March, 2017

Ah! Direct Rule is in the news again.Nobody likes to talk about it too much, of course.The politicians at Westminster would rather hold their own feet to the fire than start that kind of thing up again, so they are hoping beyond hope that those Norneverlanders will cobble together some sort of compromise and take […]

  Irony abounded yesterday.  Enda Kenny spoke of Martin McGuinness’s ‘terrorist past’  while standing in front of a huge portrait of Michael Collins which decorates his office. BBC and RTÉ reporters stressed the need to see Martin McGuinness ‘in the round’ –  that is, besides being a peacemaker who worked tirelessly for reconciliation, he was […]

  From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay and from Waterford to Dublin Town the bells were ringing on Sunday March 19. Yes, Quay to rhyme with Bay rather than, say, the key of, G. And Waterford in place of, say, Galway. For it was in the Church of Ireland (sic) Cathedral of Christ Church […]

© 21.3.17 When someone dies They leave behind them An impossible space. For their family and friends. For their enemies and for those Who never really understood them. Like an individual wave Pushing and pulling against the hard edge Of a Derry quay. Each wave only comes the once To be replaced by another and […]

I was all set to do a blog about two of the famous men who died over the last week – rock and roller Chuck Berry and Catholic Bishop Eamonn Casey – but the news of Martin McGuinness’s death has meant that must wait for another day. I first met Martin McGuinness  in the early […]

In a Sunday paper today, the one owned by Denis O’Brien, a regular contributor from Cork, Eoghan Harris writes: “But since Arlene Foster and Gerry Adams between them have forced the united Ireland nonsense back on the agenda we have to ask ourselves three questions.” This seriously deluded man, Harris, declares that it was Arlene Foster […]

As someone who grew up near the border, I certainly remember the custom officers standing at their little tin hut in Pettigo just after you crossed the bridge into the republic. The hut is still there and it won’t be long till the customs men and maybe women are back checking goods going into the […]

I was accused the other day of having lost the run of myself, which I suppose is accurate enough, given that I’ve at present got a broken foot. It’s a good expression, “the run of yourself”. Discussing the phrase a few years’ ago, Frank McNally in The Irish Times gave the following as an example […]

Outside much seems the same. The first sharp green shoots of goldenrod have poked through the clatter of their still, dead, rusting predecessors ;those exotically cultured tulip bulbs I’d brought back from Amsterdam last summer, seem to have found life in the heavy clayey soil of Ireland and are now opening their mad petals to […]