Tens of thousands of men joined the British forces, the Daily Telegraph recently reported, because of the shooting by Germans in 1915 of the British spy Edith Cavell. For one hundred years British governments upheld the lie that she was innocent of spying but Dame Stella Rimington, former Director of MI5 has confirmed that she […]
July, 2016
Referendum petition
Petition Northern Ireland Border Poll for United Ireland in the EU in response to Brexit The majority of people in northern ireland voted to remain in Europe during the “brexit” referendum. Northern Ireland’s decision has been discounted. It is our democratic right to decide the future of our Island through a poll on whether to […]
FULL FATHOM FIVE, SON, FULL FATHOM FIVE by Donal Kennedy
At school during the 1950s, those preparing for the Intermediate Cert, and the Leaving Cert. had anthologies of English Poetry and English Prose. I suppose they were old-fashioned. but none the worse for that. Samuel Johnson’s Letter to Lord Chesterfield was a wonderful put-down. Chesterfield had published a fulsome appreciation of Johnson’s Dictionary […]
‘Tom Kettle – isn’t he a household name in Ireland?’ by Donal Kennedy
Although introduced by Charles Stewart Parnell as someone who was “a household name in Ireland” , Andrew Kettle MP is not recorded in The Dictionary of National Biography, that wonderful collection of lives connected with these islands these past 2,000 years. The DNB a few years back issued a volume -“Missing Persons” which featured some, the significance of […]
That Corbyn: he’s an embarrassment
One of the nastiest features to emerge from the BREXIT bomb-shell – and God knows there are enough contenders – is the blood-lust within the Labour Party. Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected and BREXIT was a fairly distant speck, the British Labour Party MPs have been scratching their heads to come up with a […]
THE LIES THAT BIND
Ha ha .You’ve got to laugh . All the cliches come true sometime .A week is a very long time in politics is a big one and had you been on holidays this past week or fortnight, clearing your mind, relaxing with the news switched off , you’d have arrived back to a very different […]
Honouring the old lie
Imagine the scene. A maniac has entered a house, intent on killing all there. The father of the family is away at work and arrives just as the maniac is about to start his lethal work. Heroically the father tries to stop the maniac in his tracks with a kitchen knife, but fails. The maniac […]
SERMONS IN STONES by Donal Kennedy
THE PIECE BELOW WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE IRISH DEMOCRAT IN JULY 1986 – AND SUBSEQUENTLY IN OTHER PAPERS “My first night in the trenches” said my Uncle Ned, an old, then still in his sixties, Dublin Fusilier, “I’d peep over the parapet, duck, Bless myself, then peep over again”. Yours truly, less couth, […]
CARSON’S KISS OF DEATH by Donal Kennedy
CARSON’S KISS OF DEATH The Road To The Somme – Men of the Ulster Division Tell Their Story. Philip Orr. Blackstaff Press, Belfast. 248ppp/b. £9.95. Of all the units of all the armies that fought in the First World War, the British Army’s Ulster Division was surely the most curious. Most of it was transferred en bloc from the Ulster Volunteer Force, […]