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    Don’t call her your mother

    “Don’t Hug Your Mother”. This is the order our father gave to my brother JP and me as we were on our way to visit our mother. It was just over a year after our parents had separated. We were ten and twelve years of age. My father’s demands were the beginning of a process […]

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    If not zeal then logic

    It could not be clearer. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 says that public bodies must, when they are preparing strategic plans, assess and identify the human rights and equality issues that are relevant to their functions as policy maker, employer and service provider. Public bodies must also identify the policies and practices […]

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    Cometh the hour

    ‘From Bended knee to a New Republic: How the fight for water is changing Ireland’ by Brendan Ogle, promises in its opening pages to take us on a journey “through the travails of a nation broken, sold and left in penury”. Ogle, unlike the many politicians and political parties he describes, fulfils this promise. The book […]

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    Haughey cleaned up his own mess

    The author is a senior lecturer in the department of Modern History at Liverpool’s hope University. He has carefully mined the available documentary sources to produce a book that covers Haughey’s, much disputed disposition and policy instincts on Northern Ireland. Given the longevity and impact of Haughey’s career this, by definition, involves a painstaking trawl through […]

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    Ross hits judicial soft spot

    There is this extraordinary conjunction of interest between the legal profession and parliament. Lawyers in Ireland play a very active part in the political system. In 2010 there were 16 barristers and solicitors in Dáil Eireann – ten percent of the total. There are strong historical associations between the professions of politics and the law. […]

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    How maths will destroy capitalism

    The consumerism-generating-capitalism- it usefully loyal, generating-consumerism cycle that characterises the developed or ‘Northern’ world depends on inequality, even as it purveys certain equalities, and is the main obstacle to tackling climate change, the most serious long-term problem facing humanity. Capitalism is struggling to maintain itself. In one formal sense this is good for equality. A crucial weakness […]

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    IMF Oomph

    According to a recent IMF study, there are reasons to worry about a new housing-markets-triggered financial blowout. And although IMF data suggest that we are not at panic level regarding house-price inflation its researchers conclude that “there are several reasons to think that the present conjuncture is a time for vigilance”.

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