Ireland's political and cultural magazine
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The demand for change was evident before the general election. The hope was that the 32nd Dáil would finally deliver the necessary reform. But ultimately what the Programme for Government proposes is more waiting when it comes to repealing the 8th amendment and expanding access to abortion services. The commitment to a Citizens’ Assembly in […]
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In June 2016, a major report substantiated rumours of multiple serious flaws in elderly care services. The norm, it says, is disorganisation and inconsistency. Social workers state that as many as half of their clients processed for long-term institutional care would not have needed it if suitable home supports had been available. Although the number […]
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A Gender Equality Task Force has recommended mandatory gender quotas for the appointment of senior academics in NUI Galway to combat a legacy of discrimination against women. While concern has been expressed about the use of quotas, it is evident that a ‘silent gender quota’ has been in operation in NUIG for some time. Where […]
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It is extraordinary how uninterested we are in the problems caused by bad planning or indeed the possibilities for enhanced quality of life, that is to say happiness, that good planning would bring. It is egregious how decisions that may change the face of our capital city continue to be taken so casually and so […]
In 1849 Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in his journal ‘Les Guêpes’ coined one of the most famous aphorisms of all time: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Ever since signature of the Treaty of Maastricht on European Union in 1992, the EU has been an embodiment of this modus operandi. Swinging from one extreme […]
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A farmer’s son from Kildare whose late father had monies wrongly deducted from his account by Bank of Ireland officials has claimed that hundreds of farmers may have lost their livelihoods due to the fraudulent management of a government rescue scheme in the mid-1980s. Jim Behan owned a valuable farm of 240 acres at Dollardstown […]
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I didn’t expect to find the China Daily in a beach town on the Algarve but then maybe that’s a logical place to find it, given the large population of expats and holidaying bureaucrats there. The same newspaper (its European edition) is also available for free in the very busy transfer lounges of Dubai and […]
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“Everybody has lived this war”, writes Marwa Al-Sabouni at the beginning of her remarkable book, ‘The Battle for Home – the memoir of a Syrian architect’, which details in a singular voice how this once tolerant and beautiful country in the Middle East rapidly descended into murderous chaos after the Arab Uprisings in 2011. Al-Sabouni […]
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“My foreign policy is ‘Don’t do stupid shit’”, Barack Obama said to the White House press corps on board Air Force One in 2014. So the New York Times’ Mark Landler, who was there, tells us in a recent illuminating book on the contrasting foreign policy approaches of Obama and Hillary Clinton as the US […]
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How’s this for a deeply unpromising script idea: making a movie about a failed politician trailing around the world presenting wonkish slide shows on his laptop to mostly small audiences about, of all things, climate change? It hardly helped that the ex-politician in question, former US vice-president Al Gore was reviled across the political spectrum. […]
The first ever World Humanitarian Summit, held in Istanbul last month, is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with our world and our politics today. It brought the global political theatre, which has replaced real action at the UN in recent years, to new lows. These lows are all the more reprehensible when the lives […]
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On Tuesday 17th May exploratory drilling for oil began in Woodburn Forest, near Carrickfergus, County Antrim, the first adventure of fracking on this island. There are serious concerns about a lack of transparency and democracy as the project comes to life, despite an official moratorium on fracking. Campaigners point to a litany of governance and […]
The arrest of two men in connection with the criminal investigation into the sale of Project Eagle, the single largest disposal of Irish state assets, has discharged a seismic shock through the establishment, north and south. So shocking indeed that the government and large sections of the media have been caught napping, unable to explain […]
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It is arguable that Aristotle – next to Homer – was James Joyce’s greatest master. Without the ‘Odyssey’, Joyce could never have conceived ‘Ulysses’; had he not written the book celebrating his first rendezvous with a beautiful girl from Galway, whatever he wrote would, however, have been profoundly marked by Aristotle. There is, I suggest, […]
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Equality of outcome, sustainability, accountability. Village does wear its values on its sleeve. Media are in the business of communicating values. What makes Village different, however, is both being explicit about its values and the particular values it espouses. Values matter and the manner in which we address values is central to any ambition for […]
Male bastions. We do them well here. It is not just that they are extensive. It is that they are so resilient to challenge and evasive of scrutiny. There is an award for most things these days. Why not one for ‘Male Bastion of the Year’? Portmarnock Golf Club would be a repeat winner. It […]
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The European Parliament bowed to corporate pressure last month and approved the Directive on Passenger Name Records (PNR). This Directive will oblige airlines to hand over to national authorities passenger data from all flights between EU countries and other countries. The data collected will include 42 different pieces of information, including bank details, address, seat […]
A defamation case currently under way in the High Court has exposed some of the tensions that have been apparent for many years between members of Wicklow County Council and its former county manager, Eddie Sheehy. Sheehy, who retired last year, spent several days in the witness box defending himself from a claim that he […]
Sinn Féin’s commitment at its Ard Fheis last month to campaigning vigorously against ‘Brexit’ in the UK’s June referendum is a denial of its Republican credentials. Its rhetoric of seeking to turn the EU into a “Social Europe” – with all of the weight of Ireland’s less than 1% EU Council vote? – is derisory. […]
The 2016 election has contorted the Irish political system. It has taken months for the two big parties to come to terms with the results and input into the formation of a government. Fine Gael did not expect to do so badly in the election and Fianna Fáil did not expect to do so well. […]
