Britain and the Troubles

The Kingsmill Massacre bore more of the features of a loyalist attack than a typical IRA one. Loyalists like Johnny Adair and the Shankill Butchers typically set out to kill Catholics – any Catholics. Their motivation was no doubt in part sectarian but it was based on a belief that if enough Catholics were killed, […]

Continue Reading

Pity the poor taxi-man

On Saturday I was in a taxi in Dublin  and chatting with the driver. “So” I said. “Has Enda finally cracked this recession?”  He told me in a few words that Enda had done nothing of the sort, citing cuts of €60 per month to an already groaning home  budget as support for his view. […]

Continue Reading

Gimme shelter…

    A: Tell me this and tell me no more. What happened on 20 June 1968? B:  Frustrated by the allocation of a house to a young unmarried Protestant woman ahead of an older married Catholic woman with children,  Austin Currie and a number of other people occupied the house in Caledon  in protest. […]

Continue Reading

Guest Blog :One Peace at a Time by Harry McAvinchey

    “Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules — and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.”…..Kurt Vonnegut, “The Sirens Of Titan” Meanwhile back on Earth 2 : …. So it Goes….. It’s time for the […]

Continue Reading

Sammy and Phyllis Devenney

I knew Phyllis Devenney. She was a wonderful woman, full of humour and forgiveness. At the time I met her she was suffering from cancer. She spoke of the chemotherapy sessions she’d had and how difficult they were, to the point where she told her family she simply wanted to stop. “And do you know […]

Continue Reading

Just the job?

  Man:  Ah Miss Muircheartaigh  – do have  a seat. We’re sorry to have kept you waiting so long but as you are probably aware, there are a number of candidates for this position in our school. But you are very welcome. As a state school we are of course open to pupils of all […]

Continue Reading

Would that be four submarines or three, sir?

When I was in my late teens I used to dream about the bomb. That’s the nuclear bomb. I’d see it going off in the distance and experience this terrible sense of doom, that everything and everybody was over, finished, no way back. My friends, who dreamed about girls, laughed and told me to get […]

Continue Reading

Ian Og, me, the UK and Scottish independence

  Scotland – nice place or what? Lovely scenery, excellent whisky, one great football club. Oh yes – and a growing appetite for independence. The latest poll indicates that, while still behind, the gap between those who’d say Yes to independence and those who’d say No has narrowed. Following the Scot Nats White Paper on […]

Continue Reading

What happens in Norway no longer stays in Norway

  One of the great things about social media like Twitter is that you get to hear about stuff that would never make it to the mainstream media in the country where you live.  For example, you’ll read in the newspapers and hear on television about Boris Johnson’s latest wheeze, to make strikes by London’s […]

Continue Reading