September, 2021

THE IRISH BULLETIN — RELEVANT TODAY! – by Donal Kennedy

: THE IRISH BULLETIN — RELEVANT TODAY! The IRISH BULLETIN , published by the elected Government of Ireland under British occupation from 1919-1921 is essential to the understanding of that period. It got a brief and sneering mention in THE IRISH TIMES (God bless the mark!) some years ago which prompted an unpublished letter to […]

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Five things about the Michael D brouhaha

OK then – let’s get this Michael D Higgins thing into perspective. Unionist anger at President Higgins’s rejection of an invitation to attend a church service in Armagh ‘marking’ the partition of Ireland and the creation of Northern Ireland is partly fuelled by shock. Normally the Irish President, like most establishment figures in the south, […]

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TV REVIEW: PORTUGAL v IRELAND and Darragh O’Brien v Eoin Ó Broin

This review first appeared in The Andersonstown News Last week brought pain to my TV screen, not once but twice. The first pain took the form of another footballing occasion, this time involving the Foreign Game. Alexa warbled that the Republic of Ireland was playing Portugal, in Portugal, and my heart shrank. Under Stephen Kenny as manager Ireland has won, out of […]

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GAGS THAT ARE NO JOKES by Donal Kennedy

You probably never heard of an NDA or Non-Disclosure Agreement. I hadn’t heard of them until this (Saturday) morning when I looked at TMES 2, the section of THE TIMES devoted to Fashion, Showbiz and general air -headed concerns. It shouted at me –  “I was silenced – No one else should be ”  quoting […]

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Class War 

This is the second review sent to me by a former classmate. Bain sult as –  Enjoy CLASS WAR A teacher’s diary 320pp. Biteback. £16.99. Anonymous Anonymous is at the end of his tether. After a quarter of a century teaching at a woefully underfunded secondary state school in Northern Ireland, he shares his jaded reflections, in diary-entry form, on the six months leading up to his drafting of a […]

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