Offaly councillors have clashed over the issue of immigration and asylum at their December meeting, with housing emerging as a key difficulty for some representatives. The Offaly Express reports that the exchanges arose over the adoption of Offaly’s new migrant integration strategy for 2020 to 2024. Cllr John Leahy (IND) thanked staff for work on the […]
A paralysed former builder from Leeds, 63-year-old Paul Lamb, has failed in his ‘High Court bid to challenge the law on assisted dying’; having ‘lost a right-to-die case in the Supreme Court in 2014’, he argued that ‘the current law, which bans assisted suicide under threat of up to 14 years in jail, is discriminatory […]
More than three million people have signed petitions on various platforms calling on Netflix to cancel a film which Christians say is deliberately offensive and an “unacceptable provocation”. The work, by Brazilian YouTube group, Portas Do Fondos was bought by Netflix but has been condemned by Christians worldwide who decided to buy its production and distribution […]
There are two things about modern politics that are depressingly true. The first is that “our” side is always right, regardless of the facts. The second is that inflicting harm on the other side is often more important than getting something useful done. Both truths have their origins in the politics of the United States […]
A Christmas card featuring Karl Marx might have raised a few cheap laughs for Sinn Féin’s Fintan Warfield, but there was very little of good cheer about the father of socialism. Even apart from the fact that Marx was a militant atheist who hated both his own Jewish heritage – which he stereotyped much as […]
Nationalism is certainly proving popular, but the question of whether it is a short term outlier or in fact will continue growing beyond Trump and Brexit is yet to be decided.
Fianna Fáil’s newly elected TD for Wexford, Malcolm Byrne, is making some waves today on the subject of Irish unity. Hugh O’Connell in the Independent has the full story: “A Fianna Fáil TD has suggested that a united Ireland could rejoin the Commonwealth, make July 12 a public holiday and reserve 30pc of Cabinet positions […]
When someone declares we need new laws to restrict and curtail “hateful” opinions, the absolute least that person can do is make sure their own track record is squeaky-clean. Fine Gael’s Justice Minister, Charlie Flanagan, has been doing the rounds in recent months, insisting that Ireland should expand its current definition of “hate speech”. However, […]
On the 20th of October, 2016, a 59 year old man called John Smith invited a 15 year old girl, who he did not know, into his van on the pretext of asking her for directions. Once she was in his van, he took out his penis and began masturbating in front of her. Later […]
When even the UN, the world’s largest NGO (non governmental organisation) is noticing that Ireland has a vast number of NGOs, we might have a problem: “NGO” is sort of a misleading term, to be fair. Non-Governmental kind of implies, to the casual reader, that these are truly independent, civil-society driven organisations made up of […]
Ireland has 4 living former Taoisigh – John Bruton, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, and Enda Kenny. Last week it was revealed that the Government will spend €300,000 annually to provide them with various perks – a secretary, a car, VIP passage through airports, and that sort of thing. This has generated considerable public anger. It […]
Seventeen years ago today, Fr Paddy McCafferty’s made a powerful call to Irish bishops on the cover-up sexual abuse of children. This Christmas he shared these memories to help others similarly suffering, to give them hope to find some healing. ******** For me personally, the weekend of December 13th to 15th in 2002, was momentous. […]