Ireland's political and cultural magazine
By Joseph de Burca Buckingham Palace has been sitting on a time-bomb since 2015: the ABC sex-abuse cover-up scandal. The Palace is currently engaged in a most undignified war of words with the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle). The ABC scandal could erupt merely if Markle decides to draw attention to it. The ABC scandal […]
By David Burke. The madness and mayhem in Washington earlier this year was fuelled by thousands of so-called ‘patriots’ who believe the world is ruled by ‘swamp’ puppets of a reptilian race from outer space who murder and sexually abuse children. They see the various anti-Covid vaccines as integral parts of a plot against humanity. […]
By Joseph de Burca. This week marks the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane. In 1989 he was shot dead by UDA killers controlled by MI5 in front of his young family at his home. The British government continues to resist a judicial inquiry into the murder despite castigation from […]
By Margaret Urwin. In ‘The Intelligence War against the IRA’, Thomas Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Politics in Cardiff University, challenges the growing dominant narrative that the IRA was brought to the negotiating table in the 1990s because they had been ‘brought to their knees’ by British intelligence. Since the outing of State agents, Stakeknife and […]
By David Burke. A memo has just been released from Britain’s National Archives. It concerns discussions at the apex of the British government about salacious rumours relating to John Hume’s private life. It was sent to Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary to John Major’s government, and also to Major’s private secretary, Sir Alex Allan. Allan […]
By David Burke. George Blake has just died aged 98 at his dacha outside Moscow where Putin’s overseas intelligence service, the SVR, was protecting him from Covid-19. Blake was held in high esteem by the Russians. Putin has said that the “memory of this legendary person will be preserved forever in our hearts”. Putin awarded […]
By Andrew Lownie. A few weeks ago the Irish Times ran an article on the death of Mountbatten linked to the new series of The Crown in which the murder features in the opening episode. As the author of the most recent biography ‘The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves’, I was interviewed for the piece on […]
Tory PM Edward Heath concealed the identity of a paramilitary organisation which perpetrated a massacre in Belfast in 1971. He did so to acquire the votes he needed to win a majority in the House of Commons to enable the UK to join the EEC, the forerunner of the EU. What he did has remained […]
John le Carré spent most of his career exploring the British psyche through the lens of its secret service. You’d think he might have mentioned Ireland once or twice.