Author Jude Collins

Scotland has always interested me, and not just because, like Sarah Palin with Russia, I can see it from my upstairs window. My mother, a Donegal woman, used remember the excitement of her “Scotchy” cousins coming each summer and sleeping anywhere and everywhere in the house.  Back in Scotland, one of them played for Glasgow […]

If it hadn’t been for Joe Duffy, I might have missed it. Joe was on his RTÉ ‘Liveline’ mid-week, getting upset about the TG4 series ‘Mna an IRA’. Well, actually about the first in the series, which concerns Dr Rose Dugdale. Joe must have repeated at least four times that Dr Dugdale had said “Fair […]

If it hadn’t been for Joe Duffy, I might have missed it. Joe was on his RTÉ ‘Liveline’ mid-week, getting upset about the TG4 series ‘Mna an IRA’. Well, actually about the first in the series, which concerns Dr Rose Dugdale. Joe must have repeated at least four times that Dr Dugdale had said “Fair […]

It’s a striking fact and a source of pride to some:  the number of Irish comics  who make it big in Britain. It’s been that way for decades at least: Frank Carson, Dave Allen, Jimmy Cricket,  Dermot Morgan, Dara O Briain, Brendan O’Carroll – and, of course that old perennial, Sir Terry Wogan. They’ve all […]

It’s a striking fact and a source of pride to some:  the number of Irish comics  who make it big in Britain. It’s been that way for decades at least: Frank Carson, Dave Allen, Jimmy Cricket,  Dermot Morgan, Dara O Briain, Brendan O’Carroll – and, of course that old perennial, Sir Terry Wogan. They’ve all […]

Sometimes  what people avoid saying is as important or more important than what they do say. A topical example: those Irishmen from the south of Ireland who died fighting in the First World War. For decades there was little public talk of them. The spotlight between 1914 and 1918 shone steadily on the memory of […]

Sometimes  what people avoid saying is as important or more important than what they do say. A topical example: those Irishmen from the south of Ireland who died fighting in the First World War. For decades there was little public talk of them. The spotlight between 1914 and 1918 shone steadily on the memory of […]

Having confidently stated a blog or two back that predictions are a waste of time, let me contradict myself: on one issue this year there will be lots of predictions. I’m talking sectarian head-counting here. It’s started this morning in The Irish Times . There’s a detailed article by Gerry Moriarty talking about the rising […]

Having confidently stated a blog or two back that predictions are a waste of time, let me contradict myself: on one issue this year there will be lots of predictions. I’m talking sectarian head-counting here. It’s started this morning in The Irish Times . There’s a detailed article by Gerry Moriarty talking about the rising […]

When he sang at the inauguration of one-term US President Jimmy Carter,  Paul Simon had the chutzpah to choose his song ‘American Tune’, which includes the lines “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered/I don’t have a friend who feels at ease./I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered/Or driven to its […]