I see where the widow of a British soldier from here is upset. She feels her husband’s death has been diminished, because she wasn’t invited to the unveiling yesterday of a memorial to the British soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. It must be hard indeed for a younger woman to lose her husband […]
Author Jude Collins
Here comes Charlie Flanagan!
One outstanding achievement by the SDLP, often forgotten, is that they arranged for a representative of the Dublin government, almost always a TD, to be present at any major British announcement in the north. Often the Dublin TD would add their own thoughts immediately after the British Secretary of State had spoken. This was no […]
‘Tommie Gorman’s Quips’ by Joe McVeigh
Tommie Gorman was good craic during the election and even better since it. He is having some difficulty dealing with the result. It has taken him out of his comfort zone. I see he received fulsome praise from none other than that anti-democrat from Cork, Eoghan Harris, in a Sunday paper, for his reportage of the election on RTE. […]
Outraged by the Tuam babies scandal? Read this
Tuam babies, by Victoria White, IRISH EXAMINER -WHAT I can’t take is the shock and the awe. You would honestly think we had no idea those babies’ bodies were there. Now we’re into a full-scale excavation in an effort to “find out what happened to those babies” as if we don’t already […]
Nolan Show this morning: the Irish language
I was on the Nolan Show – briefly – this morning. The subject was to be the Irish language, but a pre-recorded interview with Nelson McCausland wandered far and wide from that. But Nelson did complain that there wasn’t as much money spent on Irish as there was on Ulster-Scots. He pointed to the greater […]
‘BCAB Lobbying in Brussels’ by Joe McVeigh
This is a statement issued by Border Communities Against Brexit (BCAB) to coincide with a visit to Brussels on Thursday, 9th March by a delegation from BCAB led by Declan Fearon. “On Wednesday March 8th, Declan Fearon, Spokesperson for Border Communities Against Brexit will join with eight other Border representatives to bring the case of Border Communities to the […]
‘The political Genius from Markethill’ by Joe McVeigh
Every few months or so his favourite Belfast morning newspaper does a feature on Seamus Mallon in case we should ever think he was no longer with us. In a recent Saturday edition they carried yet another feature. The article referred to Martin McGuinness’s resignation as DFM. Mallon recalls that he too did not receive much respect […]
BRITAIN’S BREXIT DIFFICULTY; IRELAND’S OPPORTUNITY? by Michael John Cummings
The ‘shamrock’ shenanigans that will take place at the White House between President Trump and Ireland’s Taoiseach Enda Kenny on St. Patrick’s Day may mean more than in previous years. British plans to leave the European Union (BREXIT) have given hope to those who, like Richard Haass of the Council of Foreign Relations, sense […]
THE WORST HAS YET TO COME -UNLESS…by Joe McVeigh
According to Theresa May ‘Brexit means Brexit’. To many people living in border areas in Ireland those words are a cause for great concern. We were just beginning to forget that there was a border but Brexit has made sure that we will not forget and former First Minister, Arlene Foster, is pleased and excited. If the […]
Letter by Dr Niall Meehan to The Irish Times, sent Tuesday 7 March 2017
Sir, – There is little to disagree with in Una Mullally’s powerful commentary on the scandal of the Tuam babies, interred without ceremony or dignity in underground burial chambers, destined to be forgotten in perpetuity. Except, the discovery in 2010 of 220 children’s remains from Dublin’s Protestant evangelical Bethany Home in unmarked paupers’ graves did […]