Reports that a Palestinian husband and wife and their two young children were shot dead in the north of the occupied West Bank are the kind of news that should stop the world in its tracks. In conflicts that too often become reduced to numbers, maps and political slogans, the killing of a family reminds […]
March, 2026
The man in Cork who told a lie
Ah, the curious case of a man in Cork who “enhanced” his résumé with qualifications that exist only in his imagination. The Teaching Council, naturally, sees this as fraud, whereas in another dimension — say, Trump Tower — it might be celebrated as clever marketing. Indeed, if you’re a Donald Trump or one of his […]
Ronnie Delany RIP
Ronnie Delany holds a special place in Irish sporting history, not simply because he won one of Ireland’s most memorable Olympic medals, but because he did so with a quiet dignity that reflected the best traditions of Irish athletics. Delany’s greatest moment came at the 1956 Summer Olympics, when he won gold in the 1500 […]
One down, one to go
The courtroom doors swung open this week and out walked entity“musical artist”,“Kneecap”,“Irish hip-hop trio” freshly exonerated, leaving behind a pile of headlines, raised eyebrows, and a lingering question about what exactly was meant to happen here in the first place. For a group that built its reputation on loud beats, louder politics, and lyrics […]
“It’s seismic’ says the looming Gavin Robinson
The recent comments by Gavin Robinson and Gregory Campbell in London, warning that a guilty verdict would be “seismic,” say more about the anxieties of unionist politics than they do about political reality. Such language suggests a belief that a dramatic legal outcome would fundamentally reshape how people view the former Sinn Féin leader. In […]
How to deepen democracy with one simple move
Democracy is a funny old system. We elect people who promise loudly and repeatedly to represent our interests in a parliament. Then they take a biggish chunk of our salary from us before we can even see it and use that money to pay themselves and to maintain justice, policing, infrastructure and lots more. They […]
Peace Walls – by Randall Stephen Hall
RSH. PEACE WALLS.A poem By Randall Stephen Hall.Update 7.3.26Plus Song. THE BOATYARDListen to _9 THE BOATYARD By Randall Stephen Hall by Randall Stephen Hall on #SoundCloudhttps://on.soundcloud.com/oV2OVRwoqpZD5yYLYHo PEACE WALLS Peace Walls to keep us divided.Red brick divisions, chiding usTo begin fighting and hurling insults.We can see them from the top of the bus.Chastising us, […]
Catherine C: 10 points.Micheál M: Null points
Ireland has, it seems, developed a curious two-tier system of political speech. One tier involves saying plainly what is happening. The other involves saying absolutely anything except that. President Catherine Connolly has opted firmly for the first approach. In a statement on the escalating war in the Middle East, she described the recent attacks on […]
Pick a leader. Any leader.
There is something almost touching about the confidence with which Donald Trump assumes he can shop for a new leader of Iran the way one might browse kitchen tiles. Apparently, somewhere between golf rounds and late-night social media posts, the President has decided that selecting Iran’s next supreme leader is simply another executive function—like choosing […]
Thoughts on International Women’s Day – 8 March 2026 – by Joe McVeigh
By Joe McVeigh It is hard to find words to describe the evil that is going on in the world today – words like Madness/ Wreckless/ Genocide are the words that come to mind! And worst of all when you hear the political leaders in America say they are doing it in […]