Author Jude Collins

The British Secretary of State has just announced the budget for our stateen. Stormont, we gather, has overspent by some £300 million, and the fear was that Chris Heaton-Harris would deduct it from the block grant that the British government hands to this  shamelessly impoverished slum-corner of the UK. Omigod! Don’t do it, Chris old […]

So – Michelle O’Neill and Alex Maskey are to attend the coronation of King Charles III.  If you’re like me, you’ll have heard a faint but distinct creaking sound, as your tolerance and commitment to a better future are seriously stretched. How much more stimulating it would have been if Michelle and Alex had done […]

  Ruth Perry, a respected headteacher, took her own life when faced with an unfavourable OFSTED report on her Reading primary school. School inspections may be stressful for all involved in them , depending on circumstances. My teaching career began during the early sixties in Northern Ireland. At that time , the first two years […]

    The weekend past was a rough one for my family.  My fiancée’s brother’s dog, Lola took ill on Saturday morning, frothing at the mouth and taking what can only be described as a tic in her face.  While I was working my fiancée took both her brother and Lola to the out-of-hours vets […]

    The following is a quote from an article written by a Franciscan priest Daniel P. Horan published for Earth Day 2023:  “In his 2009 book The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the 21st Century, the late Passionist Fr. Thomas Berry reflected on Christians living in an age of climate catastrophe. Drawing from the rich […]

    Cardinal Vincent Nicols writes (Sunday 23 April)   “This Easter there is a particular occasion for joy in our land as we shall see King Charles III crowned. Much will be written about the Coronation in the days to come. As Catholic Christians, we do well to bear in mind that the Coronation […]

  So now that SIR Keir Starmer has finished kicking Jeremy Corbyn out of the party for being anti-Semitic (I always think a lie should at least resemble a possible truth, but there you go), now Diane Abbott, an ally of Corbyn, has been hauled over the coals because…Give me a minute, we’ll think of […]

    The recent conference at Queen’s, involving the Clintons, Senator George Mitchell, Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Jonathan Powell and whatever you’re having yourself was a joyous occasion in more than one way.   The most obvious was that it presented a feel-good factor,  a happy climax (they worked all night!) and an ensuing 25 […]

        Three stars of the Irish Times set my teeth on edge.    One is a bigoted Atheist, raised a Catholic who vents his spleen on Catholicism.   The second, no less insufferable, is a Jesuit Priest.   The third the paper’s Political Editor, Jesuit-schooled and a contributor to “STUDIES” a reputedly […]

Inbox     In 1972  Belfast man Liam Holden, a civilian, innocent of violence, was tortured into confessing to killing a British soldier and condemned to death by a British Court, after which he was imprisoned for seventeen years.   Mr Holden died last year aged 68, a decade after his conviction was quashed.   […]