ON THIS DAY: 12TH SEPTEMBER 1919 Dáil Éireann was declared illegal by the British Parliament when Sinn Féin TDs refused to sit in Westminister and set up their own parliament in Dublin, Dáil Éireann The British authorities called it a ‘dangerous assembly, because of this the first Dáil had to meet in secret at different […]
On the 10th of September, in 1649, Oliver Cromwell sat encamped outside the city of Drogheda with his 12,000-strong army and 11 siege cannons. They had already opened two large breaches in the town’s walls, as they were thin medieval structures and not designed to withstand cannon fire. Poised to attack the city, Cromwell wrote […]
Music icon and animal rights activist Cher was ecstatic earlier this year when a Pakistani court ruled that an Asian elephant named Kaavan, held in solitary confinement at the Islamabad Zoo, should be released to a sanctuary. The animal was being mistreated at the zoo and missed his mate Saheli, who died in 2012. “We were […]
In MacHale Park in Castlebar last weekend, three GAA fans were escorted out of the grounds by Gardaí, during the semi final encounter of Breaffy and Westport. Three lone supporters standing in empty stands that could easily hold 25,000 people were a public health safety. Mayo Journalist Michael Commins, expressing the same frustration that Mayo […]
Newspapers report a potato blight has hit Ireland. High rents imposed by absentee landlords meant that most people could only afford to live on small tenant farms with inferior soil that only potatoes could grow on; but the potato crop was prone to disease and the farmers did not have extra land to rotate crops. […]
The media campaign for euthanasia appears to be well under way at the moment. While various broadcasters and columnists have been issuing a call for a debate on this issue, it’s very difficult to see what we are being presented with as anything other than a push for euthansia. It is displayed almost too neatly […]
“The Chinese Communist Party now regards ethnic Mongolians as the ‘enemy within’, who are planning to incite separatism in China.” These are the words of ethnic Mongolian Boronruh Tsinrh, who grew up in China but is now studying in Paris. Mongolian rights activists have documented persistent problems in Inner Mongolia including “arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial detention, violation of […]
In February of this year, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that an individual’s autonomy was far more important than the value of his or her life. It did this when declaring that a law prohibiting assisted suicide was unconstitutional, with the Court’s press release indicating: “The general right of personality guarantees the right […]
Who do you think will win the US election – President Trump or Vice President Joe Biden. VOTE in our Poll below and leave your comments here and on social media.
In December 2015, then Republican candidate Donald Trump stood on stage at a rally and read from a prepared statement. Before he had even finished reading it, the main point of the speech made headlines all over the world. It read ‘Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering […]
After the Treaty of Limerick and the Battle of the Boyne, the Irish and English parliaments brought in draconian measures to crush the Catholic population. Even though Catholics had retained ownership of a mere 22% of the land which was further reduced to 14%, the penal laws attempted to ensure that no Irish Catholic would […]
Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Ní Mháille) demanded the release of her son, who had been imprisoned by Richard Bingham, Governor of Connacht. Elizabeth agreed, and Bingham was recalled to England. Grace was born in 1530 into the Ó Máille dynasty in the west of Ireland; the daughter of Eoghan Dubhdara Ó Máille. She is well-known historical […]