Jude Collins

                                                                               George William Russell of Lurgan once penned a poem which will live as long as Time,  […]

I’ve just come from the BBC in Belfast, where I took part in a discussion of Remembrance Sunday. (Yes, Virginia,  it has been rather a long time.) My discussion partner/opponent was Doug Beattie of the UUP, who as you probably know is or was a military man himself. The question being discussed was, should the […]

  I’ve just tried to tune into BBC TV. They normally have a politics programme at this time, but today it’s missing. It’s all First World War commemoration. As a Plan B, I checked RTÉ. What do you think? Same story – all about First World War commemoration. In any of the thousands of words […]

Pics 1 and 2 are by Perkin Warbeck      CÉAD  MÍLE  MALTA:   A  TALE  of   TWO  CITIES   Pic 1: Kerry City   Pic 2 – Dublin City 

  I was going to do a blog on a figure that (I sincerely hope) is fading fast back into the world of television financial game-show: Peter Casey. I may in fact do so later. But first I must rid myself of a comment or two on how we are being brain-washed. Because have no […]

The other day my former class-mate Eamonn McCann was on Talkback, I think it was, and typically provided a new insight into the topic under discussion. The topic was Derryman James McClean and his refusal to wear the poppy on his football shirt. Eamonn pointed out that this practice of wearing a poppy on football shirts […]

Readers of the current edition of History Ireland, and its previous three editions, may have read a long article by Dennis Kennedy and the dispute in its Letters Page between himself and myself about one of his contentions – that we Irish should be so grateful to the late Lord Fitzalan, the British Viceroy for […]

In his famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, Hamlet concludes that the only thing which keeps many people from killing themselves is the uncertainty of the world that might follow death. If it were not for that fear , surely people would find it impossible to put up with the injustices of this world: “Th’ […]

A few  years ago History Ireland showed a photo taken of three spectators at an Ireland (FAI) international versus Poland match at Dublin’s Dalymount Park in 1938 which Ireland won by 4 goals to 1. The Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera was watching intently  (he clearly was not then near-blind). He had been a very good rugby player […]

One thing you can say about President Trump is that his words carry weight. In fact yesterday they carried not just weight but several US candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The states where he visited, the Republican candidate won. States where he didn’t visit, Republicans did less well. And we’re all […]