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 […]
There are two phrases on the flag of the City of Detroit that I believe embody my life and the lives of all women around the world. These phrases are in Latin and when I learned of the translation, these two phrases shook me, down to my core. The first is, “There is always hope.” […]
NO, its not Stephen’s Green or Eyre Square or even Milltown Malbay. This session of traditional Irish music is taking place in Japan. The video was posted by the Irish Embassy in Japan who spotted the musicians playing a lively set of tunes which on a lunchtime stroll in Yoyogi Park in the capital. “On lunchtime […]
President Putin moves to support traditional marriage by adding it to the Russian constitution and, predictably, the UK’s ‘impartial public service broadcaster’ paints it in as negative a light as possible. Apparently unable to accept that another country might hold different values from their own, the BBC insist it cannot be to do ‘with reflecting current values […]
As I write this, two big pieces of news are filtering through from the world of sport: First, the Spanish equivalent of the Premiership, La Liga, has been suspended after Real Madrid players were quarantined. The news comes after a Juventus player in Italy, Daniele Ruggani, tested positive for the illness last night: LaLiga has […]
An interesting, even fun, conundrum for us all to ponder while we spend our days in Coronavirus induced isolation – is this card received by Newstalk’s Dr. Ciara Kelly yesterday creepy and sinister, or well-intentioned and nice? Is she over-reacting absurdly, or is she right to be a bit perturbed? https://twitter.com/ciarakellydoc/status/1237746828264771584 Let’s consider the evidence. […]
“Let’s hear it for ordinary, unremarkable women,” ran a headline in the Sunday Telegraph on International Women’s Day. Below it, Lauren Libbert, a single mother and freelance journalist lamented the fact that IWD celebrates “outstanding” women instead of the “normal” ones who keep the show on the road without any fanfare of publicity. That is, […]