August, 2016

This is a story about a disease that has been allowed to spread unabated like some parasitic pestilence through specific areas of our society.It is as though plague such as the Black Death had visited only specific areas and left other areas alone.Is this down to class-politics?   Sometimes I wonder if there is such […]

Abortion is a proverbial ‘hot potato’, an issue upon which people  disagree and even, in the USA, shoot dead surgeons as a result of opposition to it. Let me start by saying I utterly condemn any such behaviour as completely unacceptable and abhorrent in a civilised society. I am an opponent of any attempts to […]

I was going to write about something else but I’ve been diverted by the Nolan show this morning into consideration of the Michaela McCollum case. You probably remember her – a 21-year-old from Dungannon who was caught trying to smuggle a load of drugs, who spent more than two years in a Peruvian prison, and […]

Having not been born when the late Labour Prime Minister was in office, I was pleased to discover that he was elected to a constituency with more Irish than anywhere else in England. Meeting someone on holiday who worked for Huyton Labour club, they spoke fondly of the former Premier and his goals in politics. […]

You’ve probably heard by now – there’s to be a fresh inquiry into the Kingsmill massacre. Ten Protestants were killed after they’d been ordered from their van. There was one survivor. It happened back in 1976 but in May of this year, the PSNI said they had a “potential DNA match” relating to a palm […]

      Is Martin McGuinness the Irish Nelson Mandela? The difference in attitude in particular towards reconciliation between Sinn Fein and all of the Unionist parties is already glaringly obvious and only getting wider.  Since the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein have consistently provided positive leadership, have time and time again proven their commitment […]

Recently a film called ‘66 Days’ has been released. It is about Bobby Sands hunger strike in 1981 which is 35 years ago. I have not seen the film but I noticed in the Newsletter the other day an article saying that a group of Protestant victims of the Troubles led by Kenny Donaldson met in Enniskillen […]

There was a moment in the radio discussion of Eddie Daly and the Duke of Westminster yesterday which, in retrospect, may have exemplified a tendency among nationalists/republicans. It came as I was making some statement about Eddie Daly, along the lines of “Eddie Daly worked for most of his life in Derry” . Gregory Campbell immediately intervened with […]

This is a section from a forthcoming book on the Easter Rising and its aftermath by Donal Lavery  – Jude   – ”You claim to be a Majority, well you know that’s a lie! You really are a minority on this Sweet Emerald Isle” (lyrics from the song ”Bloody Sunday” by John Lennon) In his […]

Press Release: Talk given by Fr Joe McVeigh, from Enniskillen at the graveside of Patrick Shanaghan in Aghyaran on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his killing near Killen.   Padraig O Seanachain (1958-1991) Patrick Shanaghan died in a hail of bullets in Killen near Castlederg, Co Tyrone as he made his way to […]