December, 2018

Fianna Fail and the SDLP: come and get me, big boy

Breaking news, as we sidle towards 2019, feeling apprehensive: Fianna Fail and the SDLP are “poised to announce a phased process leading to their integration”! Bet that caught you on the hop, if you’ve been living in an underground cave for the last ten years. And note the delicate phrasing: “poised” – haven’t done it […]

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Reflections on Charlie Haughey

One thing I liked about Charlie Haughey: he was cool. When you saw him appear on TV, you knew he wasn’t going to be wrong-footed, or crushed, or a figure of fun. In contrast Garrett Fitzgerald, at the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, looked like an over-grown schoolboy anxious to please headmistress Thatcher. Charlie Haughey, […]

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Saturday pics of the week

Pics 1-3 are by Perkin Warbeck   Pic 1        Pic 2   Pic 3                                                Perkin Warbeck:                         The Basset A […]

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Picking pluses from a Brexit clustersplat

  Usually at this time of year, news is thin on the ground. Stories of how Santa fulfilled the wishes of a poor child, stories of pets that were loved or neglected over Christmas, recipes for what to do with what’s left of the turkey. This year is different. This is us all, not so […]

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HARD TIMES, BOOMING TIMES JUST CRYING FOR A PANTOMIME PLOT? by Donal Kennedy

    When Ireland was prostrate from the Great Hunger and millions in Britain were  suffering misery imposed by those who had caused It, Charles Dickens wrote Hard Times, excoriating the doctrines of Malthus and the Benthamite  Utilitarian ideologues who, under the guise of philanthropy, imposed unpleasantness and misery on the  unpropertied and unenfranchised masses. Hard Times indeed, […]

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Alex Kane and a border poll

Alex Kane is one of those rare creatures, a unionist journalist who is at ease with nationalists and republicans. He is a man it is difficult to quarrel with or even differ from, since he often begins his panel contributions with “Yes, I agree with what X has just said, s/he is absolutely right” , […]

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INNOCENCE, BLISS, REJOICING AND FEAR ,by Donal Kennedy

I first saw the light of day in the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin on Sunday,  December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in the Year of Our Divine Lord 1941. Bliss was it that time and that place to be alive. Outside things were grim. The Germans, who had attacked the Soviet Union […]

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Unionists in the north and in the south

So what did you ask Santa for? Maybe a reunited Ireland, in which case you’ll be feeling disappointed – certainly if your note ended “And I want today, Santy!” It’s a day later and we still don’t have a reunited country. But if you framed your request in a more patient form – “Dear Santy, can you give […]

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