It would seem that the good people of the counties of Kildare, Laois and Offaly are not pleased with what many regard as a panicked response to the increase in Coronavirus cases there. There have been over 200 cases of Covid in the last fortnight. This has led to the closure of all indoor public […]
“Regional lockdown” is the buzzword in the media this morning, in response to the new outbreak of Coronavirus, which seems to be centered on meat factories in the eastern midlands: HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE said they cannot rule out a regional lockdown in Kildare, Laois and Offaly after a significant rise in the number of confirmed […]
A three day hunger strike of residents at the Cahirsiveen Direct Provision centre ended with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee promising that they would all be re-located, beginning this week. She has promised them “permanent accommodation” which seems a bit previous given that none of them have been granted a permanent right to stay in […]
For some strange reason the League of Ireland Professional Players Association has decided that all players will “take a knee,” before all games until the end of September. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they don’t do this during Amhrán na bhFiann.
The PFA’s statement said that this is to “mark the untimely death of George Floyd and stand in strong solidarity with fellow professionals, civil society and the world wide campaign for equality and fair treatment in life and sport.” Perhaps they should agree to have all games end in a draw so?
It’s sort of easy to forget, at this stage of the Coronavirus nightmare, that the purpose of the vast array of restrictions that we have all been living under for the past few months was very clearly articulated at the time of their introduction: To “flatten the curve”. Not to eradicate the virus, but to […]
The annual Desmond Greaves summer school is normally held in late August or early September. It is probably unlikely to go ahead this year with the current restrictions in place, but it has been for long a key event in the calendar of the Irish left. One wonders what Greaves himself might have thought of […]
Imagine, for a moment, if you can, the reaction in Ireland’s newspapers and radio programmes if somebody like Micheal Healy-Rae, or Mattie McGrath, or Noel Grealish, or Ronan Mullen announced on social media that they had tastefully redecorated their Leinster House office with a calendar featuring scantily-clad, sexually appealing young women. Just take a moment […]
Speaking across the Dáil chamber in 1962, the formidable TD John McQuillan described the Minister for Justice, Charlie Haughey, as someone who was “unhelped, unprotected and unloved.” Even at this early stage, it is a political characterisation that could be easily and fairly applied to the current government. Unhelped by a series of self-imposed gaffes […]
Tom Mitchell who died on July 22 just short of his 89th birthday was twice elected as a Westminster MP while a republican prisoner, which I believe is a unique distinction. Mitchell was born in Dublin in 1931 and joined the Dublin Brigade of the IRA in the early 1950s. He took part in a […]
Kathy Sheridan, in yesterday’s Irish Times, sensitively engages with the issue of assisted suicide. She does so as someone who has been through the palliative care experience with her own departed husband. But she also specifically does so in light of the statement made by cervical cancer screening champion Vicky Phelan: “Allow me to die […]
Summer 2020 is another kind of new normal. There’s a strange feel to it like all the other resets since March 12th when the country went into indefinite lockdown. This is arguably one of the better parts of new normal The little fishing village of Ballycotton with its signature island and lighthouse has been on […]
More than eighty complaints, would you believe, led to the ad being banned. If you haven’t had the chance to see it, here’s the scandalous tampon ad that the advertising authority of Ireland don’t want you to see: Is it a bit crude? Sure. But it’s hardly an advert for some kind of sexual debauchery, […]