Ireland's political and cultural magazine
NAMA In 2009 I was one of four Sinn Féin TDs in the Dáil when NAMA was set up. Ireland’s ‘bad bank’ was characterised then and since, by some, as the scam of the century because it would bailout billionaire developers while at the same time many ordinary people would get evicted from their homes. […]
About ten years ago I attended a poetry reading, at a location I will not disclose here, in a vast hotel conference room. One of the poets was a nearly great poet, the other not so much. One was wearing a tweed jacket, or at least my memory chooses to dress them in tweed; the […]
In 2018, the New York Times named ‘An Octoroon’ by the American playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins the second-best play since ‘Angels in America’ (putting first for some reason the excruciating ‘Topdog/Underdog’) – but despite this, the play is scintillating and worth seeing. It is complicated to summarise, but essentially, Jacobs-Jenkins reworks a Nineteenth-Century play called […]
The Religious Sisters of Charity have now transferred the assets held by them in St Vincent’s Healrhcare Group to a Catholic holding company which was set up by offshore specialists with links to the Panama Papers. The British Virgin Islands have just made the news with the arrest of their Premier in Miami […]
The campaign for the truth about the infamous McGurk’s bar bombing has uncovered the existence of a covert intrigue hatched by the British Army’s counter-insurgency (i.e., dirty tricks) guru, Brigadier Frank Kitson, and the RUC, to conceal the truth about the UVF’s bomb attack massacre at McGurk’s bar fifty years ago. Kitson and the RUC […]
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Macron – and on
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Fragile, vibrant, modern Ukraine faces being overrun by 190,000 Russian troops, driven by an autocrat frustrated at the loss of Russia’s one-time sphere of influence
Minister Darragh O’Brien will not discuss Rising relatives’ proposals. Taoiseach Micheál Martin held a behind-closed-doors meeting with Hammerson and supported their scheme though the Taoiseach should never comment on a live planning issue
An extraordinary chance to change our conservation culture is being blown by a weak minister, intimidated by a cabal of senior civil servants and National Parks and Wildlife Service careerists who don’t want a critical report published
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The biggest Aran island is awash with raw sewage but after years of neglect a legal action has been initiated
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Even the scientists admit to feeling personal anxiety, grief or distress, over global warming
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My scientific writings are motivated not by material reward, but by a desire to uphold scientific objectivity and to serve the public interest.
When working within the confines of a short story, the result will either work or it won’t.
Michael Smith wants a new constitution but meanwhile, apart from theoretically (!), is relaxed about whether judges inferring rights is democratic and useful.
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Irish as ecology
Both the source of the Haughey money and his energetic libido deserve more detailed exploration
Arthur Pinajian: number 7 after Da Vinci
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Biased. Michael Smith reviews Claire Byrne Live: The Rise of Sinn Féin (14 February, RTÉ 1)
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Whistleblowers save us from ourselves; their bullies driven by primeval instincts for survival
