in Ireland, with only 0.14% of its population claiming to have passable knowledge of the language. The proportion of Irish-speaking children in Leinster went down as follows: 17% in the 1700s, 11% in the 1800s, 3% in the 1830s, and virtually none in the 1860s. The Irish census of 1851 showed that there were still a number of older speakers in County Dublin. Sound recordings were made between 1928 and 1931 of some of the last speakers in Omeath, County Louth (now available in digital form). The last known traditional native speaker in Omeath, and in Leinster as a whole, was Annie O'Hanlon (née Dobbin), who died in 1960. Her dialect was, in fact, a branch of the Irish of south-east Ulster.


title: Irish language

text: Irish was spoken as a community language in Irish towns and cities down to the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was widespread even in Dublin and the Pale. The English administrator William Gerard (1518–1581) commented as follows: "All Englishe, and the most part with delight, even in Dublin, speak Irishe," while the Old English historian Richard Stanihurst (1547–1618) lamented that "When their posteritie became not altogither so warie in keeping, as their ancestors were valiant in conquering, the Irish language was free dennized in the English Pale: this canker tooke such deep root, as the bodie that before was whole and sound, was by little and little festered, and in manner wholly putrified".


title: Irish language

text: The Irish of Dublin, situated as it was between the east Ulster dialect of Meath and Louth to the north and the Leinster-Connacht dialect further south, may have reflected the characteristics of both in phonology and grammar. In County Dublin itself the general rule was to place the stress on the initial vowel of words. With time it appears that the forms of the dative case took over the other case endings in the plural (a tendency found to a lesser extent in other dialects). In a letter written in Dublin in 1691 we find such examples as the following: ' (accusative case, the standard form being '), ' (accusative case, the standard form being ') and ' (genitive case, the standard form being ').


title: Irish language

text: English authorities of the Cromwellian period, aware that Irish was widely spoken in Dublin, arranged for its official use. In 1655 several local dignitaries were ordered to oversee a lecture in Irish to be given in Dublin. In March 1656 a converted Catholic priest, Séamas Corcy, was appointed to preach in Irish at Bride's parish every Sunday, and was also ordered to preach at Drogheda and Athy. In 1657 the English colonists in Dublin presented a petition to the Municipal Council complaining that in Dublin itself "there is Irish commonly and usually spoken".


title: Irish language

text: There is contemporary evidence of the use of Irish in other urban areas at the time. In 1657 it was found necessary to have an Oath of Abjuration (rejecting the authority of the Pope) read in Irish in Cork so that people could understand it.


title: Irish language

text: Irish was sufficiently strong in early 18th century Dublin to be the language of a coterie of poets and scribes led by Seán and Tadhg Ó Neachtain, both poets of note. Scribal activity in Irish persisted in Dublin right through the 18th century. An outstanding example was Muiris Ó Gormáin (Maurice Gorman), a prolific producer of manuscripts who advertised his services (in English) in "Faulkner's Dublin Journal". There were still an appreciable number of Irish speakers in County Dublin at the time of the 1851 census.


title: Irish language

text: In other urban centres the descendants of medieval Anglo-Norman settlers, the so-called Old English, were Irish-speaking or bilingual by the 16th century. The English administrator and traveller Fynes Moryson, writing in the last years of the 16th century, said that "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us". In Galway, a city dominated by Old English merchants and loyal to the Crown up to the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), the use of the Irish language had already provoked the passing of an Act of Henry VIII (1536), ordaining as follows:


title: Irish language

text: The demise of native cultural institutions in the seventeenth century saw the social prestige of Irish diminish, and the gradual Anglicisation of the middle classes followed. The census of 1851 showed, however, that the towns and cities of Munster still had significant Irish-speaking populations. Much earlier, in 1819, James McQuige, a veteran Methodist lay preacher in Irish, wrote: "In some of the largest southern towns, Cork, Kinsale and even the Protestant town of Bandon, provisions are sold in the markets, and cried in the streets, in Irish". Irish speakers constituted over 40% of the population of Cork even in 1851.


title: Irish language

text: The late 18th and 19th centuries saw a reduction in the number of Dublin's Irish speakers, in keeping with the trend elsewhere. This continued until the end of the 19th century, when the Gaelic revival saw the creation of a strong Irish–speaking network, typically united by various branches of the , and accompanied by renewed literary activity. By the 1930s Dublin had a lively literary life in Irish.


title: Irish language

text: Urban Irish has been the beneficiary, from the last decades of the 20th century, of a rapidly expanding system of , teaching entirely through Irish. As of 2019 there are 37 such primary schools in Dublin alone.


title: Irish language

text: It has been suggested that Ireland's towns and cities are acquiring a critical mass of Irish speakers, reflected in the expansion of Irish language media. Many are younger speakers who, after encountering Irish at school, made an effort to acquire fluency, while others have been educated through Irish and some have been raised with Irish. Those from an English-speaking background are now often described as ("new speakers") and use whatever opportunities are available (festivals, "pop-up" events) to practise or improve their Irish.


title: Irish language

text: It has been suggested that the comparative standard is still the Irish of the Gaeltacht, but other evidence suggests that young urban speakers take pride in having their own distinctive variety of the language. A comparison of traditional Irish and urban Irish shows that the distinction between broad and slender consonants, which is fundamental to Irish phonology and grammar, is not fully or consistently observed in urban Irish. This and other changes make it possible that urban Irish will become a new dialect or even, over a long period, develop into a creole (i.e. a new language) distinct from Gaeltacht Irish. It has also been argued that there is a certain elitism among Irish speakers, with most respect being given to the Irish of native Gaeltacht speakers and with "Dublin" (i.e. urban) Irish being under-represented in the media. This, however, is paralleled by a failure among some urban Irish speakers to acknowledge grammatical and phonological features essential to the structure of the language.


title: Irish language

text: There is no single official standard for pronouncing the Irish language. Certain dictionaries, such as , provide a single pronunciation. Online dictionaries such as "Foclóir Béarla-Gaeilge" provide audio files in the three major dialects. The differences between dialects are considerable, and have led to recurrent difficulties in conceptualising a "standard Irish." In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become more frequent and the differences between the dialects are less noticeable.


