Ireland's political and cultural magazine
INTRODUCTION Last December Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had to slap down Priti Patel MP, who now serves as Britain’s Home Secretary, when she threatened the Republic with food shortages if the Irish Government did not drop demands for the Irish backstop. Varadkar reminded Patel of the starvation that had engulfed Ireland in the 19th century and […]
SOME REALLY DANGEROUS QUESTIONS WERE NOT ASKED The BBC’s Emily Maitlis has broadcast the interview she conducted with Prince Andrew about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It was billed as a ‘no holds barred’ interview. Unfortunately, Maitlis did not ask a single question about his relationship with the notorious child molester, Lord […]
Update: this article was published in October 2019. One year later the British government has refused to carry out a judicial inquiry. One of the stated reasons is that the PSNI and Police Ombudsman are reviewing the case. However, no review is about to take place. Patrick Finucane’s widow has responded by saying that “as […]
Forty years ago this month Margaret Thatcher sent Sir Maurice Oldfield, the former Chief of MI6, to Belfast to co-ordinate the activities of the various branches of British Intelligence in Ireland. Within a few weeks MI5 was reporting to Downing Street that he was a homosexual and an inquiry was launched to see if he […]
On 16 September last Paul Graham told RTE’s ‘Liveline’ that he had been sexually abused by a senior figure in the Orange Order. Although not named, the abuser was Thomas Passmore, the County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge. That Passmore was a paedophile will not come as news to the Northern Ireland Office, […]
This story was updated on 6 September 2019. The original content is reproduced underneath this update. UPDATE The imminent revelation by BBC NI’s Spotlight programme that Ian Paisley financed the infamous UVF Silent Valley bombing of 1969 will come as no surprise to Village readers. While the BBC disclosure provides another piece of the jigsaw […]
The more excitable elements of the British media are in something of a frenzy after the conviction by a Newcastle jury of Carl Beech, 51, a former NHS manager, for perverting the course of justice, i.e. telling the police a pack of lies. He has been sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Beech’s deceit relates to […]
The British Establishment transformed itself into a lightning conductor to harness the visceral anger generated by the senseless killing of Lyra McKee in Derry on 18 April. It then redirected that energy as a debilitating shock into the heart of the New IRA. No less a figure than Britain’s PM Theresa May turned up for […]
RECAP OF PART ONE In Part One of this story, Alan Kerr described how he was sexually abused by three men at Williamson House, a Belfast Corporation Welfare Department care home in Belfast, in the 1970s. He was only six years of age when he was first raped. One of his abusers was Eric Witchell, […]