Ireland's political and cultural magazine
The Government intends to hold seven referendums over the next two years, and the Citizens’ Convention is due to consider Ireland’s referendum practice before it winds up next spring. With a contentious abortion referendum looming up soon after that, this is a good time to consider how we run referendums. A code of good practice […]
In January 2017 the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI) reported on the treatment of children in care in Northern Ireland. The Inquiry, chaired by Sir Anthony Hart, conducted its extensive task with considerable speed and reported on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Inquiry shared something else with the then incumbent US president, […]
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Irish observers of the Rohingya refugee crisis will find disturbing similarities between Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya and formative aspects of Ireland’s own history. Today the Rohingya are victims of a brutal Myanmar military crackdown that has led more than 600,000 to flee the country on foot since August. The UN High Commissioner for Human […]
Ivan Preston and Danske Bank In the first case, the North’s Police Ombudsman found police misconduct in the treatment of a Bangor businessman, Ivan Preston, who had his 2014 conviction for harassment overturned on appeal. Preston had sent 357 emails in a year to a senior Danske Bank official, querying the awarding of a contract […]
The crisis at the Kildare Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) continues to deepen. The newly appointed investigator into alleged improper procurement and other practices at the agency recently heard claims concerning safety issues, potentially affecting hundreds of school children. As reported in Village in October, the former president of Sligo Institute of Technology, Richard […]
One of the intriguing characters in the story of ‘NAMA-land’, the title of the book I have written which has just been published by Gill Books, is the former general secretary of the Department of Finance, John Moran. The Limerick man was appointed to the second most senior position in the Irish civil service by […]
This March marked the 40th anniversary of Mary Boyle’s disappearance. Ever since she vanished on St. Patrick’s weekend in 1977, a veil of secrecy has shrouded the case of the Donegal schoolgirl who is Ireland’s longest and youngest missing person. There are few scandals that embarrass the establishment more, not least because of the sinister […]