October, 2013

Sometimes reality breaks through the mesh of the media and the results are refreshing. They can also be embarrassing or infuriating or revelatory but they are always refreshing, because they’re the voice of real life, not the media’s version of real life, and that in itself is refreshing.  Such a rare moment came yesterday when […]

Sometimes the politically correct lot  give me a pain in the butt. There is the coterie that thinks it would be a good idea to take Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn  and remove the many references to Nigger Jim.  A sort of posthumous reproof to a great writer, using today’s customs and standards. Stupid, stupid, stupid. […]

Good news. Peter Robinson is to attend a big dinner at Queen’s University tonight. It’s organised by Co-operation Ireland and it’s to give public recognition to the GAA’s efforts to forge better community relations.(The EU beat them to the punch, so to speak, when they yesterday recognised the exemplary role of the GAA in Irish […]

Caitriona Ruane is taking a pummelling, this time from the SDLP and the unionist representatives on the Assembly Commission. It seems Ms Ruane wanted to provide answers to MLAs’ questions in both Irish and English. The Assembly Commission voted her down, the SDLP representative voting with the unionists on the Commission and only the Alliance […]

It’s sort of fun being a blogger. You get compliments from some people, more often you get brickbats from others. The most common brickbat I get fired my way is that I’m an unthinking mouthpiece for republicanism. Especially the IRA.  If you took these kind of charges seriously you’d be heading either for your solicitor […]

  It’s hard not to like Enda Kenny. Even admire him. There he was on Saturday night, at a specially-convened Fine Gael conference that was supposed to be celebrating their victory in the referendum on the Seanad. But was he embarrassed about ending up with a referendum defeat on his hands? No chance. ‘Fine Gael […]

    So now three DUP MLAs have requested the Ombudsman to look into Gerry Adams’s role in the Liam Adams saga. I wonder why. It could be that they feel it’s important to be part of the great battle against child sexual abuse and this is their contribution. Or it could be that they […]

So now three DUP MLAs have requested the Ombudsman to look into Gerry Adams’s role in the Liam Adams saga. I wonder why. It could be that they feel it’s important to be part of the great battle against child sexual abuse and this is their contribution. Or it could be that they feel the […]

  Once again the subject of the Shankill bombing comes centre stage. Plans have been announced for a commemoration of Thomas Begley, one of the two young men who carried the bomb into the Shankill fish-shop and who was himself killed in the explosion. Now a commemoration is planned for him later this month, a […]

Once again the subject of the Shankill bombing comes centre stage. Plans have been announced for a commemoration of Thomas Begley, one of the two young men who carried the bomb into the Shankill fish-shop and who was himself killed in the explosion. Now a commemoration is planned for him later this month, a few […]