August, 2026

Lessons I have Learned – Joe McVeigh

    1. Treat people- especially women- with Respect and you will be happy  2. Work every day for a just world where every human being is valued and respected  3. Care for Creation/the Environment as people did long before Christianity  4. Nurture the Spirit within and always remember you are on a journey. Silence […]

Continue Reading

Rip, tear, gouge: unionist politics today

Sometimes when people are under intense pressure, it blunts their thinking rather than sharpens it. They blunder about,  insult those they meet, and almost encourage the walls of their house to collapse on top of them. Unionism is having such a moment. Over a period of decades, their stronghold was pummeled, they shouted defiance, but […]

Continue Reading

The DUP: the innocent party

  If I was to meet Jim Shannon DUP MP on the street, I doubt if I’d recognise him.  Yet he’s been an MP for 16 years, when he took the seat which had been kept warm by Iris Robinson. Jim  Shannon is an innocent man who has been charged with assault against a woman. […]

Continue Reading

The DUP : the innocent party

  If I was to meet Jim Shannon DUP MP on the street, I doubt if I’d recognise him.  Yet he’s been an MP for 16 years, when he took the seat which had been kept warm by Iris Robinson. Jim  Shannon is an innocent man who has been charged with assault against a woman. […]

Continue Reading

Let’s tackle road carnage

That crash which left five young lads dead  and two women and a child with serious injuries was simply the latest and most horrible incident on the road-crashes list. Every year, as sure as day follows night, despite all warnings, dozens of people will die on the roads. Last year it was 56 in the […]

Continue Reading

Self -Righteous Commentators by Joe McVeigh

  In a blog on 16 August 2026 entitled “Patrick Murphy gets carried away” Jude Collins explains why the IRA came into existence in the early 1970s and continued until the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement when an alternative course was proposed and accepted. In a response to Jude’s clearly argued article the anonymous Eugene57 had this comment […]

Continue Reading

The Loyalist Paramilitary Problem

  There is something rotten about the continuing presence of loyalist paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland. The IRA, for all  the arguments that will continue over its legacy, eventually made the decision to put the gun down. Its armed campaign ended. Its weapons were decommissioned. Its organisation disappeared from the stage as a functioning paramilitary […]

Continue Reading

Patrick Murphy gets carried away

OK – whoa there. Steady up. Let’s not get carried away, as clearly has happened to Patrick Murphy writing in The Irish News.  He says the Fleadh did more to unite people than the IRA did in 50 years. Cool your jets, Patrick. The Fleadh was a celebration of Irish culture, and it included various […]

Continue Reading