Author Jude Collins

So now. The talks have broken down, parties have walked away and we all hold our breath for the judgement of the small but perfectly formed British Secretary of State. Will he call a second election? Not a chance. Will he introduce direct rule? I very much doubt it. Will he kick the Pope, sorry, […]

 A letter (March 23) from Professor Craig Sharp of Birmingham, a former veterinary surgeon, takes issue with one Andrew Ellison, who, (Mar 18) in The Times was quoted as saying the word “shite” was by far the favourite swear word of Britons, and who in turn quoted one Profesor Simon Horobin in dating its earliest […]

There have been a lot of assessments of Martin McGuinness over the past week. Apart from Jim Allister, virtually all commentators and politicians have praised McGuinness’s commitment to peace and reconciliation over the past 10-20 years. Where real division occurs is in terms of his IRA involvement. Many say that he had a choice – […]

  British Prime Minister Theresa May noted the passing of former Irish Republican Army Commander and N. I. political leader Martin McGuinness by claiming “I can never condone the path he took in an earlier part of his life…”  McGuinness grew up in a bastion of bigotry with laws the envy of South African apartheid […]

    On the BBC, on the evening of Martin McGuinness funeral in Derry, a man on the Question Time panel called Hugo Rifkind who writes for The Times of London was defending the British Empire and condemning Martin McGuinness. He stated: “Martin McGuinness brought war to Northern Ireland.” Such a blatantly untrue statement and yet this man was applauded by many […]

Here’s an intriguing question: why have unionist/loyalist paramilitaries failed to develop into a powerful political force as republican paramilitaries have done in the form of Sinn Féin? Difficult to say. Maybe it was because loyalist paramilitaries existed as a counter-force to the IRA. Or because they hated fenians. Or because they were left bewildered when the […]

  I met Mitchel McLaughlin at his home in the Bogside a few weeks ago and I asked about Martin McGuinness. He told me he was very ill in hospital. Mitchel was one of his closest friends and had been close to him since the beginning of his illness. He said, “We can ill afford […]

View at Medium.com There’s a strange sense of  vacuum this morning. The poignancy of Martin McGuinness’s funeral is over, I’ve had time to recover from my trip to Derry (No, Virginia, I didn’t trip), and now, with the fat sun (copyright paddykool) melting the morning frost, I’m thinking, oddly enough, of Maggie Thatcher. You’ll remember […]

  The national flag of Ireland is a tricolour of green, white and orange. The flag is twice as wide as it is high. The three colours are of equal size and the green goes next to the flagstaff.  The flag was first introduced by Thomas Francis Meagher in 1848 who based it on French […]

“Boy, if you were petrified, you’d be a standing monument to ignorance”  was a cruel, if well-earned,remark made by an otherwise gentle Christian Brother to one of his pupils. The boy couldn’t help it. It was bred in the bone. One of his classmates, standing near him watching a football game, remarked on the foul-mouthed […]