Hands up if you admire Boris Johnson? Right – me neither. His efforts to morph himself, in girth and gait, into a latter-day Churchill, is embarrassing. On the other hand, he is a very clever politician, and knows how to get full public attention in a short sentence. His latest one is “We have opened […]
September, 2018
LAPDOG BITES BULLDOG (9) by Perkin Warbeck
L Bray, County Wicklow was the location of a genuine Book of Revelations vibe recently. Specifically the chapter featuring the Burning Bush. It came at the end of the long hot summer when a gorse fire went into so-called Sweeny Todd mode and, by God, remorselessly shaved Bray Head as bald as a billiard […]
Who’s afraid of big bad Albion? The DUP is
Is Theresa May schizophrenic? That’s certainly one interpretation of her attitude to the British border in Ireland. In December of last year, she and her government agreed with the EU on the now-famous backstop. This said that, if no other solution was agreed for the border, the north would effectively remain in the EU […]
Rewriting history? Somebody’s got to do it.
Re-writing history: it’s becoming an increasingly common charge. It’s usually made by a unionist politician or commentator, and it springs from a nervousness about what happened in the past. For example, earlier this year the Pat Finucane Centre in Derry issued a report looking into the exodus of Protestants from the West bank of the […]
Twitter storms and infiltrating schools
I have been the target of two twitter-storms in my life. The more recent to produce froth-flecked mouths was when I tried to explain the meaning of the word ‘murder,’ and how in my view it was a misnomer when talking about the casualties of the Omagh bomb. Well! That I should dare to even […]
Why are unionists starting to favour a border poll?
Watching the RHI scandal stone being lifted and getting an eyeful of the unpretty little creatures scurrying about underneath, bumping into one another, swerving round each other, climbing over the top of each other – all that makes it easy to think that this ghastly orange corner of Ireland is a place you visit, let alone […]
Opinion polls and knowing when they lie
Opinion polls – do you trust them? I tend to trust them when they predict something I want to believe ( Julius Caesar had a line that translated as “Men readily believe that which they desire” – women too, I’d guess). If I find they’re predicting something I don’t want, I rubbish them and point […]
No Stone Unturned and the Loughinisland killings: who knew?
I finally got round to watching the film No Stone Unturned last night. The fact that it’s on Amazon Prime means it’s available to anyone anywhere. On the other hand, that it’s gone so quickly to Amazon Prime might suggest that not huge numbers of people are all that interested in Loughinisland and what happened there, […]
GLITCHES, TYPOS, AND SENIOR MOMENTS.- APOLOGIES TO READERS by Donal Kennedy
Because my current laptop has a small screen and I have made numerous TYPOS which I hadn’t noticed. I’d like readers to know that the Phoenix Park has 1780 (NOT 1880) acres, John McDonagh was born in 1880 (NOT 1780) Charles Kettle was a brother of Tom Kettle, not his son. The RIC in […]
Micheál frets over when to break free
Micheál Martin is not the strong silent type. The pace of his delivery matches and surpasses that of Michelle O’Neill (although she has slowed considerably of late) and the first word that would leap to your brain on considering him is not “strong”. Not as smarmy as Leo but not strong either. Micheál Martin is […]