Many Irish people will be familiar with the old English phrase to describe an atmosphere of complete chaos: “It’s Bedlam in here”. Fewer, perhaps, will be aware of where the phrase comes from. In the 1300s, London’s first hospital for the mentally unwell was opened – St. Mary’s Bethlehem hospital, better known as Bedlam. In […]
It’s a long-held political axiom among nationalists in the north that the demographic trend would eventually put Sinn Féin in power in Northern Ireland. Because Catholics tended to have larger families they would eventually outvote unionists, or so it was commonly believed. This, of course, contributed to the sectarian violence and terrorism of unionist militias, from […]
Ma Yinchu was born in 1882 in Zhejiang, China. The son of a small business owner, he was inclined towards scholarship. After earning an undergraduate degree at Tianjin University, he studied at Yale, subsequently earning a PhD in economics and philosophy from Columbia University. He returned to China and helped found the Shanghai College of […]
The media was predictably full of images of crowds of young people in parks and on beaches again last weekend. The narrative is that they are somehow exposing the vulnerable to risk by this- but is that really true? I am a vet based in Co. Kildare. Like many, I was quite content to go […]
If you think you’re having a hard time of it in Lockdown, then spare a thought for the poor souls in Hollywood. Bear in mind, before you read this, that just seven years ago, the Oscars pulled in forty million live viewers, making it one of the biggest television events in the world. This Sunday, […]
Give Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe some credit: The last time he was in the news, it was because he was the politician with sufficient foresight to realise that Fine Gael’s proposal to honour the Dublin Metropolitan Police would be unpopular, and his intervention resulted in that pleasant pre-pandemic month we all spent debating the […]
Here are the latest figures on assisting dying in the US state of Oregon. The 2020 data shows, among other concerns, that: The numbers continue to rise steadily — 15% per year average; they are 0.61% of all deaths in Oregon (2% of all cancer deaths), up 20% from 2019 From 1 Jan 2020 the 15-day […]
In 2011 the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan was hit by a 15-metre tsunami following a major earthquake. The resulting damage disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima reactors, causing a nuclear accident. Since then the Japanese government has worked intensively with a number of international bodies to reduce contamination, improve radiation […]
This ought to be a cardinal rule for TV hosts: never, ever, interview someone without knowing what he is going to say. Sad to say, a BBC anchor chose the wrong man to comment on the Derek Chauvin trial. True, he was black, and true, he was a former police officer. But he didn’t give […]
The trouble with writing about Ireland at the moment is that it is increasingly difficult to convey to the reader the full scale of the insanity that is going on, while not ending up sounding like a hysteric yourself. But nonetheless, it is important, too, to record things that are true, and here’s a statement […]
If you were scouring the Sunday Newspapers yesterday for a word of criticism of the Government’s plan to give an amnesty, and path to citizenship, to thousands of illegal immigrants, you will have been disappointed. Pieces like that do not tend to make the Irish newspapers. Part of it, of course, is the fear that […]
How is it that the state of Florida, a state run by a Republican Governor who has rejected wholesale the lockdown wisdom, has had such success in reducing Covid numbers? How is it that the same state, known as the retirement home of America, has been one of the most successful states in America in […]