title: Irish language

text: In pronunciation, Irish most closely resembles its nearest relatives, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. One notable feature is that consonants (except ) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarised, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalised, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). While broad–slender pairs are not unique to Irish (being found, for example, in Russian), in Irish they have a grammatical function.


title: Irish language

text: Irish is a fusional, VSO, nominative-accusative language. Irish is neither verb nor satellite framed, and makes liberal use of deictic verbs.


title: Irish language

text: Nouns decline for 3 numbers: singular, dual (only in conjunction with the number "two"), plural; 2 genders: masculine, feminine; and 4 cases: nomino-accusative (), vocative (), genitive (), and prepositional-locative (), with fossilised traces of the older accusative. Adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender, and case. Adjectives generally follow nouns, though some precede or prefix nouns. Demonstrative adjectives have proximal, medial, and distal forms. The prepositional-locative case is called the dative by convention, though it originates in the Proto-Celtic ablative.


title: Irish language

text: Verbs conjugate for 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects: perfective, imperfective; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 4 moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 2 relative forms, the present and future relative; and in some verbs, independent and dependent forms. Verbs conjugate for 3 persons and an impersonal form which is actor-free; the 3rd person singular acts as a person-free personal form that can be followed or otherwise refer to any person or number.


title: Irish language

text: There are two verbs for "to be", one for inherent qualities with only two forms, "present" and "past" and "conditional", and one for transient qualities, with a full complement of forms except for the verbal adjective. The two verbs share the one verbal noun.


title: Irish language

text: Irish verb formation employs a mixed system during conjugation, with both analytic and synthetic methods employed depending on tense, number, mood and person. For example, in the official standard, present tense verbs have conjugated forms only in the 1st person and autonomous forms (ie. molaim 'I praise', molaimid 'we praise', moltar 'is praised, one praises' ), whereas all other persons are conveyed analytically (ie. molann sé 'he praises', molann sibh 'you praise'). The ratio of analytic to synthetic forms in a given verb paradigm varies between the various tenses and moods. The conditional, imperative and past habitual forms prefer synthetic forms in most persons and numbers, whereas the subjunctive, past, future and present forms prefer mostly analytical forms.


title: Irish language

text: The meaning of the passive voice is largely conveyed through the autonomous verb form, however there also exist other structures analogous to the passival and resultative constructions. There are also a number of preverbal particles marking the negative, interrogative, subjunctive, relative clauses, etc. There is a verbal noun and verbal adjective. Verb forms are highly regular, many grammars recognise only 11 irregular verbs.


title: Irish language

text: Prepositions inflect for person and number. Different prepositions govern different cases. In Old and Middle Irish,


title: Irish language

text: prepositions governed different cases depending on intended semantics; this has disappeared in Modern Irish except in fossilised form.


title: Irish language

text: Irish has no verb to express having; instead, the word ("at", etc.) is used in conjunction with the transient "be" verb :


title: Irish language

text: Numerals have 3 forms: abstract, general and ordinal. The numbers from 2 to 10 (and these in combination with higher numbers) are rarely used for people, numeral nominals being used instead:


title: Irish language

text: In Irish, there are two classes of initial consonant mutations, which express grammatical relationship and meaning in verbs, nouns and adjectives:


title: Irish language

text: Mutations are often the only way to distinguish grammatical forms. For example, the only non-contextual way to distinguish possessive pronouns "her," "his" and "their", is through initial mutations since all meanings are represented by the same word .


title: Irish language

text: Due to initial mutation, prefixes, clitics, suffixes, root inflection, ending morphology, elision, sandhi, epenthesis, and assimilation; the beginning, core, and end of words can each change radically and even simultaneously depending on context.


title: Irish language

text: Ogham was the writing system used to write Primitive Irish and Old Irish until Latin script was introduced in the 8th century CE. The main typeface used to write Irish was Gaelic type () until it was replaced by Roman type () in the mid-20th century.


title: Irish language

text: The traditional Irish alphabet () consists of 18 letters: . It does not contain , although they are used in modern loanwords. occurs in a small number of (mainly onomatopoeic) native words and colloquialisms.


title: Irish language

text: Vowels may be accented with an acute accent (; Irish and Hiberno-English: "long (sign)"), but it is ignored for purposes of alphabetisation. It lengthens vowels (and changes their quality), e.g. is and is .


title: Irish language

text: The overdot was used in traditional orthography ( "dot of lenition", "struck", or "lenition") to indicated lenition, currently a following is used for this purpose, i.e. are equivalent to . In Old Irish, it was only used for , while the following was used for ; lenition of other letters was not indicated. Later the two systems spread to the entire set of lenitable consonants and competed with each other. Eventually the following was used in Roman type and the overdot was used in Gaelic type, although extending its use to Roman type would theoretically have the advantage of making Irish texts significantly shorter, e.g. "you (pl.) will get" would become . Letters with an overdot are available in Unicode and Latin-8 character sets. The use of Gaelic type and the overdot today is restricted to when a traditional style is consciously being used, e.g. the Irish Defence Forces cap badge () (see above).


title: Irish language

text: Around the time of the Second World War, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the Irish government), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish spelling and grammar. This de facto standard was subsequently approved by the State and developed into , which simplified and standardised the orthography and grammar by removing inter-dialectal silent letters and simplifying vowel combinations. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected, for example:


