To be fair, they won’t have much choice in the matter. If Ireland keeps spending money like a drunken sailor, then sooner or later, Brussels will step in and tell them that they have to stop, for the sake of the wider eurozone. That might suit Irish politicians just fine, though, since they’ll be able […]
Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín has accused the government of adopting the most extreme policies in relation to Covid restrictions and called for common sense into the debate on hospitality reopening. The Aontú leader said that: “The Irish Government has taken the most extreme policies in relation to restrictions in all of Europe. Workplaces are […]
President Higgins, for all of his life, has been a man of the left. Although his views on international affairs have not always aligned with his personally expressed support for civil liberties, he has, nonetheless, always taken the side of personal freedom in political discussions in Ireland. His biography on the official website of the […]
Boris Johnson’s two chief scientific advisors, Professors Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, were in front of the media yesterday to face a grilling on Johnson’s plans to fully re-open the UK next week. The assembled media (doing their job, to be fair) were very eager to poke holes in the plan, and extract quotes about […]
Anti-lockdown protest at Dáil Éireann 10th July 2021 Photo credit: Krzysztof M
I have a lovely dog but she is a bit headstrong and erratic. For nearly a year, I couldn’t take her anywhere unless she was on a lead but gradually, over time, I would let her off the lead on walks along the footpath for an increasing among of time. Bit by bit she became […]
The great puzzle about the lockdowns has been how support for the restrictions has divided along class lines. In general, low income earners, especially manual workers, oppose the lockdowns strenuously, while high income earners – the laptop class – seem to support it strenuously. This class divide, the elite versus the workers, is reflected in the […]
There was a time when humanity’s heroes were almost invariably the champions of freedom. In politics, philosophy, story-telling, and beyond, our idols were those who fought the good fight so that people could live free and in peace. It was viscerally understood, by all of us, that freedom was a good thing and that no […]
It is not hard to feel sympathy for the organisers of the Dublin Marathon. Speaking to Kieran Cuddihy on Newstalk’s Hard Shoulder last evening (an item in which yours truly also featured), lead organiser Jim Aughney said that the cancellation was not because the organisers lacked faith in the vaccine programme, or personally believed in […]
The point of the media – the reason it exists – is to report the news to the public. Our job, as journalists, is to pull together relevant information about the things that are happening in the world, and present it to you, the public, in a way that is accessible, understandable, and accurate. When […]
A fascinating insight, here, into how difficult it is going to be for Governments to open up fully. The UK Government announced last night that from July 19th, facemasks would no longer be mandatory in England. A cause for celebration, you might think? Not so fast: The majority of Britons say face masks should continue […]
Over the weekend, 140,000 fans poured into the Red Bull Ring, in Spielberg, Austria, to watch the Formula One Austrian Grand Prix. Tens of thousands watched England defeat Ukraine in Rome, in the European Championships. Across the continent, crowds poured into bars, restaurants, and sporting events. Meanwhile, in Ireland: A pilot music festival is taking […]