March, 2024

There’s a scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm  where an American soldier is part of a group including Larry David. As is customary in the US, all of the group say to the soldier “Thank you for your service”. Being the contrarian he is, Larry David refuses to thank the soldier for his Service. It was hilarious […]

As we approach St. Patrick’s Day, and living in Canada, I wanted to share some thoughts on the Diaspora community here and how it experiences the reality of life as Irish in Canada. To put a context around this community’s identity and involvement with Ireland today, a little history is essential. The history of the […]

Now that Leo Varadkar has stepped down, there are at least three obvious questions:  why,  who will succeed him as Taoiseach and what will Leo do next. The first – why did he tender his resignation – remains a mystery. He gave no leads on that, other than saying that he believed somebody else would […]

In 2020, then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar walked to the microphones  and said “Well. Will any of us ever forget St Patrick’s Day 2020?”  After today’s announcement that he’s quitting, Leo might have wondered if anyone would ever forget his ducking out of the spotlight just after Paddy’s Day 2024. Forty-six years old and he’s retiring from […]

I would not want to be standing in the elections as a Sinn Fein candidate when the chickens come home to roost.   Well well well , let us just take a moment of reflection to see were the parties stand on Palestine.   The first word that springs to mind is hypocrisy, the second […]

  That idea can only be held by those ignorant of history. In our long history we were neither injured nor insulted by the Russians. In modern history, Britain used Ireland as a safety apron, and prepared towipe her population out should one of Britain’s continental enemies effect a landing in Ireland. In 1911 the […]

    If on the Day of Judgement my Divine Judge is as merciful to me as the camera is I’ll have a privileged cloud in Heaven.   It amazes me that professional, even mercenary, correspondents in THE IRISHTIMES choose to show the worst of their many faces to their readers.   One historian presents […]

So how was the visit of various Irish political parties to Washington, including the DUP, the UUP, Sinn Féin and Alastair McDonnell (his party, we’re told, boycotted the shindig) – was their journey fruitful?   No and yes. No, in that not a word or a half-syllable of what they said will deter Joe Biden […]

  There were no elections or plebiscites in Palestine nor other territories seized by the British and French during the Great War, nor in those seized  from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Invented “nations”  Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have fallen apart more than once and the Britain’s  purported justification  for involvement in the war “the self-determination of nations” […]

Charlie Bird, the former RTÉ journalist, died yesterday. I knew him in 1966-67 and then again, very briefly, in 2011. In 1966-67, I taught in a Dublin school called Sandymount High School. Charlie was one of my students, and I can say without fear of contradiction that he was one of the weakest students I […]