November, 2021

ONE TIMES – TWO KEIRS – AND RMS TITANIC – by Donal Kennedy Inbox On April 11 1912THE TIMES thundered in an Editorial  “SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS” –“Mr Keir Hardie made the totally absurd proposal that men joining the Army should be given the option as to whether or not they shall be liable to take […]

This blog originally appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News I wonder how Michael Fawcett is feeling these days. He used to be chief executive of one of Prince Charles’s charities,  but whether he was pushed or jumped, he is no longer so. That’s because there were accusations that he’d helped secure a knighthood for a Saudi billionaire. My guess is that Mr Fawcett […]

 HOW CAN YOU TELL FOR CERTAIN?  to the tune of “I am the very model of a modern Major-General)How can you tell for certain who’s a public intellectual Unless they cheat in politics and partnerships And matters inter-sexual Are bums with Academic ChairsAs well as Editorial Who operate a censorship That’s crudely Dictatorial?*Inspired by lines by W.H. […]

Karl Rittenhouse is innocent! Or at least that’s what the US court that tried him decided – innocent on all charges, even though, at 17 packing a semi-automatic rifle, he killed two people and seriously injured another at a Black Lives Matter protest. Young Mr Rittenhouse, I hardly need add, is white. So – out […]

You probably know who Michael O’Loughlin is. I’ve never heard of him, or not until I read an article by him in today’s Irish Times  titled ‘We need to stop talking about a united Ireland’. Like God, Michael’s mind moves in mysterious ways. It appears Michael visited Belfast in recent days, and was impressed by […]

STARMER’S   ADDRESS – EXCERPTS – “From our earliest days – even before the Balfour Declaration – we backed the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.Labour leaders – from Harold Wilson to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – recognised Israel’s importance to the community here at home, celebrated its achievements and stood by it in […]

                        Can any of you reading this, quote the General’s  tribute to the men of the Dublin Fusiliers who fought against him in Gallipoli during the Great War.? I can remember reading it in a school textbook which circulated in Irish schools from the 1930s for decades. To confirm that my memory wasn’t playing tricks […]

THE IRISH TIMES this morning  (November 19)  says that the vice-Chancellor of Oxford  University, the Waterford-born Professor Louise Richardson, “an outstanding public intellectual and an academic of great distinction” is to become President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 1993 DR EDWARD W. SAID “explored what it means to be an intellectual today. It was, […]

This TV review was first published in The Andersonstown News David Dimbleby was the behind-the-scenes voice at REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY (BBC ONE)  this year, with the camera occasionally cutting away from lines of marching men to Sophie Raworth, who would briefly interview some of the veteran soldiers or sailors or RAF chaps.  I’ll say this for the B(ritish)BC : they know how to put on […]

The British government has announced that they will be asking professional historians to write an ‘official’ account of the Troubles. Good idea? Bertie Ahern has excited the wrath of a number of unionist politicians by referring to the fact that ‘in the ghettoes’ of unionism, they haven’t a clue about the protocol. What about you […]