Jude Collins

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 […]

The stories I heard about Charlie Haughey from those that knew him In the FCA were of a Jack the Lad who drove a Jaguar when they were lucky if they had secondhand pushbikes and who was a graduate and Chartered Accounant when few of them had been past primary school. Like them Charlie came […]

One of our well known hymns is ‘Be Not Afraid, I go before you always…” We could all sing that song now whether we are believers or not. We all need strength and courage during this awful pandemic. Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or not, his story is a story of courage and endurance. […]

Early technical difficulties now solved – click on video below This is something I’d like to make a weekly feature. Pat McArt was  (among other things) editor of the Derry Journal during the 1980s, and was an interviewee in my last two books – Laying It On The Line  and               before that Martin McGuinness :The Man I Knew.  I’d appreciate any      constructive feedback by email – judejcollins@gmail.com – or on               Facebook.  Bain sult as – Enjoy. 

F In 1970 Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were put on trial charged with trying to smuggle arms into Ireland. The first trial collapsed in a week. The Jury in the re-trial acquitted them. Nobody reading the testimony of the chief Prosecution witness, Defence Minister James Gibbons,can have been surprised that the jury acquitted Haughey, […]