On the night of September 23rd, 1846, the German Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle confirmed the discovery of the planet Neptune, which had been predicted by the French Mathematician Urban le Verrier, based on nothing but numbers. It was one of the great triumphs of 19th century science. Le Verrier discovered Neptune – which cannot be […]
Eight months into this pandemic, we sometimes seem to be no nearer to knowing what’s going on than we were at the beginning. Lockdowns vs. no lockdowns; masks vs. no masks; hydroxychloroquine vs. remdesivir; opening schools vs. closing schools, etc., etc. Every day, top-level experts express significantly divergent viewpoints on each of these questions. One […]
Today, the 22nd September, marks the 100th anniversary of the Rineen Ambush, which took place at Rineen Cross, halfway between Miltown Malbay and Lahinch in 1920. The Volunteers in Co Clare had been active since 1917 and by the time of the ambush they had forced the RIC to abandon most of their rural barracks […]
On September 21st 1601 the Spanish landed in Kinsale Co Cork with some 4,000 men, took the town and awaited the arrival of the Gaelic chiefs from Ulster. With a fleet of twenty-eight, they occupied the port at Kinsale under the maestro de campo general, Don Juan del Águila. The ships were to be brought […]
“The town of Balbriggan they’ve burned to the ground While bullets Like hailstones were whizzing around; And women left homeless by this evil clan. They’ve waged war on the children, the bold Black and Tan.” (From the ‘Bold Black and Tans, Irish Songs of Resistance, Galvin, 1950) The sack of the north Dublin town […]
“Climate dries the [wood] fuels out & extends the fire season but its not the cause of the intensity of the fires. The cause of that is fire suppression and the existing debt of wood fuel.” — Malcolm North, US Forest Service A red sky glowers over California as fires rage out of control. Recent […]
The death at 87 of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has added another dimension to the final weeks of the Presidential election in that country. The liberal media’s pot stirring over possible legal challenges if the vote does not go their way has begun. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has already said […]
Robert Emmett was an Irish Republican and patriot, orator and rebel leader. After leading an abortive rebellion in Dublin against British rule in 1803 he was captured then tried and executed for high treason against the British king George III of Great Britain. When asked if he had any thing to say in response to […]
It is a well-known fact, accepted by psychologists and psychoanalysts that the more you repeat a concept or thought, be it negative or positive, the more you come to believe it and eventually it is likely to become a reality. If you wake up each morning and go to bed each night with the thought […]
“If you are a pauper, yes. If you are a millionaire, yes. But if you are a middle-class person on a middle-class salary, litigation in the High Court is ruinous.” These were the words of Mr Justice Kelly as he assumed the chairmanship of the Review of the Administration of Civil Justice in 2018. He […]
Recently I addressed a group of Parliamentarians in London about assisted suicide and euthanasia. My talk, which coincided with World Suicide Prevention day, sought to address the unintended consequences of legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands. One of the arguments we hear is that assisted dying will bring down the number of violent […]
Anne Devlin was born in County Wicklow around the end of the 1770s and in 1800 met Robert Emmet and assisted him in his plans for an uprising in Dublin. On the evening of the 23rd July 1803 the rising went ahead in Dublin, but despite taking the British authorities by surprise, the rebellion collapsed. […]