For the past week or so, The Irish Times has been feeding off the opinion poll it helped organise about Irish unity. A number of that organ’s big hitters, not least today’s Michael McDowell, have been using the results to explain to us how we should think. McDowell does raise one interesting if ultimately […]
Are you a fourth-green-field fool?
In today’s Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole has an article entitled ‘Doublethink on united Ireland part of who we are’. In the sub-heading, we’re told there’s a big difference between believing ‘in’ something and then believing you are then required to do something about it. I’m not sure about the main headline, but the sub-heading […]
ON THE POLITICAL DIARIES OF C.P. SCOTT – by Donal Kennedy
I have referred here to the Diaries, On 6 December I published an entry for October 23 1914 which proves beyond doubt that the story about how Britain sleepwalked into war with Germany in 1914 wa, and remains, a damnable lie. The heading was “HOW BRITISH DELINQUENTS PREPARED FOR THEIR WAR ON […]
LETTERS BY THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR AND A FORMER FINE GAEL LEADER IN TODAY’S IRISH TIMES – by Donal Kennedy
The years 1934, 1938, 1968 should be recalled in European History In 1934 Hitler and Poland made a Pact, Fine Gael’s John A Costello voiced approval of Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Germany’s “Hitler-Shirts” and predicted that the Blueshirts would take power in Ireland. Political leaders in Germany and Poland are today united in falsifying history, […]
Identity in a New Ireland. – by Carl Duffy
Much talk is made of how to accommodate the Unionist half of the population in a United Ireland. Implicit in this is a suggestion that the constitutional status of the North impacts one’s sense of identity. The very fact we’re even having this discussion bodes well for creating a more progressive and tolerant form […]
PAT_JUDE TALK ABOUT HARRY AND MEGHAN, THE CHAOTIC STATE OF THE SOUTH, & AIDAN McANESPIE
OK, let’s get to the heart of it: whose side are you on, Meghan and Harry, or the Royals? You’ll have to choose a side, you know. Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin made a speech on the Dail recently, listing things like housing, health and education as being in a parlous state.Leo Varadkar got up […]
It was them, not us
It used to make us mad as hell. Somebody in the class would have done something wrong – written a rude word on the board, stolen a copy book or in some other way acted in defiance of the rules. The teacher would be livid and would call for the offender to own up. […]
PAT + JUDE TALK ABOUT JUDE’S NEW BOOK.
This is mid-week, so Pat McArt and myself should not be recording one of our hilarious and yet oddly very very thoughtful meetings. But this week is different, because I have a BOOK just published: BORN ON THE TWELFTH OF JULY: Young and Foolish. We’ve had a launch in Belfast last Saturday, and this coming […]
HOW BRITISH DELINQUENTS PREPARED FOR THEIR WAR ON GERMANY: FROM POLITICAL DIARY OF C.P.SCOTT – by Donal Kennedy 
Lord Loreburn had been Chancellor from 1905 to 1912 and had been kept in the dark. On October 23 1914 Scott dined with him: “He started off directly after dinner to tell me ‘the whole story’ of the relations of the Cabinet to Foreign Policy since he became a member of it…… The crisis came at […]
Cap in hand
Keir Starmer has gone all devolutionary. Which makes a change, since most people felt Labour had developed scant policy other than telling us the Tories were stinkers, which we knew already. Now Starmer and his chums have headlined devolution. The fact that the devolutionary ideas came from a group headed by Gordon Brown might […]