Ireland's political and cultural magazine
As of a few weeks ago Kourtney has quit Keeping Up With The Kardashians. I do not keep up with the Kardashians but could not avoid the news. I’m embarrassed to say it. I couldn’t escape her fame. Fame, then. Norah FitzMaurice in Anne Enright’s latest novel Actress (Jonathan Cape), is not a media celebrity […]
By Peter Emerson Democracy The word ‘democracy’ is used with abandon, even to describe that from which it has long since been abandoned. Take for example the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They have elections, but it’s all “Candidate X, yes-or-no?” And with turnouts of 100%, the answer is always ‘yes’. What a nonsense. There should be lots of candidates, and […]
By Michael Smith. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has set out a ‘Green New Deal’ and 17 questions in a six-page letter sent to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on Wednesday in response to their framework coalition document The 17 “questions” are: Will you commit to an average annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of […]
By Bryan Wall. Ireland does not export heavy armaments or guns. Beyond that there seems to be extraordinary flexibility and naivety as to the military significance of exports that are neither heavy armaments nor guns but nevertheless can wreak devastation. In May last year the Sunday Business Post revealed that Irish employees of Google in Dublin were […]
Those who predicted swamped ICUs, scandalous shortages of equipment and overflowing morgues in Ireland were utterly wrong. If you haven’t realised that, you’re not following. The Irish Times, Irish Independent, RTE and other media in Ireland have failed their democratic duty to keep the public aware of the significance of the evolving pattern of Coronavirus cases in […]
31 January Metaphorically, if not yet literally, coronavirus is on everybody’s lips in John Cabot, an American university in Rome where I teach. Most of our conversations revolve around the autocratic might shown by the Chinese government in shutting down an entire city of 11 million people, two and a half times the population of the Republic of Ireland, […]
One would have to have to be stonehearted not to have pity for any author releasing a book this year and, in particular, one which deals with the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, now bogged down in disputes as to how to handle coronavirus with justice. Events have rapidly overtaken Colum McCann’s latest novel, ‘Apeirogon’ (Bloomsbury), which he […]
As the dinosaur parties publish their joint framework coalition document the Greens should draw up their own strong agenda for the era of Covid and climate, and pull out if it’s not agreed, and implemented. By Michael Smith. In the absence of a relevant Labour Party the Greens have become by far the biggest force […]
It seems probable that applying the necessary measures, currently mandated, deaths will be contained to 500-1000 with a return to normal beginning in the middle of May. By Michael Smith. It is important to follow Government recommendations and edicts. This need not stop us trying to work out what the future probably holds if we […]
Government projections on how long a lockdown will last hijacked by pessimism not evidence, though readers will make their own minds up as to whether Ireland’s trajectory is more like those of China, Singapore or South Korea than those of Italy and Spain. By Michael Smith. It is obligatory to preface articles about Covid-19 with […]
Success and the Fight to save Our World. By Michael Smith. He could truly remember his Dad from the day he was actually born, though in reality he never called him Dad. He used no name. Just the man. He was uncomfortable with the relationship. It was so one-sided. It made him uncomfortable. No reciprocity. The man had […]
Enda Gormley reviews Tom Creed’s affecting revival of Barry McGovern’s adaptation of Beckett’s novel ‘Watt’, at the Everyman During the latter half of World War II, Samuel Beckett found himself in a town called Roussillon d’Apt hiding from Gestapo officers. He and his partner’s involvement with the Resistance movement had led to their exile from […]
As Italy quarantines a quarter of its people and the Business Post claims 1.9 million will get it in Ireland, it’s not just the disease that is viral By David Langwallner. “There comes a time in human history when the man who says 2 plus 2 equals 4 will be sentenced to death.” – Camus, […]
Posted in:
MI5 faked a Loyalist arms importation to manipulate Dublin in the run-up to an IRA ceasefire. A few months later the cream of NI Intelligence were dead in the Chinook helicopter crash. Shortly afterward, the ceasefire was called. The Chinook crash files are embargoed until 2094. By Deirdre Younge. Introduction 1994 was the year of […]
Via violence to contempt to abstentionism to normalisation perhaps to government. By Dan Haverty. It is difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of Sinn Féin’s electoral performance in the Irish general election. Once the political wing of the paramilitary Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Féin took down a political establishment that had been in power […]
In 2016 (and 2011, actually) Village editorialised, “You would think from our recent history of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, that we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, this election time we see no new ideas”. Sadly democracy in Ireland needs an overhaul every […]
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is viscerally and divisively right-wing, socially and economically; but hides it behind incoherent and inept policies and a now-suspect nice-guy media persona. By Michael Smith (February 2020). A famous 2010 Après Match sketch has Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar openly admitting he’s plotting to knife his party leader Enda Kenny while gratuitously denying, in a mid-Atlantic nasal twang, that he’s going to set up an elite party which of course suggests he is in fact intending to do […]
Posted in:
Review: Derek Jarman at IMMA. By Noelle English. Derek Jarman was a bombshell in the 1980s. As an artist, filmmaker and gay activist, he made music videos for The Smiths, Marc Almond, The Pet Shop Boys and others. His film ‘Jubilee’’s representation of punk so outraged Vivienne Westwood, one of its progenitors, that she designed a t-shirt in […]
Change melts political loyalties so parties such as Sinn Féin can only, strategically, aim to generate temporary commonalities. By Ronan Doyle. “The old guard can have yesterday”, tweeted Sinn Féin the day before the general election. “Tomorrow is ours. Vote for change. Vote for Unity”. On that particular morrow sufficient votes were returned to push […]
Posted in:
Many reproductive rights will depend on who is in power for the next few years By Neasa Candon General Election 2020 has seen almost no discussion about how to build upon last year’s Yes vote and achieve equal access to free, safe and legal abortion services for all living in Ireland. In the lifetime of […]