The holder of a degree in drama, Lydia talks about how she fell in love with the footlights at a local drama group for kids in Tyrone, and how that led to a life-long love of the stage that will no doubt be in evidence when the play hits the boards in late March in […]
January, 2025
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT TRUMP’S RESPONSE TO AIR CRASH, TV POLITICAL DRAMAS, WHY TEACHERS ARE OPTING OUT, AND LOTS MORE
Was President Higgins right to mention ‘the rubble of Gaza’ in a speech on Holocaust Day? And what about President Trump – was he right to claim that the air crash in Washington DC was due to ‘diverse’ employment of people? And what about that TV drama ‘Brian and Maggie’ , showing Brian Walden doing […]
What is a ‘devout Catholic’ ? by Joe McVeigh
The Vice- President of the USA, J.D. Vance said on a CBS interview with Margaret Brennan that he was ‘heart-broken’ because of the Statement from the US Catholic bishops condemning Trump’s plan to deport immigrants. In an interview on CBS, Vance was asked about the Bishops statement in which they condemned Trump’s […]
Bloody Sunday: the liars and the criminals
Some images, once seen, can’t be removed from your memory. For myself and I’m sure many others, the sight of Father Eddie Daly (later Bishop Daly) walking half-crouched, waving a blood-soaked handkerchief, while behind him several men carry the dead or dying Jackie Duddy, a 17-year-old, remains permanent over fifty years later. First the killing, […]
‘Don’t let the Old Man In’ by Joe McVeigh
Twice in the last month two different friends said to me: ‘Don’t let the old man in.’ The friends were responding to my complaining about the botheration of getting on in years! It is good advice at any age but I thought it was great advice for me at the beginning of yet another […]
The Torture of Bernard O’Connor in 1977 – by Joe McVeigh
It is a miracle that Bernard O’Connor is still alive. If the once all-powerful RUC and their loyalist friends had their way Bernard O’Connor would have been dead long ago. On 8th April 1985, a young man named Martin Love (24 years old) was shot dead on Factory Road in Enniskillen. The killers thought he was […]
Emigration – by Gabriel McCaffrey
The issues around immigration are big questions. I don’t think that total immersion in the new country or total failure to assimilate is a binary event. I think there are shades of grey here. I am very at home in Canada. I became a senior executive in the technology field and I managed large […]
Micheál and Simon go missing
When Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, Charlie Haughey, like the sensible politician he was, made a beeline for France so he could be pictured beside this great Irish sportsman and show that he rejoiced with the rest of the Irish people. And when Jack Lynch his political foe died in 1979, he […]
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT HOME & HEART, IRELAND’S FUTURE IN PHILLY, MICHAEL D SPEECH, & IRELAND+NATO
Last Friday we had Gabriel McCaffrey on as a guest. Gabriel’s from Belfast but has lived for more than thirty years in Canada. He still has strong emotional and political bonds with Ireland. Is that kind of Canada-Ireland balance good, or should emigrants not embrace their new country? The civic nationalism group Ireland’s Future will have its […]
The Normalization of Zionist Ceasefire Violations – by Fra Hughes
Sunday, January 26, 2025 is the day Israeli forces are due to vacate the territories they have occupied in southern Lebanon. The ceasefire agreement brokered between the Lebanese groups and the Zionist entity stipulated that all Israeli troops would reposition to their positions in occupied northern Palestine, allowing the United Nations peacekeeping forces, […]