One of the great strengths the pigs had in George Orwell’s Animal Farm was that the other animals so easily forgot what things were said in the past. In the early days of taking over the farm, the animal chant had been “Four legs good, two legs bad!” But with the passage of time animals […]
September, 2018
The backstop and back-stepping
These are dangerous times. There are a number of dangers but most of them are rooted in Brexit, which for Ireland (and I do mean Ireland, not the 26-county state) is a crisis and an opportunity point. The crisis part is becoming more obvious every day. Last December Theresa May committed Britain to the famous […]
Palestinian and Kuwaiti rights at Roger Casement Summer School by Dave Alvey
In Ireland in September 2018 it is still possible to freely discuss in a public forum Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights. The subject received an airing on Saturday 1 September at the final session of a Summer School dedicated to the memory of Roger Casement. Taking place in the theatre of a modern library […]
LAPDOG BITES BULLDOG (10) by Perkin Warbeck
If Cork is the Texas of Irish counties (considering size, shape, location, rebel yell, Youghal/ Y’all, an’ all ) then its great rival Tipperary is the Yorkshire of Irish counties (considering shape, if not location, North Riding / South Riding while, the clincher, one has a Thrasher to the other’s Ripper aka […]
The Irish Times champions Mairia
I woke up this morning and thought it was an ordinary day until I went online. Then I realized – there’s a presidential election coming up and perhaps two general elections. How did I know that from looking online? Well the Irish Times has an editorial weighing into Mary Lou McDonald because she didn’t include in […]
Michael D and mature recollection
According to the Sindo today, the people of the south are poised to waste several million euro on something that could have been done without. Going by the opinion poll figures they cite, President Michael D Higgins has some 67% of the electorate behind him as he looks to make his 7-year stint in office […]
Stop picking on Karen Bradley!
I never thought I’d type these words, or if by some awful mistake I did, I’d immediately chop off the fingers of my left hand and get a friend to chop off those on my right. What words? These: The British Secretary of State is being given an unnecessarily hard time. While I still have […]
Russians telling lies and Britain peering into private matters
Did you see those clips of the two Russians on the news last night? They were broadcast originally on Russian state TV station RT (Russia Today), and showed the two suspects in the Skripal poisoning looking very shifty and claiming they’d been to Salisbury to see its famous spire. I watched it mainly on Channel […]
David and his fabulously practical plan
Well, that was helpful. The European Research Group (ERG) made up of crazy Brexit Tories like Theresa Villiers and Owen Patterson came out with a paper yesterday that David Davis described as “fabulously practical”. Echoes of Donald Trump telling people he’s the best President of the US ever. As the crazies see it, the leader of […]
Doing the crazy thing and doing the right thing
Sometimes thinking about the DUP invokes a certain wobbliness, a feeling that the ground under your feet is heaving and may yawn open at any moment and send you plunging into a hell where everything that is, isn’t, and vice versa. An example. Theresa May toyed with the idea of the north being given special […]