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: In May 2012, Jun Lin (December 30, 1978 – May 24/25, 2012), a university student, was fatally stabbed and dismembered in Montreal, Canada, by Luka Rocco Magnotta, who then mailed Lin's hands and feet to elementary schools and federal political party offices. After a video depicting the murder was posted online, Magnotta fled Canada, becoming the subject of an Interpol Red Notice and prompting an international manhunt. In June 2012, he was arrested in an internet café in Berlin. In December 2014, after eight days of deliberations, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Magnotta was given a mandatory life sentence and 19 years for other charges, to be served concurrently. Magnotta was previously sought by animal rights groups for uploading videos of himself killing kittens.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Jun Lin (), also known as Justin Lin, was born on December 30, 1978 and came from Wuhan. He had come to Canada in 2010 with the intention of starting a new life there and to study computer engineering. In 2012, he was registered as an international student and an undergraduate in the engineering and computer science faculty at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Lin had been studying in Montreal since July 2011, previously attending Tyark College, a language school, and had worked part-time as a convenience store clerk in Pointe-Saint-Charles. He moved into a Griffintown-area apartment with a roommate on May 1, 2012.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Lin, who was gay, had been at some point married to a woman, though they later divorced. In Canada, he had lived for a time with another Chinese man. Lin had never revealed his sexual orientation to his family in China, even though they had met his boyfriend. Shortly before the murder, Lin's relationship with his partner had ended because Lin was experiencing pressure from his family to "settle down" and marry a woman.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: After breaking up with his boyfriend, Lin had been using Grindr and other web applications to meet with men. Magnotta later said that they had met after Lin had responded to his Craigslist ad proposing sex and bondage.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Luka Rocco Magnotta (born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman) was born on July 24, 1982, in Scarborough, Ontario, the son of Anna Yourkin and Donald Newman. He was the first of their three children. According to him, his mother was obsessed with cleanliness, would routinely lock her children out of the house, and once put her children's pet rabbits out in the cold to freeze to death. His father was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1994, after which he divorced Magnotta's mother, leading Magnotta to move in with his grandmother, Phyllis.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta attended I. E. Weldon Secondary School in Lindsay. Later on, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia, he received a disability allowance; he supplemented that source of income with prostitution. Besides his work as an escort, he began in 2003 to appear in gay pornographic videos. He also worked as a stripper. He appeared as a pin-up model in a 2005 issue of Toronto's "fab" magazine, using the pseudonym Jimmy.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Although some media labeled him a "porn star" after the murder, further reporting showed that his work as a porn actor had been "anything but prolific or high-profile" as he had shot less than a dozen videos over a five-year period. A staff member of the Internet Adult Film Database commented, upon reviewing Magnotta's output, that "not even the porn industry was much interested in him". He did not have much success at modeling either.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: He legally changed his name from Eric Clinton Kirk Newman to Luka Rocco Magnotta on August 12, 2006. Magnotta declared bankruptcy in March 2007, owing $17,000 in various debts. The bankruptcy was fully discharged in December 2007.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: In 2007, Magnotta was an unsuccessful competitor in OUTtv's reality series "COVERguy". He has had multiple cosmetic surgeries, and had auditioned for the Slice network television show "Plastic Makes Perfect" in February 2008.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta created many profiles on various Internet social media and discussion forums over several years to plant a variety of claims about himself. Among other things, he purported to be a successful model and a prominent porn star. Police stated that Magnotta set up at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites under different names. Magnotta would use these pages and multiple false online identities to "sing his own praises" (one page called him "The new James Dean"), attack people he disliked, or spread false information about himself as an effort to attract attention.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: One such rumour emerged in 2007, claiming Magnotta was in a relationship with Karla Homolka, a high-profile Canadian convicted murderer, which Magnotta denied in a subsequent interview with the "Toronto Sun". During the murder investigation in 2012, Montreal police announced that the pair had dated, but soon retracted the statement, and acknowledged that they had no evidence to corroborate the claim. As with the Homolka relationship, Magnotta repeatedly denied other claims that he had planted as hoaxes, and as part of a campaign of cyberstalking against him.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: The "Toronto Sun" reporter who had interviewed Magnotta in 2007 about the Homolka rumours later said that he had found him "troubled", and that he had suspected at the time that Magnotta had made up the rumours to gain attention. However, he had assumed that Magnotta was "if anything (...) more of a danger to himself". A trans woman who had briefly dated Magnotta at the time said in 2012 that he was obsessed with becoming famous, and that he seemed to perceive Homolka and her accomplice Paul Bernardo as "role models".


