November, 2010

Sometimes the Irish people do things that make me want to bite a cushion and hide behind the sofa. Like,  when someone speaks with an Oxford accent and is heard with respect, while if the same views were delivered in a Belfast accent they’d be shouted down.  Or the way we believe in one of […]

When she was a little girl Maggie Ritchie was told by her teacher tthat when she got up to speak she should always, always open her mouth wide-wide-WIDE like a little dickie-bird so everyone could clearly hear her song.  The SDLP leader has never forgotten that admonition and so she was at her mouth-opening best […]

When she was a little girl Maggie Ritchie was told by her teacher tthat when she got up to speak she should always, always open her mouth wide-wide-WIDE like a little dickie-bird so everyone could clearly hear her song.  The SDLP leader has never forgotten that admonition and so she was at her mouth-opening best […]

I’ve been test-driving a pair of contact lenses for the last week. The optician has said I can try them for two weeks, after which I’ll have to decide whether to sign up permanently or not. At first wearing them was …stunning. I felt like a man reborn, or at least rescued from a life […]

I’ve been test-driving a pair of contact lenses for the last week. The optician has said I can try them for two weeks, after which I’ll have to decide whether to sign up permanently or not. At first wearing them was …stunning. I felt like a man reborn, or at least rescued from a life […]

I did a silly/stupid thing yesterday.  I  saw a load of Facebook birthday greetings to my son’s girl-friend and I added my own, noting that I’d managed to get it in with less than three hours to spare before her birthday ended. Picture my consternation when she tactfully informed me her birthday  had actually been […]

I did a silly/stupid thing yesterday.  I  saw a load of Facebook birthday greetings to my son’s girl-friend and I added my own, noting that I’d managed to get it in with less than three hours to spare before her birthday ended. Picture my consternation when she tactfully informed me her birthday  had actually been […]

You’ll find many things in Donegal – beautiful scenery, friendly people, heart-soothing music and soul-soothing pubs – but not too much Dublin-linked democracy. For the past 16 months the Donegal South-West constituency has been without a representative, for the simple reason that the Fianna Fail-Green Party coalition with its slim majority feared the verdict of […]

You’ll find many things in Donegal – beautiful scenery, friendly people, heart-soothing music and soul-soothing pubs – but not too much Dublin-linked democracy. For the past 16 months the Donegal South-West constituency has been without a representative, for the simple reason that the Fianna Fail-Green Party coalition with its slim majority feared the verdict of […]

What were the events immediately preceding the collapse and eventual death of Gerard Crawford? The 75-year-old man was in a local newsagent’s shop in West Belfast on Monday when a masked man tried to steal the till. The best the VO can do this morning is to tell us that he ‘intervened’ and ‘confronted’ the […]