Apart from delivering Cherish leaflets and attending a small number of meetings and the final rally, most of the huge effort that went into trying to trying to save the 8th amendment was unknown to me. I had been with Sinn Féin in Leinster House for many years and I am afraid to say I was […]
‘Endorsement by association’, in the form of a photograph, taken at a book signing, next to a man wearing a T-shirt with the slogan,’ I am a proud Islamaphobe’, was enough to rescind Cambridge University’s offer of a visiting fellowship to Dr Jordan Peterson. Dr Peterson was not given an opportunity to either clarify or […]
A Dún Laoghaire County Councillor who posted a Twitter poll asking if Dún Laoghaire needed to change its name to become more inclusive has received a resounding NO from more than 11,000 votes. Green Cllr Daniel Dunne provoked a big response when he said “Public Consultation: We’ve been using the Irish version for 100 years. But […]
This might be the classic Irish scandal. Here’s the update from the Independent’s Philip Ryan: PARC road safety group chair Susan Gray says Barry Cowen told her he never sat a driving test before his drink driving ban in 2016. — Philip Ryan (@Philip_Ryan) July 8, 2020 We don’t know how long the Minister for […]
In case you missed it, last week saw Europol, which is the European Union’s Agency for Law Enforcement publish its EU Terrorism Situation & Trend Report for 2019. One of the most startling, but perhaps not entirely surprising pieces of data to emerge from the Report was the fact that in 2019 a total of […]
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman is introducing a law to make it easier for children to change their genders – based on the recommendations of a review group Chaired by a Trans rights activist that did not have one single medical expert on it. Up until now, if a ten year old wanted to change their […]
Right now, it feels as if there are two very distinct realities in this country. For a rapidly shrinking number of people, Covid-19 is still being taken seriously. The press conferences with the Department of Health are being closely watched, social distancing is carefully practised, and the remaining lockdown restrictions are being observed. Then for […]
In a debate in the House of Commons, Edmund Burke is documented as saying: “there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” The Fourth Estate – the press – were meant to be a light to expose the truth, to […]
It is not hard to see why supporters of the Children’s Minister, Roderic O’Gorman, might feel aggrieved by the controversy swirling around him online. From their point of view, this is an open-and-shut case: The now Minister appeared in a photograph, at Dublin Pride, in 2018, with UK campaigner Peter Tatchell. After his appointment, that […]
The current debate over the extent of Irish “white privilege” and indeed responsibility for slavery has led to the revival of what has sometimes been an unseemly debate over whether the transportation of Irish people to the West Indies during the Cromwellian plantation constituted a form of slavery. Much of the debate over such matters […]
Here are the restrictions on travel from Ireland into the UK, with a UK-Government required 14-day quarantine period if you fly from Dublin to London. Notice anything? And here are the equivalent restrictions if you fly from the UK into Ireland: One thing to note here, in fairness: In the case of Ireland, self-isolation seems […]
170 Irish soldiers previously stationed in Lebanon returned home today after a delay of several months due to the covid-19 pandemic. Though originally due home in May, the men’s return was delayed following a decision by the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, who banned UN peacekeepers from returning, supposedly to prevent the spread of covid-19. […]