The below picture is copied and pasted from Pat Leahy’s report of the Dublin Bay South by-election, in the Irish Times of 28th June 2021 – that is, in the middle of the election campaign. The picture is interesting in a number of ways, not least in comparison with the actual result. Ivana Bacik received […]
Jerry “Golfgate” Buttimer is the latest government politician to be caught rapid after feigning outrage at lockdown comparisons to apartheid and segregation, while previously making those comparisons himself. They just never learn, do they? The controversy began after Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh expressed her view that the domestic vaccine passport law was discriminatory, divisive, […]
The headline to this piece is not, in fact, what the HSE said. In truth, because the HSE must (you’d nearly think there was a law mandating it) present all data in with the most depressing possible spin, they pointed out that 5% of new cases are people who have been vaccinated: #NEW HSE says […]
Poor old Ireland: Varadkar says he believes “we need to get through at least another winter before we can say the pandemic is behind us” – he says vaccinating all adults might not be enough to bring about herd immunity, and teenagers being vaccinated may also be required before any full reopening pic.twitter.com/6hkymiVyIx — Gavan […]
In a significant victory for the local community of the south Dublin quays, the High Court this morning upheld an appeal against a heroin injection facility at Merchants Quay. The proposal included a needle exchange and the provision of what locals describe as a “shooting gallery” for heroin users in a basement at the facility […]
To be fair, they won’t have much choice in the matter. If Ireland keeps spending money like a drunken sailor, then sooner or later, Brussels will step in and tell them that they have to stop, for the sake of the wider eurozone. That might suit Irish politicians just fine, though, since they’ll be able […]
It goes without saying that the big problem with Northern Ireland is that almost everything in it is, or has been, completely corrupted by tribal politics and whataboutery. A wrong committed by one “side” can, and will, inevitably be matched by a wrong committed by the other. The history of that place is alive, and […]
Irish liberals have spent the last half decade accusing everyone remotely to the right of Karl Marx of being a “Nazi-Fascist-Far-Right-Uber-Hitler.” But now that label has been levelled at the government and their lockdown, that comparison is too far and simply beyond the pale. The controversy came when Mattie McGrath TD of the Rural Independent […]
On Sunday night I heard a commotion out on the road. Rambunctious voices were passing and one was singing “football’s coming home.” At first I thought England had won the European cup, then I looked up the result and the reason for the celebratory atmosphere became clear. How things have changed. When Ireland made the […]
President Higgins, for all of his life, has been a man of the left. Although his views on international affairs have not always aligned with his personally expressed support for civil liberties, he has, nonetheless, always taken the side of personal freedom in political discussions in Ireland. His biography on the official website of the […]
Boris Johnson’s two chief scientific advisors, Professors Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, were in front of the media yesterday to face a grilling on Johnson’s plans to fully re-open the UK next week. The assembled media (doing their job, to be fair) were very eager to poke holes in the plan, and extract quotes about […]
Some people, including many readers, will be downcast by this, or angry, or feel that their suspicions have been validated. Personally, though, it is not something that overly concerns me, for reasons set out below. If it is necessary, then sign me up: Pfizer says it plans to meet with top U.S. health officials Monday […]