This year 2017 is the 1500th Anniversary of the birth of Comgall, venerated as the Father of Monks by the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and a significant figure in our Common Identity. Originally a soldier and not a nobleman, Comgall was born at Magheramorne, County Antrim in 517 of the People of […]
Author Jude Collins
HISTORICAL DISTORTIONISTS by Donal Kennedy
When President Obama visited Ireland in 2011 he was briefed by distortionists . Those who wrote or heard his speeches may have imagined that Daniel O’Connell was the only Irishman supporting the rights of black people. But from the United Irishmen and women in the 1790s through John Boyle O’Reilly* in the 19th Century to […]
‘The Party’s Over: Can The SDLP Ever Change?’ by Donal Lavery
We have heard much these past days about the willingness and necessity for the SDLP to listen to the electorate and take heed of lessons learnt from a truly battering election result. All over the North, they were embarrassingly humiliated by a collapse in their vote, having been dragged into the campaign by a weak […]
On being British and neutral
British politicians like to be balanced in their approach to things Northern Ireland. Their argument is that for generations Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics have been fighting each other, and it’s Britain’s destiny to try to get them to work together peacefully . Having cast themselves in that role for decades, you’d think British politicians would […]
HOOK, LIONS and STINKERS (2) by Perkin Warbeck
Very clev of Mr. Duffy of RTE Radio 1, all the same, to invite Trev on to his show to – -Talk to Joe. As it were. Unless of course it was Trev himself (NI having just gone to h. in a hand cart) who actally took the smart intiative from his base in […]
CHANGED UTTERLY, BUT FOR THE BETTER? by Donal Kennedy
Watching BBC World (or was it SKY?) as the polls closed I saw Peter Kellner pooh-poohing the exit poll predictions which soon proved accurate. I was reminded of a piece written by him after a holiday in West Cork where he pontificated on the future of Ireland, where Southern Catholics were socially so […]
The perils of being talked about
What party is on the lips of everyone in Britain today? Why, the DUP, of course. I sometimes have to give myself a discreet pinch when I hear the party’s name mentioned in the same breath as the Conservatives, who at present are (more or less) running Britain. (Yes, I could insert an ‘i’ in […]
A LONG TIME IN POLITICS by Donal Kennedy
Inbox x “A week,” said Harold Wilson, “is a long time in politics”. From Sunday , 4 June when I embarked on a cruise liner at Dover, until I disembarked on Sunday 11 June, I was on the High Seas and the Norwegian fjords with but fitful Internet and TV access. So many things […]
HOOK, LIONS and STINKERS (1) by Perkin Warbeck
When Prince Chuck with a camán in his hand posed for a few token pucks of a sliotar for the twitterati in the turreted surrounds of Kilkenny Castle recently, with King Henry of Hurlington in attendance, the irony truly entered the soul as soon as the Main Stream Media reacted. -Of course, gushed a […]
‘General Election 2017: End-Game for Partition’ by Donal Lavery
As a child, I didn’t much like roller-coasters, but that election was genuinely the true exception. Looking at the results, I still can’t believe how many people have voted with their heads to shed a failed political class in the North and put their trust in Irish republicanism. There have been absolutely stunning results throughout […]