October, 2020

By now, most of us are used to reading accounts of the struggle for independence one hundred years ago. Many of us will have read insider accounts of life as an IRA volunteer in the north during the second half of the twentieth century. These more recent accounts , by such as Sean O’Callaghan or […]

Should Trump post Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court? And if not, why not? And it appears Angela Merkel does her own shopping,  drives her own car – so how come our politicians need chauffeurs and Mercs? And the Mayor of Galway is sending personal letters to people who are stuck at home, solitary and in need of word from outside. Pat and I chew the rag on all three topics. Bain sult as…

 A young person in the UK has taken action against the NHS for doing as they asked of it. At a tender age they demanded an operation to re-align their genitals so they’d  correspond with the gender they’d wish to be known by. The NHS obliged the whim of the young person without consulting its […]

No  party or  candidate  included the legalisation of assisted suicide in their manifesto in Ireland’s recent general election, not even under a spin-doctored euphemism. Yet a majority of TDs are hell-bent on making the murderous measure the law of the land. All Sinn Fein and  Labour TDs and Senators support this innovation which apparently was […]

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News “And let the punishment fit the crime/The punishment fit the crime!” That was the tuneful sentiment from one of the songs in  Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. That comic opera may have been written some 150 years ago, but it can be applied to two cases in the news recently. First there’s  Supreme Court […]

smart I was 67 this week.  October 6, 1953 seems a long way away now, doesn’t it …the day I was born? It was, apparently, a Tuesday – like this year – and if a dog had been born that same day it would now be 288 years old. Google told me that. Because of […]

Today Pat and I paw through the papers and media. There’s the Irish  times with Stephen Collins applauding the FF-FG coalition for taking back control of Covid, there’s the Claire Byrne  interview with Prof Diarmuid Ferriter which talked about Terence  McSwiney’s death 100 years ago but largely avoided a more recent  hunger strike, and finally why people in the north (like me) support a  soccer team in a different state from the one we live in. As always,  stirring stuff. Kick off your boots, put your feet up and make your  Friday…

“IPSO” the  IINDEPENDENT PRESS STANDARDS ORGANISATION was founded after the Levenson Inquiry into the British press. So far it appears independent and not the compliant servant of British press Lords and editors that the old Press Complaints Commission and Press Council proved to be when I had dealings with them. IPSO adjudicated on a series of […]

The  IRISH  EXAMINER  eschews the examination of  history and favours recycling  stories concocted by  the British Black Propaganda gang in Dublin Castle a century ago,and  rumours that were demonstrably false. (See Blog “Let’s Examine the Examiner ” (15 September 2020) And  the academic Eve Morrison is about to present, as a  serious commentary on the  […]

“That’s life (that’s life) that’s what people say You’re riding high in April Shot down in May.” This isn’t April or May but both Dr Tony Holohan must be having thoughts similar to those that Frank Sinatra thrilled us with when he sang ‘That’s Life’.  Dr Tony Holohan was showered with compliments, hailed as the […]