July, 2021

Yesterday, Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, had his sunlit gambol in the British House of Commons, where he (gasp) revealed the name of Soldier F. There was much reaching for smelling salts and clutching of bosoms from the ill-informed, but I’m surprised Colm didn’t tell his British colleagues that everybody in Derry and beyond knows […]

Can a football team be judged by its followers? Probably not. Despite being told that it is a sad and unsportsmanlike thing to do, the England supporters in Wembley on Saturday booed their hearts out during the national anthem of Italy. There are those who say that this boorish behaviour only stiffens the resolve of […]

As your average Orangeman opens his eyes today, shading them from the sun’s glare, I wonder what he’s thinking of. That he should have passed on that last bottle of stout? That the flute band played out of tune but nobody noticed? That being a drummer must be nice, able to thump and thump and […]

I’ve written here about Roy Jenkins before. I had read or perused books or articles or listened to talks by him over many decades and stood in awe of his intellect and generally admired him, though not always agreeing with him. What really got my goat was his biography of Winston Churchill whom he reckoned made […]

Eleventh Night Bonfires  – a treasured culture or a source of division? And what part does the Orange Order play in bringing people in NEI together? (Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please.) That game last night – were you impressed by the unified booing of the England supporter during the national anthem […]

You may have noticed that I’m an old-fashioned guy. I’ve just used an old-fashioned word – “IRELAND”, today virtually banned from polite society.   But if I’m an old stick-in-the-mud I’m in good company – The Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland, […]

SNAP 1 SNAP 2 SNAP 3 SNAP 4 SNAP 5 The other great visitor attraction in Venice, apart from the Rialto,  is,  of course St. Mark’s Square. One can travel from one to the other in either of two ways: by water (gondola or vaporetta) or elseby foot (left and right). The latter can take between a half an hour […]

At the time of writing, it looks as though Labour have won the Dublin Bay South by-election. This is baaad news for Fine Gael, bad new for Fianna Fail who scarcely figured – but what about Sinn Féin? Weren’t they supposed to have been in a head-to-head battle with FG? Another Bay – Tiger’s Bay […]

I don’t often these days check RTE weather forecasts because they have no relevance to me now. But I did today, on my LAPTOP, and it had me thinking I was hallucinating. THE Headline “STATUS YELLOW RAIN WARNING FOR SIX COUNTIES” was followed  by the legend  “A status yellow rain warning is in place in […]

Bonfires, pyres of hate – no matter what you want to call them, there’s huge symbolism and controversy attached to and surrounding them whether Nationalist, Loyalist or other.  The symbolism of bonfires, for Loyalism at least, is to celebrate the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and victory of Protestant king William of Orange over Catholic […]