July, 2016

    The missing element in the peace process is truth and reconciliation. It is undeniable that Sinn Fein have been making just about all of the effort in this regard.  Can anyone say with any degree of modicum that the leadership of unionism have made even the remotest effort to reconcile with the rest […]

  I saw a remarkable sight on the TV about ten days ago. It was Enda Kenny at a specially convened meeting of the British-Irish Council. Enda was looking and talking serious stuff. “We do not want to see a European border on the island of Ireland”. Right on, Enda. The thing is, might we […]

  One of the main arguments against the reunification of Ireland is that the north is unviable and the south cannot afford us. Now the first point I would make is we are talking about reunification of our country which is presently one  country with two jurisdictions operating independently resulting in two economies and two […]

It is a regrettable confirmation that the upper echelons of unionism have a long way to go in the journey towards an inclusive society when the Belfast Telegraph (which claims to serve the entire community) allows its pages to be used by politician Nelson McCausland to compare the savage murder of Catholic priest Father Jacques […]

  Last Saturday, the Irish Times published a letter from one Aoife Lord of Co Meath which I quote in full below. “Sir, – We don’t want them, we don’t need them, we can’t afford them, we are somewhat afraid of them, we think that they are culturally different from us, we don’t approve of […]

At a British War Cabinet meeting in October 1917 the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, “bluntly observed that a statement supporting Zionism would be ‘extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America’ ” according to an article in THE TIMES by Ben McIntyre on July 29.  Since he was Prime Minister in 1904 Balfour, in office or […]

It’s odd how contradictory the attitudes of  society can be. There are people who think nothing of hammering religious belief as the refuge of the deeply stupid and those believe in fairy tales; yet the same critics will go ballistic if religious believers suggest that  Ross Hussey wasn’t performing at his moral best when he tweeted naked […]

You’ll all probably know that the “NewStatesman” is an influential magazine of some 100 years’ longevity, having what it likes to call a left -of -centre feel to its politics and is the kind of magazine that has attracted writers and thinkers of the intellectual calibre and political heft of the late Christopher Hitchens and […]

Hillary Clinton was on the verge of tears last night. The reports tell us she was “almost overocme with emotion as she entered the arena to loud cheers and embraced her daughter, Chelsea, who introduced her as the next President of the United States.  She took a deep breath to collect herself as delegates in […]

The killing of the 84-year-old priest in Normandy, while he said Mass, is as gruesome and horrifying a killing as you can imagine. Confronted with such actions, it’d be understandable if France were to lurch to the right and say “Enough – we can’t allow this any more” and follow through ruthlessly, curtailing civil liberties, […]