Mary Mallon was born in Cookstown, county Tyrone in 1869. She emigrated to America in 1884 or 1885 and became a cook in New York. While working in Mamaroneck in 1900 she seems to have infected a number of people with typhoid. The same happened when she left that position and went to work as […]
Certain liberal left politicians are celebrating some of the measures implemented to tackle the Covid crisis as evidence that major steps are being taken towards a centralised state controlled economy. As John McGuirk wrote earlier this week, some left-wing politicians seem happy that the coronavirus has meant the government is effectively rolling out a ‘single-tier’ […]
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has indicated that he no longer thinks that Ireland will reach the 15,000 cases of Covid-19 virus infections by the end of March. Now two weeks since the first restrictions were announced in Ireland and with further stricter restrictions announced, without risking accusations of complacency, it appears that Ireland Inc. has […]
If you’ve glanced at social media at any point in the last few weeks, there’s a high chance you’ve seen words to the effect of: “Don’t worry about covid-19 – it only affects old people.” Aside from the fact that this is medically untrue (there are plenty of young people with pre-existing conditions at risk […]
In the midst of a global pandemic, and at a time when every effort is being made to protect human life, abortion campaigners in Northern Ireland are using the widespread alarm to promote abortion. Despite abortion having nothing at all to do with coronavirus, or healthcare for that matter, abortion providers and ‘abortion rights’ organisations […]
It’s an interesting little footnote to history that while the phrase “never let a good crisis go to waste” is nearly always attributed to Winston Churchill, there’s no actual evidence that he ever said it. He may well have said it, but nobody can ever seem to record when, or where, or to whom. In […]
An incisive observation from Robert Burke on the twitter machine, here: https://twitter.com/robertburke84/status/1242750630592229376 He’s both right that the Irish Government has done a complete one hundred and eighty degree u-turn on testing in the space of seven days, and that the rest of the media seems unwilling to question it. More on the latter point in […]
Niamh wrote something of a polemic on this site last week about that god-awful “celebrities singing Imagine by John Lennon” video, declaring that “the level of self-awareness (in the video) is between zero and minus infinity”. Well Niamh, I have some bad news. Just take a look. https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1241768707631841281 Where’s it all going to end? If […]
There are two ways of looking at these numbers: “There are now about 40,000 people in Ireland waiting for a test for the coronavirus, the HSE has said. At a briefing on Sunday the HSE’s chief operations officer, Anne O’Connor, said the average waiting period for a test was four to five days. However, she […]
In the days following Leo Varadkar’s address to the Nation on St Patrick’s Day, there was a flurry of chatter online as journalists, politicos and those outside the bubble shared their thoughts and reactions. Most of the coverage was undoubtedly positive, much of the public seemingly reassured that the Government and the Taoiseach are making […]
This week marked the centenary of the killing of Tomás MacCurtáin, Mayor of Cork, who was shot dead by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) on March 20th, 1920. MacCurtain had been elected the first Republican Mayor of Cork City, and was assassinated in front of his family in a premeditated attack planned by the RIC with the […]
There is now a total of 769 confirmed cases of Covid-19 north and south of Ireland, and tragically there have been 4 deaths so far. Many of these infections could have been prevented in my view. Many of these people are likely to have contracted the illness when flights were still arriving from northern Italy into […]