January, 2016

Enda Kenny is on the move. No, not to visit the thousands of Irish people affected by the recent floods. Nor to visit any of the homeless families trying to live in a single hotel room without going mad. No, Enda’s off to Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. There he’ll […]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06wbgy4#play.

    Perhaps in the US, elections can be won on something as trivial as the economy, but not so in Northern Ireland where the maintenance of age-old sectarian division is considered essential. In the Republic, there is an excitement about voting for Sinn Féin who have performed admirably in opposition and it is difficult […]

Robert Nairac is the subject of a new book, pejoratively titled ‘Betrayal, The Murder of Robert Nairac’.  The author is Alistair Kerr, a Scot and former Foreign Office diplomat; an African history graduate, he worked mainly in North Africa. He places the blame for Nairac’s capture and subsequent disappearance on an officer in the SAS, […]

In “MAKING A BOMB”  I suggested that Pearse’s essay THE MURDER MACHINE was inspired by the Dickens novel HARD TIMES and mentioned ,in passing, Gradgrind, the Utilitarian zealot for facts, and foe of individuality, imagination and beauty. I’ve since checked Wikipedia for Gradgrind (for I’ve never read HARD TIMES, or any other Dickens novel for […]

Recent figures show there are around 50% more students from a Catholic/nationalist background going into higher education here as there are from a Protestant/unionist background. Why is this? Well, it depends on who you ask. There are reports in some quarters that students from a Protestant/unionist background feel that Queen’s University and Ulster University are […]

Dammit!! That one slipped by unnoticed. .. There I was , recently ,making lists of the great and good ,the dead and the truly gone, in the past year, 2015 ,when I suddenly realised that I’ve been caught out while momentarily looking the other way .Right , bang on the the final day of the […]

They’re at it again. I’ve just come from reading a newspaper article which essentially says that the use of Irish in our contemporary world is a waste of money. The scenario is sketched where a defendant in court speaks in Irish, his words are translated into English, the judge replies in English, that is translated into […]

  Liz and I have been to   performances in Celtic Connections every year since it began in 1994 with the exception   of 2011 when the expected arrival of grandchild number two,  John Joseph Greenwood, put all plans on hold.  From its early days, the festival has encouraged collaboration, given that it has already done the groundwork […]

“HAUGHEY SIDEKICK AND FF GURU FOR OVER THREE DECADES” ran an IRISH TIMES headline on Saturday 16 January. That had me gobsmacked. The IRISH TIMES, once the house journal of the landed Protestant ascendancy, and the “mouthpiece” of Dublin Castle during the Tan War, mimicking the prose style of Elmore Leonard and Mickey Spillane. How […]