Jude Collins

Yesterday, Sunday 16th October, The Sunday Times celebrated its 200th Birthday. It reproduced the front page of its first edition, which launched it as an organ of democratic and ethical concern in a world of oppressive and corrupt monarchies and empires, not least that of Britain. That world is still recognisable today but today’s Sunday […]

  Micheál Martin thinks that Sinn Féin are ‘trying to intimidate RTÉ’ by threatening to sue them. It would appear that Micheál has had his irony-bone removed. A soon-not-to-be Taoiseach, not waving but drowning? Ooh, aah, up the….Oops, I almost was outrageous there. As were the triumphant Ireland women’s soccer team. Doug Beattie, Stephen Nolan […]

The French General Cambronne, surprised and captured at Waterloo, was reputed to have answered a call to surrender with his men was first reputed to have replied in French “The Guard may die but never surrender” –  a phrase which begins with the letter “M” Forgive my  French, but sceptical commentators believe the General used the soldierly […]

  I’m a Souvenir myself, I realise, for I have just rediscovered a piece I wrote in 1990 in the Irish Democrat,published monthly in London by the Connolly Association from 1938 until into this century.   The piece was called “SUNDAY, SUNDAY” and above the title the Editor had the heading “Media Watch”followed by “Donal […]

  American intrigue in Western Asia and Eastern Europe could well be the beginning of a slow death for American hegemony.      The bear trap of Donbas was used by the American administration and Nato to lure Russia into a prolonged conflict in the killing fields of Eastern Ukraine     Putin was faced […]

  Are there words with which to address what happened at Creeslough? People die every day but when they die like this, and so many of them – there are no words, as one interviewee said. But we try. Alex Kane has addressed eleven questions to unionists, in the light of the 3 Arena event. […]

 Alex Kane is such a nice, mild-mannered man, it’s easy to forget he’s a unionist. He has long held the view that unionists should speak up about the benefits of the union with Britain, and today in The Irish Times he wonders aloud what unionists would or should talk about if they held a weekend […]

  This blog first appeared as a column in The Andersonstown News I suspect there are a few people out there who were lighting candles that the Ireland’s Future event in the 3Arena  last weekend would fail. The starting point for failure would be a smaller crowd than anticipated. The Irish Times on Friday noted that the 3 […]

  And so in a puff of smoke or in this case under water smoke, the magician reveals his trick The war in Ukraine was never about sovereignty nor even about further encroachment on the Russian federation by Nato and America , although they obviously played a part in the overall plan to destabilise the […]

    On my BLOG of 27 September I paraphrased a remark by Robert Lynd, and gave the gist of a piece in THE TIMES. In October 1916 Lynd wrote JAMES CONNOLLY: AN APPRECIATION, remarking “Before the rich clubmen of London began to ship bales of cheques over to Belfast for the Ulster Volunteers, Ireland was as […]