There’s a touching little letter in today’s Irish Times. It comes from a young woman living in The Netherlands and she’s writing to complain. She is an Irish citizen and she is allowed to vote in Dutch local elections. On the other hand, she can’t vote in the upcoming referendum in Ireland on same-sex marriage. She […]
March, 2015
Nelson and the arts festivals
I saw my old and deeply cultured friend, Nelson McCausland on BBC television last night. He and others were talking about the fact that Queen’s University are withdrawing their traditional financial backing for the Belfast Festival. This puts the future of the Festival at risk, something which appeared to appal Nelson: “It would be unthinkable that […]
‘We are the Billy Boys’ : just a song, really.
I was on BBC Radio Ulster/Raidio Uladh’s Talkback on St Patrick’s Day, talking about hate speech. You wouldn’t think there was much to be said about this topic: the people who use it have nasty, twisted minds which they enjoy passing on to others. But the case in point was a Glaswegian citizen who, apparently, […]
SYNTHETIC CHILDREN AND HOLDING BACK THE TIDE OF HUMANITY by Harry McAvinchey
It was bound to come to this …”Synthetic Children”. The gay fashion designers, Dolce and Gabanna and the gay rock star Elton John and his partner have clashed over a supposed slur about the veracity of their children as “natural” or “normal” human- beings.. Elton and his partner , obviously unable to conceive in […]
Electoral pacts and reasons to be
It’s good to see enemies become friends. The DUP and the UUP have decided to put any and all differences behind them and mount a combined challenge in the Westminster election. Well maybe not combined. I don’t think it’s going to be an Agreed Candidate, in the sense of a candidate outside both parties and […]
Mitchel McLaughlin and getting the balance right
Newly-appointed Speaker at Stormont, Mitchel McLaughlin, has called for a rebalancing of symbolism at Stormont. Good luck with that one, Mitchel. Let me make a few predictions (shut up, Virginia, please). 1. There will never be a counterpart rebalancing of the Carson statue which dominates the approach to Stormont. Since Carson was a gun-runner, Sinn […]
‘Booing the Bishop’: a short story for the day that’s in it
The bishop lived in a big house across the wall from our boarding school. On slow summer evenings we’d peep over and watch him playing croquet by himself, sometimes muttering and hammering the mallet into the ground when he missed a hoop. The grass on his side was as neat as a bee-bop haircut and […]
WHY I HATE ST PATRICK’S DAY…. by Harry McAvinchey
Maybe “hate” is too strong a word to describe my feelings for and about St. Patrick’s Day. I suppose I feel about it much as I feel about the Twelfth of July in Norneverland . It’s a day that is fine as a holiday, but it has no other real frisson to it . Saint […]
The media: they’ll do your thinking for you
How important would you say the media are? If you said ‘Very’ you were probably near the mark. ‘Extremely’ would also have qualified and so would ‘stupendously’. Think about it. Do you know Barack Obama? Robert Mugabe? David Cameron? Most people, even though they’ve never met or even glimpsed any of these men in the […]
JEREMY CLARKSON AND THE ART OF GROWING OLD AS A DISGRACE by Harry McAvinchey
What was it ? 350 million people throughout the world watch “Top Gear”. That’s that show about motor cars , helmed by a group of super-annuated schoolboys, enthralled by car-pornography. The world-wide love of metal machinery and its fanatical adherents . 350 million of the beggars!! I really must be missing something.Somehow , I […]