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: In 2005, Magnotta, who was going by his birth name at the time, was convicted of one count of impersonation and three counts of fraud (against Sears Canada, The Brick, and 2001 Audio Video): he had taken advantage of a mentally disabled young woman by convincing her to apply for credit cards and then using those cards himself to purchase over $10,000 worth of goods. He was also accused of sexually assaulting the woman, although that charge was later dropped. He pleaded guilty, and received a nine-month conditional sentence with 12 months of probation. The court noted at the time that Magnotta had "significant psychiatric issues" and did not always take his medication.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: In 2010, Magnotta posted on YouTube a video titled "1 boy 2 kittens," in which he deliberately suffocated two kittens in a plastic bag with a vacuum cleaner. He later published a second video of himself, this time drowning a cat in a bathtub. A third video showed him feeding a cat to a python. In January 2011, a private Facebook group identified Magnotta as the person in these videos; animal rights activist groups subsequently offered a $5,000 reward for bringing him to justice. He was initially dubbed the "Vacuum Kitten Killer" by the online animal activists. The Internet community which had identified Magnotta reported him to authorities, warning that after committing acts of animal cruelty, he might pose a threat to humans. Their investigation was later chronicled in the 2019 true crime docuseries "". In February 2011, Toronto police began investigating Magnotta in connection with the videos, after receiving a complaint from the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The OSPCA also contacted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Britain, the American FBI, and police in Montreal, due to the suspect's extensive travels.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Lin was last seen on May 24, 2012, and his friends reported getting a text message from his phone at 9 pm. His boss became suspicious when he did not show up for his shift the next day. Three of his friends went into his apartment on May 27. He was reported missing to police on May 29. The last images showing Jun Lin alive were taken by a surveillance camera on the night of May 24, 2012: they showed Lin and Magnotta entering the apartment building where Magnotta lived.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On May 25, 2012, an 11-minute video titled "1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick" was uploaded to Bestgore.com, depicting a naked male tied to a bed frame being repeatedly stabbed with what appeared to be an ice pick (later revealed to be a screwdriver) and with a kitchen knife, then dismembered, followed by acts of necrophilia. The perpetrator uses a knife and fork to cut off some of the flesh, and gets a dog to chew on the body. During the video, the 1987 New Order song "True Faith" plays in the background, and a poster for the 1942 film "Casablanca" is visible on the wall. Canadian authorities obtained a "more extensive" version of the video, and said that cannibalism may have been performed. Materials promoting the video appeared online 10 days before the murder took place. Several hours after killing Lin, Magnotta booked a round-trip ticket for a flight from Montreal to Paris, using a passport with his own name.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On May 26, 2012, an attorney from Montana attempted to report the video to Toronto Police, his local Sheriff, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the report was dismissed by officials. Bestgore viewers also attempted to report the video. Police later confirmed it as authentic, and identified the victim, an Asian male, as the same individual whose body parts were sent to Ottawa.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: At 11 am on May 29, 2012, a package containing a left foot was delivered to the national headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada. The package was stained with blood, had a foul smell, and was marked with a red heart symbol. Another package containing a left hand was intercepted in a Canada Post processing facility, addressed to the Liberal Party.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: A janitor discovered a decomposing torso inside a suitcase, left in a garbage pile in the alley behind an apartment building in the Snowdon area of Montreal. He first saw the suitcase on May 25, but it was not picked up due to the large amount of garbage that day. After searching the scene, police recovered human remains, bloody clothes, and papers identifying the suspect, as well as "sharp and blunt objects" from the back alley. Footage from surveillance cameras inside the building showed a suspect bringing numerous garbage bags outside, and the images matched the suspect who was captured on video at the post office in Côte-des-Neiges.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: At 11:33 pm EDT (03:33 UTC), police searched the apartment Magnotta was renting on Décarie Boulevard. He had moved in four months prior, and his rent was paid up to June 1. The apartment had been mostly emptied before he left. Blood was found on different items, including the mattress, the refrigerator, the table, and the bathtub. "If you dont like the reflection. Dont look in the mirror. I dont care " was written in red ink on the inside of a closet.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On May 30, 2012, it was confirmed that the body parts belonged to the same individual, later identified as Jun Lin. The suspect in the case was quickly identified as Magnotta, who had by then fled.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: A note was found with the package sent to the Conservative Party, saying six body parts had been distributed, and that the perpetrator would kill again. The other three packages also contained notes, but their contents were undisclosed by police, who cited their concerns about possible copycat crimes. On June 5, 2012, a package containing a right foot was delivered to St. George's School, and another package containing a right hand to False Creek Elementary School in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was confirmed that both packages were sent from Montreal.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 13, 2012, the four limbs and the torso were matched to Lin using DNA samples from his family. On July 1, his head was recovered at the edge of a small lake in Montreal's Angrignon Park, after police received an anonymous tip.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: An arrest warrant for Magnotta was issued by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), later upgraded to a Canada-wide warrant by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), accusing him of the following crimes:


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On May 31, 2012, Interpol issued a red notice for Magnotta at the request of Canadian authorities, and for several days before and after his arrest, his name and photo were displayed prominently at the top of the home page of the Interpol website. The red notice requested that Magnotta be provisionally arrested pending extradition back to Canada by any Interpol member state.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Prior to the red notice, Magnotta booked a round-trip ticket for a flight from Montreal to Paris, France on May 25, using a passport with his own name. After his arrival in France, his cell phone signal was traced to a hotel in Bagnolet, but he had left by the time police arrived. Pornographic magazines and an air-sickness bag were found in the hotel room. Magnotta used a false passport with the name "Kirk Trammel" at the hotel. He had contacts in Paris from a previous visit in 2010, and police were following a large-framed man who had been in contact with Magnotta. Another man he stayed with for two nights did not realize who he was until he had left. Magnotta then boarded a Eurolines bus at the Bagnolet coach station bound for Berlin, Germany.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 4, 2012, Magnotta was apprehended by Berlin Police at an internet café in the Neukölln district while reading news stories about himself. He tried giving fake names before admitting who he was. His identity was confirmed through fingerprint evidence. Magnotta appeared in a Berlin court on June 5, 2012. According to German officials, he did not oppose his extradition. There was sufficient evidence to keep him in custody until extradition, and he agreed to a simplified process.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 18, 2012, Magnotta was delivered to Canadian authorities in Berlin, and flown aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-150 Polaris to Mirabel International Airport, north of Montreal. A military transport was reported by the government to be necessary, due to safety concerns with using a commercial flight, and potential legal difficulties if the plane was diverted to another country. He was placed into solitary confinement at the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Reactions in China were highly critical, with some believing the murder was racially motivated. Some Chinese questioned public safety in Canada, as the killing was the second high-profile murder of a Chinese student there in slightly over a year. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called Chinese ambassador Junsai Zhang to convey his condolences.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 4, 2012, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was pleased that the suspect was arrested, and congratulated the police forces on their good work in apprehending him. Interim Liberal Party leader Bob Rae said that Canadians should mourn the victim, rather than "in any way, shape or form" celebrate Magnotta's notoriety.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Two days later, Lin's family arrived at Trudeau Airport in Montreal. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association of Concordia University established a fund to defray expenses incurred by Lin's family while in Canada, and an award was created in his honour. A candlelight vigil was held in Montreal.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Lin's body was cremated on July 11, and his ashes were buried on July 26 at Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On July 16, 2013, Edmonton police charged Bestgore.com owner Mark Marek with corrupting public morals, a rarely used obscenity charge, for hosting the "1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick" video online. On January 25, 2016, Marek changed his plea to guilty, and was sentenced to a six-month conditional sentence after a joint submission from the Crown and defence. He had to serve half of the six-month sentence under house arrest.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 19, 2012, Magnotta appeared in court by video link to plead not guilty to all charges through his lawyer. On June 21, Magnotta appeared in person at a high-security Montreal courtroom to request a trial by jury.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: A preliminary hearing began on March 11, 2013. The evidence presented is subject to a publication ban. Magnotta's defence team requested the media and the public be barred entirely from the hearing; this was declined the next day. Jun Lin's father, Diran Lin, travelled from China to attend the hearing. On March 13, one of Magnotta's lawyers resigned, due to a possible conflict of interest. Expert witnesses testified, including a forensic pathologist, a forensic toxicologist, a forensic odontologist, a bloodstain analyst, data recovery specialists and an Internet investigations officer. The prosecution also displayed video evidence. Both Magnotta and Lin physically collapsed at separate times during the proceedings.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On April 12, 2013, Magnotta was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, offering indignities to a human body, distributing obscene materials, using the postal service to distribute obscene materials, and criminal harassment.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta elected to be tried by judge and jury. He pleaded not guilty, admitting to the acts of which he was accused but claiming diminished responsibility due to mental disorders. Crown Attorney Louis Bouthillier made his opening statement on September 29, 2014. Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer presided over the trial, which lasted 10 weeks. On the opening day, he instructed jurors that Magnotta "admits the acts or the conducts underlying the crime for which he is charged. Your task will be to determine whether he committed the five offences with the required state of mind for each offence."


