“A NEARBY COUNTRY OF WHICH WE KNOW NOTHING” HEADLINE IN THE TIMES OF LONDON 6 JANUARY 2022. “A NEARBY COUNTRY OF WHICH WE KNOW NOTHING” HEADLINE IN THE TIMES OF LONDON 6 JANUARY 2022. I quote from an article by David Aaronovitch which has a subheading -“A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY, there’s a casual ignorance […]
January, 2022
Gerry outrages Kenny
This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News Many people, mainly unionist but also some nationalists, beg to differ when Gerry Adams says he wasn’t in the IRA. But I don’t know of anyone who would say that Gerry Adams has distanced himself from the IRA. Au contraire: he has always explicitly aligned himself with the IRA. But that’s not enough to […]
ALFRED DREYFUS, JAMES KELLY – TWO WRONGED PATRIOTS – by Donal Kennedy
President Macron recently opened a museum dedicated to the memory of Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongfully convicted of spying for Germany while serving as a captain in the French Army. Dreyfus was paraded on a barrack square, his epaulettes torn from shoulders, his sword seized from its scabbard and broken in front of him. He was […]
A year in Review 2021 by Fra Hughes
Hey Jude here is my latest Afghanistan : America’s chaotic, dishevelled, hasty retreat from Afghanistan was reminiscent of the last flights out of Saigon on April 29-30 1975 when American troops fled Vietnam and the Viet Cong showed the world how an organised guerrilla movement fighting a national war of liberation can free its landmass […]
Animal vocabulary and unintended consequences
One of the biggest gaffes in recent times, here in our NEI stateen, was when Arlene Foster did the crocodile thing. Remember? Yes I know that’s a silly question – how could you forget? Gerry Adams’s response was a smile and a ‘See you later, alligator’. Sinn Féin supporters had loads of fun with the […]
Who wants to be a billionaire?
Did you know that the south of Ireland has the fifth largest number of billionaires per capita in the world, with only Hong Kong, Cyprus, Switzerland and Singapore outranking us? Larry Goodman and Michael O’Leary are reported as being worth $1 billion each, but they’re only in the half-penny place beside Patrick and John Collison […]
PAT + JUDE TALK ABOUT 2021 – AH, IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR…OR WAS IT A STINKING 12 MONTHS?
Today , Pat and I look back on the big topics of 2021. The most blindingly obvious is Covid – it has changed how we act socially, how we do our work, how we play. Is there anything to be said for it as a positive force in our lives? Almost exactly a year ago, […]
BBC at 100 – by Donal Kennedy
“IRISHMAN’S DIARY” in JOHN BULL’S OTHER TIMES tells us that the BBC celebrates its first 100 years today, January 1st 2022. The column carries a photo of the newsreader, Alvar Liddell,a handsome man wearing trousers, a white shirt, sleeveless pullover and a tie. I had thought that Auntie’s newsreader in that era wore full evening dress […]
TV REVIEW: RTÉ Sports Awards 2021
This TV review first appeared in the Andersonstown News RTÉ Sport Awards 2021 (RTÉ ONE) was fronted by Joanne Cantwell and Darragh Maloney. Joanne looked very big-occasion in her strapless frock, while Darragh settled for Tyrone colours – white shirt, red tie and matching hanky peeking from his breast pocket. Fronting a programme that consists of sporting clips and stilted interviews with sports […]