Some time back there was a fashionable notion called the Tipping Point. In the old days we’d have called it the straw that broke the camel’s back. Well, I’ve reached that point with Sir Bob Geldof. I know he’s done huge things in terms of getting the pop world – and the world – to fork out […]
Tag Archives | Easter Rising
The Easter Proclamation: the dream remains a dream
So – did you enjoy the day? It was a big thing in Belfast but an even bigger thing in Dublin, judging by the RTÉ coverage. Virtually every member of the state’s armed forces was involved in parading O’Connell Street or flying overhead or trundling past in tanks. The crowds watching on a chilly day […]
‘1916: a toxic thread of physical violence?’ by Donal Kennedy
“Nineteen-sixteen introduced a terribly-toxic thread of physical violence, and we’ve had a century of it ever since.” Thus Ruth Dudley Edwards is quoted in THE IRISH TIMES Weekend Review of 2nd January. Ms Dudley Edwards was born in Dublin in 1944 and has lived there much of her life. Dublin has suffered little violence since […]
Ryan’s Rising
Ryan Tubridy is none of your Mickey Muds or Paddy Stinks. He was the featured personality on RTÉ’s Ireland’s Rising last night, and while your grandfather and mine were probably digging ditches to put bread on the table, Ryan’s granda was a GP. Going back a further generation, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother were principals of a […]
Anne Doyle and the Wexford Rising
Why did successive governments and the Irish people of the south so desperately want the Troubles to end? Not too hard to answer that one, you say – because they didn’t want the violence spilling over into the twenty-six counties and besides, they abhorred the idea of lives on both sides being taken in the north. […]
Easter 1916: they shouldn’t have bothered
There’s an article in the Irish Times this morning titled ‘1916 centenary a time for reflection not celebration’. I think that’s a reasonable proposition, so I pushed my marmalade to one side and had a closer read. It’s by a man called Dennis Kennedy and from the first paragraph he inches towards his central […]