Ireland's political and cultural magazine
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They think the right to life begins at conception and ends at birth. I grew up in a feminist household where that telling put-down of our American anti-abortion brigade was part of the lexicon. (It was also a Catholic household, but when it came to reproductive rights, as most things, feminism trumped religion). It’s a […]
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U2 released ‘Songs of Experience’ before Christmas as a companion piece to 2014’s Songs of Innocence. Thematically, ‘Songs of Innocence’ was inspired by the band’s memories of their youth in Dublin in the 1970s with Bono describing it as “the most personal album we’ve written”. ‘Songs of Innocence’ touched upon these memories as perceived four […]
For over a decade now, Dublin-based five-piece The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock have been fusing the folklore and musical traditions of their home city with sounds and processes from further afield, with elements of drone and post-rock sitting alongside the foundations of folk and trad across their previous pair of full-length records. In addressing […]
The circumstances of the demise of former Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, diverted attention from the risk of the thwarting of his reforms of the legal profession. Infamously many ministers, and their – often informal – advisers, are lawyers. Indicative of the problem is that at the last reading of the proposed reform bill, it […]
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‘Gogglebox’ added a new face to its ever-deepening stable of television viewers last October. Pat Wallace, alongside wife Siobhan, joined TV3’s Irish rendering of BBC’s extremely popular vicarious Big Brother-style television inversion. Before then Dr Pat Wallace was notable mostly for his heroic record on the controversial Wood Quay archaeological dig from 1974 when speaking […]
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Revelations of sex abuse in all-male private schools in past decades have been powerfully conveyed across the Irish media. That barbarism should not, however, deflect attention from other enduring problems. I believe grave damage is still being done to the development of boys in ostensibly civilised institutions. Moreover, unequal educational provision maintains widening inequalities, underpinning […]
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David McWilliams is a talented analytical polymath but he is egocentric and predictions of both boom and bust for Ireland have nearly all been wrong.
In 2017 Village published a series of articles highlighting allegations of British Establishment complicity in child abuse in Ireland, particularly the crucially flawed Hart Report which was published in Northern Ireland (NI) a year ago. Judge Hart was tripped up by false evidence fed to him by MI5, MI6 and others for their own devious […]
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One does not wish to speak ill of the recently dead but one cannot help seeing the death of Peter Sutherland as symbolic of a change of mood globally about globalisation. Globalisation, which as an ideology means essentially uncontrolled free movement of capital, has gone too far. It is now a major threat to State […]
Justice is not a motif found emblazoned around Donegal. Its outing accounts for much in my home town of Bundoran and elsewhere in the county. In particular the power the late sean McEniff had over local governance is very unsettling – through politics and wealth. He was Fianna Fáil’s longest-serving councillor and perhaps its richest […]
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Some books have their genesis in the craziest places, but the origin of ‘A Force For Justice’ is pretty mundane. I was at home one May evening in 2013, minding the kids when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognise. Answering these kind of calls is always a gamble. It could be […]
Sinn Féin’s disowning of West Tyrone MP Barry McElduff was unprecedented. The party has always previously defended erring members in public, then quietly dropped them. I must declare an interest: I know McElduff. When my late mother was ill, his constituency office was very helpful. He ran an excellent constituency service, for people across the […]
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Judge McCloskey steps aside, in the end Last year Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey, in the High Court, ruled the part of the Northern Ireland Ombudsman’s report that found there had been police collusion in sectarian murders at Loughinisland was unlawul. He then ruled in late January that allegations he had acted as a lawyer for […]
Justice is not a motif found emblazoned around Donegal. Its flouting accounts for much in my home town of Bundoran and elsewhere in the county. In particular the power the late Sean McEniff had over local governance is very unsettling – through politics and wealth. He was Fianna Fáil’s longest-serving councillor and perhaps its richest […]
The fragile rule of law in Ireland by David Langwallner What is meant by the Rule of Law and is such a concept honoured in Ireland today? I believe that the rule of law though arguably an unqualified good is not being adhered to in this state save mostly by the judiciary and that the […]
The recent history of Irish banking and its regulation is so comprehensively negative we should now look to community banks by David Langwallner As the latest banking fraud, ripples across the beleaguered public con-sciousness it is salutary to recall that the concept of banking has always been counter-intuitive, an artificial entity with legal personality that […]
Dublin seemed like a logical destination when tech entrepreneur Maja Stanislawska decided to leave her native Poland in 2013 to start again as a woman. Trying to transition at home in conservative Poland would have been difficult so Maja did her research about where would be best to relocate to live and work in peace. […]
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Clontarf/Raheny faces the loss of a big tranche of green space as a large residential development on lands currently used as sports facilities goes before An Bord Pleanála. What has been missed, in the turmoil of local antagonism, is that the development is illegal under Irish and European law as it threatens a famous, cherished […]
On a cold May night in 2007, Martin Smith and his family were walking home after an evening out in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. A retired businessman from Drogheda, Co Louth, he co-owned an apartment there and was a regular visitor to the Algarve town. The crowds of summer had yet to […]
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Stephen Boyes is on the run from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). He is flitting between hotels and the homes of friends across the border. He claims that he is in danger of arrest and imprisonment because he is refusing to cede control of 110 acres and other land he claims he owns […]