February, 2014

I heard the other day of an elderly man who gets the cleaners in every so often. In the hour before they arrive, he exhausts himself trotting from room to room….yep, you guessed it. Cleaning. I mean, what would the cleaners think if the place was a mess? This concern over what outsiders might think […]

The Kingsmill Massacre bore more of the features of a loyalist attack than a typical IRA one. Loyalists like Johnny Adair and the Shankill Butchers typically set out to kill Catholics – any Catholics. Their motivation was no doubt in part sectarian but it was based on a belief that if enough Catholics were killed, […]

On Saturday I was in a taxi in Dublin  and chatting with the driver. “So” I said. “Has Enda finally cracked this recession?”  He told me in a few words that Enda had done nothing of the sort, citing cuts of €60 per month to an already groaning home  budget as support for his view. […]

    A: Tell me this and tell me no more. What happened on 20 June 1968? B:  Frustrated by the allocation of a house to a young unmarried Protestant woman ahead of an older married Catholic woman with children,  Austin Currie and a number of other people occupied the house in Caledon  in protest. […]

    “Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules — and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.”…..Kurt Vonnegut, “The Sirens Of Titan” Meanwhile back on Earth 2 : …. So it Goes….. It’s time for the […]

I knew Phyllis Devenney. She was a wonderful woman, full of humour and forgiveness. At the time I met her she was suffering from cancer. She spoke of the chemotherapy sessions she’d had and how difficult they were, to the point where she told her family she simply wanted to stop. “And do you know […]

  Man:  Ah Miss Muircheartaigh  – do have  a seat. We’re sorry to have kept you waiting so long but as you are probably aware, there are a number of candidates for this position in our school. But you are very welcome. As a state school we are of course open to pupils of all […]