In light of the Irish media’s widespread praise for yesterday’s Sunday Times article outlining the failures of the British Government, it might be worth taking a look at events in a similar timeframe closer to home. “38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster”, was the headline of the Sunday Times piece. Here’s what was happening […]
Alcohol Action Ireland has a name that makes you think it’s run by, and operated by, concerned citizens who are worried about the public health risks of too much drinking. When it appears in the media, as it did yesterday, you, the ordinary person, are supposed to think that you’re hearing from a group of […]
The burdens of high office are great indeed. Yesterday, as the UK media were salivating over a hard-hitting report in the Sunday Times into mistakes made by Boris Johnson’s Government, Ireland’s flagship Sunday Newspaper was publishing this interview with Simon Harris. Behold, the standard of questioning Irish politicians can expect to face, these days: Two […]
They’re averaging 2000 deaths a day, and five million new job losses a week, now. Here are the numbers for this week alone: "The modest decline in initial jobless claims to 5,508,500 last week, from 6,615,000, means that the unemployment rate is now on track to hit somewhere between 15% and 20% in April, well […]
The Guardian published the image above two months ago. A man lying dead in the streets in Wuhan, as people walk past. No wonder, then, that they missed so many dead people. They probably walked past another guy the very next day, and assumed it was just the same dead guy as yesterday. You have […]
An Irish Examiner story, for the record, not one of ours. We have higher standards, you see. Anyway, here’s what they wrote. It went super-viral online, as you might expect: “A number of TDs have raised the question of new allowances to allow them to purchase office equipment while they work from home during the […]
Remember, it’s not his own money Simon Coveney is spending here, it’s yours: #Ireland strongly supports @WHO in efforts to coordinate a global response to combat #COVID19. So many countries rely on @UN expertise and capacity to save lives. Ireland is quadrupling our normal annual financial contribution to @WHO for 2020 to €9.5 million. — […]
Some of you are probably too young to remember what happened all the way back in January of 2020, which feels like it was about two decades ago at this point, but it’s worth remembering anyway: Former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has rejected claims that “shadowy figures” play a key role in the running […]
Because reactions to the President of the United States are so polarised along culture war lines, the reaction to his announcement the day before yesterday that he would seek to suspend US funding of the world health organisation has broadly been about exactly what you might expect. “Global Fury”, reports the Irish Times: “Although the […]
The thing about the lockdown, as a thirty-something year old man, is that it’s a lot like purgatory probably is. Think about it: You get to sit at home, on the couch, in front of the television all day long. But there’s no sport on. The creator himself could hardly have devised a more frustrating […]
After Donald Trump, at least partly to distract from his own failures over Coronavirus, announced last night that he would be defunding the World Health Organisation, the reaction in Ireland was pretty much exactly what you would expect. “An indefensible decision”, pronounced Simon Coveney, accusing the US President of “undermining trust” in the WHO: This […]
Pop quiz: Who said this, on January 23rd? Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said his party will not form a “grand coalition” with Fine Gael after the general election. Mr Martin said his party was only interested in creating a new government with other “centre” parties such as Labour and the Greens. Asked if […]