December, 2018

    Fake news, phoney philosophers, quack doctors of letters, hack historians, are not new phenomena. But it seems to me that never has the human race  faced a greater tsunami of shite, poppycock and tommyrot than it does today. Nowhere are these phenomena greater than in today’s Ireland. In some specific issues there are apparently co-ordinated acts of […]

  It’s often difficult getting the brain to start turning its wheels on a Monday morning. Sluggishness rules. But occasionally, the brain can receive the equivalent of what happens the heart, when the physician shouts “Stand clear!” and applies two electric clamps to the patient’s chest. A jolt runs through the system that blows away […]

What was that old saying about feeling sorry for yourself because you’d no shoes, until you met a man with no feet? I’ve been keenly aware of how the fall in sterling bumped up the price of my air ticket (euros) and the price of my stay in the US (dollars) last summer. Now, courtesy […]

In 1983 when soldiers serving Ireland, first rubbed shoulders with the Royal British Legion to commemorate the Anglo-German Armistice of 1918, complaints appeared in the letters page of the Irish Times from distinguished veterans including General M J Costello who had fought in the ‘Tan War, the Civil War (on the “Treaty” side) established Military […]

If  anyone told me that the dogs in the street knew that Gerry Adams was in the IRA I’d concede he’d an advantage on me. I’ve  led a sheltered life and never had intercourse with canine quadrupeds, Urban gorillas nor All-Ireland primates of any persuasion. Nor have I ever seen an authenticated record of a […]

A couple of weeks ago I was down to Dublin. As I made my way up Grafton Street and approached the arched entry to St Stephen’s Green, I was confronted by the sight of about fifty people standing gawking at a giant metal statue. As you probably know by now, this statue has been erected […]