October, 2016

PART TWO took us to the East Clare By-Election of 1917 and public comment on it at the time, and even more significant, comment made in confidence by Britain’s Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne, to the British Cabinet.    When, in 1967. Wimbourne’s memorandum was at last  made available to view in Britain’s Public Record Office, not […]

Pics 1, 2 and 3 by John Patton  Pic  1                                                                  Pic 2                   Pic 3 […]

Oh dear. (No, I don’t usually use that term, Virginia, but this is a family blogsite.) Oh dear oh dear oh dear. They’re doing it again. Having dug deep and thrown every conceivable charge at the Clintons Bill and Hillary, some well-founded and some straight from fairyland, the anti-Clinton forces are seizing on what they’d […]

    Commitment to continuing and comprehensive prison reform based upon principles of human dignity, decency and respect must be paramount THIS WEEK, a motion was put before the Northern Assembly for debate by the Ulster Unionist Party. It effectively sought to predetermine the outcome of the planned independent review of prison accommodation arrangements as […]

According to recent surveys the number of those who believe in the Jewish-Christian God is becoming a smaller and smaller every year. Many have rejected their childhood idea of God just as they reject Santa Claus and most do not bother to explore the possibility of discovering a richer meaning for the idea of believing […]

PART ONE ended with public comments  by and in THE FREEMAN’s JOURNAL, THE IRISH INDEPENDENT and THE IRISH TIMES on the result and the conduct of the East Clare By-Election of 1917. It should not be thought that Colonel O’Callaghan-Westropp, whose comments in THE IRISH TIMES I quoted earlier, was converted to Irish Nationalism or Republicanism, to […]

Was Colum Eastwood doing the right thing when he attended the Ulster Unionist Party’s conference? It would depend on what you mean when you use the word ‘right’. It was right in that it showed people he was prepared to work with the UUP. After all, the two parties are the Opposition in Stormont. It […]

It’s funny but the above question seems not to bother the ordinary English, Scots or Welsh person at all, but exercises the renegade Irishman and Irishwoman quite a bit. In that way those Irish renegades most clearly demonstrate their distance from the vast majority of aboriginal Britons who are quite happy in their own skins and […]

Taking sides in an argument can sometimes be disconcerting. You look along the row of those opposed to you and spot faces of people you respect. You glance along the line of those on the same side as you and your heart sinks. I find myself in this situation on the Asher’s Bakery issue. I […]

Both my wife and I can clearly remember where we were when we heard of the disaster at Aberfan in 1966. She was in University in Aberystwyth, and I, (who was not to meet her until two years later), was visiting Belfast (from London) to see a young person studying at Queen’s University. The Aberfan […]