October, 2021

Don’t get me wrong – I prefer Biden to Trump. In fact it’d be easier to  measure the difference between the two men in light years than anything else. But I find there are things about Joe that grate on my nervous system.  There’s that little trotting style he has, when he’s going up the steps of a plane or is breaking away from the parade to greet somebody in the  crowd. It’s OK, Joe. We know you’re a really fit 78-year-old, but don’t keep on giving demonstrations of it.  And when you’re at it, maybe slow down the speech a little: there’s a  danger of words getting slurred together and risking the conclusion  among listeners that you’re in the early stages of a stroke.  And I know it’s an American habit to identify yourself by your roots,  but  maybe lay off telling people you’re Irish. I’m as keen as the next  man or woman to see the B(ritish)BC get a snub, but you are the  American president and you are expected to give the odd comment to  news organisations like that.   And I hate to say it, but Tony `Blair had more right to call himself Irish – his  mother grew up in Donegal – than you, Joe. Even if both your great-great-grandfathers came to the US from Ireland in the 1840s. Finally, would you in the name of God give the Irish stereotype a detour. You were on the news when you were in Rome, where you gripped the Pope’s hand firmly and told him you were the first Irishman he’d ever met who didn’t drink.  As that fat ass B Johnson might have said: donnez-moi un break. 

First published on Al Mayadeen English In 1921 under threat of immediate and terrible war, Ireland was partitioned against the wishes of the majority of the people on the island. The treaty was signed on December 6 1921 Britain might have been forced out of 26 counties but they were keeping a foothold on Irish […]

Was very short and completely voluntary. The first time was in Kilmainham , restored as a museum by voluntary unpaid labour as a memorial to the many heroes held there or murdered there by the Crown. It is well they completed the work before the Decade of Remembrance. Otherwise I’m convinced those paid by the […]

There was the dog that didn’t bark and there was the Chancellor who didn’t get the climate crisis memo. We have a look at the budget speech by the British Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Kathleen Stock has quit her job as a philosophy academic. Why? Because she was the target of death threat and constant abuse […]

The Williamite victory consolidated the confiscation of Irish-owned land and ushered in new Penal Laws on the majority of Irish people. The idea of the majority of Irish people celebrating William’s victory at the Boyne is grotesque. It is not about parity of esteem, any more than celebrating partition is. It is celebrating the reduction […]

THE MORAL COMPASS OF THE IRISH TIMES THE MORAL COMPASS OF THE IRISH TIMES “THE ART OF SLANDER HAS BEEN REBORN”  wails Fintan O’Toole in THE IRISH TIMES. As if slander had ever died. O’Toole poses as the defender of local papers which can be sued for libel against social media which are not subject to […]

 You’ve no doubt been impressed/terrified by the TV reports of flooding, burning forests, erupting volcanoes and general mayhem being inflicted on us by Mother Nature. That’s because, just as you cannae shove your granny off a bus, so too you can’t assault Mother Nature indefinitely without expecting her to respond.  And there’s more kickback from […]

Roger Casement blew the whistle on British plans to crush Germany. He wrote of THE CRIME AGAINST EUROPE.  In 1915 the British Minister in Oslo tried to have him murdered, and on official notepaper promised a substantial reward and free passage to America to a Norwegian employed by Casement. Casement sent photocopies of the incriminating […]

Pat has been in Spain and tells of the travails of travel in a time of Covid-19 and all the obscure rules that hit you. Paris is investing €250 million to develop bicycle lanes. Does it make sense? Will electric bikes and scooters drive out the car from Paris? Will the south of Ireland meet […]

Sometimes I find Irish politics bewildering. On the Big Question, there’s no confusion in the North… Although even as I type those words, I’m doubting their truth. Let’s check out the various parties on the BQ – i.e., a re-united Ireland.  In the North,  Sinn Féin and (maybe) the SDLP favour Irish  reunification, while the DUP, the TUV and the UUP are implacably  opposed to it. But what about the Alliance Party? Or People Before  Profit? In the south, all political parties are pro-Irish reunification. Certainly […]