November, 2018

Young people and militarism

  . Those of you with good memories will recall a twitter-storm I had visited on me some time ago. It involved the Boys’ Brigade, and it came screaming from the ether, red in tooth and claw, when I suggested some similarities between the BB and a picture of some children dressed in paramilitary garb […]

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How to create a legacy

Remember the good old days, when Britain declared that she had “no self, strategic or economic interest” in holding onto the north of Ireland? It seems several life-times away. Back then it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to say . Why would Britain want to hold onto this corner of Ireland, when it was causing her […]

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THE KIND OF LETTER THE IRISH TIMES LIKES AND THE KIND IT SPIKES

LETTER ONE (IT likes) Sinn Féin past and present Thu, Nov 1, 2018, 01:32 Updated: Thu, Nov 1, 2018, 17:52  Sir, – Mary Lou McDonald writes that The Irish Times now seeks to legitimise partition (Letters, October 27th). Partition was legitimised in the 1998 Belfast Agreement when Irish people agreed unification could only occur with the consent of a […]

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OLD ROPE – PART 4 by Donal Kennedy

  In 1985 when Sinn Fein spokesmen such as Gerry Adams  visited London to speak with local politicians the Hornsey Journal was most scathing about local Councillors who listened to what they had to say. For the Journal, all politics was local and it reckoned that neither it nor the councillors should raise  their eyes […]

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The DUP: is all publicity good publicity?

If all publicity is good publicity, the DUP must be doing handstands in the halls of Westminster. There was a time not long ago that the great British public knew the name of one DUP politician – Ian Paisley – and that was it. Not so now. Last week’s Have I Got News For You […]

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On the wisdom of being nice to the DUP and the Tories

They used to say that’6 into 26 won’t go’; it now sounds as if the slogan is ‘6 into 27 won’t go’.  No matter what way the south of Ireland and the EU present the post-Brexit situation to the DUP and its Tory mates,  the answer comes back, as always: NO. I heard  the BBC’s […]

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PRAISE THE TITANIC? LET NOTHING YOU D’ISMAY by Donal Kennedy

  I flew from London City Airport  by the Old West India Docks, to Belfast City (George Best) Airport by the old Harland and Wolff shipyards last Tuesday. Both are pocket-size near their city centres and stress-free for an old geezer recovering from a stroke and just a few months younger than Ireland’s re-elected President. […]

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Liberalism, Fianna Fail And The Industrial Schools by Dave Alvey

    The barrage of anti-Catholic and anti-national invective that poured out of the Irish media during the recent visit of the Pope revealed much about Irish liberalism. For one thing most media commentators have an apparent inability to place difficult issues, like the child abuse that occurred in Industrial Schools, in any sort of […]

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IS DUBLIN THE CAPITAL OF A SOVEREIGN STATE? by Donal Kennedy

None of Ireland ‘s “National” Newspapers or Newspaper Groups have British, French, German or Italian editions aimed at British, French or other non-Irish citizens. I don’t think any of those  countries ‘ national papers have editions  aimed at citizens of other countries. The London Times, Sunday Times, and Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, virulently anti-Irish, and in […]

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Doing the job at Westminster

For people who are devoted to ‘our wee country’, the DUP have a baffling way of showing it. I’m not talking about NAMA or Red Sky or even RHI, which on the face of it would appear to be a few yards short of selfless love of The Province. I’m talking about Westminster. Do you […]

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