December, 2020

 So – the final day of 2020 has arrived. To say it’s been an event-packed year would be a serious understatement. So many images, so much turmoil, so much fear and so much sorrow, at a personal level there were times when it all seemed too much to cope with.  And at national levels? Well, […]

I was 79 on the 28th December, the Feast of The Holy Innocents, and have just been introduced  to a new temptress named Alexa.   She’ll play  almost anything, not with but for me, in an instant. She apparently doesn’t know THE BOYS OF KILMICHAEL, but does know KEVIN BARRY as rendered by Paul Robeson, Lonnie […]

Several things I find surprising about the former British prime minister John Major. (Yes, Virginia, I know that his full name is John Major-Balls, and I know that he ran away from the circus to become a bank clerk.) The first is that he ever became British prime minister  – before his ascension post-Thatcher he’d […]

I mentioned these Diaries in a  recent blog and described them as a mine of information that I would excavate. I’m unaware of any reference to them by commentators during this alleged Centennial Decade of Commemoration,  though they are prime sources for an understanding of the world we live in today. On 25 May 1916 Scott […]

Assuming you believe in him, do you sometimes find yourself bargaining with God? Or  with your neighbour?  We realise that we are facing an appalling vista, so we try to haggle our way out of it. “If you don’t let my sick child die, I’ll never touch drink again”. Or “If you can get the […]

As we stumble from the haze of food and booze that was yesterday and face into today, the start of a six-week lock-down with (horror of horrors) our nearest and dearest, are you not entitled to shed a small tear or two?  Not if you’ve got backbone. Straighten up, there, and face tomorrow with a […]

Betrayed again!  British policy is dictated by British interests. It has always been so. The fact that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has again betrayed unionists over Brexit should have come as no surprise to anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of how British policy works. The British Prime Minister Palmerston spelt it out most clearly almost […]

Here’s an odd thing.Travel from the UK has been banned by Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, France and of course the south of Ireland. But what state hasn’t banned travel from the UK? North(east)ern Ireland. Which of course makes perfect sense, since NEI is part of the UK. Not much point in […]

Are the people in the south of Ireland suffering from Shinnbash fatigue? The Irish Times and other media outlets in the south tend to take a stern anti-Shinner line, yet the latest polls show Sinn Féin is easily the most popular party in the state. Something not right… Particularly with the new virus strain, clamp-down […]

On 16th January 1922  His Excellency, Lord Fitzalan, Viceroy of Ireland, graciously bestowed Dublin Castle on the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. The Good Lord himself had been bestowed on Ireland by her Imperial Rulers in April 1921, to complement the British Military, Black and Tans, Royal Irish Constabulary, spies and hangmen who were attempting […]