Ireland's political and cultural magazine
Rory O’Sullivan reviews The Birdwatcher’s Trip to Alpha Centauri This show is highly ambitious and, in many ways, daft: it takes a lot of risks, most of which pay off. Sometimes it is so absorbing it could make you forget to breathe; sometimes it is warm and relaxed, sometimes bizarre. Its biggest problem is […]
The writer, David Toms (from Waterford, living in Norway), has a rare congenital heart defect called transposition of the great arteries. For people with transposition the aorta and pulmonary artery are inverted, so that much of the blood running through their bodies is deoxygenated. As children this turns their skin blue at the […]
1. An amazing coincidence. The latest report into the squalid MI5/6-Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal was released on 19 September 2022- the same day as the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. The error strewn Hart Report was released during Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. The Hart report received little or no real […]
Introduction. Queen Elizabeth II received briefings from fifteen chiefs of the British Secret Service during her 70-year reign, much of it about Ireland. The briefings undoubtedly covered a wide spectrum from Charles Haughey, the bogeyman of Irish politics – as the UK saw it – to Martin McGuinness and the murder of Lord Louis Mountbatten. […]
Two arts and culture festivals in Dublin this month Taking place this month in Dublin are two major arts and culture festivals – the Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Theatre Festival – both returning with a full programme of live events. The Dublin Fringe Festival runs from 10 September – 25 September. The […]
Today, September 5 2022, all over Little England, the blackberry-jam-making sessions of the local Women’s Institutes were paused shortly before 12.00 noon. The tea urns and their cosies had been readied in anticipation. The members seated themselves before the old portable televisions used on such occasions, to watch the anointing of Liz Truss MP as […]
The Information Research Department (IRD) of Britain’s Foreign Office sought to smear the victims of Bloody Sunday and the McGurks bar bomb atrocity. They even went so far as to attack a group of British politicians by linking them to a campaign for justice for the victims of Bloody Sunday. To the IRD, any association […]
Introduction. As the lights begin to go off in Europe, the State continues to abdicate responsibility for national defence and is failing to fulfil its key obligations as an independent entity in international law. The geopolitical situation continues to rapidly deteriorate yet the government is engaged in a massive PR exercise ostensibly celebrating the centenary […]
On 4 December 8:45 p.m., a UVF gang set out on a bombing mission. One of those involved was Robert James Campbell. The UVF bomb exploded outside a small pub in Belfast called McGurk’s, a cosy place where Catholics and Protestants from the same neighbourhood – all of whom knew each other well – met […]
1. The Classified Garda Files. The information provided by the brothers, John and Pat Barry, confirms that the Garda (Irish police) had a checkpoint at the gate of Classiebawn castle in August 1977. Garda security appears – by some accounts – to have been downgraded in 1979, shortly before Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional […]
Irish is experiencing a period of growth in its official use. It is a full official and working language of the European Union since 1 January 2022. Every regulation, directive and decision of the EU is now enacted and published in Irish at the same time and with the same status as the versions in […]
“Two babies from one family, ‘gone’: Tusla unable to locate records despite ‘extensive’ search” — thejournal.ie 2 August 2022 Every day I receive at least one – and sometimes two or three – Google Alerts relating to ‘Irish Mother and Baby Homes’ [1] This edited collection of essays was published on 21 May 2022. On […]
How it started: A Fianna Fáil TD appearing on the national platform as low-key, unimpressive to the point of being insipid, and just a bit greasy. Yet this TD has the good fortune to own a residential property in Dublin City – that he himself doesn’t use, despite working in Dublin as a TD and […]
