July, 2022

Colum Eastwood has announced that the SDLP will form the official opposition in Stormont. Apart from the fact that Stormont is still down, giving Matthew O’Toole the role of leader of the opposition makes sense – articulate guy, has worked in Downing Street, good brain.  But does he suffer from the same drawback as Mark […]

  He was luckier than my Uncle, Leo Burke, who was a Staff Sergeant Major in the Royal Army Service Corps and evacuated from Singapore on one of 42 ships to make its way to Java. The Japanese sank 40 of the ships, and a survivor from his ship saw him swimming. Leo was 38years […]

OK – let me put my cards on the table: I think a moneyless society is inevitable – and, if it were properly run, even desirable. The desirable bit first . Money, when you think about it, is ugly and messy. You may experience  orgasmic pleasure in looking at a bunch of tenners, but don’t […]

The British Government’s NI Protocol Bill passing through Westminster is a controversial piece of legislation that seeks to tear out parts of the NI protocol and override them by using British domestic law and legislation.  While that may all be well and good and if you were British and a Brexiteer that maybe what you […]

      Addressing MOSCOW NEWS 26 April 2006:-  “The United States is placing its occupation troops in one country after another. This is the de facto situation in Bosnia for 9 years, in Kosovo and Afghanistan for 5 years each, in Iraq for 3 years so far, but it will be a long time there. […]

  Has the Dublin government been talking big about a ‘shared island’ but awol when it comes to action? Emma de Souza has an article in today’s Irish Times  and she is, as they say, forensic concerning the failures to act.   Did you catch Boris Johnson’s farewell speech in the House of Commons? Quite […]

The Irish Times used to have a weekly column by the (very) left-wing journalist Eamonn McCann. When Eamonn was elected to the Assembly, the column was assigned to the Times’s tame unionist (TTU). He has a column in the IT this morning snappily titled ‘Irish Government is obsessed with Brexit Britain despite the risks this […]

  Sammy Wilson is a controversial figure I’m sure you’ll agree and I’m unfortunate to have him representing me as an MP, not that he does.  Even within his own constituency, his voters have wild and varied opinions of him.  The more right-wing with controversial views they are, the more they seem to love him. […]

      Once the electorate established Dail Eireann, the conspirational Irish Republican Brotherhood had no further justification for its existence. Arthur Griffith’s great contribution to Ireland was the establishment of Dail Eireann. The Dual Monarchy “resurrection of Hungary” idea was obsolete. Collins reverted to conspiracy. Griffith reverted to his original brainwave. The National Army- […]

There’s a very  interesting article in today’s Irish Times. The man’s name is Philip Quinlivan, and the articled is titled (in the IT sprawling headline style) “If we are not prepared to defend ourselves we should outsource our security. The writer  used to be in the Irish army and has since left and is a […]