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Six tools (a pair of scissors, two knives, a screwdriver, an oscillating saw and a hammer) were recovered outside Magnotta's apartment and analysed by ballistics expert Gilbert Desjardins. He said none could be definitively linked to the killing and that no skeletal marks suggested the screwdriver or scissors were used, but some were consistent with saw and knife or X-Acto blade injuries.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: During the trial, defence attorney Luc Leclair argued that Magnotta was in a psychotic state at the time of the crimes and could not be held responsible for his actions. The Crown prosecutor argued that the murder of Jun Lin was organized and premeditated and that Magnotta was "purposeful, mindful, ultra-organized and ultimately responsible for his actions."


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta told a psychiatrist who interviewed him about the night he killed Lin that a person named "Manny" - whom he said was an abusive client from his escort service - was there urging him to kill. It was then determined that this name and Magnotta's "Tramell" alias were inspired by Sharon Stone’s fictional character Catherine Tramell in the movie "Basic Instinct", and Catherine Tramell's fiancé, the unseen character Manny Vasquez. Prosecutors also suggested that the black screwdriver used by Magnotta to stab Lin had been painted silver to resemble the ice pick used in "Basic Instinct"'s murder scenes.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: After a 12-week trial which included 10 weeks of hearing testimony, the jury of eight women and four men received final instructions from the trial judge on December 15, 2014, and was sequestered before beginning its deliberations the next day. On their eighth day of deliberation, they returned a verdict of guilty on all charges. Magnotta will serve a mandatory life sentence and will be eligible for parole after 25 years. He was also sentenced to 19 years for other charges, to be served concurrently.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta filed an appeal for the convictions to be annulled and new trial ordered. The appeal was filed with the Quebec Court of Appeal by Magnotta's defence counsel Luc Leclair, citing judicial error in jury instruction. The appeal further claimed that the "verdicts are unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence and the instructions." Magnotta withdrew his appeal on February 18, 2015.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: During his trial for murder, defence witnesses provided evidence that Luka Magnotta had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager. Defence expert Dr. Joel Watts testified that Magnotta showed signs of episodic schizophrenia (undifferentiated type), histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality traits and paraphilia not otherwise specified. The prosecution revealed that Magnotta had been using illegal drugs during his teenage years which led to symptoms that mimicked schizophrenia and that Magnotta had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder by Crown expert Dr. Joel Paris at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal in April 2012. Dr. Renée Roy, the forensic psychiatrist who treated Magnotta at Rivières-des-Prairies Detention Centre since November 2012, through his preliminary hearing and right up to the murder trial, diagnosed Magnotta with borderline personality disorder with histrionic features. Dr. Gilles Chamberland, another Crown expert who was not able to interview Magnotta, suggested that Magnotta showed signs of antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders. He testified that Magnotta's actions at the time of the murder were best explained by histrionic personality disorder. The prosecution accused Magnotta of pretending to be schizophrenic since his defence pleaded diminished responsibility due to alleged schizophrenia, and noted that a number of psychiatrists over the years found that Magnotta displayed antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality traits.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: On June 8, 2012, the Los Angeles Police Department announced they were in contact with Montreal police to determine if Magnotta was involved in the then-unsolved murder and decapitation of Hervey Medellin, known as the "Hollywood Sign Murder", but later announced that they did not believe he was involved in the crime. The animal rights group Last Chance for Animals claimed responsibility for posting YouTube videos linking him to the Hollywood Sign Murder in an attempt to lure Magnotta into contacting them. LCA offered a $7,500 reward for information leading to his arrest while he was on the run. On November 16, 2015, Gabriel Campos-Martinez was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Magnotta was also investigated for possible links to the 2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides, although this lead was eventually abandoned for lack of evidence.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: The murder of Jun Lin and its subsequent trial drew comparisons across North America to Mark Twitchell, a convicted murderer inspired by "Dexter", who used social media in his crimes, and to self-promote his work. Author Steve Lillebuen, who wrote a book on the case, described a new trend in crime where social media allows killers to become "online broadcasters", and have direct, instant access to a global audience they may crave.


title: Murder of Jun Lin

text: Netflix produced a three-part documentary series on Magnotta, and the group of people on the internet who helped track him down. The show, titled "" and directed by Mark Lewis, premiered on December 18, 2019.


