Ten IRA and INLA hunger-strikers die between 5 May and 12 August; all but one of the men were in their twenties, the youngest, Thomas McElwee, being 23 years of age. The hunger strike had started on March 1st 1981 after years of the prisoners being on the blanket (blanket protest) and the failure of […]
It’s harder and harder not to be far-right these days, isn’t it? At this point, it might be easier for our friends in the rest of the media to provide a list of positions that are not “far right” than it is to itemise every single one that allegedly is. The latest announcement comes today […]
The Whiteboys (na Buachaillí Bána) were a secret Irish agrarian organisation which defended tenant farmer land rights for subsistence farming. They sought to address rack-rents, tithe collection, excessive dues, evictions and other oppressive acts. As a result they targeted landlords and tithe collectors. Their operations were chiefly in the counties of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and […]
The Limerick Leader, yesterday: AN Irish feminism organisation has condemned the Irish Prison Service’s decision to detain a biological male who identifies as a female, in the women’s wing of Limerick Prison. Barbie Kardashian,18, of no fixed abode, is currently before the courts accused of making threats to kill two people. Kardashian was refused bail […]
Father of, well, many of us.
Anyone who loves Dickens’ novels will always be curious to learn more about his life. They ponder: what lies behind the extraordinary universe that sprang from one man’s mind? Where did he find the sources of his inspiration? Indeed, what kind of man was he? A.N. Wilson does not disappoint. A writer who has published […]
ON THIS DAY: 25 SEPTEMBER 1917: Thomas Ashe died from force feeding during a hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison Thomas Patrick Ashe, Tomás Pádraig Ághas was a member of the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and a founding member of the Irish Volunteers which he joined in November 1913. […]
Manuel I Komnemos of the Byzantine Empire, also known as “Manuel the Great”, breathed his last on this day, September 24th, 1180. He was the last of the great Byzantine Emperors, and with his death, the Empire began to fall into ruin and decay. Manuel was the third son of his father, John II. On […]
This is actually like something from a Monty Python movie. You can imagine the scene, where the angry mob is looking for something to burn, or tear down, or stone to death, and fixates on an innocent statue. Only to find, a little later, that they had got the wrong target. Anyway, the Shelbourne has […]
On the night of September 23rd, 1846, the German Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle confirmed the discovery of the planet Neptune, which had been predicted by the French Mathematician Urban le Verrier, based on nothing but numbers. It was one of the great triumphs of 19th century science. Le Verrier discovered Neptune – which cannot be […]
The first thing that any new British Prime Minister has to do, upon taking office, is to pen “the letter of last resort”. We have no idea what’s in it, but we know what it is: Instructions given, in a sealed envelope, to the commanders of Her Majesty’s nuclear submarines, only to be opened in […]
It was a big weekend in media land for lengthy pieces about the apparently dangerous “rise of the far right” in Ireland. The Journal, the Irish Times, the Irish Independent and the Examiner (to a lesser estent) featured couple-of-thousand-word plus pieces this weekend claiming to be detailed investigations into the phenomenon, and its apparent connection […]