Author Jude Collins

    You have only to observe the way that the current leaders of FF and FG – Martin and Harris -speak about and respond to members of Sinn Fein in the Dáil to realise that the contempt for republicans politically opposed to Partition is still strong. The bitterness and hostility towards Sinn Fein since […]

I’ve just been listening to part of an RTÉ Radio One report on the  Omagh Bomb Inquiry being conducted at present. As often happens, the details of those killed are appalling – a woman blown to bits,   identifiable only by a shoe and her fingerprint. People planning a fortieth wedding anniversary but meeting death instead. […]

  There’s another hold-up on the A5. Not a traffic jam, not  people lying in the road because they are ecology warriors, not civil service inefficiency (although I suspect there was a bit of that last one). It’s just that there appear to have been objections, presumably by farmers whose land will be disrupted by […]

Mark Durkan, former leader of the SDLP, and Heather Humphries, former Fine Gael minister, both have aired their views on politics generally and any talk of a united Ireland in particular. We check if they’re promoting a particular (and damaging ) way of thinking about a border poll for a UI.   Donald Trump has […]

It’s strange the things we mourn.  The collision of that Black Hawk helicopter with a passenger plane over the Potomac River in Washington DC has grabbed the headlines.  News bulletins provided the detail, politicians expressed grief, Donald Trump assigned the blame to those who encouraged ‘diversity’ in the work place. It’d be easy to take […]

The holder of a degree in drama, Lydia talks about how she fell in love with the footlights at a local drama group for kids in Tyrone, and how that led to a life-long love of the stage that will no doubt be in evidence when the play hits the boards in late March in […]

Was President Higgins right to mention ‘the rubble of Gaza’ in a speech on Holocaust Day? And what about President Trump – was he right to claim that the air crash in Washington DC was due to ‘diverse’ employment of people? And what about that TV drama ‘Brian and Maggie’ , showing Brian Walden doing […]

      The Vice- President of the USA, J.D. Vance said on a CBS interview with Margaret Brennan that he was ‘heart-broken’ because of the Statement from the US Catholic bishops condemning Trump’s plan to deport immigrants. In an interview on CBS, Vance was asked about the Bishops statement in which they condemned Trump’s […]

Some images, once seen, can’t be removed from your memory. For myself and I’m sure many others, the sight of Father Eddie Daly (later Bishop Daly) walking half-crouched, waving a blood-soaked handkerchief, while behind him several men carry the dead or dying  Jackie Duddy, a 17-year-old, remains permanent over fifty years later.  First the killing, […]

    Twice in the last month two different friends said to me:  ‘Don’t let the old man in.’ The friends were responding to my complaining about the botheration of getting on in years! It is good advice at any age but I thought it was great advice for me at the beginning of yet another […]