November, 2016

“These are people who are not used to being taken seriously,”Peter Morgan , the writer said, while referring to the Royal family. Irish Republicans , Irish nationalists, British loyalists and British Unionists could do worse than catching the new Netflix drama series “The Crown”. Don’t hang about and wonder what all the fuss is about […]

  Dan Mulhall paid tribute to Casement and fallen WW1 soldiers, writes Gerry Molumby   Irish ambassador Dan Mulhall visited Nottingham for the first time to commemorate Roger Casement’s role in the 1916 rising, and his subsequent legacy in modern human rights. Mr Mulhall met members of the Irish Communities from Derby and Mansfield during […]

There is a seanfhocal/ wise old saw in Leprechaun which goes: -Is fánach an áit a bhfaighfeá gliomach. Literally, it translates as: – ‘Tis a quare ould, rare ould spot entirely you might stumble on a lobster, like. Or, as the noted epigrammatical dude, Chuck Berry, succintctly put it: -You never can tell. One was […]

What’s your view on the Disappeared? That’s the term  the media have coined to describe those people, usually within the republican community, who were killed by the IRA and their bodies secretly disposed of. Only a few days ago the Irish Independent had an editorial on the subject. It notes that two more bodies of […]

  In October 2015 Dame Stella Rimingron, former Director of MI5 revealed that Nurse Edith Cavell, shot by a German Firing Squad in October 1914 in Belgium in October 1915 had been passing intelligence to the British and that the Germans were quite in order when they shot her. Within a few months of the shooting […]

  The Brexit result was a shock to the system and not just for me but for all progressive people and all in favour of building the peace process in Ireland. When I hear Tom McGurk and others arguing for Irexit I wonder how that would be a progressive move. It would seem to me like […]

I’d put this in Pic of the Week only I’m laughing too hard…. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38038421

Hush. The President of Ireland is talking. Yes, I can hear him clearly. He’s saying he wants philosophy to be promoted in society and in schools so that we can create a   “reflective atmosphere in the classrooms, in our media, in our public space”. He made this suggestion on Philosophy Day, which was yesterday (whaddyamean, […]

I am of a generation which can still remember the last real involvement of priests and Christian Brothers in the day to day running of schools – growing up in the decade of the ’90s. Many of these people were among the greatest academic minds and talents on the island of Ireland, having devoted years […]

On the 18th November 1916 the Battle of the Somme was discontinued but the appalling slaughter on the “Western Front” continued for another two years, and German civilians were deliberately starved to death for many more months until their leaders pleaded guilty to false charges made by the British and French Governments. When the fallen […]