People everywhere were sickened and horrified last April when three teenage boys became the victims of an acid attack in Earlscourt Housing Estate in Waterford. A large group of older boys, most around 18/19 years old, threw acidic drain cleaner in the younger boys’ faces without provocation. The victims received severe burns and scars to […]
It’s probably not a well-known fact that bulletproof vests have a use-by date, and that after that date passes, they cannot be trusted to stop a bullet. But it’s the absolute truth. This is because most bulletproof vests are made using Kevlar, which is a chemical compound like any other, and can degrade: “Like any […]
“We’ve one Garda station for an area the size of Limerick,” Edward McManus of Aontú told over a hundred residents of the Dublin suburb of Castleknock who turned out to attend the latest in a series of public meetings on tackling crime in the area. Describing the current bail laws as a ‘joke’ and calling […]
The news headlines this morning are breath-taking in their awfulness. A homeless man maimed for life because Dublin City Council thought his tent was unsightly and removed it with a digger while he was still inside. A teenager killed and chopped up (no word yet on whether he was alive or dead when the latter […]
ET is that you – the benign two-foot-tall creature from space with a long neck and big loveable eyes, who ended up in a family home in the Hollywood Hills against your original want? No, it’s Lisa Smith, an ex-member of the 27th Infantry Battalion and Air Corps, who served as a flight attendant to […]
More evidence, one might argue, that progress and compassion aren’t necessarily linear. More people died of drug-related causes last year than at any time in the history of the State, new figures cited in the Dáil show. 736 people in Ireland died last year of drug-related causes, compared to just 431 in 2004, an increase […]
Sentencing in Ireland is, not to put too fine a point on it, a sick joke: “A father who raped his adult special needs daughter while her mother was terminally ill in hospital has been jailed for seven years. The 66-year-old Munster man, who cannot be identified in order to protect his daughter’s identity, pleaded […]
Another tale of happy, modern Ireland, brought to you by the Government’s Health Research Board (HRB): “The latest drug treatment figures from the Health Research Board (HRB) show a 50% increase in the number of cases presenting for cocaine treatment between 2017 and 2018. While opiates remain the most common drug reported among cases treated […]
Yesterday, two thugs attacked and robbed a woman at gunpoint in broad daylight in the centre of Dublin. It’s a far too regular occurrence. You go online or read the paper and there’s an article about yet another random act of violence where someone was stabbed or beaten up on a night out, at a […]
In today’s sex-soaked media, it was gratifying to see a leading champion of unrestricted sexual freedom, the New York Times, going bonkers about the wickedness of pornography. The headline summarises its graphic, scrupulously researched and highly disturbing article: “The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong?” The figures it cites are […]
Drugs are not dangerous because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are dangerous. A child who reaches age 21 without smoking, misusing alcohol, or using illegal drugs is virtually certain to never do so. Today, most children don’t use illicit drugs, but all of them, particularly the poorest, are vulnerable to misuse and […]
The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has confirmed that it is pressing formal charges against a 38-year old mother after she described a transgender activist as a man on Twitter.