August, 2018

I’m just off the Nolan Show on Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster, where they’re highlighting a Wolfe Tones concert where there was, apparently, the waving of Irish tricolours with ‘IRA’ written on them and chants of ‘Ooh aah, up the RA!’ Isn’t it interesting that of all the hundreds of events that occurred during Feile an Phobail, […]

-ABE. So what exactly does  that enigmatic sign ‘ABE’ hanging by six-strap lace suspender belts from the ceiling of  the lobby in the  theatre formerly known as The Abbey signify ? The ABE, it will be recalled, has an A in red, B in white and E in blue.  Apart from those gaunt unfortunates with […]

The worst charge that can be laid at unhappy Remainers is that they want the British public,  to think again: step forward, EU Referendum Two. At the very idea,  Brexiteers break into red-faced fury. The remote toffs are at it again! Pulling the strings and refusing a clear democratic decision. “Do you want us to be like […]

It’s something we take for granted nowadays, but voting by secret ballot was established only in 1872. Before that it was considered the manly thing (yes, Virginia, manly – no women then had the vote) to declare your choice and to add your name and address. Mind you, the arrival of the secret ballot was […]

  I was at a talk by historian Eamon Phoenix last night, in which he told a story about being summoned to Stormont a few years back, where they’d come on an old chest (I kid you not) and wanted him to be on hand for its opening. Inside were a series of silver cups, […]

  I was impressed by the recent ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ TV programme featuring Boy George, and his  pride in his republican connection. I wasn’t impressed by those Irish historians seen briefing him. The fact that  the Irish electorate had voted in 1918 endorsing the aims of the 1916 insurgents and mandated Sinn […]

  Some are born knowledgeable, some achieve knowledge and some have knowledge thrust upon them. Here’s what’s been thrust on me in the past week. There are an awful  lot of people who still miss Martin McGuinness an awful lot. While I’d like to think it was my masterly presentation last Friday at Feile an Phobail, […]

Last night, I interviewed Gerry Adams for the third time. The first occasion was over twenty years ago, when I was making a light-hearted radio documentary for the BBC and Gerry agreed to be part of it. Two things struck me then: how hard he was working and his unassuming manner. I was doing newspaper […]

  “If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied”   These lines were written by Rudyard Kipling. He had pulled strings t o have his only son, John commissioned in the British Army, where he was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915 at the age of eighteen. I understand […]