Author Jude Collins

 [This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News]T The horrors of coronavirus stare us in the face, but it has its potentially positive features too.  Some  of these positive elements we are experiencing even as the virus rages round the world;  some we can expect (or should  that be hope?) to see when this pestilence has grown weary and collapses. The first […]

[See also Donal’s blog at http://www.judecollins.com/2016/06/is-emer-okelly-a-fool-or-a-liar-by-donal-kennedy/   ] Sent: Fri, Apr 3, 2020 4:26 pm Subject: “FILTH IN THE ABBEY” Reading Emer O’Kelly’s “An Irishwoman’s Diary” (March 30) piece deploring a complaint about Brian Friel’s “Loves of Cass Maguire” staged in Dublin 1967 I thought how liberal Dublin was at the time compared with London. I’m surprised […]

What is Stormont like? According to commentators like News Letter political editor, Sam McBride, it’s like a shambles. Not right at all.  He’s very critical of Michelle O’Neill in a tweet today – says in effect that she’s making a hames of Executive solidarity by criticizing Robin Swann for his delayed action and for adhering […]

2.4.20. Moon Sheddings. A video poem. In the folk tradition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFdANaSiR7o Well worth a look and a listen, not only in our own wee country, the north of Ireland, the Island and Britain, but relevant almost anywhere. “THE MECHANISM”. Stiofán /Stephen or what ever label you want to apply to me. Thanks for listening to […]

Suzanne Heller, LAOH Allegheny County FFAI and I&L Chair, on Fr. McManus’ Memoirs: My American Struggle for Justice in Northern Ireland Sisters and Brothers: Just wanted to inform you that I finished the above-cited book yesterday and although I profess to know about the Northern Ireland struggles, Fr. Sean taught me A LOT!  I highly encourage you […]

If you believe THE IRISH TIMES some 168,000 children were shut away in heartless institutions over 30 years in the part of Ireland vacated by the Brits. (The unwriiten assumption is that that under the Brits,things were better there for children pre 1922. And better in Ireland’s neighbouring island ever since.) In fact the IRISH  […]

Winston Churchill said “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. Jo Moore, a Labour  party aide, sent an email around the time of 9/11, reminding colleagues that this would be “a good day to bury bad news.”   Is something similar – or more fundamental – happening in the south of Ireland right now? In […]

Ask anyone who works in London about their job and they’ll almost certainly include the length of their daily commute. The pandemic we’re currently enduring has upped the number of people ‘working from home’ – in the vast majority of cases using internet technology. When all this is over, will businesses and companies do a […]

The poet Paul Durcan is a bit of a solipsist, if not the Compleat Tosser.   His “Making Love Outside Aras An Uachtarain”  imagines Dev  patrolling the Park like an old-time bush-beating Cleric spoiling the most native of sports, but carrying a rifle instead of a blackthorn stick. De Valera was a life-long mathematician and […]

When the Tory government first came up with the Dominic Cummings wheeze of ‘herd immunity’, it took someone of John O’Dowd’s stature (yes, Virginia, physical stature indeed, but I’m talking about inner qualities) to come out and denounce the people who would follow such  a policy as a ‘shire’ of bastards. In this morning’s Irish […]