December, 2016

“We could be discussing the A6 and A5, improvements to our port and the 100 new jobs announced in our area. Instead we have nationalist councillors trying to outdo one another with pointless motions,” Those are the words of Councillor Graham Warke (DUP). He was reacting to a motion passed by Derry City and Strabane […]

                 Pic 1                                                            Pic 2  Pic 3 Pics 1-3 are by John Patton ( phototilly.eu) Pic 1  :     […]

  You probably know well who Pat Kenny is but perhaps some of the regulars on your blog might not. PK had been the golden boy of RTE for years and then in 2013 he joined Newstalk, which is owned by Denis O’Brien, the very wealthy man who also owns the Independent group. PK’s daily […]

Perhaps the most striking feature of Washington’s war against Cuba since it dared to liberate itself at last in 1959 has been the frenzy with which it has been waged. Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs invasion soon after taking office was authorized in an atmosphere of “hysteria,” Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later testified before the Senate’s […]

  JUNE 17 2010.   Your headline “Bloody Sunday: The wait for justice ends” (June 15) is misleading. Yes, the murdered men and youths, the wounded, their families and supporters have been vindicated by a British inquiry and a British government has accepted what the rest of the world has long known. But the murderers, […]

  Received a present a few days ago of a new book called ‘Rebel Prods’ written by Valerie Jones who died in 2014. The sub-title says it all ‘Rebel Prods-The Forgotten Story of Protestant Radical Nationalists and the 1916 Rising’. It was prepared for publication by her daughter and son and published by Ashfield Press, Dublin.  […]

Pupils seeking examples of irony for their Higher English prelims should forsake Shakespeare and read Tim Shipman’s book , ‘All Out War’; it is a Brexit tale  that deftly describes the deals, betrayals and broken promises that laid low much of the recognisable, political class in Britain. On the negative side, it is overly London-centric  and as […]

A JUST RISING (18 JANUARY 2016) –  ANSWERING SEÁMUS MURPHY, S.J. The latest contribution to the Easter Rising debate was from an Irish Jesuit Priest in California, who told a newspaper that the Rising, “not having a realistic prospect of success”, did not pass the “just war” criteria, but that we can “laughingly forgive a […]

So our First Minister has been changed, changed utterly. When Enda Kenny invited her down for an all-Ireland – oops, all-island discuss of Brexit, Arlene did her frosty reception thing as only she can, and told him she wouldn’t be there. Shortly after, of course, she found a way to go into a huddle with […]