August, 2020

You may have noted that Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson has tweeted an apology for her tweet.  Her initial tweet  was that victims’ pensions would go to those who took Britain’s side in ‘the dirty war’.  In her second tweet she apologised “unreservedly’ for the hurt and offence her initial tweet might have caused people who […]

 At first glance, Phil Hogan and Harry Maguire have little in common. Hogan is (at the time of writing) an EU commissioner, Harry Maguire is a Man United and England player. However, Maguire is considered a lucky man to be in the England squad, because of a brawl in Greece, even if he’s deprived of […]

 I have watched Last Night of the Proms occasionally, and have marvelled at the flag-waving, well-fed audience who grinned and bopped to the Sailor’s Hornpipe,  and had hysterics when a balloon popped as the conductor was speaking. And I’ve enjoyed Land of Hope and Glory  and even Rule, Britannia. They’re both rousing tunes and the […]

I wonder what the odds would have been that the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/ Greens coalition would be wobbling precariously after only a few  months. As that wise man and EU Commissioner Phil Hogan put it, Golfgate seems to have touched a nerve in the southern  electorate. So take Phil –  as the song says, should he stay or should he go? And then there’s Kellyanne Conway (Irish blood for sure) who is  stepping down from her prestigious post as White House spokesperson. Might that have to do with the tweets her 15-year-old daughter has been firing off into the twittersphere, or maybe  something to do with her husband  who was until recently a key man in the Lincoln Project, a group of republicans campaigning AGAINST  Donald Trump?  Listen and learn….

As my fingers trip along the keyboard, I’m hearing Stephen Nolan doing what he can to change the Clifden Cock-up into the Shinner Shameful Hypocrisy, because the Shinners went to Bobby Storey’s funeral. See what he did there? Took an event in a foreign country and  in our wee country morphed it into a big […]

This is a copy of a blog I wrote five years ago. Cork at present has, of course, a new Lord Mayor “As Ard-Mhéara, I pledge that I will be non-partisan and inclusive in all my duties, whether inside or outside the council chamber and to highlight the injustices that make our society unequal.” That’s […]

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News The DUP’s  Peter Weir has the air of a slightly harassed headmaster.  He also is closer to the liberal end of the DUP (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) rather than the raw-reactionary end. Unfortunately for him, he’s also the Minister for Education […]

By Donal Lavery  “While police officers who blatantly shaft the common people believe that they are God, they are the Devil to those that they wrong.” – Steven Magee “With class, as with race, it is the status quo that the police act to preserve and the interests of the powerful they seek to defend, […]

 So. That’s it. No more of this nonsense where terrorists who engage in violence are by sleight of hand and twist of tongue declared to be victims and paid a pension. True victims only – those who had violence inflicted on them, not their assailants – will be in receipt of payments. But hold. Were […]

Friday again, and Pat and I look at what a hames Fianna Fail are  making of things with the latest screwup being the Deputy Leader  Dara Calleary being found at an  Oireachtas golf dinner (no, they didn’t eat golf balls, Virginia) which breached the guidelines by a country mile. We  also run our tapemeasure over Joe Biden and his formal nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate. Is he really sleepy? Really slow? Will Trump  destroy him in the TV debates?  Have a look….