September, 2018

SEVENTY YEARS ON – AND WHOLLY FORGOTTEN? by Donal Kennedy

  On 17th September 1948 the UN’s ENVOY in Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte and Colonel Andre Serot of the French Army, serving with the UN were murdered In Jerusalem. Both bodies were flown to Paris, Bernadotte’s en route to Stockholm. At the airport to pay their respects were the Secretary General of the United Nations, the […]

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WHO VOTES FOR FINE GAEL? by Donal Kennedy

I know that it’s an impertinent question, considering that the secrecy of the Parliamentary Ballot has been enshrined in law since 1872. The idea would never have occurred to me had I not recently come across an old Cumann na nGaedhael poster claiming that only gunmen and Communists voted for Fianna Fail. I never realised […]

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RHI Inquiry gets hotter

It’s like watching a cat getting sick in slow motion – not something you particularly enjoy acting as audience to, but difficult not to keep looking once it starts. I’m talking, as you’ve guessed, about the RHI inquiry. As-it-happens inquiries, where we get to see big shots squirming and stewing in their own juices, do […]

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EU gang of 27 mug May

Look. I’d be one of the first to engage in a thigh-slapping round of  schadenfreude, particularly when it involves a British prime minister stalking ashen-faced around a garden in Salzburg looking like a wounded giraffe, while all the other (almost all male) prime ministers turn their back on her. I’d not be beyond punching the air and yelling […]

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BEN MACINTYRE – TOFF OR TOSSER? by Donal Kennedy

  Benjamin Richard Pierce MacIntyre, confidant of Britain’s Secret Services and admirer of her SAS assassins is himself a cunning warrior. With great fanfare he has accused Michael Foot of being a traitor. There was a time when gentlemen making the slightest aspersions on another gentleman’s character would go to great pains to meet a […]

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Do you let the mainstream media do your thinking for you?

Here’s a frightening thought: you’re going to base your views on what’s going to happen with Brexit on the views of someone else. Or several someones. Take the prospects for agreement. In the online Independent, there’s an encouraging article today headed “Theresa May to accept checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in major concession […]

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THE IRISH TIMES CHAMPIONED HITLER by Donal Kennedy

On Hitler’s accession to power THE IRISH TIMES, in an Editorial, “Herr Hitler’s Way” welcomed him, particularly for his rough treatment of Communists, on the principle that “you can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg.” It actually cited that expression. A few weeks earlier it had warned of the dire consequences of voting for […]

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