September, 2020

This blog originally appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News T A while back Brandon Lewis, our beloved proconsul, openly admitted in the House of Commons that Britain plans to break international law. He emphasised that this didn’t mean abandoning all commitments, or even all of the Withdrawal Bill. Britain would exert restraint in […]

  ‘UNQUIET GRAVES’ was easily the most-discussed programme of the week in Ireland north and south. Why  then did RTÉ not run trailers for it, urging its viewers not to miss it?  And why were press reviews of it next day so …bland? Irish pubs are facing extinction: things were bad before Covid, now  they’re critical. Will they vanish permanently? Will we drink in  splendid isolation? Finally, 10% of US citizens think that the Jews were responsible for the Holocaust, not the victims of it. Are such people irredeemable  ignoramuses or does it matter that they haven’t the facts of the  Holocaust clear in their minds? So many things to talk about, so little time…Enjoy.

There’s a review in the current/last edition of History Ireland of The Arms Crisis of 1970: The Plot that Never Was by Michael Heney. The book argues that Lynch had a ‘hidden policy’ of supplying arms to nationalists in the North ‘in emergencies’ for ‘defensive and humanitarian purposes’ should a civil war break out and […]

Acer in ludo ludísque – ‘Keen in work and play. ’That’s my school motto, Alva Academy – a state run, six year comprehensive ; my Dad and all his brothers and sisters were former pupils too though not fortunate enough to afford the full six year attendance or the subsequent college or Uni education delivered to […]

September 16, 2020 It was my privilege to share inspiring time with John and Pat Hume during the Christmas Season of 1984 while I was on a reconnaissance mission in Ireland preparing for a planned two week Irish Forum trip to learn about the Northern Ireland conflict. In the spring of 1985 our group of […]

Winston Churchill ranks amongst the greatest blackguards ever pupped, but also amongst the most fascinating. Brave to the point  of foolhardy, clever -more than bordering on genius,hard-working and witty. His  Parliamentary witticisms were rarely spontaneous but  hidden products of his industry . A 920 page biography with a further 100 pages of notes, published in […]

UNQUIET GRAVES was on RTÉ ONE last night and it made for hard viewing. Take this exchange between a loyalist and a reporter: “The plan that was decided on  was to shoot up a school…” “When you say ‘shoot up a school’, do you mean to kill the primary children in the school?” “Children, teachers […]

You have been warned in good time. April Fool’s Day 2021 is advertised  by Amazon Books as the publication date of  “KILMICHAEL: THE LIFE AND AFTER LIFE OF AN AMBUSH” The ambush took place on Sunday 28 November 1920 .  Nephews of  sixteen-year old Pat Deasy, one of three of the ambushers  killed  there were […]

Today’s Irish Times carries a genuinely thought-provoking article.  It’s by Finn McRedmond and it’s titled ‘Jennifer Zamparelli falls foul of amplified outrage’. In brief, the article looks at a planned discussion on RTÉ radio about wearing or not wearing face-masks, which got cancelled because of a twitter-storm of objections. There were claims that such a […]

Song Link: https://soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall/the-yellow-door I live in Whitehead in Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland. It’s a small community with lots of familiar faces. You could almost say that it is a template for the future here. We get along, we see past our differences. Its a quiet wee place. It has its problems like […]