On Friday afternoon, the news broke that Stobart Air, the regional operator responsible for many flights between Ireland and the UK, was going out of business, becoming the highest profile business casualty of the pandemic to date. Naturally, opposition politicians took to the airwaves to blame the Government for not providing enough “supports” for the […]
Thank God for Mary McAleese. It was shaping up to be a fairly slow news day today, ad we were sitting around scratching our heads wondering if anything at all would pop up that was slightly interesting, and worth writing about. Thankfully, Mrs. McAleese has come through to save the day by saying something immeasurably […]
The Irish media is presently gorging itself on the revelation that for a number of years, at least four Irish political parties (and probably more) asked volunteers to pose as fake polling companies in order to go door to door and conduct market research. First, we learned that Sinn Fein did it. And then, because […]
Right, hands up, this opening paragraph is going to make a lazy, not particularly insightful point. In this case, however, there are not many other obvious points to make, so here goes: Imagine somebody wrote this in an academic paper about Black People: Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, […]
Regular readers will be familiar with Dr. Michael Mina, the Harvard expert on antigen testing who pronounced himself feeling “sorry for Ireland” a few weeks back, after listening to Stephen Donnelly play down the benefits of antigen testing on the radio. Dr. Mina paid a visit to Dublin yesterday, presumably to see for himself the […]
The great paradox of modern Ireland is that the more power Irish liberals acquire, the more illiberal they become. We had, yesterday, a collection of taxpayer funded NGO’s in to visit the Oireachtas committee on Housing and Local Government, which is responsible for how Ireland runs its elections, amongst other things. Kitty Holland picks up […]
Ten days ago, panicked by scenes of revelry in Dublin’s South William Street area, the Chief Medical Officer, Tony Holohan, sent the tweet heard around the country: Drove into Dublin City Centre to collect someone from work at 815 PM. Absolutely shocked at scenes in South Great George’s St, Exchequer St, South William St area. […]
The Special Criminal Court is back in the news, because an interim report into it is being published in a couple of weeks. We can say something with absolute certainty right now about that interim report: It will make absolutely no difference. Regardless of what the report says, the court will stay. The court will […]
We’re not supposed to call it the “Indian variant”, any more, obviously, in case that makes ordinary people feel suspicious of Indian-looking people they see on the street (who comes up with this stuff, exactly?). But we are all supposed to be absolutely terrified of it. It is more transmissible, and it is on the […]
To read the opposite side of this debate, with my colleague Niamh Uí Bhriain, click here _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ The worst kind of tax, a wise man once said, is the kind that you have to pay. For non-smokers, an extra euro on […]
As a rule, Irish media outlets cannot comment on matters that are under consideration in Irish courts. Generally speaking, we shouldn’t comment on matters under consideration in overseas courts, either, but for this story, it is worth making an exception: A LEADING feminist campaigner has been charged with a hate crime for posting allegedly homophobic […]
If you have not read yesterday’s blockbuster Vanity Fair report about the US investigation into the lab-leak theory, and you have some free time today, go and read it. If you do not have free time, let us try to walk you through the big news. We should begin with the not-quite-a-smoking-gun. “U.S. government virologists […]