Author Jude Collins

Is Sinn Féin a nationalist party? It’s a republican party but it’s also a nationalist party, in that it aims for Irish reunification through peaceful means. The Belfast Telegraph appears  to think the Shinners are not constitutional nationalists: having considered that party’s surge in the election results, the Telegraph’s editorial two days ago added “Constitutional […]

Jim Wells was unambiguous in his condemnation of the BBC during the recent election campaign, claiming it had bombarded Arlene  Foster with relentless criticism   over the weeks of  the campaign. He voiced his criticism on-air to William Crawley, I think it was. The presenter mildly pointed out that the BBC seeks balance and would not have […]

These are not good days to be a unionist. If you’re a supporter of the UUP, you’ve just seen your leader commit hara-kiri and your party representation reduced to a doleful rump. If you’re a supporter of the DUP, you’ve just watched your number of seats plummet, your main rival come within one seat and […]

  Sometimes you come on an article that truly deserves a wider audience. This is one of those…   http://www.broadsheet.ie/2017/03/06/straw-men-polls/

Note:  this column appeared in The Andersonstown News last week, prior to the election. By the time you read this, you may have cast your election vote. Several times, for all I know. In that case, go out and have a pint or do some slug-killing in the back garden or whatever your idea of fun is. […]

John Patton blogs at www.phototilly.eu Margaret Thatcher came to Edinburgh in 1988 and delivered,  what  the Scottish Press branded,  ‘The Sermon on the Mound’  to the General  Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It was largely a para-theological justification for her views on capitalism and the free market. ‘Christianity is about spiritual redemption and not social reform.’  This […]

    It is interesting to read the different views on the outcome of the recent election, on what it means and no-one is denying that it was Sinn Fein’s day. It was indeed a watershed election and has the potential to change things in Ireland forever. But having deliberated over it and given up […]

Every struggle known to man is usually carried and grafted by the resilience of women. During the Blitz in Belfast, my great-grandmothers put the fires and lights out when the bombs dropped and settled the children amid the death & explosions. Indeed, during the more recent conflict in the North many women bore arms against […]

On 24 February 1933 Police and Brownshirts raided Karl Liebnecht Haus in Berlin, headquarters of the Communist Party. Its Chairman , Ernst Thalman, was arrested on 3 March. He managed to smuggle out details of his treatment – “They ordered me to take off my pants and then two men grabbed me by the back of […]