July, 2025

Plus the song, “The Wee Wee Man.” See link below . . .   As a six year old child In North Belfast, on the site of a rath I awoke, to find a wee man Half on and half off In my imagination. He didn’t call me a Prod or a Brit For we […]

Fintan O’Toole’s  column in today’s Irish Times serves up a familiar dish: Ireland in the 1980s was grim, grey, and economically hollowed out—but thank God we had theatre. It’s an elegant reflection, soaked in sentiment, and yet reads like a misty-eyed TED Talk for the already converted. Yes, Druid Theatre lit a few flames, but […]

Why do we put ourselves through such unnecessary agony? We watch Donegal at Croke Park yesterday, and it leaves us sick as a parrot. We watch the Lionesses win in Switzerland and we feel- yep – sick as parrots again. Are we mad?   Alan Johnson was once in the Labour cabinet. He wrote a […]

    I happened to be in Galway on the Twelfth and so I took myself to the Townhall theatre to see the world premiere of the new documentary ‘Gerry Adams –a Ballymurphy Man’.  It was being shown as part of the Galway Film Festival. Already at 3pm the crowds were gathering outside sheltering from the […]

Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy on Gaza is a brutal, unconscionable affront to humanity, international law, and the very concept of moral leadership. Under his direction, the Israeli government has unleashed a campaign of collective punishment against an already suffering civilian population, turning Gaza into a graveyard and a ruin. What we are witnessing is not the […]

OK – The wait is over. Later today,  I’ll be rolling out an interview I did with Wallace Thompson, the former co-founder of the DUP. And the topic? How he feels about a border poll.  Look out for it after 2.00 pm today. (It’s the first in a weekly series).  Today, Pat and I talk […]

  OK – I don’t think I can take it anymore. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but if the opinion is riddled with contradictions, it’s important to note that and dismiss it. I’m talking about those people who publicly wring their hands at the bloody way we chopped into each other here for some […]

Plus a song called THE BOATYARDSee link below . . .There is a place, beyond moralisingDown the road and round the cornerFrom a wee village called Hippocracy.It’s not hard to see these folksAnd their one eyed blindnessAs described by YeatsAround the early times of the Free State.The Free State ?A contradition in termsAfter a toxic […]

The Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald recently appeared on the popular TV show Good Morning Britain and was interviewed by Richard Madeley about a UI poll in 2030. How did she do? Play the video for an answer. Donald Trump is in something of a pickle over the Epstein files. The suspicion is that […]

    In his last book, ‘Miles Away’, Nick Edmunds , narrated a plot set firmly in the 1970s and happening in his native Scotland. With his second, recently  published  novel, ‘Ragged Island’, the scene shifts to the broader landscape of the Americas and jumps forward in time to 2030. Apparently, at one point , […]