title: Paul Allen

text: Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which helped spark the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Microsoft became the world's largest personal computer software company. Allen was ranked as the 44th-wealthiest person in the world by "Forbes" in 2018, with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion at the time of his death.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen left regular work at Microsoft in early 1983 after a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, remaining on its board as vice-chairman. He and his sister, Jody Allen, founded Vulcan Inc. in 1986, a privately held company that managed his business and philanthropic efforts. He had a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio, including technology and media companies, scientific research, real estate holdings, private space flight ventures, and stakes in other sectors. He owned the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League and the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association, and was part-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer. In 2000 he resigned from his position on Microsoft's board and assumed the post of senior strategy advisor to the company's management team.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen founded the Allen Institutes for Brain Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Cell Science, as well as companies like Stratolaunch Systems and Apex Learning. He gave more than $2 billion to causes such as education, wildlife and environmental conservation, the arts, healthcare, and community services. In 2004, he funded the first crewed private spaceplane with SpaceShipOne. He received numerous awards and honors, and was listed among the "Time" 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2007 and 2008.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009. He died of septic shock related to cancer on October 15, 2018, at the age of 65.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen was born on January 21, 1953, in Seattle, Washington, to Kenneth Sam Allen (a librarian) and Edna Faye (née Gardner) Allen (a fourth-grade teacher). From 1965 to 1971 he attended Lakeside School, a private school in Seattle where he befriended Bill Gates, with whom he shared an enthusiasm for computers. They used Lakeside's Teletype terminals to develop their programming skills on several time-sharing computer systems. They also used the laboratory of the Computer Science Department of the University of Washington for personal research and computer programming until they were banned in 1971 for abusing their privileges.


title: Paul Allen

text: Gates and Allen joined with Ric Weiland and Gates' childhood best friend and first collaborator, Kent Evans, to form the Lakeside Programming Club and find bugs in Computer Center Corporation's software, in exchange for extra computer time. In 1972, after Evans' sudden death due to a mountain climbing accident, Gates turned to Allen for help finishing an automated class scheduling system for Lakeside. They then formed Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. According to Allen, he and Gates would go dumpster diving during their teenage years for computer program code.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen achieved a perfect SAT score of 1600 and went to Washington State University, where he joined the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. He dropped out of college after two years to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston near Harvard University where Gates was enrolled. Allen convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard in order to found Microsoft.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen and Gates formed Microsoft in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and began marketing a BASIC programming language interpreter, with their first employee being high school friend and collaborator Ric Weiland. Allen came up with the name of "Micro-Soft", a combination of "microcomputer" and "software".


title: Paul Allen

text: Microsoft committed to delivering a disk operating system (DOS) to IBM for the original IBM PC in 1980, although they had not yet developed one, and Allen spearheaded a deal for Microsoft to purchase QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) written by Tim Paterson who was employed at Seattle Computer Products. As a result of this transaction, Microsoft secured a contract to supply the DOS that ran on IBM's PC line, which opened the door to Allen's and Gates' wealth and success.


title: Paul Allen

text: The relationship between Allen and Gates became strained as they argued even over small things. Allen effectively left Microsoft in 1982 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, though he remained on the board of directors as vice chairman. Gates reportedly asked Allen to give him some of his shares to compensate for the higher amount of work that Gates was doing. According to Allen, Gates said that he "did almost everything on BASIC" and the company should be split 60–40 in his favor. Allen agreed to this arrangement, which Gates later renegotiated to 64–36. In 1983, Gates tried to buy Allen out at $5 per share, but Allen refused and left the company with his shares intact; this made him a billionaire when Microsoft went public. Gates later repaired his relationship with Allen, and the two men donated $2.2 million to their childhood school Lakeside in 1986. They remained friends for the rest of Allen's life.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen resigned from his position on the Microsoft board of directors on November 9, 2000, but he remained as a senior strategy advisor to the company's executives. In January 2014, he still held 100 million shares of Microsoft.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen confirmed that he was the sole investor behind aerospace engineer and entrepreneur Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne suborbital commercial spacecraft on October 4, 2004. The craft was developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Allen and Rutan's aviation company, Scaled Composites. SpaceShipOne climbed to an altitude of over the Mojave Air and Space Port and was the first privately funded effort to successfully put a civilian in suborbital space. It won the Ansari X Prize competition and received the $10 million prize.


title: Paul Allen

text: On December 13, 2011, Allen announced the creation of Stratolaunch Systems, based at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The Stratolaunch is a proposed orbital launch system consisting of a dual-bodied, 6-engine jet aircraft, capable of carrying a rocket to high altitude; the rocket would then separate from its carrier aircraft and fire its own engines to complete its climb into orbit. If successful, this project would be the first wholly privately funded space transport system. Stratolaunch, which is partnering with Orbital ATK and Scaled Composites, is intended to launch in inclement weather, fly without worrying about the availability of launch pads and to operate from different locations. Stratolaunch plans to ultimately host six to ten missions per year. On April 13, 2015, Vulcan Aerospace was announced. It is the company within Allen's Vulcan Inc. that plans and executes projects to shift how the world conceptualizes space travel through cost reduction and on-demand access.


