Author Jude Collins

Did you see where the Tories invited an ex-IRA man to talk at their annual party conference?  The VO has  a photograph of him this morning and you’ll probably recognise him, since  besides being a former IRA man, he’s also Deputy First Minister of this state.  The VO, naturally emphasises that he was once in […]

Is the VO having another fit of the vapours ? “CHAOS” is its big, big front-page headline this morning, with underneath a big photograph of people milling around street barriers. At first I assumed this was a picture of that bomb in Derry last night, but then I looked closer and it was Belfast city […]

Is the VO having another fit of the vapours ? “CHAOS” is its big, big front-page headline this morning, with underneath a big photograph of people milling around street barriers. At first I assumed this was a picture of that bomb in Derry last night, but then I looked closer and it was Belfast city […]

Is there a species on the planet, with the possible exception of suicide bombers, less loved than school inspectors? It’s one thing to read about them in Irish short stories, where the schoolmaster likes a nip of whiskey and the kindly inspector turns a blind eye; it’s another to encounter them in their suppurating flesh. […]

Is there a species on the planet, with the possible exception of suicide bombers, less loved than school inspectors? It’s one thing to read about them in Irish short stories, where the schoolmaster likes a nip of whiskey and the kindly inspector turns a blind eye; it’s another to encounter them in their suppurating flesh. […]

I see my dear old friend Ed Moloney has been writing about when it makes sense to negotiate with terrorists.  Ed and I, as they say, go back a long way  – back to the days when Anthony McIntyre was a republican critic to be reckoned with. That is to say, he was critical of […]

I see my dear old friend Ed Moloney has been writing about when it makes sense to negotiate with terrorists.  Ed and I, as they say, go back a long way  – back to the days when Anthony McIntyre was a republican critic to be reckoned with. That is to say, he was critical of […]

I did a bad thing yesterday – I lied to the security forces…Oops. That’s not what we call them now, is it? The PSNI.  I was in Derry doing  a number of things, including checking why no copies of Tales Out of School  are available in Easons and arranging for more to be shipped in […]

I did a bad thing yesterday – I lied to the security forces…Oops. That’s not what we call them now, is it? The PSNI.  I was in Derry doing  a number of things, including checking why no copies of Tales Out of School  are available in Easons and arranging for more to be shipped in […]

A man I knew studied Logic at university. He was pretty good at it too, got top marks, but the day he left university, he swore he’d never bother with the subject again.  When I asked him why, he said ‘Because nobody else uses it’. He must have felt justified in his decision if he’s […]