Ireland's political and cultural magazine
Tradition betrayed by poor governance By Michael Smith Founded in 1823 in Dublin, the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) was born from the ambition of 30 Irish artists who petitioned the Crown for a charter of incorporation. Early leaders were landscape painter William Ashford and architect Francis Johnston. By the end of the 19th […]
And in Ireland, which has pervasive problems with paedophile abuse and not just in swimming, that is the conversation that must be kept alive By Irvin Muchnick I panicked. “Out of sight, out of mind”, I said. But you heard me say it, you heard and listened — popular unconventional translation of Psalms, 31:22 Perhaps […]
By Caroline Hurley Eloquent enforced absences The evening opened sombrely: the organisers, Cloughjordan Arts and Cloughjordan Palestine Justice informed the assembled crowd, nearly a hundred strong, that Abubaker Abed, the 22-year-old Gazan journalist who had only recently escaped the besieged enclave, would not be attending. His absence, however, was eloquent. News had just reached him […]
‘In the round, Martin may have done more than any of his contemporaries to address miscarriages of justice in Ireland’ Martin Giblin, Senior Counsel, doyen of cases challenging Irish miscarriages of justice is dead too young, at 73. Abroad, I often feel like the character in Cinema Paradiso (1988), who is informed of the death […]
Nailing the institutional culprits, ignored by Ireland’s deficient media By Irvin Muchnick In Ireland’s public square, I now ask yet again: “Why was Gibney living in Florida and who sponsored his Green Card?” The long-elusive goal of a second prosecution of at least some of George Gibney’s countless alleged sexual abuses of young swimmers now […]
British military justice backfired in the case of Irish ‘Tommies’ By Brian Flanagan School history teaches that World War I’s causes were complex: Nationalism, Militarism, Imperial ambition and decline. Sometimes the slogans were simpler: ‘the shot heard around the world’, ‘over by Christmas’, and ‘the war to end war’. New research into the Irish experience […]
Judgment Day coming for AI algorithms, as shown by two recent reportsBy Michael Smith Nearly 40 years ago legal philosopher, Ronald Dworkin, postulated heroic Judge Hercules, an idealised judge with superhuman intelligence and unlimited time. Two impressive recent studies suggest the ideal remains human. Twelve British judges, five from the UK Supreme Court address the […]