October, 2016

I’ve nothing against students or radicals who want a different way of doing politics and ultimately a better world. In fact, on many things we are singing from the same hymn sheet. But something struck me recently as really rather peculiar – After writing substantively about the jackboot antics of GARC at Ardoyne’s contentious strip, […]

Most of you will by now have heard me moaning about the time it takes to run/moderate this site. It really is a reasonably pleasant way to spend time (most days) but it is very very time-hungry, so I’m going to try to speed up the showing of comments. For a trial period, I’m going […]

Time flies and we are in the Season of Myths and Hollow Boastfulness, one portent of which is an advertisement for a Captive Poppy Display in the Ulster Museum. Other portents such as the obligatory wearing of poppies by all appearing on UK television screens and all non-abstentionist Members of Parliament follow shortly. I don’t say this […]

  The £1-7 million Social Investment Fund(SIF) Dear sweet suffering sassafras!(Again!!!!) The world really is in anything but a state of grace . Are we all now prepared to accept any corruption or villainy? Has even taste died a death? Currently American politics are no more than a burlesque . Almost half the voting population […]

One of the saddest things about Irish people – individuals, rather than the entire race – is their willingness to play the fool for the amusement of their English masters. You can choose your own examples from the past fifty years. But it now seems the Irish government is getting in on the act, albeit […]

.   Tyrone Republicans recently rediscovered the final resting place of Patrick Maguire, Quartermaster 2nd Brigade, 2nd Northern Division 1919 -1923 and have chosen to remember the Fintona native with a September Commemoration in Westmeath. Tyrone people in the US are raising money for Patrick Maguire’s headstone and remembering his niece Maureen McCullagh, originally from Fintona, […]

Thanks to Donal Kennedy for providing this link. It relates to the story that when Ireland was partitioned,  southern Protestants were driven out, and that something similar would happen were we to have a border poll and eventual Irish reunification. This link offers an informed and different perspective. Go raibh maith agat aris, Donal. http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/southern-protestants-and-the-state-1.2822474#.V_vSDcXq_00.mailto

Tony Bennett, singer and recording artiste, is a legend at 90 years of age. He has been performing until recently. His fourth book is titled ‘Life is a Gift’ published by Omnibus Press in 2012. It is a book of reflections on his life and times. There’s a subtitle ‘The Zen of Bennett’. It’s a […]

I remember well the days when I was looking for a job in the early 1970s, having come back from England where I’d been for four years. I lived in Sion Mills. I was aware then that someone like me, born in Ballindrait, Lifford, Co.Donegal, and outside the northern state, needed to apply for a […]

Phew. Whatever disasters in the shape of Donald Trump may be heading the world’s way, there is one consolation:  contentious parades here have been attended to. After several years and wagon-loads of expense, the Ardoyne marching dispute has been resolved. We can now place Ardoyne on the shelf marked ‘Sorted’, alongside the other divisive issues like […]