“So will they be sent home if they refuse to wear the mask?”, asked Richard Downes on Prime Time last night. “Yes absolutely, everybody is expected to wear the mask” replied the Minister for Education, Norma Foley. Good news, if, like me, you are the husband of a teacher, or indeed if you are a […]
The Balkans used to be the powder keg of Europe, the fault line between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the sparring ground for Russia and Austria-Hungary; the killing fields of Milosovic. Nowadays however, the fire seems to have gone out of the Balkans. Instead, the peninsula is sloping into demographic stagnation and decline brought […]
“Anti-euthanasia lobbyists want the public to believe in the inevitability of the slippery slope, but their fears are unwarranted, wrote a Canadian doctor earlier this year. Where better to test this than the Netherlands? In 2019, according to the official figures, there were 6,361 cases of euthanasia – 4.2 percent of all deaths. In other words, one […]
The public’s reaction to Golfgate has been swift and brutal. Indeed, it has now occasioned more public mea culpa’s than you could shake a stick at. Yet still the public and political appetite for scalps, of both the EU and judicial variety has not been sated. No doubt this lamentable saga, with all its […]
To lose one agriculture minister might be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two, the IFA might have said to the Taoiseach last night, is just rank carelessness: Cullinan said: “We are very concerned about the disruption caused by the loss of two Ministers for Agriculture since the new government was formed, and reports that […]
Confession: I cannot figure out for the life of me what readers will make of this. On the one hand, it’s one in the eye for west brit lackeys like me, and presumably the membership of Fine Gael, who’s favourite part of the year is when “Rule Britannia” comes on at the end of the […]
If reports are to be credited, British intelligence appears to have successfully moved against one of the aspirant IRAs – namely those claimed to be in the New IRA and those in the left-wing grouping, Saoradh. The scuttlebutt is that MI5 recruited a leading member of the organisation in question who embarrassingly it would seem […]
Last Saturday, thousands of people took part in a rally calling for many of the Covid-19 restrictions to be lifted, and arguing that mask-wearing and vaccinations should not be mandatory. Whatever your feelings on the aims of the rally, it’s safe to say that the demonstration was much bigger than the media had expected it to […]
Identity politics is as much about the collapse of old identities as the forging of new ones. The current discussion about how the centenary anniversary of Ireland’s partition should be marked shows how radically political identities can be re-constructed over time. When Michéal Martin stood up in Dail Éireann about a year ago and declared […]
Since March of this year, or perhaps earlier, it’s safe to say that opinions greatly differ with regard to all things related to Covid19. However, in the midst of much disagreement and what has become a very contentious subject where one can hardly express an opinion that goes against the WHO or RTE without being […]
In 2020, the world has been hit by an unprecedented public health crisis, with the effects of COVID-19 being felt across every aspect of people’s lives. This year also marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations—the mission statement that stands at the very heart of the inclusive multilateralism […]
It is important, generally, to try and not get personal when it comes to the people who govern us. For the most part, they are doing their best. Being wrong, as they regularly are is a human fault, not one that is specific to one party, or one person. Politicians want to be remembered well, […]