November, 2016

Dear Editor, The First Minister for Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster, is pleased with Brexit. (Guardian, October 29th). Unlike Theresa May, Arlene advocated a Leave vote. The electorate here voted by 56% to 44% to Remain. Nevertheless, Arlene argues that the vote here does not matter. We joined the EU as part of the UK and […]

‘Is it Kick the Prods Week in The Irish Times (sic) ?’ screeched the heading over a missive in that calm cloister of civilised whispers , the Letters Page of The Unionist Times (November 2). Eh? The writer was a lady from Twickenham, UK and by all accounts the reason why her bloomers had assumed […]

I’m surprised that THE IRISH POST seems unaware of the history of this elegant 19th Century edifice between King’s X Station and the Eurostar Terminalat St Pancras Station, for many 1916 Insurgents trained there with the IRISH VOLUNTEERS before the Rising. Michael Collins, Joe Good and Ernie and Sean Nunan and John “Blimey” O’Connor trained […]

When is Our Deputy First Minister ,Marty, going to get a little more excited …a little more exercised …..a little more (dare I say it ?) aggressive. Previously this seeming passivity which he has embraced ,has had it place; a calm , cool front when allayed against the banshee wail of vitriol that was issuing […]

One of my best friends in college was a fellow by the name of Tom O’Gara from Derry. He was ordained a priest for the Derry diocese and was on the street in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday ministering to the dying. He spent some time afterwards in Pennyburn parish and was then moved to […]

  For my 64th Birthday, 28 December 2005, THE IRISH TIMES published a letter of mine headlined “1916 Rising and first World War”. I appreciated it at the time and, finding it amongst my souvenirs, thought I’d share it with you, good readers.       “Madam,  Kevin Myers is to be thanked for bringing to our […]

Pics 1, 2 and 3 are by John Patton, who blogs at www.phototilly.eu . All three of his portraits are of former pupils at St Columb’s College, Derry.   BRIAN FRIEL: “I knew  Brian for many years. When he taught in Brow o’ the Hill, he lived opposite  us in Marlborough St, Derry.  He was […]

There’s no situation so appalling that you can’t spot, if you peer through the gloom hard enough, a chink of light. Since last June, people here and elsewhere have been wringing their hands and rending their garments over the dumber-than-dumb decision by Britain to quit the EU. That decision has plunged millions into a gloomy […]

(Letter first published December 4 2010 in The News Line (London), a small left-wing paper.) Sir, Behind screens of Poppies and barrages of Poppycock the reality of wars and their fruits have been forgotten. Consider a few short weeks in London in 1920. In December 1920 the Government of Ireland Act, partitioning Ireland, got the Royal […]

  Did the six-day Insurrection at Easter in 1916 plunge a previously unbloodied Ireland into a century of war and violence? I ask that question, because, unless I am mistaken, the “distinguished historian” Ruth Dudley Edwards maintains that it did. You might take a pleasant break from this narrative by watching the Howth Regatta 1942 […]