On 27 November 1920 Galway brothers Patrick and Harry Loughnane were arrested on their family farm by the Royal Irish Constabulary’s Auxiliary Division. The men were locally prominent republicans and the RIC was determined to exact revenge on them for an earlier IRA ambush. A few days after their arrest, the Loughnane brothers’ bodies were […]
Former President Mary McAleese seems to rather enjoy courting controversy these days, as demonstrated in her recent deliberate attempts to slur Pope John Paul II by taking a quote out of context from his book Love and Responsibility and failing to give the full details regarding its meaning. Indeed, one can only wonder why McAleese […]
A prominent academic and media commentator has accused a Galway hotel of racism after she was served the wrong drink. This week saw Dr Ebun Joseph, who is the module coordinator for the first Black Studies focused module in Ireland, take to Twitter to let the public know that she had been a victim of […]
A consequence of the way society has changed over the course of most of our lifetimes is that fewer and fewer of us live close to our parents. The increase in university education, and careers that take us away to Dublin, or London, or further afield has meant, amongst other things, a collapse in the […]
Yesterday, New Years Day, saw a small group of pro-life protestors conducting some form of silent vigil/protest outside the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, an action that provoked anger from consultant obstetrician Dr. Mary Higgins: Right here (national maternity hospital), right now 1/1/20; wonder why we need exclusion zones @LeoVaradkar @SimonHarrisTD – beneath the windows […]
The food served in Limerick last week, which was labeled by some as “slop”, would be considered a rare treat in much of the world, not least because we have the luxury of cutlery and meat.
Earlier this month, picking up on the 2019 United Nations Human Development Report, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tweeted out, “Worth reading. No country is without its problems but overall we’re doing pretty well. At least according to the @UN: Ireland has third highest quality of life in world…” But the amount of evidence that can […]
The most striking aspect of Charlie Flanagan’s proposed “hate speech” legislation is the extraordinary alliance that has formed in its favour. As previous reports on Gript have shown it not only seemingly includes the entire “range” of parties within Leinster House, but everyone else from Pollyanna overseas charities to the “New IRA.” The latter, which […]
The news, it must be said, is often bad. There are several reasons for this, but mostly it comes down to the fact that people will usually react more strongly to bad news than good news. Bad news is generally more emotionally impactful. But good news matters, too. Every day, Irish people, and people the […]
Christmas is over, and it’s that time of year when we reflect on the year that has just passed, and what happened in it. In that spirit, here are the five politicians who we think had the best 2019, and the five who had the worst. Note: We’re primarily concerned with Ireland here, but of […]
A Christmas card featuring Karl Marx might have raised a few cheap laughs for Sinn Féin’s Fintan Warfield, but there was very little of good cheer about the father of socialism. Even apart from the fact that Marx was a militant atheist who hated both his own Jewish heritage – which he stereotyped much as […]
Fianna Fáil’s newly elected TD for Wexford, Malcolm Byrne, is making some waves today on the subject of Irish unity. Hugh O’Connell in the Independent has the full story: “A Fianna Fáil TD has suggested that a united Ireland could rejoin the Commonwealth, make July 12 a public holiday and reserve 30pc of Cabinet positions […]