November, 2024

    I consider myself a human being who just happens to be Irish. Which, of itself makes me no better and no worse than any other  of my species.   Emmet and Tone were not ethnically Irish nor is there any evidence that they could speak a sentence in Irish, the language spoken by […]

      If it works for you Continue. Calling me a Prod from the North. A big hun, some mother’s son From the north of the city. For it’s a real pity that Belfast Has to be so shamed by yourself And the soft sectarianism Of it all, the smallness of your bark And […]

  I wrote this piece, but not for publication, to a journalist friend nearly 14 years ago.   “THE TIMES (January 3rd) carried an Obituary of the historian A.T.Q. Stewart   whom it described as ‘the foremost historian of Northern Ireland who dismissed   its accumulated myths with a scholarly, penetratingly rigour and elegant prose’  […]

I’ve been listening to people on Raidio Uladh talking about ‘assisted dying’, and in the course of the conversation a term was used: ‘Some old people are afraid they might be a burden on their family.’   FFS – there’s no question of ‘might’ – of course old people are a burden, and the older […]

  I think I’m in love with Kneecap, especially DJ Provai. He turned up at a court in Belfast today, driving a version of a police landrover with two tricolours on it. He was wearing his trade-mark tricolour headgear.   He appears to have got on with the judge, as the case against Tory leader […]

I’d like to start by thanking you  for reading this blog. You are clearly an excellent reader and it is a privilege to have your eyes roam across my words. So I’d like to thank you for doing that and  to let you know that if I let myself down in this blog, no one […]

  No matter whether they are brainy or dumb they put their foot in it.   “GREAT IRISH SPEECHES” by  Richard Aldous includes one made by  John A Costello in Dail Eireann in February1934 and other speeches by Fine  Gael  stalwarts in  later years which  support the point I am making.   Costello was a […]

    From July 1919 to December 1921 Ireland’s democratically established National Government published THE IRISH BULLETIN to inform the world of the situation in the country whilst the British Government was ruthlessly and brutally trying to suppress it and the voters who established it.   Lawrence Ginnell, as Dail Eireann’s Director of Publicity, established […]

A day before Ireland goes to the polls, the biggest challenge the opposition faces is convincing people that change is possible and that their vote can make a difference It’s a cliché that is true of all elections, but particularly so as Ireland goes to the polls on Nov. 29 to elect a new government […]

In its editorial today – straight from the geegee’s gob – the Irish Times criticises those who would have us believe that “unprecedented financial commitments” are a good idea. The IT questions the wisdom of such spending  and ‘The answers to these questions have been generally unconvincing”. There may well be financial storms ahead and […]