There are times when I have to pinch myself, when I read the concerns of journalists as expressed in our mainstream media, about the interaction between religion and politics in Ireland – and contrast it with the actual relationship between religion and politics in this country, as evidenced by social surveys. A recent survey, carried […]
If a week is a long time in politics then Sinn Féin must be feeling that anytime with coronavirus is an eternity – and an eternity during which the party went from hero to zero in the blink of an eye. Back in February, which now seems like a lifetime ago, Sinn Féin were understandably […]
One of the aspects of the 2018 referendum which Jonathon Van Maren’s book Patriots recalls is the extraordinary role played not only by a massively biased main stream media, but by the social media sites. Evidence from other countries prove that we are not alone in facing this monster. Realising that they were losing the intellectual battle, the pro-abortion […]
A great scoop in the independent by privacy reporter Ken Foxe: Details of the lump sums, pensions and termination pay for individual TDs and senators will no longer be made public following a decision by Oireachtas authorities. The payments have been published by Leinster House for more than a decade without issue. However, the Oireachtas […]
A strange contagion of self abasement and penitence has taken hold of the West. American politics and its jargon has invaded the consciousness of the world, even though we don’t share their political history or narratives. To use the terminology of the left, we have been psychologically colonised by American identity politics. Identity politics in […]
Norway is a country that appears to have fared well during the Covid-19 pandemic thus far. However, the country has another worrying problem it must also face: the population is aging fast, meaning tough economic times still lie ahead. Norway is a country that appears to have fared well during the Covid-19 pandemic thus […]
All of the caveats must apply, obviously, to polls, and the biggest and most important one when it comes to President Trump is that if you believed the evidence of the polling in 2016, as yours truly did, then you’d have been shocked by the result (as yours truly, and many others, were). But still: […]
Clever: Sinn Féin has proposed giving every adult and child a government funded gift voucher to spend in pubs, restaurants and hotels to kick-start the tourism industry. Under the €1bn scheme every adult would be given a €200 voucher and every child would get €100 to spend in local businesses that sign up to the […]
Each year the HSE is obliged to publish its Annual Report and Financial Statements for the preceding year. It has just done so for 2019. This year we read that it spent €17.9 million on Legal Fees & Legal Proceedings with a further €1.6 million on Settlements and a mere €97 thousand on Conciliation and […]
In a recent report on genome analysis of ancient remains found in Irish burial sites, one ground-breaking finding received little attention. In the tests conducted on the remains of over 30 people from the Poulnabrone burial site in the Burren in Clare, the earliest proven example of a skeleton of a person with Down Syndrome […]
Leo Varadkar, or so the polls tell us, is the darling of the nation. He saved us all from Covid and can do no wrong. Polls show that 88% of Irish people believe the government did a good job of handling the Covid crisis – while an almost unprecedented 72% expressed satisfication with the government. […]
Good news that failed to make the front page in London and New York A truly historic meeting took place last week between two countries that have been at loggerheads with each other for decades. This meeting between the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia was constructive, was aimed at reconciliation and was forward-looking. […]