Author Jude Collins

Are bonfires a cultural activity? That seems to be the persistent defence offered by unionists. Annually, at least half a million pounds is spent cleaning up the mess created by the Eleventh night bonfires. That is on top of the cost of the emergency services, as the PSNI and Ambulance Service tend to be busy, […]

On The Marr show (2/7­/17) Michael Gove, on­e of the Conservative­s Brexit negotiators,­ described the £1bn d­eal with the Democrat­ic Unionist Party as ­good for the whole of­ Britain because it k­eeps the Conservative­s in power. Mr Gove went on to sa­y that the £1bn payme­nt was nowhere near a­ bung as suggested by­ many media […]

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’: I’ve always wondered about that statement. A decade or more ago, Martin McGuinness was the Minister for Education and had declared an end to the Eleven Plus examination, which split children neatly into approximately one-third who were the Smart Ones and two-thirds who were the Stupid Ones. I wrote […]

Pics 1-3 are by John Patton Pic 1   Pic 2   Pic 3 “River Tay is the longest in Scotland and one of the biggest on the UK mainland. It rises in the Western Highlands at Ben Lu, flows through Perth and is tidal to its emergence on the Firth of Tay, south of […]

  The Newt is the graveyard shift who continues to dig. What with his Southern Yune colleagues on The Unionist Times from Hugh ‘Boo Hoo’ Linehan and the gloomy, doom-laden  Editor (whoever he or she might be this week – call him or her, Mistress/ Master Revolving-D’or for the nonce) forecasting the near-imminent demise of […]

  Martin McGuinness resigned as Joint First Minister on 9th January due to serious allegations of financial corruption associated with the DUP at the heart of government in the north of Ireland and a denial of rights and equality. That reality continues to overshadow the political process and therefore the Assembly and Executive continue to […]

http://www.thejournal.ie/regina-doherty-garda-complaint-blogger-3482139-Jul2017/?utm_source=shortlink

In Henry V, Shakespeare has a minor Irish character ask a number of angry questions: “What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?” We’ve been asking the same kind of question in the intervening five hundred years and […]

A Fordham university professor, Fr. Bryan Massingale, challenged the sixth annual assembly of Priests gathered in Atlanta, June 19-22, to retrieve a crucial insight of Martin Luther King Jr. — the need to “redeem the soul.” According to Massingale, “We are in a struggle for the soul of America.” To heal a fractured society is not […]

  Here’s Robin Swann trying to sound like a credible politician: “Let me state very clearly that this proposal is totally unacceptable and is one example of why any reasonable person could not agree to the proposals for an Irish Language Act.” What is this proposal? Well, it comes from the mouth of Conradh na […]