November 21 marks the 99th anniversary of one of the most momentous days in modern Irish history. That date in 1920 fell on a Sunday, the first one in this country to be given the sombre appellation Bloody for it was the most violent day in the War of Independence. Thirty two people in all […]
It’s buried away in paragraph 13 of Colm Keena’s report in the Irish Times today, which doesn’t really do this news justice. Another blow for liberty is about to be struck against the repression and cruelty of Catholic Ireland: “The commission will also look at the law on incest, which criminalises vaginal sexual intercourse between […]
Boris Johnson may well end up losing the British General election – but if he does, it won’t be because of his policy on immigration. For the last ten days he has hammered the opposition Labour Party for favouring an open immigration policy, with no restrictions on freedom of movement, while saying that if re-elected, […]
I would not be a huge admirer of former Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins but I will give credit where it is due. When I was working in Leinster House he was the only TD to object to the fawning reception given to a delegation from the Peoples Republic of China. He pointed out that […]
Former American President George H.W. Bush, as he was losing his campaign for re-election to Bill Clinton way back in 1992, famously complained that try though he might, he couldn’t compete with Clinton on “the vision thing”. In that election, Bush, a man who had served his country for fifty years and served with honour […]
At the 1934 congress of the All Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) up to 300 of the 1,200 delegates cast negative votes for Stalin in the election for the Central Committee. So paranoid and irate was Stalin that he had the offending delegates hunted down and murdered. Indeed, the majority of the delegates lost their lives […]
Dr Peter Boylan has been all over the media this week, flogging his new book in which he pats himself on the back for helping to legalise abortion. The tome, with the ominous title, In the Shadow of the 8th, is apparently hitting the market just in time for Christmas. Nothing proclaims the birth of Baby Jesus like a book […]
Brian Hayes, for those of you who have, perfectly understandably, forgotten, served as Minister of State at the Department of Finance from 2011 to 2014. He then headed off to Brussels for five years, where he served as an MEP, before choosing to retire from politics earlier this year and take a job as CEO […]
During a week that saw the closing of two peat stations in Offaly and Longford at the cost of hundreds of jobs affecting many thousands of people and threatening the viability of rural towns and villages, what does RTÉ bestow on us? An entire series of climate porn during which we heard dire predictions of […]
As far as we know, the idea of “fact checking” was invented a few years ago, as a way to find jobs for those annoying people you meet at a party, or down the pub who have to butt into every conversation with “well, actually….”. Jokes aside, the concept is very simple. You take a […]
Sentencing in Ireland is, not to put too fine a point on it, a sick joke: “A father who raped his adult special needs daughter while her mother was terminally ill in hospital has been jailed for seven years. The 66-year-old Munster man, who cannot be identified in order to protect his daughter’s identity, pleaded […]
The harrowing media reports detailing the brutal, senseless murder of Ana Kriégel make for very difficult reading. The thought of one of our own children being caught in that indescribably horrific situation is unimaginable. Ana was only 14 when she was killed, and the manner in which she died is the stuff of nightmares. […]