Ireland's political and cultural magazine
By John Gibbons. While global pollution crises, from climate change to plastics in the oceans, are showing no signs of improvement, the worst effects, we in the ‘developed world’ are reassured to believe, are clustered in poorer countries and distant ecosystems. One of the many environmental paradoxes is that, while global ecological indexes are in […]
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By Frank Connolly. The prospect of an alliance of left-wing, trade-union and progressive organisations in advance of the general election took a tentative step forward following a meeting hosted by the Communications Workers Union in Dublin on Mayday. A gathering of up to 200 political, trade-union and community activists heard speakers from the Syriza government […]
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By Frank Connolly. The controversy over the naming in the Dáil by Mary Lou McDonald of several former politicians in connection with offshore accounts continues to rumble on. The Sinn Féin deputy leader has rejected a finding by the Oireachtas Committee of Procedure and Privileges (CPP) that she abused her parliamentary privilege when she named […]
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Border Fox The Facebook site of ‘Dessie O’Hare Crafts’ fronted by ‘Dessie from Keady who attended St Patrick’s High School’ sells innocuous republican memorabilia: glass Easter lilies and the like. But have no doubt it is the Border Fox gone retail. In October 1977, O’Hare and his IRA gang killed Margaret Ann Hearst, a female […]
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By Michael Smith. In 2013 the ESB announced its intention to demolish its Dublin headquarters on Fitzwilliam Street. The edifice had been designed in 1962 by then-fresh-faced young (subsequently Ansbacher-account-holding) architect-tyros Sam Stephenson and Arthur Gibney. The ebullient young pair won the competition to replace the street, which dates from 1792, after a report by […]
By Kieran Fagan. The recent pardon for Harry Gleeson, hanged in 1941 for a murder he did not commit, brings into focus the early career of Seán MacBride. MacBride, then barely four years after relinquishing the role of chief of staff of the IRA, was a controversial choice as Gleeson’s junior counsel, working with James […]
By Frank Connolly. If you want to know a bit more about New Land League founder, Jerry Beades, just ask Frances Cullen. She was made a widow when she and their three children in Coolock in north Dublin lost her husband, Gerry, three years ago. He died just a few years after he fell, in […]
By Michael Smith. I interviewed Catherine Murphy, Independent TD for Kildare North, in a sunny Dáil coffee shop on May 5th. She was accompanied by her advisor Anne Marie McNally. They were both friendly, informed and irreverent. Though she was due on the Ray D’Arcy show Catherine Murphy appeared relaxed. She used the term “we” […]