There are people who’d tell you the Irish nationalist/republican psyche has a fracturing factor hard-wired into it. Brendan Behan caught it nicely when he said that at the launch of any new Irish organization or party, the first item on the agenda was always The Split. He has a point but it’s wider than that. […]
October, 2014
WHAT TALKS? by Harry McAvinchey
Why does Peter Robertson always sound so bad-tempered? By the sound of things we are about to get another batch of seasonal talks about marching and flags and anything else we can dream up .They “seem” to be scheduled for next Thursday but the Secretary of State wasn’t giving much away on her interview on […]
FENCES AND STORMS by Harry McAvinchey
Winter came creeping and arrived by stealth when I was away for a long weekender in Liverpool. Getting off the plane , you could feel it in the air.A degree or two lower in temperature. The week before, we had been enjoying an extended Summer/Autumn. The sun was still shining .It hadn’t rained. Apparently it […]
TOM FOOLERY 1914 by Randall Stephen Hall
It’s a sunny October day in 2014 as I type these words. November isn’t long away and this year, 2014, rings with all the sad echoes and memories of a World War I have never fully understood. Not why men fight (for it is generally men), but how such a thing occurred at all? I […]
By-elections and a new diet for some
Today the Tory party are reeling. In Clacton, their former MP has run as a UKIP candidate and has taken the seat with a majority of some 12,000. In a second by-election in Manchester, the UKIP candidate came within some 600 votes of taking what was always thought of as a safe Labour seat. So […]
On polls that chill (and warm) the heart
Are the Irish people mad? As I thought I had made clear in yesterday’s blog, Sinn Fein are a party of economic illiterates. We have that on good authority from at least two parties – Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Three, if you add the late lamented Progressive Democrats, who coined the phrase and who […]
HELP! by Harry McAvinchey
Help us !! I’m having my first cup of Punjana and Ian Paisley Junior {Is he still junior?} is on the “Nolan” radio show blaming Martina Anderson of Sinn Fein for the impending closure of the Gallaher factory in Ballymena. He ‘s basically thrashing about looking for a scapegoat I suppose .He wants someone to […]
SMOKE SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE by Harry McAvinchey
The first smoke I ever had was a Gallaher Blues untipped . My father smoked them back in the 1950’s and 1960’s when smoking was really good for you and film stars and pop stars chuffed away with great gusto and abandon. They were advertised everywhere and every schoolboy worth his salt had to learn […]
Enda and who’s smart at sums (and who isn’t)
I’ve met Enda Kenny. He’s a very nice man – polite, sense of humour, generous with his time (when he gets past his minders). He’s also slippery as an eel. I interviewed him for half an hour and came out, somehow, without having laid a glove on him. So when he says something I listen. […]
Nolan, politics and religion.
I was on the Nolan show (BBC Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster) this morning. The topic was the mix you get when politics and religion collide. If we’d been able to insert sex as well we’d have had the ideal mix: Gay Byrne used to say his RTE Late Late Show thriced on those three ingredients. For […]