Jude Collins

It’s amazing what you read in the papers. In a column last week headed ‘Should we be preparing for an Irish Border Poll?’, Prof Pete Shirlow, late of this parish and now director of the Liverpool Institute of Irish Studies,  answers his own question with a resounding No. His argument, when boiled down, is the […]

The January edition of THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW carries an address on the Centenary of the Kilmichael Ambush given by Jack Lane. He noted that in the hundred and two years since the Irish electorate created a Republic not one book had been written devoted to the election.  THE TIMES, no supporter of Irish nationalism in any […]

The Mother and Baby Homes scandal rumbles on. Why was so much pain inflicted on so many people? Was, as Micheál Martin suggests, society to blame, rather than the State or Church? And Donald Trump – is he now a busted flush? Or is he still a danger to politics in the US and the […]

CAVEAT LECTOR means Reader Beware. MEA CULPA means Through my Fault. And it’s my fault for accepting the written word of  Eoghan Harris printed in the Sunday Indpendent on January 10. The words quoted were from Sebastian Haffner a German born in 1907 who fled with his German Jewish wife to England in 1938. He […]

2016 saw a seismic shift in our politics. The unlikeliest of victories paved the way for months and indeed years of social and political upheaval. Everyone had an opinion. Politics had never been more divided. Cities were divided. The Nation was divided. It was about immigration. About taking back control. Building borders, draining swamps and […]

I’m obliged to the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT’S star commentator, Eoghan Harris (11 January) for confirming my opinion of himself and George Orwell. “Orwell’s” real surname was Blair (a surname of a latter day fake.) Orwell was never down and out though he faked it in London, Paris and Wigan. He was,unbalanced and had no sense of […]

Today in the Dáil, An Taoiseach Micheál Martin will apologise  on behalf of the state for the Mother and Baby Homes scandal. The fact that these Homes operated at a time when Michéal Martin at best was running around in short trousers and more likely didn’t exist doesn’t seem to enter into the equation. Why […]

LETTER PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES (London) in March 1985 . Warning: Slightly toned down by the Editor. From Mr Donal Kennedy “Sir, Your meandering leader (March 2) following the devastation of the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s barracks n Republican Newry touches on the truth at three points. Murder is murder; words are weapons in this war; […]

What a  “tim’rous” beastie is the IRISH TIMES when dealing with history!  And what a doughty warrior when considering powerless infants!  Ireland’s British-controlled “Paper of Record” might with justice be described as THE IRISH TIMES and MORNING HEROD. (That’s Herod the Infant -Killer. Not  to be confused with any Heroic figure) In the House of Commons […]

    This week  the topics for discussion were blindingly obvious- Trump and Brexit. Can Trump be impeached and thus barred from running for office again? And are the various Republican politicians sincerely shocked by the invasion of the Capitol, or just rats getting off a sinking ship? Then there’s Brexit – brought to you compliments […]