Nothing congeals in Ireland quite so quickly as conventional wisdom, and in the days since Joe Biden was declared President Elect by the US media, the conventional wisdom in Ireland has hardened like concrete: He’s going to shaft the British on Brexit and plant his flag firmly in the old sod of Ballina – take […]
Much is being made here of Biden being a “friend indeed to Ireland.” Actually if you examine these paeans what you generally find is that the purveyor of this means that he will be a friend to their friends, and unlike Trump, knows some mediocre poet who is also their chum. Real cosmopolitans are our […]
Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, and then, latterly, the Brexit Party, has announced in recent days that he will set up a new political party – Reform UK – for the sole purpose of opposing the Coronavirus Lockdown introduced by Boris Johnson’s Government. Reform UK is not a new party, […]
The sacrifice of the Irish fishery by incompetent negotiators prior to the state’s entry to what is now the EU in 1973, has long been regarded as one of the great betrayals of Irish sovereignty. Curiously, Ireland along with Norway in 1971 refused to accept the fishing proposals in which Irish, British and Norwegian waters […]
If, like me, you’re just a casual follower of the Brexit news, then it’s likely that all you take in on a given day is a lot of roaring and shouting and talk of “no deal”. So what’s this latest row about Britain breaking the withdrawal agreement all about? Here are some questions and answers: […]
If you’re reading an Irish newspaper or listening to an Irish radio station this morning and wish to get a brief summary of what the latest developments in Brexit mean then you’re almost certainly getting one side of the story, and getting it endlessly. Witness this extraordinary piece of “journalism” from our friends over at […]
Promises, promises. But RTE is convinced, naturally: Senior Democrats in the US have claimed that Joe Biden will be a friend to Ireland if elected US president. The Biden Campaign held a virtual rally for Irish-American voters and Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle told the event that the Brexit process had put hard won peace and […]
As expected, most of the Irish media have swung in behind an Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s blatant flouting of his own ‘no picnic’ rule for the Covid-19 restrictions. The Irish Times posted a helpful ‘explainer’ which explained nothing but helpfully told readers that Leo was fully complying with guidelines, which he clearly wasn’t. It was so mean of anyone […]
An interesting little addendum to the story this morning about Ireland being the tenth worst country in the world for Coronavirus deaths per million people: All of the ten countries that head that list, Ireland, and the nine worse than us, are in the European Union. You have to get to 11th on the list, […]
If you’ve glanced at social media at any point in the last few weeks, there’s a high chance you’ve seen words to the effect of: “Don’t worry about covid-19 – it only affects old people.” Aside from the fact that this is medically untrue (there are plenty of young people with pre-existing conditions at risk […]
The chances of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and Sinn Fein coming together to form a national government are, let’s face it, almost zero, for the simple reason that politicians probably feel that it would probably disadvantage all three parties. But that may well be wrong, and, more importantly, leaving the politics out of it, there’s […]
Stockholm Syndrome. It is the psychological description of a state in which a captive comes to identify with their captor. On the day on which our nearest neighbour has formally departed the European Union, perhaps it is apt to reflect on this state’s relationship to that entity. There are many factors influencing the reaction of […]