Author Jude Collins

I don’t usually think of women in their eighties wearing no clothes, but RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman had a programme on last night which forced me to. It started off with Luka Bloom, brother of Christy Moore, singing a song called ‘The Seed Is Sown’.  It wasn’t about seeds at all, it was really about the […]

I watched Downton Abbey  for the first time over Christmas and immediately had a sense of déjà vu . It was just like Upstairs Downstairs forty years ago, except the colour was better and the story-lines more dramatic: faithful servant set to be hanged, sweet young lady has a fling with a Turkish chap.  Watching […]

I watched Downton Abbey  for the first time over Christmas and immediately had a sense of déjà vu . It was just like Upstairs Downstairs forty years ago, except the colour was better and the story-lines more dramatic: faithful servant set to be hanged, sweet young lady has a fling with a Turkish chap.  Watching […]

Funny how religion and politics can criss-cross.  Here we are in the mouth of Christmas which celebrates the birth of Jesus with all its implications, and within days of that feast the Economic and Social Research Institute in the south has come up with some new and slightly startling research about babies. According to the […]

Funny how religion and politics can criss-cross.  Here we are in the mouth of Christmas which celebrates the birth of Jesus with all its implications, and within days of that feast the Economic and Social Research Institute in the south has come up with some new and slightly startling research about babies. According to the […]

A few decades ago I was trying to make a radio programme about people who’d been interned on the prison ship Argenta  during the 1920s. I was tipped off that one 80-something survivor might give me an interview, so I found my way, after some searching,  to his house. Wasted journey. He told me – […]

A few decades ago I was trying to make a radio programme about people who’d been interned on the prison ship Argenta  during the 1920s. I was tipped off that one 80-something survivor might give me an interview, so I found my way, after some searching,  to his house. Wasted journey. He told me – […]

I’m baffled. Honestly. As a non-military or spook-person,  I don’t understand the latest claims that nearly half those in the IRA leadership were in fact British agents. We know that some IRA people – the various supergrasses, Denis Donaldson – were working for the British from within republican paramilitary ranks. But nearly half? My first […]

I’m baffled. Honestly. As a non-military or spook-person,  I don’t understand the latest claims that nearly half those in the IRA leadership were in fact British agents. We know that some IRA people – the various supergrasses, Denis Donaldson – were working for the British from within republican paramilitary ranks. But nearly half? My first […]

Who would be in Luis Suarez’s shoes this morning? Or boots. The Uruguayan, who’s been central to   Liverpool F C’s recently revival, has been banned for eight games and fined £40,000 for racially abusing Patrice Evra,  a black Man United player. It seems Suarez admitted to calling Evra “a negro”. (Evra, on the other […]