PODCAST: Listen to John Aidan Byrne, Irish commentator based in New York, talk with CHUCK COLLINS, on his new book on The Wealth Hoarders, How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions. Collins has just ripped the lid off this secret industry, laying out how the super wealthy hide their fortunes and escape tax liability. Chuck […]
Sa bhliain 1844, tháinig aicíd nua ar na prátaí i Meiriceá Thuaidh. An aicíd dhubh a bhí ann. Níorbh fhada gur shroich sí an tír seo. I mí Mheán Fómhair na bliana 1845 tugadh faoi dheara í den chéad uair, i bPort Láirge agus i Loch Garman. Mí ina dhiaidh sin bhí sí tar éis […]
On this Day: 8th May 1916, Éamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Seán Heuston and Cornelius Colbert were executed. On Sunday, 7th May, 1916, Éamonn Ceannt was informed at 4 p.m. that he was to be shot at 3:45 a.m. the following morning. Upon receiving this news Ceannt requested writing materials, and wrote his last words to […]
In her biography of the 1916 proclamation signatory, Joseph Plunkett, Honor O Brolchain tells a fascinating story. A Dublin jeweller on the afternoon of May 3rd 1916 was attending to a young lady who was purchasing wedding bands. She bought two rings but seemed very upset. When he asked her what the matter was she […]
“There’s nobody living that can tell anyone where to put the grace notes,” Joe Éinniú once told an interviewer. The best songs had to be learned over years of listening, and sung with great passion and deep feeling. He preferred the laments – Caoineadh na dTrí Mhuire, Anach Chuain, Úna Bhán – the great Conamara […]
PODCAST: Listen to John Aidan Byrne, Irish commentator based in New York, talk with conservative activist, AUSTIN RUSE, on his new book on why loyal CATHOLICS in US face a brutal assault because of their faith. Despite that, it’s a great time to be a faithful Catholic, Ruse says. UNDER SIEGE: Conservative activist, […]
One of the most intriguing and enigmatic of great Irish people is a man only known to us as Iohannis Scotti, or Eriugena. Both names merely signify that he was Irish, his real name or what part of Ireland he was born in, are a mystery. He was born here sometime between 800 and 825AD […]
It is not surprising that cultural and political theorists like influential Slovenian philosopher, Salvoj Žizek, are already mapping out the societal changes they believe, or hope, will follow the socio-economic devastation of successive lockdowns. It is clear that governments all over the world have bought time at a cost unprecedented in peacetime. There will be […]
“It was in an English prison that they led him to his death. ‘I’m dying for my country,’ he said with his last breath. He’s buried in a prison yard, far from his native land And the wild waves sing his Requiem on lonely Banna Strand.” The story of Roger Casement’s landing and capture at Banna […]
One of the benefits of engaging with contrarian randomers on social media in the early morning is that you get to cheer yourself up no end at some of the absurdities they share. In that regard I must thank Katrin for sharing the news that the Australian children’s cartoon Bluey has fallen foul of the […]
Escaping the Bunker: Democracy Needs Christianity By Mark Hamilton. So What Imprint, Dublin, 2021. The world before Christ was a savage place. Ancient civilisations were cruel and unforgiving. In this world, despite the benign and wise voices of people like Akhenaten, Zoroaster, Socrates, Cicero and others, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome placed very little value […]
Hardly a day passes without new descriptions of killing and dying — both fictional and factual — invading our consciences, and yet so many of us still choose to postpone consideration of our own death. The practical neglect of the obvious fact of our mortality seems to be a distinctively post-modern and Western phenomenon that […]