The Strait of Hormuz, that narrow choke point through which a fifth of the world’s oil politely tiptoes, has once again been turned into a geopolitical tantrum zone. It’s less a strategic waterway now and more a badly managed queue where everyone’s armed, impatient, and convinced they’re the main character. You’ve got global powers posturing […]
Author Jude Collins
Jeffrey who?
There’s a photograph of Donald Trump standing alongside Emma Little Pengely, presumably on St Patrick’s Day. The caption below reads ‘Both hoping the other won’t mention Jeffrey’. It’s a tidy little joke, but while Jeffrey Epstein is the nemesis stalking Trump, Emma’s bete noire is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Remember him? Sir Jeffrey was arrested and […]
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT MED TRAINING &’LOVE’, CATHOLICISM `& YOUNG PEOPLE, NEUTRALITY, & STUPID EXAMS
Nearly 250 military aircraft used Shannon airport facilities in the past year.EH? But isn’t the Free State supposed to be neutral?Isn’t it time political parties started speaking up about this blatant contradiction? Should doctors be taught to love? To have empathy for their patients? And if they should, can love/empathy be assessed/measured? And former Cabinet […]
Woke revisited
A man told me the other day that research in Oxford University shows that men who don’t comment on women’s appearance live on average some 30 years longer than men who do. I suspect he made the whole thing up, but it does draw attention to a topic that has always fascinated me: the connection […]
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT WOBBLY LEADERS MARTIN & STARMER, THE IRISH LANGUAGE, AND U2’s WUUNERFUL MUSIC
Will Micheál Martin get the chop as leader of Fianna Fail?After all, he made a bags of the treatment of the fuel protestors. But is there anyone to replace him?Jim O’Callaghan? Didn’t he soil his nappy by talking about AND bringing in the Army? As for Keir Starmer, do you really think he didn’t […]
The big double-think
Doublethink is a very handy concept, invented by George Orwell in his novel 1984. It involves the ability to hold two conflicting ideas at one time. Politics today is soaked in it, but if you asked me to point to one example, I’d probably pick Palestine and Ukraine. Of course we’re all supporters of Ukrainian […]
A sonnet for Michael Healy-Rae
When Michael Healy-Rae set down his borrowed crown, No grief arose—just murmurs, edged with doubt; The cap stayed firm, the practiced rustic gown, A costume worn till threads of truth wore out. He hailed the mud, the mart, the narrow lane, Yet counted wealth where few could ever see; A “man of people” fluent in […]
M & S make a bags of it
John Hume was told by his father that you can’t eat a flag. Might a faint shadow of doubt been cast over this assertion by Marks and Spencer? Apparently they’ve launched a shopping bag which has a Union flag on the side of it. Actually, they’ve used these bags frequently in the past – in […]
Some Decisions can change your Life by Joe McVeigh
The most difficult decision I ever made was in 1980 when I decided to take time out of ministry in the diocese of Clogher and spend some time in New York and the USA. It was a big decision but, in hindsight, I think it was the […]
Good luck to this afternoon’s demonstrators
Word is that later today the Belfast Westlink, Sandyknowes Roundabout and the area around Sprucefield will be blocked in a similar manner to the blockades in the South which convinced Micheál Martin to cough up considerable sums to ease the pain being endured by hauliers, farmers and other groups affected by the ballooning of oil […]