Like many people the world over, lockdown has been an incredibly trying time for most of us and we aren’t out of the woods yet. Only a few short months ago, we were told by many on social media that all we had to do was stay at home and save lives. We weren’t being […]
It’s one thing, you know, for politicians to lie to you and me. We’re used to it. We don’t expect any better. We’re so used to it that we can actually translate them automatically. For example, “well Miriam, I’m glad you asked me that” means “I am now going to answer a totally different question”. […]
Here’s the Chinese Embassy in Ireland, reporting on today’s events in China, where the Government is proceding with its efforts to crush democracy in Hong Kong: “China’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved directly imposing national security legislation on Hong Kong to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in the city. The National People’s Congress voted […]
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 […]
A stunning report from Pat Leahy in the Irish Times this morning: “The future of a proposed ban on the importation of Israeli goods produced in Palestinian territories has emerged as a sticking point in the talks on government formation. The Occupied Territories Bill 2018, proposed by Independent Senator Frances Black and supported by Fianna […]
On the face of it, the idea that an abortion might be “reversible” is a hard thing for people to get their heads around, and that’s probably because it’s not really a very accurate phrase. It is, of course, impossible to reverse an abortion once one has happened. You cannot recreate a life that has […]
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 […]
The lady standing at the podium was the second most senior civil servant in the Department of the Taoiseach, Elizabeth Canavan. She was there to deliver an important update on the Government’s advice to the public on the first day of the easing of the restrictions which had kept most of the country housebound for […]
Two years ago, like 723,000 other people, I voted No to removing the 8th amendment from our constitution. I believed that preborn babies have a right to life, that women deserve better than abortion, and that the result of the referendum was the most shameful day in Ireland’s history. I still do. And the last two years […]
Last Monday, the government briefed the public on how they were expected to behave during Phase One of the lifting of the Covid-19 restrictions. They urged people to be “disciplined” and specifically not to have picnics. “Please do your exercise and go home,” the assistant secretary at the Department of the Taoiseach, Liz Canavan, said. “If you’re […]
There are probably two things one might say about Mary Lou McDonald’s claim to the Sunday Independent that given the chance, she’d have been in the IRA, armed to the teeth and taking potshots at lads from Bolton who were unlucky enough to get posted to Northern Ireland. If you’re the anti-SF type, there’s the […]
When this emerged last night, there was at least the possibility that the public was being tricked by old footage from a pre-Covid summer, and that the Taoiseach was not, in fact, out yucking it up in the Phoenix Park yesterday while thousands have died in nursing homes and their families banned from attending the […]