title: Paul Allen

text: On April 13, 2019, the Stratolaunch aircraft made its maiden flight, reaching and 165 kn (305 km/h) in a 2 h 29 min flight. Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd offered this comment: "We dedicate this day to the man who inspired us all to strive for ways to empower the world's problem-solvers, Paul Allen. Without a doubt, he would have been exceptionally proud to see his aircraft take flight". Upon its flight, the airplane became the largest in history by wingspan.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen's Vulcan Real Estate division offers development and portfolio management services, and is known for the redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood immediately north of downtown Seattle. Vulcan has developed of new residential, office, retail and biotechnology research space, and has a total development capacity of . Vulcan advocated for the Seattle Streetcar line known as South Lake Union Streetcar, which runs from Seattle's Westlake Center to the south end of Lake Union. In 2012, "The Wall Street Journal" called Allen's South Lake Union investment "unexpectedly lucrative" and one that led to his firm selling a office complex to Amazon.com for US$1.16 billion, one of the most expensive office deals ever in Seattle. "It's exceeded my expectations", Allen said of the South Lake Union development.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen purchased the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team in 1988 from California real estate developer Larry Weinberg for $70 million. He was instrumental in the development and funding of the Moda Center (previously known as the Rose Garden), the arena where the Blazers play. He purchased the arena on April 2, 2007, and stated that this was a major milestone and a positive step for the franchise. The Allen-owned Trail Blazers reached the playoffs 19 times including the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992. According to "Forbes", the Blazers were valued at $2.09 billion in 2021 and ranked No. 13 out of 30 NBA teams.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen purchased the NFL's Seattle Seahawks in 1997 from owner Ken Behring, who had attempted to move the team to southern California the previous year. Herman Sarkowsky, a former Seahawks minority owner, told "The Seattle Times" about Allen's decision to buy the team, "I'm not sure anybody else in this community would have done what [Allen] did." In 2002, the team moved into Seahawks Stadium (now known as Lumen Field), after Allen invested into the upgrade of the stadium. Acquired for US$200 million in 1997, the Seahawks were valued at $1.33 billion in August 2014 by "Forbes", which says the team has "one of the most rabid fan bases in the NFL". Under the helm of Allen, the Seahawks made the Super Bowl three times following NFC Championship victories (2005, 2013, 2014), and won Super Bowl XLVIII in February 2014.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen's Vulcan Sports & Entertainment is part of the ownership team of the Seattle Sounders FC, a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise that began play in 2009 at CenturyLink Field, a stadium which was also controlled by Allen. The ownership team also includes film producer Joe Roth, businessman Adrian Hanauer, and comedian Drew Carey. The Sounders sold out every home game during its first season, setting a new MLS record for average match attendance.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen and his sister, Jody Allen, together were the owners and executive producers of Vulcan Productions, a television and film production company headquartered in Seattle within the entertainment division of Vulcan Inc. Their films have received various recognition, ranging from a Peabody Award to Independent Spirit Awards, Grammys and Emmys.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2014 alone, Allen's film, "We The Economy," won 12 awards including a Webby award for best Online News & Politics Series. The films have also been nominated for Golden Globes and Academy Awards among many others. Vulcan Productions' films and documentary projects include "Far from Heaven" (2002), "Hard Candy" (2005), "Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge" (2005), "Where God Left His Shoes" (2006), "" (2007), "This Emotional Life" (2010), "We The Economy" (2014) "Racing Extinction" (2015) and Oscar-nominated "Body Team 12" (2015).


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2013, Vulcan Productions co-produced the Richard E. Robbins-directed film "Girl Rising" which tells the stories of girls from different parts of the world who seek an education. Globally, over 205 million households watched "Girl Rising" during the CNN premier, and over 4 million people have engaged with "Girl Rising" through websites and social media. Through the associated 10×10 program, over $2.1 million has been donated to help girls receive an education worldwide.


title: Paul Allen

text: Also in 2013, Vulcan Productions signed on as a producing partner of "Pandora's Promise", a documentary about nuclear power, directed by Oscar-nominated director Robert Stone. It was released on CNN in November 2013. A variety of college and private screenings as well as panel discussions have been hosted throughout the country.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen gave more than $2 billion towards the advancement of science, technology, education, wildlife conservation, the arts, and community services in his lifetime. The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, which he founded with his sister Jody, was established to administer a portion of Allen's philanthropic contributions. Since its formation, the foundation has given more than $494 million to over 1,500 nonprofits; and, in 2010, Allen became a signatory of The Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half of his fortune to philanthropic causes. Allen received commendations for his philanthropic commitments including the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and "Inside Philanthropy"'s "Philanthropist of the Year".


title: Paul Allen

text: In September 2003, Allen launched the Allen Institute for Brain Science with a $100 million contribution dedicated to understanding how the human brain works. In total, Allen donated $500 million to the institute, making it his single largest philanthropic recipient. Since its launch, the Allen Institute for Brain Science has taken a Big Science and open science approach to tackle projects. The institute makes research tools available to the scientific community using an open data model. Some of the institute's projects include the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, Allen Human Brain Atlas and the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas. The Allen Institute is also helping to advance and shape the White House's BRAIN Initiative as well as the Human Brain Project.


title: Paul Allen

text: Founded in 2014, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)'s main focus is to research and engineer artificial intelligence. The institute is modeled after the Allen Institute for Brain Science and led by researcher and professor, Dr. Oren Etzioni. AI2 has undertaken four main projects, Aristo, Semantic Scholar, Euclid, and Plato. Project Aristo is working to build an AI system capable of passing an 8th-grade science exam.


title: Paul Allen

text: In December 2014, Allen committed $100 million to create the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle. The institute is investigating and creating a virtual model of cells in the hope of bringing forth treatment of different diseases. Like the institutes before it, all data generated and tools developed will be made publicly available online.


title: Paul Allen

text: Launched in 2016 with a $100 million commitment, The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group aims to discover and support ideas at the frontier of bioscience in an effort to accelerate the pace of discovery. The group will target scientists and research areas that "some might consider out-of-the-box at the very edges of knowledge".


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen launched the Allen Distinguished Investigators Awards (ADI) in 2010 to support scientists pursuing early-stage research projects who often have difficulty securing funding from traditional sources.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen donated the seed money to build SETI's Allen Telescope Array, eventually contributing $30 million to the project.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen provided more than $7 million to fund a census of elephant populations in Africa, the largest such endeavour since the 1970s. The Great Elephant Census team flew over 20 countries to survey African savannah elephants. The survey results were published in 2015 and showed rapid rates of decline which were accelerating.


title: Paul Allen

text: He began supporting the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us Project in 2014 to improve data on global fisheries as a way to fight illegal fishing. Part of his $2.6 million in funding went towards the creation of FishBase, an online database about adult finfish. Allen funded the Global FinPrint initiative, launched in July 2015, a three-year survey of sharks and rays in coral reef areas. The survey is the largest of its kind and designed to provide data to help conservation programs.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen backed Washington state initiative 1401 to prohibit the purchase, sale and distribution of products made from 10 endangered species including elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, marine turtles, pangolins, sharks and rays. The initiative gained enough signatures to be on the state's ballot on November 3, 2015, and passed.


