Jude Collins

    In 2020, Helen McEntee received 7,691 first-preference votes in her Meath-East constituency. A couple of years later she published a bill which attempted to suppress certain forms of speech that the Government deemed ’hateful’.   Initially, this bill would’ve permitted An Garda Síochána to enter people’s homes and search their devices for ‘offensive’ […]

  I was at the Feile’s interview by Andrée Murphy of Mary Lou McDonald a couple of nights ago. It wasn’t what you might call a gouging interview – Andrée (like the audience) treated Mary Lou with much respect. Both of them Rathgar girls, dontchaknow.   Andrée didn’t ask her if she planned to run […]

  I was at a Feile an Phobail event yesterday, where there was some discussion of Gerry Adams’s case against the BBC, and how  he was glad to win and  so ‘put manners on the BBC.’ Robin Livingstone was on the panel and suggested Gerry’s phrasing was a joke/barb against the Beeb. Gerry A was […]

      Asbestos  was widely used as a building material, particularly in the roof and ceiling areas  of buildings in the latter part of the last century.  In the 80s , medical science established  a conclusive link between its dust and an incurable,  chronic lung disease , now known as asbestosis. Those most at […]

Ah, Jamie Bryson. NEI’’s very own political performance artist, a man so committed to public discourse that he bravely refuses to let things like qualifications, consensus, or coherence get in the way. But wait—before you roll your eyes and scroll on, consider this: perhaps we should be grateful that Jamie Bryson walks among us. No, […]

SH. On Fenian Street.  As Gaeilge.By Randall Stephen Hall.To celebrate the Publishing of the 6th edition, ofTHE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY Story BookNow in its 29th year of DiscoverySo there we were, Ann and I back in 2008. Unpacking our Skoda on Fenian Street, to deliver books and a multi-lingual DVD  about the Giant’s Causeway, to AIS, […]

Can Jim McVeigh’s book match my (stunningly good) book about Martin McGuinness published some six year ago? It’s said to show human side of Martin…Been there, done that Emma Little Pengelly spend nearly £1,000 on a two-day trip to Wimbledon; Michelle O’Neill went to Croker to watch Kerry v Tyrone. Does the contrast tell you […]

Plus the song, “The Wee Wee Man.” See link below . . .   As a six year old child In North Belfast, on the site of a rath I awoke, to find a wee man Half on and half off In my imagination. He didn’t call me a Prod or a Brit For we […]

Fintan O’Toole’s  column in today’s Irish Times serves up a familiar dish: Ireland in the 1980s was grim, grey, and economically hollowed out—but thank God we had theatre. It’s an elegant reflection, soaked in sentiment, and yet reads like a misty-eyed TED Talk for the already converted. Yes, Druid Theatre lit a few flames, but […]

Why do we put ourselves through such unnecessary agony? We watch Donegal at Croke Park yesterday, and it leaves us sick as a parrot. We watch the Lionesses win in Switzerland and we feel- yep – sick as parrots again. Are we mad?   Alan Johnson was once in the Labour cabinet. He wrote a […]