September, 2020

The paper calling itself THE IRISH EXAMINER (14 SEPTEMBER)  writes of persons allegedly “disappeared “by the IRA during the 1919-1921  War of Independence. One of them, District  Inspector Gilbert Potter, was captured by the IRA’s Third Tipperary Brigade in April 1921 and held as a hostage to effect the release of an IRA  soldier, Volunteer […]

Unquiet Graves is showing on television on Wednesday, so Pat and I  began our chat with the degree of collusion there was during the  Troubles betweeb loyalist gangs and the ‘security’ forces.   From there  it was a skip and a jump to consider the woes of Fianna Fáil and  Micheál Martin, with their 10% rating in the latest Red-C poll. And we ended up talking about something that Pat in particular feels strongly about – the online crazies, with their Trumpian notions  about world-wide conspiracies. Sure where else would you get it?

 If you’re sweating heavily at the prospect of Britain passing laws which will be in contravention of its UK-EU agreement in the Withdrawal Bill, stop. No need to worry. The Bill is due to go to its second reading today but Huzzah! The SDLP  – Colum Eastwood and Claire Hannah  – are going to put […]

Like many Taoisigh before him including Jack Lynch, Garret Fitzgerald and John Bruton, the present Taoiseach, Michéal Martin, is seriously misjudging the mood of northern nationalism by his weak response to the British Prime Minister Boris Johson’s rejection of the EU Treaty.  The obvious response from Michéal Martin to Boris Johnson’s antics and bad faith is to demand […]

“The only poll that counts is the one on election day”.  That’s what political parties say when they don’t like the look of the latest opinion poll. So stand by for Micheál Martin to declare all opinion polls a distraction, subject to change and the work of the devil. The latest Red-C political opinion poll […]

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News The  southern media often seem to use a fuzzy lens when looking at the north-eastern part of Ireland. They find this place hard to comprehend and so does much of the southern population. We shouldn’t be surprised at this. Had Britain maintained jurisdiction over six counties in, say, Munster, rather than six counties in […]

We hit three topics today – the Withdrawal Bill controversy, the woes of Micheál Martin and the Colum Eastwood interview in today’s  Irish Times..Are the Tories simply shameless, when they say they’ll  break international law over trade with NI, or are they using it as a  smokescreen for something more crafty?  Does Micheál Martin have a deathwish, the way he keeps provoking his own party’s TDs? And is  Colum Eastwood what the picture of him in the IT suggests: a worthy    successor to John Hume? Oh, and what’s he talking about when he says that building a ‘shared island’ isn’t politics??

This interview is part of a continuing series of interviews with  different people on their perception of and hopes for nationalism

(For legal purposes I must state that this is entirely my own political opinion, enshrined within the Human Rights Act 1998). “Those who can make you believe ‘absurdities’, can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire “Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” – H. Balzac “Some […]

There are people who think that the British or those who would identify as British don’t give a fuddle-duddle about observing treaties and agreements they have signed up to. Not so. Listen to this: “The barrister [Austen Morgan QC] said such an [Irish Language] act could be argued to be a breach of paragraph three […]