March, 2026

I am one branc on one tree.Your roots and sap sustain me.I am one leaf on one branch.What were the chancesThat you would meet me?The seeds that I spinWill grow within the moss and the greenBetween the rock and stoneFor we all start alone.In the basket bellyOf our mother’s homeThat one true sound.From deep within […]

            It was brought to my attention, recently, by a man who knows more about the activities of the British in Ireland than I do, that each of the six counties has a representative of the King of England as well as office staff. These officials in each of the […]

  Twice a year we perform the same ritual: we collectively agree that time itself needs a minor adjustment. Not the weather, not our habits, not our stubborn attachment to darkness at breakfast — no, the clocks are clearly the problem. So we move them. Forward in spring, because optimism. Back in autumn, because reality. […]

My fellow citizens, Tonight, as Taoiseach, I stand before you at a moment of great national importance — not merely because several planeloads of foreign troops are politely stretching their legs at Shannon Airport as we speak, but because Ireland faces its greatest sporting test since that time we nearly beat a team we were […]

RSH. Star Spangled.By Randall Stephen Hall.14.3.26With barrels of oil.They rise to the task.Investors and chairmen.They all wear the mask.Big donners and tech brosThey scuttle aboutLike rats on a ship.They have lots of clout.But the iceberg is coming.It’s not far away.The waters are colderDeep waves pushin’ spray.The captain’s asleepAnd the crew’s in the barHe’s the star […]

There is a particular political talent that deserves more recognition: the ability to denounce violence with solemn gravity in one context while authorising it with brisk efficiency in another. It requires a straight face, a flexible vocabulary and a memory for audiences rather than principles. At home, violence is condemned as barbaric, counter-productive, corrosive to […]

Ian Paisley had a one-way view on alcohol – it was the devil’s buttermilk. He didn’t explain whether the devil produced it for humans or for his own consumption but he was four-square agin it What then might he think if he could see the party he founded blocking an attempt by just about all […]

In most geopolitical soap operas, the script is simple. One side denies talks. The other side insists talks are happening and going tremendously well. The audience — that’s us — clutches popcorn while oil prices twitch like a caffeinated meerkat. Right now the surreal twist is this: Iran says there are no negotiations whatsoever, while […]

A country doesn’t “produce” men like Stephen McCullagh in the way it produces butter, poets or tech start-ups. Violence is not a national export, stamped Made in Ireland and shipped abroad with a harp logo and a customs declaration. But when a case like the killing of Natalie McNally rips through public consciousness, people understandably […]

There is a particular kind of geopolitical imagination that assumes history is a Netflix series: you drop the bombs in Episode 3, declare victory in Episode 5, and roll the credits before the global economy notices the plot holes. Donald Trump appeared to script the Iran confrontation like that — a high-stakes trailer of ultimatums, […]