Jude Collins

A phobal Dé agus a chairde go léir, Tá muid bronach inniú. Tá ár gcara Des imithe ar shlí na Fírinne. It’s a fitting way to describe the death of our friend – a man whose whole life was committed to the Truth-speaking the truth and writing the truth. The Indian poet, Rabin-dranath Tagore once wrote: […]

Brendan O’Connor had his palm read on air last week. He was told he narrowly missed being a fascist leader.  I wonder did Stephen Collins hear it. In an article written in  The Irish Times last May about Ireland and the EU, he compares favourably the English Brexiteers to his fellow – countrymen and women. “A substantial […]

This is the season when the City of London annually celebrates in style the inauguration of its new Lord Mayor. It has done so for many centuries and pantomimes have instilled the legend of the thrice elected Dick Whittington in the minds of millions. I’m sure many  hundreds of thousands of babies (including my grandson) […]

Pics 1-6 are by Perkin Warbeck  Pic 1 PIC 2 Pic 3 PIC 4 PIC 5 PIC 6      POP go the Weasel Words:  DAY of  DISMEMBANCE 1.          The Latin Bridge in Sarajevo beside which, on 28 June, 1914,  Gavrilo Princip took a pop at Archduke Franz Ferdinand, imperalist  heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Throne […]

Volumetric map of the UK and the EU. 3d rendering. If you’re looking for a quick equivalent to the word “irony” these days, all you need do is type two letters: UK.  While David Cameron may have pleaded with Scotland to Remain With Us and Theresa May made reference frequently to the Precious Union, and […]

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good”. The Queen of England or her successor is expected to reap personally hundreds of millions of pounds from wind farms around the coast expected to be created  to protect life on earth. The Monarch has been known to worry about the cost of keeping her personal […]

They say you know a politician is lying when you can see his/her lips moving.  That’s an excessive statement: like all professions, there are truthful  politicians and there are lying ones, there are truthful parties and there are, um, confusing  parties. The party  that leaves me scratching my head with one hand and bunching my […]

Part 2   The burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes on 5th of November did not arise from the spontaneous delight of the English masses at the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. It was done in obedience to a Parliamentary Decree which was still in force until 1868 in the life of my paternal grandfather. […]

I wish Tom Watson every good thing in his future career, now that he’s decided to leave his work as a Labour MP.  I also wish he had made that decision about six years ago. He was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party at the same time that Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader. The […]

They say you should never speak ill of the dead, an injunction few of us observe, since it would mean no historical judgement on characters such as Pol Pot,  Vlad the Impaler or Maggie Thatcher. What the injunction implies is that we should not speak ill of the recently dead. Judging by the many tributes […]