There’s been a strong reaction to the closure of Bewley’s of Grafton Street, in particular when it was revealed that a primary reason for the closure is the €1,500,000 annual rent bill demanded by the company owned by developer Johnny Ronan. That’s a rent of €28,846 every week; over €4,000 every day. Rent accounted for […]
The Green Party is a remarkably patrician outfit. Its elected representatives are invariably academics, lawyers or involved in “clean” enterprise. That is reflected in fact that their youth wing is almost exclusively based in the four main universities. The Young Greens, albeit with just one rep on the National Executive, will nonetheless play a key role […]
The Keelings controversy about has brought public attention to how EU and related member state legislation allows agencies – and those who contract migrant workers from them – to avoid domestic minimum wage and other requirements. As everyone knows, the current furore began when a photo published was which showed some of the 189 migrant […]
Events are moving rapidly with regard to the formation of a new government. It seems widely expected that a decision may be made today. At the heart of this is whether Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael agree to most of Green Party demands, including “red line” of annual cuts in carbon emissions of 7% until […]
On April 28 1916, as the fierce fighting of Easter Week began to abate, one of the most notorious events of the rising took place. 15 civilians were killed in houses and business premises on North King Street by British soldiers. The street had been the scene of some of the stoutest resistance by the […]
In 2017 a Google employee in California, James Damore, was sacked for writing an internal memo in which he criticised the company’s obsession with gender equality above giving jobs to the best. Did Damore’s union declare a strike, and the Democrat left express its outrage? (Google was a major Clinton donor in 2016.) Of course […]
Keelings employs over 2,000 people. Over the past century it has transformed from being a prosperous north county Dublin family farm which in 1926 began to concentrate on fruit and veg wholesale and export. It is now a vast enterprise with branches in 42 countries. One of its successful ventures has been to buy fruit, […]
While the Sex Pistols, led by John Lydon (Rotten) whose mother was from Cork whose father was from Galway, are recalled by many as an ephemeral almost circus act – and that is how they ended up after Lydon left – there was a lot more to them. Lydon, unlike most leading punks – or […]
Brehon Law, the pre-Conquest legal code in Gaelic Ireland, provided for the right to troscud where an individual of lower social class could fast against a member of the elite who they perceived to have had acted unjustly towards them. Gaelic Ireland may not have been the egalitarian Eden depicted by James Connolly and others […]
We have written here here before about the increasing encroachment of overseas vulture and cuckoo funds into the Irish property sector. Government schemes such as the Immigrant Investment Programme, allow wealthy Chinese nationals who are being advised by Irish companies such as Bartra, to basically buy all the rights that go with being granted a […]
While the New Federalist has decried the lack of member states “sharing” infected patients, most people realise that would make the situation worse. Had member states like Germany not restricted the movement of Italians, deaths would have reached far higher levels by now.
The birth date of former Primate of Hungary and one of the most important Churchmen of the 20th century, the Venerable Cardinal József Mindszenty fell last week on March 29. He was a key figure in the resistance of the Hungarian people to Nazism and socialism over more than 50 years and an inspiration to […]