title: Paul Allen

text: Alongside the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), Allen and Vulcan Inc. launched the Smart City Challenge, a contest inviting American cities to transform their transportation systems. Created in 2015 with the USDOT's $40 million commitment as well as $10 million from Allen's Vulcan Inc., the challenge aims to create a first-of-its-kind modern city that will demonstrate how cities can improve quality of life while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The winning city was Columbus, Ohio.


title: Paul Allen

text: As a founding member of the International SeaKeepers Society, Allen hosted its proprietary SeaKeeper 1000TM oceanographic and atmospheric monitoring system on all three of his megayachts.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen funded the building of microgrids, which are small-scale power grids that can operate independently, in Kenya, to help promote reusable energy and empower its businesses and residents. He was an early investor in the Mawingu Networks, a wireless and solar-powered Internet provider which aims to connect rural Africa with the world, and Off Grid Electric, a company focused on providing solar energy to people in emerging nations.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2014, Allen pledged at least $100 million toward the fight to end the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, making him the largest private donor in the Ebola crisis. He also created a website called TackleEbola.org as a way to spread awareness and serve as a vehicle for donors to fund projects in need. The site highlighted organizations working to stop Ebola that Allen supported, such as International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Médecins Sans Frontières, Partners in Health, UNICEF and World Food Program USA. On April 21, 2015, Allen brought together key leaders in the Ebola fight at the Ebola Innovation Summit in San Francisco. The summit aimed to share key learnings and reinforce the need for continued action and support to reduce the number of Ebola cases to zero, which was achieved in January 2016.


title: Paul Allen

text: In October 2015, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation announced it would award seven new grants totaling $11 million to prevent future widespread outbreaks of the virus.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2012, along with his research team and the Royal Navy, Allen attempted to retrieve the ship's bell from , which sank in the Denmark Strait during World War II, but the attempt failed due to poor weather. On August 7, 2015, they tried again and recovered the bell in very good condition. It was restored and put on display in May 2016 in the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, in remembrance of the 1,415 crewmen lost.


title: Paul Allen

text: Since 2015, Allen funded the research ship , which he purchased in 2016. The project team aboard "Petrel" was responsible for locating the in 2015. In 2017, at Allen's direction, "Petrel" found , , the wrecks of the Battle of Surigao Strait and the Battle of Ormoc Bay. In 2018, "Petrel" found a lost US Navy C-2A Greyhound aircraft in the Philippine Sea, in the Coral Sea and the off the coast of the Solomon Islands.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen established non-profit community institutions to display his collections of historic artifacts. These include:


title: Paul Allen

text: An active art collector, Allen gifted more than $100 million to support the arts. On October 15, 2012, the Americans for the Arts gave Allen the Eli and Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts. Allen loaned out more than 300 pieces from his private art collection to 47 different venues. The original 541-page typescript of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was in his collection at one point. In 2013, Allen sold Barnett Newman's "Onement VI" (1953) at Sotheby's in New York for $43.8 million, then the record for a work by the abstract artist.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2015, Allen founded the Seattle Art Fair, a four-day event with 60-plus galleries from around the world including the participation of the Gagosian Gallery, David Zwirner. The event drew thousands and inspired other satellite fairs throughout the city.


title: Paul Allen

text: In August 2016, Allen announced the launch of Upstream Music Fest + Summit, an annual festival fashioned after South by Southwest. Held in Pioneer Square, the first festival took place in May 2017. It was cancelled in 2019 following Allen's death in 2018.


title: Paul Allen

text: In November 2022, Allen's art collection was auctioned at Chrsitie's New York. It was the biggest sale in art auction history, surpassing $1.5 billion in sales. Six works sold for more than $100 million: Seurat’s "Les Poseuses Ensemble (Petite version)", ($149 million, with fees); Paul Cézanne’s 1888-90 "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" ($138 million); van Gogh’s "Verger avec cyprès" ($117 million); and Gustav Klimt’s 1903 "Birch Forest" ($105 million). The auction also included paintings by Botticelli, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Jan Brueghel the Younger. Proceeds from the auction benefitted undisclosed philanthropies.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 1989, Allen donated $2 million to the University of Washington to construct the Allen Library, which was named after his father Kenneth S. Allen, a former associate director of the University of Washington library system. In the same year, Allen donated an additional $8 million to establish the Kenneth S. Allen Library Endowment. In 2012, the endowment was renamed the Kenneth S. and Faye G. Allen Library Endowment after Allen's mother (a noted bibliophile) died.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2002, Allen donated $14 million to the University of Washington to construct the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. The building was dedicated in October 2003.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2010, Allen announced a gift of $26 million to build the Paul G. Allen School of Global Animal Health at Washington State University, his alma mater. The gift was the largest private donation in the university's history.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2016, Allen pledged a $10 million donation over four years for the creation of the Allen Discovery Centers at Tufts University and Stanford University. The centers would fund research that would read and write the morphogenetic code. Over eight years the donation could be as much as $20 million.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2017, Allen donated $40 million (with an additional $10 million from Microsoft) to reorganize the University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering department into the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.


title: Paul Allen

text: While Allen expressed interest in romantic love and one day having a family, he never married and had no children. His marriage plans with his first girlfriend were cancelled as he felt he "was not ready to marry at 23". He was sometimes considered reclusive. In the 1990s, he purchased Rock Hudson's Los Angeles estate from film director John Landis and added the Neptune Valley recording studio to the property. Allen's family put the home on the market for $56 million after his death.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen received his first electric guitar at the age of sixteen, and was inspired to play it by listening to Jimi Hendrix. In 2000, Allen played rhythm guitar on the independently produced album "Grown Men". In 2013, he had a major label release on Sony's Legacy Recordings: "Everywhere at Once" by Paul Allen and the Underthinkers. PopMatters.com described "Everywhere at Once" as "a quality release of blues-rock that's enjoyable from start to finish".


title: Paul Allen

text: On February 7, 2018, an interview with Quincy Jones was released by the magazine "New York" on their "Vulture" website. In this interview, Jones said that he had extreme respect for Eric Clapton, his band Cream, and Allen. Referencing Allen's Hendrix-like play, the article mentioned a jam session on a yacht with Stevie Wonder.