Author Jude Collins

I nearly did my hip this morning. Fell off the chair when I read two side-by-side articles in the VO, both of which – can you believe it? – said negative things about Sinn Féin!   I was dizzy for at least ten minutes. One of the articles focused on the recently-installed Sinn Féin Mayor of […]

Michael D Higgins, Fergus Finlay, Kathleen O’Meara, Mary Davis Pat Kenny had several presidential candidates on RTÉ’s ‘Frontline’ last night,  most making the same noises: ‘Vote for me, I’d be great up in Áras an Uachtaráin’.   What else can they say? The president doesn’t have any executive powers, so what matters is not any policy […]

Michael D Higgins, Fergus Finlay, Kathleen O’Meara, Mary Davis Pat Kenny had several presidential candidates on RTÉ’s ‘Frontline’ last night,  most making the same noises: ‘Vote for me, I’d be great up in Áras an Uachtaráin’.   What else can they say? The president doesn’t have any executive powers, so what matters is not any policy […]

Lesbian Arab blogger They lie to us. Sometimes we find out and, I suspect, most of the time we don’t. The latest example is a young  lesbian Arab blogger,  who was claimed to have been kidnapped in Syria last week. All sorts of people were outraged at her fate and calls were made for this, […]

Lesbian Arab blogger They lie to us. Sometimes we find out and, I suspect, most of the time we don’t. The latest example is a young  lesbian Arab blogger,  who was claimed to have been kidnapped in Syria last week. All sorts of people were outraged at her fate and calls were made for this, […]

I try not to take pleasure in the thought of David Cameron swimming in the nip off the Antrim Coast or in any other way ally myself with the thousands, maybe millions  who recently have enjoyed  thinking about Cameron’s prime ministerial parts shivering in the grip of our scrotum-tightening waters. Maybe it never happened. Maybe […]

I try not to take pleasure in the thought of David Cameron swimming in the nip off the Antrim Coast or in any other way ally myself with the thousands, maybe millions  who recently have enjoyed  thinking about Cameron’s prime ministerial parts shivering in the grip of our scrotum-tightening waters. Maybe it never happened. Maybe […]

This post is untypically non-political. I heard today that a former classmate of mine, Ben Clingain, died in Cleveland, Ohio  yesterday.  I did a book of interviews (‘Tales Out of School: St Columb’s College, Derry in the 1950s’) last year and Ben was one of those I interviewed.  Like himself, the interview turned out modest, […]

This post is untypically non-political. I heard today that a former classmate of mine, Ben Clingain, died in Cleveland, Ohio  yesterday.  I did a book of interviews (‘Tales Out of School: St Columb’s College, Derry in the 1950s’) last year and Ben was one of those I interviewed.  Like himself, the interview turned out modest, […]

Two events: one from yesterday, the other to come later today. Neither is of particular significance.  Yesterday Paul  Maskey was elected in West Belfast, polling, what was it, just over 70% of the vote. Last time out, Gerry Adams collected just over 71% of the vote. Maskey’s next rival, the SDLP ‘s Alex Attwood, came […]