August, 2017

Asked to say a word or two about Horticulture, Dorothy Parker said that you could take any Whore to Culture but not make them think. About a century earlier and on the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Davis urged his Irish compatriots to Educate that they might be free.. I’m reminded of Ms. Parker’s […]

I have always found that unionists don’t really get irony. It seems to sail right over their head for some reason. Okay, I know we shouldn’t generalise in this way but you know what I mean. Anyway this being so it is a safe bet to say that they will not appreciate how ironic it […]

  Reading a recent Perkins BLOG, I was distressed to read of Seamus Mallon, that after nearly twenty years decorating the green benches at Westminster he described the Parliament there as “the Mother of Parliaments” and that he did so in Dublin’s College of Surgeons, a very learned institution, famed for sharp wits and sharp […]

An interesting article from the Irish Times in 1924 detailing Southern Irish Loyalist Relief Association (SILRA) propaganda on ‘starving’ unemployed ex-servicemen, republicans gaining everywhere, IRB running the show and in the grip of bolshevists and communists. The Roman Catholic Church, a force for good (‘up to a point’), losing its grip. I tackeled this issue […]

  The first person ever to refer to the occupied part of Ireland as ‘The Six Counties’ was King George V in his speech at the official opening of the Northern parliament in Belfast City Hall on 7 June 1921. (The parliament moved from the City Hall to the Presbyterian Church’s college, later Union Theological College, until they […]

  The career of Melina Mercouri was entwined with that of the great Greek composer, Manos Hatzidakis who magicked up the music for ‘Never on Sunday’. Manos Hatzidakis was, ar bhealach, the Seán Ó Riada of Greece in the way both explored and enhanced alike the folk music of their native countries. If Hatzidakis (like […]

Facing into life on a grey Monday morning takes courage. You try not to think of that person at work with the smarmy ways, that boss who’s devoid of reason, that daily commute which leaves your lungs stuffed full of carbon dioxide and your nerves shredded. The state of political affairs doesn’t induce delight either. […]

I’d forgotten about the bullet.You might understand why, considering that I was living in Belfast during the worst years of the Norneverland conflict and it was only one tiny little bullet among thousands ,after all. .1971 and 1972 was a mad,and crazy time to live in Belfast.There was so much happening day by day that […]

Reccntly I find myself cheered mightily by the fact that people who would have cut out their tongue before talking about a reunited Ireland are now raising the issue. That’s good. The more people who take a sober look at this age-old aspiration, the better. Issues like this need to build a momentum, and from […]

The Féile An Phobail which we’ve recently enjoyed has many benefits, but outstanding among these must be that it encourages us to think. Most of us, of course, can think without being plugged into a Féile; but our thinking can fall into a pattern and even a rut, and getting heaved out of that rut […]