It is not hard to feel sympathy for the organisers of the Dublin Marathon. Speaking to Kieran Cuddihy on Newstalk’s Hard Shoulder last evening (an item in which yours truly also featured), lead organiser Jim Aughney said that the cancellation was not because the organisers lacked faith in the vaccine programme, or personally believed in […]
The point of the media – the reason it exists – is to report the news to the public. Our job, as journalists, is to pull together relevant information about the things that are happening in the world, and present it to you, the public, in a way that is accessible, understandable, and accurate. When […]
Una Mullally’s savage, over the top, and downright nasty attack on Fine Gael by-election candidate James Geoghegan in this week’s Irish Times should be a wakeup call for the party, but it will not be. For most of the last decade, Fine Gael has sought to win the respect, admiration, and votes, of people like […]
A fascinating insight, here, into how difficult it is going to be for Governments to open up fully. The UK Government announced last night that from July 19th, facemasks would no longer be mandatory in England. A cause for celebration, you might think? Not so fast: The majority of Britons say face masks should continue […]
On Thursday, the good people of one of Ireland’s wealthiest constituencies, and one of its most liberal, will go to the polls to select a replacement TD, after Fine Gael’s Eoghan Murphy decided – quite rationally – that he had just about had enough of the carry on in Leinster House. In a constituency that […]
By “all” restrictions here, they really do mean “all” – no more facemasks, no more social distancing, no more restrictions on pubs and nightclubs and concerts or sporting events. When the Premier League returns after the ever-shorter football offseason, they’ll have full stadiums. The only remaining restrictions of any kind, it seems, will be some […]
Over the weekend, 140,000 fans poured into the Red Bull Ring, in Spielberg, Austria, to watch the Formula One Austrian Grand Prix. Tens of thousands watched England defeat Ukraine in Rome, in the European Championships. Across the continent, crowds poured into bars, restaurants, and sporting events. Meanwhile, in Ireland: A pilot music festival is taking […]
On Wednesday evening, Professor Philip Nolan, the NPHET scientist responsible for NPHET’s statistical model which predicted 700,000 cases of Covid-19’s Delta Variant in the event that the Government proceeded to re-open the economy as planned, composed a twitter thread outlining the figures. Amidst that thread, he included one of the most incredible statements made by […]
The last time I was involved in a car accident, it was November of 2015, and the main cause of the accident was that I left my wallet in my office and had to run back inside to get it. My now-wife and I were due, that evening, to have dinner in a nice restaurant. […]
Credit where it is due, Michael McDowell has never feared being unpopular. Which is just as well, because his article for the Irish Times yesterday asks some questions that will be unpopular with the Government: Practically no one has articulated the reservation that it may not make sense for Ireland to be in the frontline […]
Credit to TDs for extracting this fairly revealing statement from Ireland’s benevolent dictator. But let us face facts: When Holohan says “September or beyond”, he means “or beyond”: NPHET would have recommended keeping pubs and restaurants closed for indoor dining until the “end of September or beyond” had they not proposed a vaccine pass, the […]
Mandatory Hotel Quarantine was introduced in Ireland at the start of 2021 as part of a Government strategy to help get the country back to normal. Six months on, the policy has completely failed, because Ireland remains the most restricted country in Europe. The policy was introduced, let us not forget, on the basis of […]