November, 2022

In June 1963, I was working in Irish Shipping HQ at Aston Quay by O’Connell Bridge, and like perhaps half of Dublin I stayed in town to welcome JFK in Ireland. That meant staying two or three hours after work.  The miracles of TV and jet travel allowed me to watch, through a shop window, […]

There’s a huge amount of denial within Unionism and Loyalism and indeed the British government, that British forces had anything whatsoever to do with the war here in the North Eastern 6 counties of Ireland.  That, of four men arrested over the weekend after the PSNI raided and searched residential and business properties in East […]

    On behalf of the United Kingdom. Rishi Sunak has labelled Russia a Rogue State.   England/ “Great” Britain/ the “United” KIngdom, was long ago labelled “Perfidious Albion” by her neighbours.   She is in dispute with them today over a protocol she signed quite recently. She has been and has continued to be a Warfare State […]

      Another ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’ moment.  This time, overtly intentional by a woman who clearly didn’t care that Arlene Foster’s dad was shot in the head by the ‘Ra.  When moments like this happen, the first thought that comes to mind is – did this woman know Arlene’s dad was shot […]

    THE TIMES QUICK CRYPTIC CROSSWORD (November 21) has the clue “Conjure up memories of Short Skirts at Church”. I believe the answer is REMINISCE  – RE  MINIS CE, the Church being that of England. I am transported back to the summer of 1966 when I was 24. It was the tercentenary of the […]

Tell us this: what is neutrality? That’s easy, you tell me. It’s when you refuse to belong to one camp or another, but remain firmly on the sidelines. Like, say, the Alliance Party. Or Ireland’s southern state. Neutrality has been a treasured jewel in the state treasure-house. And we all remember Dev’s response to Churchill’s […]

    I suspect that Mr Murphy was prompted to write by my criticism of Fintan O’Toole. though he did not defend O’Toole’s smears on Dr McQuaid nor O’Toole’s woeful ignorance of his own home patch, Crumlin. I lived in Howth from December 1941 until November 1964 with a break in Rockwell College, Cashel, from […]

Inbox Dear Jude, My take on the glory days of Fianna Fail and Archbishop McQuaid is different to Donal’s. Dev, the Chief, and Mischief McEntee, and Lemass. My dad had to end all his Civil Service letters with “Mise, le meas” as instructed (“I am instructed by the Minister”). I though it was “Mise Lemass” […]

Today, Pat and I managed just three topics in our podcast/vlog (we should have a competition to see what we should call it, although on second thoughts…) Anyway. Today we explored the World Cup. Was Qatar a good place to hold it? Should players and commentators have agree to participate? And if you think Qatar […]

    My mother had four brothers and two sisters. Three of her brothers served and fought in the British Forces, her two sisters married men who served in those forces. My mother, her sisters and their husbands were all Irish. Her eldest brother outlived them all and you may assume that he was a […]