November, 2015

How to remember

There was an excellent item on BBC Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster’ Sunday Sequence this morning – perhaps you caught it? No, I don’t mean the one where I was on about marriage. I’m talking about the one where a 91-year-old veteran talked about  WW2 and his feelings as a participant. What distinguished him from the great […]

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The NHS and that Mr Hunt

One of the reasons many people will give against a re-united Ireland is the disparity between the two health systems, north and south. In the north you visit your GP and it doesn’t cost, visit your GP in the south and it costs. Ditto prescriptions. In general the north’s health system is well ahead of […]

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WHO’LL WRITE THE HISTORY? by Donal Kennedy

    When Kaiser Bill’s boys were trampling on Little Belgium, goes the story, a German statesman, asked what History would say of them, replied -“We’ll write the history.” Perhaps the story is an invention of a servant of the Kaiser’s cousin. The one in London, whose guns were to shell Dublin and whose goons […]

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Wrong again

Pass me a piece of that humble pie, would you? Having laid into the BBC for the fact that all its presenters wear poppies and that it was highly unlikely all of them did so willingly….I’ve just watched Newsline 6.30  (I don’t get out much) and during that half-hour I spotted no less than three […]

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ART FOR ART’S SAKE

  Art for art’s sake, a slogan translated from the French “l’art pour l’art” and was apparently coined sometime in the early 19th century by the French philosopher Victor Cousin. The phrase vaguely expresses the belief held by many writers and artists, especially those associated with Aestheticism, that art needs no justificationand that it needs […]

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Poppy power

Picture by Carolyn Eaton   I really don’t mind if people choose to wear a poppy. I might wonder how those who do can justify giving their approval and respect to all the things British armed forces have done since the First World War, not least in Ireland. But it would be the individual’s choice […]

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The Book of Yerdagh and My Da Too.

  The Book of Yerdagh and My Da Too. (Parts 1 & 2). Originally an illustrated lecture at the Gothenburg Irish Festival in 1998©   Web Links: Yerdagh Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48-9b6sl1Io   Web Links: Yerdagh Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLtXFDs-iqk   Just cut and paste these links into your web browser if they don’t activate. Thanks.   […]

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John Bruton and his pup by Donal Kennedy

Four score and seventeen years ago Irish voters despatched the already terminally- ill  Irish Parliamentary Party of John Redmond  and John Dillon  to its political grave. Three generations later  political grave-robbers,  led by  ex- Taoiseach John Bruton,  seek to clobber those  voters’ descendants with the exhumed  bones of  the  departed Party,  persuade  them that  their ancestors were too stupid to know what they  were doing,  and  even  suggest that […]

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Stephen and Miriam and silly, silly questions

Right, first things first. To Patrick and Michael – greetings again, and it was a real pleasure to talk with both of you. I enjoyed our conversations more than a number of the speaker’s on last night’s programme. And Michael – if you’d like that pic, drop me an email to judejcollins@gmail.com. Oh, and mention […]

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