Sinn Féin’s performance in the recent southern election presents the establishment there with a serious problem: how to present the party which won the popular vote in a negative light. But they’re trying, they’re trying. Fintan O’Toole recently had an Irish Times article entitled ‘The enignma of Mary Lou McDonald’, the enigma in question […]
February, 2020
“IRELAND IS NOT A NORMAL “IRELAND IS NOT A NORMAL EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY” – FINTAN O’TOOLE – by Donal Kennedy Part 1I have never before agreed with anything uttered by Fintan O’Toole. But I must agree with that utterance.For many reasons.Mr O’Toole writes for THE IRISH TIMES, which is answerable to an oathbound secretive society established […]
Impossible coalitions and the Unthinkable Alternative
Yes indeed, Virginia, it does feel as if a year has passed since the election in the south, not one week. First there was the eyeballs-on-stalks viewing of the results on Sunday, with Sinn Féin topping poll after poll and – oh God, should I cheer or cry? – the huge surpluses that candidates like […]
LARKIN ABOUT: MUSINGS FOR ST.VALENTINE’S DAY by Donal Kennedy
“Sexual intercourse began in nineteen sixty three (Which was rather late]for me) Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban And the Beatles’ first LP” – Philip Larkin “There was no […]
Being Fianna Fáil
A person would have to have a heart of stone not to feel for Fianna Fail. Yesterday one of their big beasts, Michael McGrath, lumbered onto RTÉ radio explaining why his party wouldn’t go into coalition with Sinn Féin. “It’s on economic grounds – their manifesto is so markedly different from ours,” he explained. So […]
Hanks, John Whiskey and the Bar by Eva Comrie (by way of John Patton)
A braw bottle of whiskey (with an ‘e’ for it is Irish) crowns our kitchen pelmet ; we’ve solemnly sworn not to hear that ‘brrrp’ of it being uncorked until either Ireland is united or Scotland is independent. (It’s whiskey, not whisky, as the latter evaporates if you keep it inside in the heat for […]
I MET A TRAVELLER FROM A DISTANT LAND — by Donal Kennedy
I And when I was introduced to him he told me that he had once had lunch with President de Valera in Dublin. I was tempted to quote Kipling – “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din” but instead remarked that Dev was a controversial figure in Ireland. He assured me that Dev […]
Hands up- who’d like another election?
Here’s a big question: is Sinn Féin now established as one of the three big parties in the south, thus ending the Tweedledum and Tweedledee rule that existed over the last 100 years? You’re probably putting down your cereal spoon and wondering if I’ve taken a knock on the head. Sure aren’t all the commentators […]
SHADOW OF A GUNBOAT- AND A DISLOYAL TOAST by Donal Kennedy
Have you ever read a United Kingdom Passport or compared it to an Irish one? The Irish Minister REQUESTS passage for his fellow citizens. Her Brittanic Majesty REQUESTS AND REQUIRES……. The shadow of the Gunboat looms over the Lesser Breeds, whether or not they’ve ever heard of The War of Jenkins’ Ear. I mentioned in […]
I hear words all day long/First from him, then from you/Is that all you blighters can do?
Last night’s meeting, left to right: Chair Paddy Kelly, Colin Harvey, Duncan Morrow Did you know there’s an organization called the Constitutional Conversations Group? No, me neither. Whoever proposed the title should be blind-folded in front of a linguistic firing squad and put out of their tone-deaf foolishness. That said, the CCG serves an important purpose and that was on display last night in the Shaftesbury Community […]