December, 2023

  I’ve never met Paddy Harte, the chairman of the International Fund for Ireland. From his photograph in the Irish media, he looks a pleasant and intelligent man. But a recent statement from him has left me worried. Paddy (I hope that’s not overly intimate)  says that “It is the responsibility of paramilitary groups in […]

        You may want to wish “Happy New Year’ or even ‘Bliain úr faoi mhaise duit’ to your friends. But for some people, the new year is a mine-field of elections. Start with the big one – the US presidential election. Bad news here, I’m afraid – Trump is ahead of Biden […]

You’ll probably not believe this, but Stephen Collins has a Shinner-bashing column in today’s Irish Times. He’s referred to a Dail debate, where Josefa Madigan made reference to ‘Mary Lou Trump’.  So that’s the level of Dail debate – name-calling.  I wonder did Josefa get the idea from Trump?   State papers from the 1970s […]

      If God loves a tryer, he must be nuts about Mary McAleese.  Eoghan Harris may have described her as a ticking time-bomb, but there can hardly be a North-South/Unionist/Nationalist avenue to reconciliation she hasn’t walked.   We all remember how she used to invite the Orange Order to Aras An Uachtarain  each […]

    Many people who lived through the Partition of our country had a clear view of what  the British were about when they approved of that political solution to the ‘Irish problem’. The late Fr Des Wilson of Springhill Community reminded us that the only political statement he remembered from his father; was: ”You […]

  In the 1980s I wrote in THE IRISH DEMOCRAT  a piece called “SCHOOLS OF VIOLENCE: BROTHERS AND ARMS” refuting the canard that the Irish Christian Brothers promoted republican militancy. Those who spread that canard were quacks, chancers and charlatans. You may read my refutation which was reprinted as a BLOG here on November 25th […]

The Israeli embassy in South Korea has removed a video showing an imaginary scenario in which Koreans are attacked by masked assailants in Seoul, a reference to Hamas, Seoul’s foreign ministry said today. In ways you can see why they’d do it. The Israeli embassy in South Korea put up the video on Facebook, with […]

    The very first broadcast of “White Christmas” was on 25th December 1941, three days before I was born. I don’t remember the broadcast nor the day II was born. I can though remember my 3rd Birthday, apple pie and the present of a toy aeroplane, which my brother told me  was a four-engined […]

Clearly, Netanyahu believes in the god of vengeance and punishment. He once quoted the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes ‘there is a time for war’.  He and his Zionist government are pursuing a policy of genocide in Gaza. Already, Netanyahu’s army has killed over 21, 000 Palestinians in Gaza in their stated aim of destroying […]

         Leo Varadkar is a big man with a big job to do. In this post-Christmas phase, one big part of that big job is immigration. In today’s Irish Times, we’re told,  there are “far-right myths” about migration that must be addressed ‘as it will be the big issue of 2024’.   […]