August, 2018

    “What is Honour?” asked the rascal Sir John Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most interesting characters. The Late Arnold Goodman, Baron Goodman, was a Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and a Companion of Honour. So it seems to me that an examination of Honour might appropriately start with Goodman’s career and the friends he chose. Among […]

You’ll not believe what they’re saying. Seriously. The word is that the southern government sent an invitation to the leader of the DUP, to come to an address by Pope Francis in Dublin Castle today. And of course, what happens? Murphy’s law. The very day that the address is being given by the Pope, Arlene […]

  Like you, I was disgusted by the Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, released on Tuesday, Aug. 14. Unlike you, perhaps, I read the whole report, mainly because my job required it—every excruciating account of sexual abuse by 301 priests across six dioceses, with more than 1,000 victims. The fact that […]

The above exclamation is not much used now. To be honest I’ve only ever seen it in books written long before my time and long forgotten. The business of canonisation in the Catholic Church puzzles me. A woman of violence was burned at the stake by a French Bishop and was proclaimed a saint by a Pope […]

Are we Irish sex-mad? There are some who would dispute this, pointing to our consuming (no pun intended) interest in drink. Experience tells me that this is a false dichotomy: it’s perfectly possible to be consumed with interest in both. Back in the 1950s, the attitude of the Catholic Church and Irish society suggested that […]

  Mitchel McLaughlin is a highly likeable man – that was probably a major factor in his becoming Speaker at Stormont when it was still holding together. He has a keen mind and a clarity of expression that marks him as one of Sinn Féin’s outstanding minds. And did I mention that he’s not above […]

  The Times of London used to be known as The Thunderer, because of its lofty views on the various issues of the day. The Irish Times   (and to be fair, most papers – even The Irish News/VO)  have an editorial column) that expresses its opinion on the goings-on in the world. Except in no case […]

  . I know, that Eamon de Valera, Fianna Fail’s founder,  won a  Stormont seat in two successive elections. I thought the SDLP, as a “Labour” Party had fraternal relations with the other Labour Party in these islands. But followed the old Sinn Fein policy of abstention. In more recent times a Fianna Fail man […]

          Buddhism, I’m told, claims that all human suffering derives from a human resistance to change. If that’s true, this morning’s Irish Times contains two articles which might call for a bit of Zen Buddhism before reading. The first is headed “Old IRA disappearances ‘off the scale’ compared with PIRA”. A […]

no     On the sporting front, this summer for sure has been one great big Glorious Goodwood of Gaelphobia, both on Liffeyside and Leeside. The clinching piece of an alphabet of evidence to support this plain statement of alleged factoid is Exhibit L. This, of course, refers to that doggone DNA-level evidence presented by […]