There’s not a whole lot to write about at the moment. You couldn’t scare up a scandal these days for love nor money …..and yet when we had an Executive here in Norneverland , there was hardly a week that went by without some scandalous political nonsense oozing its stink out under the door like […]
May, 2017
‘ Ar Scáth a Chéile…’ by Joe McVeigh
Last night I attended the reopening of St Macartin’s Church of Ireland Parish Hall in Enniskillen. A very large crowd from all sections of the community was present. The Dean in St Macartin’s is appropriately called Kenny Hall. His motto is ‘Hall together Now’. The ceremony was performed by the very popular bishop of […]
The SDLP offer up Mary and Martin
And so, after searching behind ditches and under tables, the SDLP has finally located two candidates to run in Fermanagh/South Tyrone and North Belfast: Mary Garrity and Martin McAuley respectively. What’s that, Virginia? You’ve never heard of them? Not surprising. Martin and Mary are hardly household names, and yes, it would be unkind to add […]
CRISES, AFTERMATHS AND A MONSTROUS HUMBUG by Donal Kennedy
“Winston has written a book about himself” quipped Arthur Balfour, “and called it The World Crisis.” That. was in 1923 following the first of nine volumes on the Great War which Balfour had been planning since 1904 and in which Churchill played many prominent parts. The 9th volume “The Aftermath” published in 1929, has a […]
Has the new Arlene buried the old one?
Arlene Foster is a truly valuable political leader – for nationalists and republicans. For the DUP? Um, maybe not. Sinn Féin’ s success in the Assembly election was due to a number of factors, not least among them the DUP leader’s comparison of Sinn Féin to a crocodile. The fact that this was linked to […]
‘Donald Trump’s con artistry gives him a chance to win a second term’ by Mehdi Hasan
FIRST PUBLISHED IN NEW STATESMAN 28 APRIL 2017 “Life doesn’t imitate art,” Woody Allen once remarked, “it imitates bad television.” Back in May 1958, an episode of the CBS drama Trackdown, set in the Wild West, featured a conman named Walter Trump, who pledged to build a wall to protect a small town from the […]
The SDLP parks the bus across the road
As I type, I’m listening to John O’Dowd on Good Morning Ulster . O’Dowd has been asked by Noel Thompson what the election of an abstentionist Sinn Féin MP would do. His response cut to the heart of the abstentionist debate/distraction: what have those MPs from here who take their seats in the House of Commons achieved ? Noel […]
‘The Universe – A Work in Progress’ by Joe McVeigh
It was only fairly recently that the Catholic church officially accepted that the universe is still ‘a work in progress’, that evolution is the way that the universe continues and that people, like you and me, are involved in this creative process. We are involved in the ongoing work of creation. That’s if you […]
BREXIT AND THE BORDER by Eamonn McDermott
Reports at the weekend suggest that one of the last armed dissident republican groups, Oglaigh na h-Eireann, are reconsidering their ‘strategy and tactics’ leading some to surmise that they will be calling a cessation to their activities. The other armed dissident group, the ‘new’ IRA, have as yet given no indication that they intend to […]
John Finucane and Emmanuel Macron: separated at birth?
The National Front, Marine Le Pen’s party, was doing its best to carry the burden of defeat last night. Legs wobbling, it pointed out how her father had got somewhere around 18% in 2002, so her 35% showed the party was on an upward path. That’s convincing until you look at Emmanuel Macron, the man who defeated […]