For years the left has prided itself on being on the side of inclusion and equality for everyone, and has attacked the right for engaging in racism, xenophobia and bigotry for bringing attention to issues such as immigration and national identity and pursuing policies that put their own citizens first. Yet there is one type […]
The Balkans used to be the powder keg of Europe, the fault line between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the sparring ground for Russia and Austria-Hungary; the killing fields of Milosovic. Nowadays however, the fire seems to have gone out of the Balkans. Instead, the peninsula is sloping into demographic stagnation and decline brought […]
“Anti-euthanasia lobbyists want the public to believe in the inevitability of the slippery slope, but their fears are unwarranted, wrote a Canadian doctor earlier this year. Where better to test this than the Netherlands? In 2019, according to the official figures, there were 6,361 cases of euthanasia – 4.2 percent of all deaths. In other words, one […]
The long history of anti-semitism in Europe reared its head again on this day, August 24th, 1349, when six thousand Jews were slaughtered in the City of Mainz, Germany, after being blamed for the bubonic plague. The Jews of Europe’s middle ages had a particularly hard time. In 1215, Pope Innocent II issued a decree […]
‘Clean’ energy may not turn out to be so clean A recent article by Maddie Stone at www.slate.com warns that in the next decade or three, the world will face a novel but entirely predictable problem: what to do with millions of square feet of worn-out solar panels. This problem is especially ironic because […]
It is remarkable what politicians and political campaigners can get away with, when journalists fail to call them to account – and nowhere is this more evident than around the issue of abortion. In the abortion referendum in 2018, pro-choice campaigners were allowed to create the impression that legalising abortion was a women’s health issue, […]
Advice from a business consultant about how to keep PC from taking root in corporate culture. This week the Goodyear Tire Company had a bad day. An employee at its Topeka factory leaked a photo of a diversity and inclusion slide which listed both acceptable clothing expressions — “Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Lesbian, Gay, […]
Richard de Clare, nicknamed Strongbow invaded Ireland to continue the earlier Norman invasion of 1169. Diarmait Mac Murchada was ousted as king of Leinster by a coalition led by the High King, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair. He fled Ireland and sought military assistance as he wanted to be King of Leinster, and ultimately Ireland, but had to […]
Mickey Devine was the last man to die on the hunger strike started by Bobby Sands in early March. As a young man Bloody Sunday had a deep effect on him, he was there with this brother-in-law who remembered Mickey rhetorically ask “How can you sit back and watch while your own Derrymen are shot […]
In 1874, a letter was sent to John Devoy, a leader with the Fenian Irish Republican Brotherhood who was living in exile in the USA. He was planning a rebellion in Ireland when informers altered the British authorities and Devoy was arrested, convicted of treason and sentenced to 15 years labour on the Isle of […]
History never repeats…I tell myself before I go to sleep (in lockdown) This week has been quite a hectic one. After two weeks of softening us all up with talk of “when, not if” and “buy face masks”, the government announced on Tuesday night that there was again community transmission of the Wuflu and […]
Five months ago as the coronavirus pandemic kicked into swing I wrote that the narrative around flattening the curve or getting to zero versus herd immunity provided no clarity on where Ireland was going with its response. Five months later we are none the wiser. The government introduces new measures, a knee-jerk reaction, to an […]