Earlier this year we addressed the role of the ‘Care Bears‘ the so-called Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and their symbiotic relationship with the state. It might be interesting then to see how they have survived the fraught first five months of 2020, especially in their self-advertised claim to have played a role in combating coronavirus. The […]
In Gulliver’s Travels Swift describes how the great Empires of Lilliput and Blefescu had been at war for six and thirty moons over which end of a boiled egg to break before eating it. Today’s battle between the Big Distancers of the Principality of Castleknock, with the support of an array of courtiers and Doctors of […]
This week could prove to be a decisive one in the crisis over the future of Hong Kong. The Chinese National Peoples Congress is in session and will vote and approve measures to tighten Beijing’s police and intelligence powers over the heretofore semi autonomous region. The new Security Law extends Chinese powers to deal with […]
Donald Trump has several times referred to the possibility of using the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventative against coronavirus. Despite not being the only person to do so, and despite the fact that the use of the drug is being subject to many clinical trials, Trump’s statement, and his May 18 reference to taking […]
I don’t know if it is just myself and my incompetence with the interweb, but it seems to be more difficult with each day to find accurate statistics on the Covid 19 crisis. Few mainstream outlets, and certainly not official ones, provide easily accessible data on some of the key aspects of how the pandemic has […]
One of the interesting phenomena associated with the virus lockdown is the alacrity with which certain people have embraced the whole notion of extending state control over further parts of civil society and individual behaviour. It is also noteworthy that far from this being opposed by the left, many of that persuasion have embraced all […]
The Scottish shipyards and mines were one of the few places in Britain where the Communist Party gained a foothold. Beginning with the Red Clydeside strikes against World War I, communists remained influential within the trade union movement until the 1980s. Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) members Mick McGahey of the National Union of […]
The fates have clearly conspired to deny Dublin a six-in-a-row. Or have they? Perhaps our focus for a source of the virus ought not to be on Wuhan but Lyrecrompane? You would not be up to them. On a more serious note, it would seem that the GAA inter county season will fall victim to the […]
In the opening volley of the War of Independence in 1919, the Third Tipperary Brigade under commanding officer Séumas Robinson ambushed a RIC convoy transporting dynamite at Soloheadbeg on January 19th. Dan Breen’s brother, Lar, had told the IRA that the consignment was due to be moved under escort, and the raid included Volunteers Seán […]
Dr Séamus O’Mahony has emerged as one of the most coherent critics of the role of modern medicine. His book The Way We Die Now was published in 2016. In 2019, he published Can Medicine be Cured? O’Mahony’s critique is particularly relevant in the context of the current pandemic which has witnessed greatly enhanced powers […]
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning was a convert from the Anglican church to Catholicism and was ordained Archbishop of Westminster in 1865. He was a strong supporter of social justice within the teachings of the church and was a key influence on the Papal encyclical Rerum Novarum issued by Pope Leo XIII in May 1891. The […]
There has been a noticeably greater opposition to the Covid lockdown in recent weeks. Alejo Sison claims that the state is “bent on turning us into just one more of the herd,” and having “segued into Leviathans” is intent on taking over civil society. Sison says that the state has dismissed the initiative of citizens […]