Ireland's political and cultural magazine
Posted in:
Last month in Belfast the first of many commemorative events took place to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the formal founding of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, NICRA. The organisation was pivotal in bringing together all those who were discontented with the status quo in the North. Within eighteen months, a wave of protest […]
Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, was removed from the National Security Council in early April. Among the Kremlinologists who watch the Trump White House, this has been interpreted as a setback for the man whose neo-reactionary philosophy provides the guiding principles of Trumpism: Islamophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, and excited anticipation of a new American revolution. […]
I enter the sempiternally dingy Abbey by the stage entrance and advance up the mid-century staircase to a poky room alive with two middle-aged but effervescent non-Irish Celts. The guy at the desk has said he sees a lot of them and they seem effortlessly in control. They’re informal, blithe, cheerful and open throughout our […]
Posted in:
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Ireland’s National Farmers’ Association (NFA) was a political pariah, with then Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil’s Jack Lynch threatening to have the organisation proscribed, a move that would have placed every farmer in the NFA on the same legal footing as an IRA member. That was almost exactly 50 […]
Posted in:
RTÉ’s Claire Byrne show sells short epic issues like the merits of veganism. In order to fulfil adequately its anointed role, a state broadcaster must be courageous, at times running counter to prevailing sentiments.
Posted in:
In the Bible, Emmanuel is the name of the Messiah, the one who comes to save men. How ironic to see that the man who appears to save France from a far-right cataclysm bears this name. With a second round win of 66,1% against Marine Le Pen, the economic liberal candidate Emmanuel Macron of En […]
Posted in:
Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist and beacon of the so-called ‘alt-right’, recently announced to cheers at the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that “the primary goal of the Trump administration” is “the deconstruction of the administrative state” or the dismantling of the public sector. Similarly, Trump’s oft-chanted populist campaign pledge to #DrainTheSwamp […]
These are challenging times for social democracy. Last year, my party took a beating in the general election. We lost many good TDs, and saw our share of the vote fall to 6.6%. Unfortunately, this result was in some ways a foretelling of what was to follow elsewhere. Over the last six weeks, we have […]