One of the odd things about Irish politics is that what one might call the soft left – the sort of people who believe passionately in things like social justice, and liberal causes, and climate change – have not one, not two, but three political parties, all of whom believe basically the same things. On […]
“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” WT Yeats said this in Easter, 1916, and I first heard it said during Michael Noonan’s Budget 2014 speech. At the time, the context of their use seemed appropriate, though after a few years of mere cutbacks, bailouts and uncertainty, the context of their […]
There’s a golden rule when it comes to the Irish weather, and the Green Party: Any unusual weather at all is de facto evidence of Climate Change, and we can expect to be flooded and drowned within mere years if we do not immediately act. There is one exception to that rule, though: If the […]
During her first press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about President Joe Biden’s stance on certain abortion policies. “I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic and somebody who attends church regularly,” Psaki responded. “He started his day attending church with his […]
Politicians around the world must be held to account for mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic, argues the executive editor of the BMJ, Dr Kamran Abbasi. At the very least, mishandling Covid-19 might be classified as ‘social murder’. When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths, for the sake […]
Amidst all of the touchy-feely mainstream news media tributes to the different branches of the public service in this Time of the Virus, it would seem that some find it difficult to abandon old ways. While the Gardaí have attracted mixed reviews for their Dancing Against the Pandemic – as opposed to their removing people […]
Should Micheál Martin go to the White House for St Patrick’s Day? VOTE in our poll below and leave your comments here and on social media.
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” Did F. […]
The very difficult subject of assisted suicide is coming into sharp focus, with the Oireachtas Justice Committee having received written submissions on the somewhat dubiously named Dying with Dignity Bill. There has been fair criticism of the wording of the Bill and the dangers resulting from that wording. The biggest problems with the Bill though […]
The big problem about writing about “period poverty”, as a man, is that, well, men don’t have periods. While some of us may, on occasion, have been deputised to purchase sanitary items for the women in our lives, we don’t need, or use them, ourselves. So the idea that period poverty is an all-pervasive issue […]
I wonder, you know, whether this is constitutional: “A spokesman for Mr Donnelly said gardaí now had the power to call to people’s homes to ensure they were quarantining but they could (not) enter the person’s home. Antoinette Cunningham, the general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said on Thursday evening […]
Last Thursday, January 28, emergency responders in Gainesville, Georgia, about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, began to receive 911 calls from Plant 4 of the Foundation Foods Prepared Food Division in that city. One caller reported, “I’ve got two people not breathing.” Another said he had gotten a call from another part of the plant saying that […]