December, 2021

I have been passed an article from the American “Liberal” and “Catholic” magazine “COMMONWEAL”. I read a copy of that publication in the early 1960s and found it interesting and enlightened, But the piece I read about Ireland was a witches’ brew, ditch-delivered by a drab. It draws on the wit and wisdom of Fintan […]

What I mean is -does Ireland have an independent foreign policy ? It seems to me that the State has lost its bearings and it is bending to the wishes of foreign powers which have nothing in common with the principles set out in the Constitution enacted by the plain people of Ireland in 1937. I quote Article […]

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News What is it with Boris Johnson and big projects? We all know men who drive big cars as a sub-conscious counter-balance to their lack of size in other areas. But Johnson doesn’t just get driven around in a big car. He is, in another sense entirely, a driven man. In 2019, picking up on […]

WHAT BLOODY MEN WERE THESE? – by Donal Kennedy Though retired and virtually under house arrest because of the pandemic I don’t watch much TV. Most programmes are shite or trite and those that are not are interrupted by advertising. I can remember when there were only two channels, both in black and white when […]

This  blog first appeared as a TV review in the Andersonstown News As ever, Mark Carruthers stands (why oh why do they have to stand?) clutching a sheaf of notes. “Could Christmas be cancelled?” he asks, and welcomes us to THE VIEW (BBC ONE). He has as guests Christopher Stalford (DUP) and Owen Tennyson (Alliance). The latter looks young and guileless, the former less young and […]

First published by al maya deen English November 29, 2021, on a cold wet winters night in Belfast, victims and survivors of troubles-related atrocities met at Belfast Queen’s University Peter Froggatt Centre, to hold a public meeting entitled ‘No To Amnesty. Speaker after speaker condemned the proposal of Boris Johnson and the Conservative government to […]

The other night I watched, with fascinated horror, an Open University history of Spain presented by  Simon Sebag Montefiore. It was called “BLOOD, GOLD AND THE MAKING OF SPAIN”  It  recalled how in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella effected the clearance of the Moors who had brought learning and literacy.and wonderful art to the peninsula for 600 or so years.  […]

DORA – THE DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT was passed by the British Parliament on 8 August 1914. It was designed to control  UK ports, subject civilians to the rule of military courts, and to control the press. The powers it gave the Government were extended. Allied with the Official Secrets Act, it in effect […]

Emmanuel Macron is fed up with Johnson – when they meet face to face he’s friendly and reasonable, when he gets out the door he denies  things he’s said. Macron says he’s a ‘knucklehead’. Mary Lou McDonald was in the US addressing a bunch of lawyers, and  told them we are living ‘in the dying days’ of partition.She talks about a border poll within 5-10 years. Is she kicking the can? And lastly, it’s beginning to look as if the DUP is going to settle for that  little old protocol after all – maybe they are fearing the slippage to the  left and the UUP rather than that to the right and the TUV. Time to press that button….

                                         I recently found myself agreeing with much of what Fra Hughes had to say in his blog – (30-11-21), ‘Sinn Fein: From Revolutionary Party to Constitutional Nationalist.’ Like Fra, I once found myself asking, whether I had left Sinn Fein or if Sinn Fein had left me. And like him, I’ve often asked where […]