My grandmother, Esther Hannon, had two heroes other than Mattie my namesake granddad who was from Tipperary and whose own history remains a mystery. We are not closely related to the most famous Treacy who was from the football part of the county. She was a Dub going back generations, although her own mother, a […]
Gerry Adams’ announcement that he is retiring from politics brings to an end one of the most significant public lives of the past century. He is without doubt a major historical figure whose influence on events in Ireland was hugely significant. I cannot claim to have known him well. I did know him but I […]
A younger Matt had among his bêtes noir those I considered to be traitors to the doctrine of scientific socialism. Among them were Richard Crossman. Crossman was a left wing MP in the post war Labour government but was hated by the pro-Soviet left because he had edited a seminal 1949 collection of essays by […]
There is a very interesting discussion between Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution and Roger Scruton on You Tube. In these times of Manichean witch hunts against anyone who does not sign up to a narrow left liberal agenda, it provides a breath of fresh air. Scruton himself was the subject of a successful […]
My parting of the ways with the left, or rather the Marxist-oriented left, was a complex one. It took place during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist states, although for a time I deluded myself that something better might emerge, or even that it might be preferable if the regimes survived. […]