January, 2019

Note: This piece dates from 2001 but I think it’s still worthy of inclusion There has been a major breakthrough in the war against international terrorism thanks to a discovery made, yet again, by an Irishman, the famous author Colm Toibin, whose rise in popularity in British literary salons has been nothing short of meteoric. […]

Since August 2014 THE TIMES has been reprinting articles from one hundred years ago. They demonstrate a hard-line  militarism, contemptuous of conscientious objectors and early attempts at international negotiations, support for the internment of naturalized British subjects of German origin and stripping them of their rights as British subjects, harsh punishment of the Germans, delight […]

P Michael Clifford is not even a Jesuit but he is every bit as unreliable and crude an historical commentator as  Seumas Murphy SJ and Stephen Collins who has one foot in the Irish Times, another in the Jesuit journal Studies, and, when he speaks, both feet in his mouth. When democrats should be commemorating […]

                               Soloheadbeg is perhaps as singular a placename as one can find on Planet Earth if one is TUT of TUT who has made an interplanetary career of tut-tutting, Or at least the mangled Anglicised versh of the original Erse (Suilchóid Bheag) is, which, as The Ultima Thule (for it is he !) of The […]

Democracy is defined as a system of government by the whole population of a country through elected representatives. On 21 January 1919, the First Dáil was convened in Dublin.  The members of the Dáil asserted the Irish people’s right to self determination in an independent nation.  Those present could have established a presence in the […]

This day, 21 January, is seen as a day of great significance in the  history of Ireland. Two things happened on 21 January, 1919.  In the aftermath of the huge electoral victory by Sinn Féin in December 1918, the first Dáil Éireann convened and announced Irish independence. On the same day, Dan Breen and other […]

It’s beginning to get a bit serious, not to say scary, isn’t it? The British House of Commons has told Theresa May that whatever else they may want Brexit to mean, it’s not the deal that she’s negotiated. WH-A-A-AT? Two and a half years of, um, negotiations thrown out the window and just 68 days […]

About three years ago I drew attention to a piece by Father Seumas Murphy SJ in the  weekly RITE AND REASON column in THE IRISH TIMES. It was a crude attack on the 1916 Insurrection and sought to draw a distinction between the character of Daniel O’Connell and that of Patrick Pearse to the latter’s […]

Pics 1 and 2 are by Perkin Warbeck Pic 1 Pic 2                           The Sky at Night from The Balcony of Europe Look up there !  North by North West.  What is it?   Is it a bird? No. It is a plane […]

Earlier this week Sammy Wilson was  being interviewed on Talk Radio, where he was energetically denouncing “some MPs” for their arrogance in thinking they know better than the public about Brexit.   Can this be the same Sammy or the same Democratic Unionist Party that told  the Ulster Farmers’ Union and the business people of our […]