It seems that ‘[y]achtbrokers have seen a surge in bookings as people fleeing the coronavirus crisis look to go into isolation for months afloat’ (‘Demand for luxury yachts fuelled by self-isolation of super-rich’, Telegraph Business, March 23, 2020). As someone who has been involuntarily confined to barracks for a number of years there are a […]
Niamh wrote something of a polemic on this site last week about that god-awful “celebrities singing Imagine by John Lennon” video, declaring that “the level of self-awareness (in the video) is between zero and minus infinity”. Well Niamh, I have some bad news. Just take a look. https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1241768707631841281 Where’s it all going to end? If […]
You’ve had a baby, it’s great! You look to the future with promise and hope, and trust that those around you will be as positive as they were throughout the last nine months. Not long after those short-lived congrats for your pregnancy, you were probably swamped with statements such as ‘oh the mayhem never stops…your […]
A new book from Ross Douthat argues that it is. A few days it was my birthday. I am 35 now and so am feeling proper-old. Not elderly, but like a proper grown-up. I suppose three children, a house, a mortgage, a job and an aching knee should be enough to remind me of my […]
This week marked the centenary of the killing of Tomás MacCurtáin, Mayor of Cork, who was shot dead by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) on March 20th, 1920. MacCurtain had been elected the first Republican Mayor of Cork City, and was assassinated in front of his family in a premeditated attack planned by the RIC with the […]
So apparently there’s this illness going around at the moment, you might have heard about it, kind of a big deal. Sorry, don’t mean to be flippant – it is my defence mechanism. For a number of weeks now I have been viewing the COVID-19 outbreak in other parts of the world with some interest but […]
God bless Vanessa Hudgens. Right across the media people are looking for content that isn’t utterly depressing, or isn’t about the bloody so-called “curve”, or “social distancing”. And let me tell you, it’s a bleak, bleak landscape for content right now. And then along comes a good-looking Hollywood starlet to say something absolutely outrageous. It’s […]
Prior to the current Covid scare the last great pandemic was the 1918 Great Influenza outbreak. It followed the end of the First World War and was intimately connected to the awful conditions which spread from the killing fields of Europe. It was greatly exacerbated by the poor housing and sanitary conditions of people living in […]
Ar bhreacadh an lae, an 10 Meán Fómhair, 1847, dhúisigh muintir San Ángel, sráidbhaile ar imeall Chathair Mheicsiceo, le fuaim cairteacha ag cnagarnach isteach go plás an bhaile. Grúpa príosúnach Éireannach a bhí sna cairteacha sin. D’fhéach muintir an tsráidbhaile go ciúin ar cheann de na cairteacha ag tarraingt suas le taobh croiche, a tógadh […]
Ireland is progressing. It is moving from a dark, priest-infested isle into the light of modernity. That is what we are told. Day after day, week after week – the Irish media and political establishment assures us that as the hour hand moves forward so too does Ireland. This is a lie. Possibly the greatest […]
Perhaps it is an age thing but one of the most irritating, vacuous songs considered to be a rock classic must surely be Imagine written by John Lennon with the assistance of the deeply weird Yoko Ono. It will be 50 years old next year. Lennon was a key part of the then contemporary zeitgeist […]
It’s been a rough few days to be a young, devastatingly handsome, Irish man, to be honest. First, they cancelled the formula one. Then they cancelled the football. Now they’ve cancelled the golf, with the Masters being called off. And now, from the Irish Times, comes the most devastating hammer blow of them all: Can […]