Jude Collins

  There are few contemporary issues that match immigration for turning people gammon-coloured in the face and spluttering in  their speech. Sometimes it emerges from  odious politicians like Trump and Nigel Farage; sometime it emerges in the form of violent gangs who set fire to pathetic little canal-side pup-tents and roar that immigrants should go […]

      Nearly 30 years ago my wife and I travelled from London to Bologna with our car by ship and train, en route to Rome and other places.   In those days we camped taking our tents with us.   In the lashing rain we found a campsite by the Trasimene Lakes where […]

    Alex Kane is a former Communications Director of the Ulster Unionist Party. He claims, no doubt honestly, that he does not begrudge the Finucane family the consideration being given them by the British Government over the murder of solicitor Patrick Finucane in 1989.   He reports that Sir Edward de Silva confirmed that […]

    Franciscan priest and writer, Fr Richard Rohr wrote an article some time ago about fear being at the root of hatred. This article prompted me to think about the hatred that I have witnessed here in the north of Ireland over many years. It is a one-sided hatred. It is akin to racism […]

    I was born in an oasis of peace when most of the world was at war.   December 28 1941, three weeks after Pearl Harbou  German troops were at the western bus suburban bus stops of Moscow.   I remember my 3rd birthday, eating apple pie, and a present of a toy which […]

“……..IS FIT FOR TREASONS STRATEGEMS AND SPOILS……. LET NO SUCH MAN BE TRUSTED”   Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice.   Perhaps Lorenzo was right. But should we assume that all with music in their souls are over-endowed with the milk of human kindness?   I read recently that many of the NAZI top brass were […]

And so farewell Casement Park – if you were hoping to join in Euro28, forget it. Albion has once again proved herself perfidious. But there has to be a glass-half-full to this, and Pat and I search it out. Over €13 billion Euro is a gift from Apple to the Dublin. government. Will it be […]

We are podcasting on a Thursday, as you’ll have noticed, and we’re focusing on one subject with our guest Garbhan Downey, from the Derry University Group. He figures that the mentality that led to the new university being sited in Coleraine and not Derry is still operating. It’s a complicated issue but at its heart […]

Somebody should tip off the Labour Party in Britain about the law of unintended consequences. There are 92 hereditary peers in the House of Lords. There were a  lot more, but Tony Blair  as PM trimmed that back to 92 in 1999; now this present British Labour Party under Keir Starmer plans to flush out […]

Sometimes words cannot carry the weight of events or decisions. They buckle, they crumble under the weight of what has happened. Which is why I find myself open-mouthed and near-speechless by today’s announcement by the British government that there will be a public inquiry into the shooting dead in 1989 of Pat Finucane in front […]