November, 2018

    Well, click your heels and lep for joy! This morning, Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney must be high-fiving each other and performing back-somersaults of ecstasy. “We dun it!” they cry. “We eyeballed the Brits – with a little help from our gallant European allies – and wouldn’t you know, the Brits blinked first! […]

A: So fill me in – what was so big-deal about yesterday? B: Yesterday just cut through the Gordian knot of the backstop, and the EU and the UK are ready to sign a withdrawal deal. A: Really? B: No, not really. But they have come up with a “technical” agreement or what some call […]

  It’s many years since Fergal Keane demanded for the North of Ireland A TRUTH  AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION on South African lines, in an article in THE INDEPENDENT of London. Has he lost his alleged appetite for truth? I commented on his article in The Irish World, and the Irish Democrat, and included those comments […]

As I write, the UK is drinking in the Last Chance saloon. Despite Theresa May travelling around Europe and button-holing the leaders of various countries, the EU including the south of Ireland are standing firm. Backstop means backstop. So is there anything the UK can do, other than go for an abject surrender and to […]

A letter to the Catholic Universe newspaper: Even a cursory examination of British newspapers will find hate – directed by its owners and editors at some party or nation, and deliberate manipulation of their readers. Even some religious people have been manipulated – witness the inclusion of the British spy Edith Cavell in the Church […]

                                                                               George William Russell of Lurgan once penned a poem which will live as long as Time,  […]

I’ve just come from the BBC in Belfast, where I took part in a discussion of Remembrance Sunday. (Yes, Virginia,  it has been rather a long time.) My discussion partner/opponent was Doug Beattie of the UUP, who as you probably know is or was a military man himself. The question being discussed was, should the […]

  I’ve just tried to tune into BBC TV. They normally have a politics programme at this time, but today it’s missing. It’s all First World War commemoration. As a Plan B, I checked RTÉ. What do you think? Same story – all about First World War commemoration. In any of the thousands of words […]

Pics 1 and 2 are by Perkin Warbeck      CÉAD  MÍLE  MALTA:   A  TALE  of   TWO  CITIES   Pic 1: Kerry City   Pic 2 – Dublin City 

I was going to do a blog on a figure that (I sincerely hope) is fading fast back into the world of television financial game-show: Peter Casey. I may in fact do so later. But first I must rid myself of a comment or two on how we are being brain-washed. Because have no doubt […]