June, 2018

THE PERFUMES OF ARABIA REVISITED by Donal Kennedy

Watching the opening match of the World Cup, I was impressed by the cordiality  between  the elected President Putin of Russia and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as together they watched Russia defeat Saudi Arabia by five goals to nil. I was rather taken aback by the main cartoon in THE TIMES the next morning which depicted President […]

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A NEW ANTHEM FOR A NEW PEOPLE? OR AN OLD ONE? by Donal Kennedy

Following Dr Varadkar’s Prescription of A New Constitution For A New People, Fintan O’Toole, the  Paid Piper of The Irish Times, followed by some of his younger admirers, if not a plague of rats, has called for the scrapping of Amhran  na bFhiann/  A Soldier’s Song , the anthem of those who have given allegiance to the […]

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DEVASTATION OF UNIVERSAL CREDIT by John Patton

  Growing up in Ireland, the Paupers’ Field and the Polo Field were our childhood play areas. As children, the emotional overtones did not register with us nor did any real distinction occur between the  two grounds. Seventy years later , I find those memories strangely relevant to current society as the gap between rich […]

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Arlene: not waving but drowning?

So. Arlene has moved from being the crocodile woman to being the neighbourly woman. She’s put aside the iron fist normally used for repelling reptiles and has extended the hand of friendship to her GAA neighbours, even to the point of holding up, while smiling, a Fermanagh shirt with Irish writing on it. It’s a […]

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Last night with Mary Lou

So – ring out the old, ring in the new. Goodbye Gerry, hello Mary-Lou. We’ve known for some time that Gerry Adams has stepped down and that Mary Lou McDonald has succeeded him as President of Sinn Féin. But it’s only when she did the leader’s address at the Sinn Féin Árd-Fheis that it came home […]

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Leo, the Orange Order and uncomfortable facts

Did you get to chat with Leo when he was up in Belfast a while back? Me neither, although I’m not sure what I’d have said. Perhaps “What brings you to Belfast?” The occasion was the opening of Feile an Phobail in West Belfast. You’d never have thought that, given the way it was covered […]

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Dark chapters in history not confined to Ireland by Donal Kennedy

Letter to the Irish World: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was quoted in your issue of 9th June as describing the discovery of illegal adoptions between 1949 and 1969 as “another dark chapter in our (Irish) history”. Indeed it is,  as is the Irish media contention that it was a uniquely Irish and uniquely Catholic scandal.  London’s Observer of 10th June […]

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Diane frets about those two MEP seats

I’ve never met Diane Dodds but she strikes me as a pleasant little woman. Not given, as far as I can judge, to outbursts of rage or spleen, Which is probably just as well, since she’s married to Nigel Dodds, something most of us wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. But Diane has been thrust […]

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