Simon Harris has left the door open to a possible November election in the South, before the gloss and shine goes off his new leadership; Micheál Martin is insisting it should be in Spring. Who’s gonna win? Could both of them lose? Why hasn’t Netenyahu been arrested. The international court has found him guilty for […]
October, 2024
The Brighton Bomb
Do you believe in violence to achieve your political goals or would you favour strictly peaceful means? I’m going to assume most of you renounced violence as a method and chose peaceful protest or politics. If I then asked you if you paid your taxes, virtually everyone would say they did – we’re […]
IRISH AND UKRANIAN REGIMES UNLIKELY BEDFELLOWS by Donal Kennedy
If an Irish Government were to mirror the one in Kiev it would ban the English language and the study of English literature. It would also outlaw the Church of Ireland, part of the Anglican Communion. I’m not joking. I cannot understand how any half-decent human being can identify […]
THE TOPSY-TURVEY WORLD OF FINTAN O’TOOLE and other IRISH TIMES GURUS by Donal Kennedy
Time and time again I have remarked on the perverted ingenuity of Fintan, whom I understand to hold, or have held, a Chair of Irish Letters at Princeton University. He still cultivated a bee in his bonnet about the prosecution, before he was born, of Dublin’s […]
When I was Young – by Randall Stephen Hall
When I was Young Poem. By Randall Stephen Hall When I was young The Belfast hills cupped our ears To the sound of the gun. We rattled like milk bottles. We shook to the battle of bin lids On concrete, but only on TV. Foreign feet in tough toe caps Arrived amongst us, […]
Stephen Kelly is the CEO of ManufacturingNI. He’s also heading up a committee to report on the future potential development of the Magee campus of Ulster University. Does his vision of a cross-border university, as discussed on our podcast with Garbhan Downey, have good prospects for the future? Or will it be that a thriving […]
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT MICHAEL McMONAGLE, SF & THE MEDIA; ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES, & CATHOLIC LAWYERS
Michael McMonagle worked for Sinn Féin up in Stormont. He was charged with child sex abuse; Sinn Féin immediately discharged him as an employee and a party member. Harsh, you may think, since he hadn’t been found guilty at that point, but that’s what happened. Later, McMonagle contacted two of his Sinn Féin colleagues and […]
It’s twelve o’clock. Let’s have SF for lunch…
Because you know you’re going to encounter something that smells a bit, doesn’t really take away from its stink when you come up against it. Talk Back on the B(ritish)BC couldn’t afford to allow Nolan’s show to be the only one sticking it to the Shinners, and so today we had some forty minutes of […]
THE SINN FEIN ELECTION Part 2 – by Donal Kennedy
In 1906 Unionists got more than 50% of the votes cast in Ireland, but Nationalists took the Lion’s Share of the seats, 84 of which were uncontested. In 1886 Unionists got more than 50% of the votes cast in Ireland, but Nationalists took the Lion’s Share of the seats, 66% of which were […]
THE SINN FEIN ELECTION – by Donal Kennedy
FROM IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS December 12 2008 and still relevant. Part 1 Donal Kennedy looks at the electoral facts surrounding Sinn Fein’s historic victory at the 1918 General Election, 90 years ago this week, and takes issue with those academics, journalists and politicians who seek to undermine its democratic legitimacy. On 28 January […]