Recent reports indicate Fine Gael thinks it has hit rock bottom and a second election can not possibly hit it any harder than the first. That’s unlikely to be the case. A large number of people in Fine Gael seem to believe that the exit polling shows that their campaign in the last week to […]
Before you get all outraged about the new report from the Central Statistics Office declaring Ireland the second most expensive country in Europe, take a minute and reflect that it’s probably not that surprising: Irish consumers pay the second highest prices in Europe, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office. The country also […]
Despite the heated exchanges between Mary Lou McDonald and Micheál Martin in the Dáíl, one of the more likely Sinn Féin TDs to get a ministerial car if they are successful in inveigling their way into power is Chris Andrews, a scion of one of the founding families of Fianna Fáil. Andrews left Fianna Fáil […]
On Saturday, more than three weeks will have passed since the General Election, and Ireland still has no obvious Government in sight. It is now expected that the next attempt by the Dáil to elect a new Taoiseach may not take place until the end of March. Yesterday, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín noted the somewhat […]
I am wondering what to do with my copy of a 2003 photograph of Mary Lou McDonald standing next to the statue of Nazi collaborator Sean Russell in Fairview Park. The picture has possibilities. Not that either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail had the wit to grasp the possibilities during the election. But I have […]
Between 5pm and midnight this evening, while you were enjoying your pancakes, two flights arrived at Dublin Airport from Milan, Italy. A third arrived from the southern Italian city of Bari. A commercial flight usually carries between 150-200 passengers. In other words, about 450 people arrived into Ireland from a country where thousands of people […]
I don’t vote Sinn Féin and I imagine I never will, but I shouldn’t need to post that disclaimer before pointing out how utterly ridiculous it is to compare the public rallies the party is hosting to the Nazi marches in Nuremberg. Making that comparison, and warning darkly about public gatherings amounting to “a campaign […]
One of the great arts of spin is to ensure the dominant question of the day is that which you alone have the perfect answer to. Sinn Fein’s artful capacities in this regard have been to the fore since the election verdict. The party has correctly claimed that this verdict was a desire for change […]
If you’re like me, you may have felt chills the first time you watched the 1999 movie “The Sixth Sense”. Without revealing the superb twist for those of you who have not watched it, the film revolves around six-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osmont) whose mother thinks he is disturbed. Psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) […]
Dublin’s media and political establishment always has the same explanation, when these things happen. The Department of Justice, without any consultation, or forewarning, has announced a migrant accommodation centre for a relatively small rural town. Local people are upset by it. Some politicians have spoken out. It is clear that there will be some opposition. […]
In the aftermath of this website’s report on Tuesday about historic anti-Semitic tweets by newly elected Sinn Fein TD Reada Cronin, Republican activist and journalist Eoin O’Murchu posted the following tweet in defence of the politician: Now a media campaign against Kildare TD Réada Cronin. Her crime? Being critical of Israel. What decent human being […]
I knew a woman from around Ardboe in East Tyrone whose family narrowly missed being killed by the loyalist outfit now commonly referred to as the Glenanne Gang. They were fortunate to have been out of their farmhouse in the fields and outhouses when their apparently friendly bread man who was a part-time member of […]