Author Jude Collins

  Another day, another rapping of Sinn Féin knuckles in the Irish Times, this one coming from former Irish ambassador Bobby McDonagh. As McDonagh sees it, Sinn Féin got it right until they got it wrong:   “Having argued sensibly, including at party leader level, that it would be wrong to expel the Israeli ambassador […]

      I’ve checked on the meanings of TRUST in The Oxford Paperback Dictionary.   Used as a noun it can mean “firm belief in the reliability, or strength of a person or thing, a confident expectation, a responsibility arising from trust in the person given authority”.   It also can mean “an organisation […]

    In recent weeks, many Jews living in the West – Ireland, the UK, the US – have expressed concerns for their personal safety. Attacks on Jews in the West have risen sharply as the murderous cruelty continues in Gaza. Those of us who are Irish will identify with their feelings. During the Troubles […]

    Well, that’s it for another year: the holiday season officially comes to an end. But we make New Year resolutions, and hope that the spirit of Christmas will extend well into the New Year. Fat chance. As carols sounded, as ‘Peace to all men and women’ rang out, as people attended church and […]

  I’ve never met Paddy Harte, the chairman of the International Fund for Ireland. From his photograph in the Irish media, he looks a pleasant and intelligent man. But a recent statement from him has left me worried. Paddy (I hope that’s not overly intimate)  says that “It is the responsibility of paramilitary groups in […]

        You may want to wish “Happy New Year’ or even ‘Bliain úr faoi mhaise duit’ to your friends. But for some people, the new year is a mine-field of elections. Start with the big one – the US presidential election. Bad news here, I’m afraid – Trump is ahead of Biden […]

You’ll probably not believe this, but Stephen Collins has a Shinner-bashing column in today’s Irish Times. He’s referred to a Dail debate, where Josefa Madigan made reference to ‘Mary Lou Trump’.  So that’s the level of Dail debate – name-calling.  I wonder did Josefa get the idea from Trump?   State papers from the 1970s […]

      If God loves a tryer, he must be nuts about Mary McAleese.  Eoghan Harris may have described her as a ticking time-bomb, but there can hardly be a North-South/Unionist/Nationalist avenue to reconciliation she hasn’t walked.   We all remember how she used to invite the Orange Order to Aras An Uachtarain  each […]

    Many people who lived through the Partition of our country had a clear view of what  the British were about when they approved of that political solution to the ‘Irish problem’. The late Fr Des Wilson of Springhill Community reminded us that the only political statement he remembered from his father; was: ”You […]

  In the 1980s I wrote in THE IRISH DEMOCRAT  a piece called “SCHOOLS OF VIOLENCE: BROTHERS AND ARMS” refuting the canard that the Irish Christian Brothers promoted republican militancy. Those who spread that canard were quacks, chancers and charlatans. You may read my refutation which was reprinted as a BLOG here on November 25th […]