September, 2021

Doug, Jeffrey, Billy and Jim: all together now

So – the leaders of all the unionist parties in our stateen have signed a  document of protest against the protocol:  “We the undersigned  unionist  political leaders, affirm our opposition to the NI Protocol, its mechanisms and structures, and reaffirm our unalterable position that the protocol must be rejected and replaced by arrangements which fully respect Northern Ireland’s position as a constituent and integral part of the United Kingdom.” They didn’t quite go the whole Ulster Covenant and […]

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The boys in red and white

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News We who live in Ireland should be grateful to the English. They taught us – insisted that we use – the language in which I’m communicating with you at this very minute. Without the English monarch to be loyal to, the late Dr Ian Paisley’s life might well have been relatively pointless. And wouldn’t […]

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Jeffrey and Jim, and how to be in two places at once

The laws that govern quantum physics are mysterious, none more mysterious than the ‘superposition’ of particles. In a mind-bending nut-shell, quantum physics declares a particle can be in two places at once. Don’t ask me how it’s done, but quantum scientists have been proving that they can do this for decades now. If you keep […]

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Fintan O’Toole: a virtue-signalling man?

This blog first appeared as a column in The Andersonstown News Are you familiar with the term ‘virtue signalling’? No, and I wasn’t sure either until I read a recent article by Fintan O’Toole, considered by many to be the smartest man in Ireland. Fintan’s article talked about virtue signalling in relation to two matters that are of importance to the Irish people:  the Irish […]

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Jeffrey and the good-cop/bad-cop routine

Usually, good-cop/bad-cop roles are played by two different people. One cop asks if you’d like a cup of tea, the other kicks the cup out of your hand. Spotting the difference between the two isn’t hard. Jeffrey Donaldson, in contrast, appears to be intent on playing both good cop and bad cop, sometimes in the […]

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Michael D: we know what he did – now why did he do it?

Everyone’s talking about how Michael D Higgins turned down that invitation to a church service ‘marking’ the creation of the border. Nobody that I’ve come across has been concerned to find the answer to a vital question: Why? Why did Michael D say thanks but no thanks to the invite? It’s totally out of character […]

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