Author Jude Collins

Politicians are good at avoiding the issue, sliding away from under a question and raising another issue entirely. Media people know this, which is why good ones are alert to it and haul the politician, sometimes kicking and screaming, back to the question under consideration. In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve seen two examples of […]

It’s fashionable these days to denounce Charlie Haughey as a hypocrite, a forerunner of the greed that brought the south of Ireland to its knees, probably into a bit of gun-running as well. But whatever you think of Haughey, one phrase of his has stood the test of time. “A failed state” was how he […]

It’s fashionable these days to denounce Charlie Haughey as a hypocrite, a forerunner of the greed that brought the south of Ireland to its knees, probably into a bit of gun-running as well. But whatever you think of Haughey, one phrase of his has stood the test of time. “A failed state” was how he […]

Been away.  And what do I find when I come back?  The UUP, not content with allowing the DUP to disembowel it at the polls, is now doing what it can to take any of its bowels left and send them through the shredder. If this had been a movie, there’d have been a darkening […]

Been away.  And what do I find when I come back?  The UUP, not content with allowing the DUP to disembowel it at the polls, is now doing what it can to take any of its bowels left and send them through the shredder. If this had been a movie, there’d have been a darkening […]

You learn a lot about a country or state  (yes, Virginia, there is a difference – come to Ireland some time) by checking out their media. The media partly reflect what people want, partly shape what they think people need. In the UK or Ireland,  you got  TV  interviewers who pride themselves on their terrier-like […]

You learn a lot about a country or state  (yes, Virginia, there is a difference – come to Ireland some time) by checking out their media. The media partly reflect what people want, partly shape what they think people need. In the UK or Ireland,  you got  TV  interviewers who pride themselves on their terrier-like […]

I’m in Boston and I’m itching to write about the different feeling you get from this society. Once, that is, you’ve got through US immigration, which isn’t necessarily easy. But I won’t, or not yet at least. I’d rather talk about  Todd Akin. He’s the  Republican who has put a banana skin under Mitt Romney […]

I’m in Boston and I’m itching to write about the different feeling you get from this society. Once, that is, you’ve got through US immigration, which isn’t necessarily easy. But I won’t, or not yet at least. I’d rather talk about  Todd Akin. He’s the  Republican who has put a banana skin under Mitt Romney […]

Paul Ryan.  You don’t get a name much more Irish than that. And by all accounts Ryan could be the kind of guy you’d have a pint with, go to Croke Park with – he’s a young guy proud of his Irish roots. His great-great-grandfather emigrated to America, with hundreds of thousands of others, to […]