December, 2015

It must be around twenty years ago now that I used to turn right when I crossed the Foyle Bridge in Derry. The Ulster University had an in-service Master’s course for teachers, and on a weekly basis I’d have to drive to Derry as part of the teaching team. To get to the Magee campus […]

Perhaps the worst lines I learned at school were from A PSALM OF LIFE  by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow –   “Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime And departing leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time” and it wouldn’t surprise me if Wilde’s “The Importance of Being […]

Winston Churchill died in 1965; he last held office in 1961. Last Sunday the Observer published the results of a survey by the pollsters, BritainThinks . Churchill topped the poll with an impressive 100% in the qualities that were determined necessary for leadership – ‘being decisive, ‘great communicator’ and ‘having integrity. Given that he left […]

There is no handy roadmap for reconciliation. There is no short cut or simple prescription for healing the wounds and divisions of a society in the aftermath of sustained violence. Creating trust and understanding between former enemies is a supremely difficult challenge. It is, however, an essential one to address in the process of building […]

I remember about fifteen years ago in Dublin, having a discussion about planning with my brother-in-law John. The possibility that planning permission might be something that the occasional local councillor would use to line his pockets was raised. “There’s not a local council in the south where that isn’t going on – not one!”   John […]

  (Written following a Dublin visit in 1990 when the city first showed any interest in the World Cup.) Published in the IRISH DEMOCRAT Dec 1990 I think it was Confucius who first remarked that when the Old Bill look young the observer is getting long in the tooth. Visiting Dublin recently I spotted a couple […]

I’ve just heard a woman on the radio throw everything but the kitchen sink at the Stop The War group. She accused them of comparing ISIS recruits from Britain to those who left Britain to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the republican side; and she said that the Stop The War coalition had supported […]

Ever since I was invited to try out Microsoft’s spanking new system and duly installed a free copy of Windows 10 in a ten -hour upgrade from Windows 8, this old computer deck has been acting like that spread-eagled supermarket child , alternately holding its breath until near- perdition and and then exhaling in a […]

  From: Donal Kennedy <donalmkennedy@aol.com> To: letters <letters@independent.ie> Sent: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 7:47 Subject: BAD HATS O’ER THE BORDER? I found this unpublished letter (sent to the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT in 2007)  during a rummage in the attic and thought you might enjoy it Sir, Diarmaid MacDermott (18 March) sketches an appalling vista for the […]

Thursday 19 November was a significant day. On that day in Leinster House in Dublin, an Irish appeal was launched to free Arnaldo Otegi and to bring Basque political prisoners home. You don’t know who Arnaldo Otegi is? I’ll come clean – neither did I until about a year ago. You probably remember ETA, though […]