June, 2024

    About twenty years ago I was given a present of a BBC Diary.   It listed Holy Days and Feast Days for Christians, Jews, Moslems and other denominations, and the countries where they were public days of rest. Virtually all Western Europeans had public days of rest which coincided with Catholic Holidays of […]

  The first female cabinet minister in Europe was not appointed in Moscow or Paris or London but inDublin. She was appointed in Dublin by Eamon  de Valera in April1919 on his first appearance in Dail Eireann. Like Dev she was an Insurgent in 1916, but unlike the Irish Volunteer Dev, she belonged to the […]

It would appear that Joe Biden really got the audience attention in his debate with Trump last night – accept not in a good way.But is a staged debate a sensible way to decide who’d make a good president? We also had a debate of the people in NEI running for Westminster. Pat thinks Colm […]

I     When, in 1921 Ireland’s President Eamon de Valera met Britain’s Prime Minister,  David Lloyd George failed to impress him.   The latter pointed to a map of the world, much of it painted red to overawe him with the might of the British Empire.   The mathematician de Valera pointed out that […]

  Over the years, Mark Carruthers has changed as an interviewer. Back in the day when unionist pressure groups hadn’t yet succeeded in having me barred from the premises, I used talk to Mark and suggest that a bit more vinegar and less sugar would spice up his interviews. He disagreed and argued that you […]

              In the run up to the British General Election on the 4th July,  the BBC came to Enniskillen today (June 19, 2024) to promote the Unionist party and sectarianism,  and also, they say, to celebrate 100 years of the BBC. The BBC has nothing to celebrate. They are a […]

 Disclaimer: I’d like to emphasise these are not the personal views of Jude Collins, and are solely the views of the author – Carl Duffy. PS. Jude here. Carl’s views are of course his and not necessarily mine. But I’d emphasise that when I put a guest blog up, it’s not because I agree or […]

Guess what tune FF’s Michael McGrath is humming today? Probably some version of the old song ‘Lucky, lucky, lucky me!’ That’s because Michael has just landed the job of Ireland’s EU Commissioner (previously held by Mairead McGuinness) . For his pains he will get an annual salary of €310,000. And that’s not all. He’ll get […]

  1. Naomi Long is no electoral spring chicken. She has taken (and yes, Virginia, lost) East Belfast before. She’s been elected as an MLA , she’s been Lord Mayor of Belfast: she knows what to do and not do, say and not say in an election. And she gives off a dedication to bread-and-butter […]

  You probably were horrified by that incident where the Israeli armed forces tied a wounded Palestinian man to the front of a jeep and used him – literally – as a human shield. Was that the most barbarous action of this conflict in Gaza? The Euros – poor Scotland crashed out in the last […]