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Introduction. Channel 4 has just broadcast a documentary entitled “A Very British Way of Torture”. It justified a pre-broadcast claim that it would address the full, shocking story of how Britain secretly used torture in its war against the Kenyan anti-colonialist Mau Mau movement in the 1950s – including murder, rape and forced castrations. The […]
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[pdf-embedder url=”https://villagemagazine.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Comedy.pdf”
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Posted in:
It’s just Daft
Village has previously expressed concerns about how property websites compile their quarterly market surveys and the uncritical frenzy they provoke in the media. (See Village Magazine, March 2022 Issue or https://villagemagazine.ie/donkeys-led-by-lyons/ ). Despite the latest reports again clogging the headlines and editorial, what is being passed off as analysis amounts to little more than reproducing […]
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More than four decades ago, Chris the Kid Schroeder and I tried desperately to avoid wetting ourselves in a cinema whilst watching a 1950s promotional film about Dallas. The absurd shots of big buildings, huge hats, and sparkling Lincoln Continentals were accompanied by a repetitive ditty: They make ‘em bigger and better in Dallas! It […]
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Posted in:
Save Moore Street Concert
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Introduction. The brutality displayed by David Cleary (Soldier F) and Ron Cook (Soldier G) of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday in Derry on 30 January 1972 was not an aberration. After murdering a string of unarmed civilians, they were taken to Fort George where they beat up a group of innocent prisoners including a priest. […]
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Dublin City Council (DCC) has numerous functions: from housing; cleaning and maintaining our streets; and authorising urban developments. One of their most important functions is planning enforcement – this means that they it has a duty to police our planning laws effectively. DCC has a mixed record on planning enforcement but, when it comes […]
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Turn off the heat. Instead, warm yourself by setting fire to your free weekly copy of The Galway Advertiser. Be sure and arm yourself with extra by liberating them from your neighbours’ letter boxes. Sit in the dark, preferably alone, so you don’t spread the pox to anyone else, wearing a cheap pair of […]
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Village Idiot: Joe Manchin
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On Bloody Friday, the Provisional IRA detonated 19 bombs across the city of Belfast, killing 9 people and injuring 130 – most of whom were women and children. Paper Trail discovered secret British military logs in London and “secured their release following prolonged information battles and Public Interest Tests. The organisation made the secret files […]
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Operation Motorman was launched to retake ‘No Go’ areas in Derry and Belfast after the breakdown of the IRA ceasefire and Bloody Friday, 21 July, when the IRA planted bombs in Belfast, killing 9. The authorisation to use heavy weapons is detailed in the operational orders, only released to the UK National Archives in 2019. […]
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On most Saturday mornings I am incensed by the op ed piece by Charles Moore in the London edition of the Daily Telegraph. My wife questions why I continue to read him and allow my blood to boil over my tea and toast. Moore is like marmite (of which I am fond). Part of my […]
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Posted in:
Originally published July 2021
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Housing of cards
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Posted in:
Agri-Cultural Change
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The Constitution of Ireland declares Ireland to be a sovereign independent democratic state. This declaration of sovereignty means that the State is not subject to any power or government. But sovereignty to be recognised in International Law brings with it rights and duties. International law is based upon the concept of the state and the […]
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In this post Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, review “Overruled: Confronting Our Vanishing Democracy in 8 Cases” by Sam Fowles (London: One World) “The job of the prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he has been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going – and that’s what I’m going to do” (Boris Johnson […]
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Stalker report nobbled 30 years ago
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‘A founder of the East Tyrone Brigade, Hughes was the key planner of the two most successful prison escapes staged by the IRA of the 1970s’ ‘The springing of three IRA men from the rooftop of Mountjoy prison by helicopter caused a sensation, as well as inspiring a hit ballad by the Wolfe Tones’ […]
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While they would seem worlds apart, their fates were all the more alike. This refers of course to the tragedies which befell young Arlene Arkinson and Richard Kerr starting when both of them were youths and culminating in two destroyed lives. Arlene was a pleasant teenage girl who seemed well-liked by her family and friends […]
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Fontaines DC have become part of rock’s rich tapestry, living proof that rock’s canvass is far from complete. Countless band set out to bring something new to the party. Most fail. Fontaines deliver in spades. Better again, they do so with an intelligence that permeates the lyrics and music. The group kicked up a sonic […]
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From: kevin higgins <kphiggins@hotmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 8, 2022 7:56:21 AM To: Martin Doyle <martindoyle@irishtimes.com> Subject: For Martin Hi Martin, hope all is well and good your side. As you may know, I have a new poetry collection – my sixth – out next week. Polina Cosgrave is launching the book in Galway. Would you be at […]
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Tá borradh tagtha agus ag teacht faoi stádas agus úsáid na Gaeilge sa saol oifigiúil. Is teanga oifigiúil oibre den Aontas Eorpach í gan mhaolú, cíos, cás ná cathú ón 1ú Eanáir 2022. Feasta achtófar agus clófar gach rialachán, treoir agus cinneadh den Aontas as Gaeilge ag an am céanna agus ar aon dul leis […]
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These days normally we divide the world into halves: one which is inside our imagination, and another which is real and outside of us. The first half includes things like love, sentiment, beauty, laughter, and is necessary for our own sanity but a dangerous falsity; the second is bare and severe, a […]
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It’s the IT, BoI Springsteen wasn’t Bank of Ireland’s only recent IT debacle. What is the point of Bank of Ireland? Exactly what, or who, is Bank of Ireland for? Certainly not for ordinary customers if they also happen to be Bruce Springsteen fans. On Friday, the bank’s app crashed just as tickets for […]
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The 2010 Report of the Saville Enquiry describes much of what happened in Derry on Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972). Various commentaries and later publications have added further information, some of it of a nature that the authorities must have hoped would never be revealed. It seems however that the ferocity of the slaughter that […]
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Kendrick Lamar is one of the most popular high-brow artists. He is one of very few people in history whose work during their lifetime has been at once widely listened to (nearly 20 million hits already for the top tracks of this album on Spotify) and deeply scrutinised: every lyric, every note and harmony […]
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Why Solar In their book, ‘The Menace of Atomic Energy’,published nearly 50 years ago, Ralph Nader and John Abbotts revealed to readers that the person most responsible for developing American nuclear reactors, Dr Alvin Weinberg, admitted he would prefer solar energy if its cost could be brought down to less than 2.5 times the cost […]
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The ownership and governance arrangements for the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) are fraught with risk for future generations of women in Ireland. The board structure of the new hospital makes it liable to capture and control by the 3/3/3 membership structure. The NMH will have minority representation of only three out of nine […]
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Putin’s 9 May speech in Red Square came and went, without any new theatre opening up. This may indicate a change in strategy to limit the kinetic war to Donbas but he’s made it quite clear that, in his world view, the culpable protagonist, is NATO /USA. By moving away from military rhetoric his speech, along […]
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Posted in:
Donkeys led by Lyons.
Daft: the solution to the housing crisis depends on facts-led public-policy but we need to be discriminating about the facts chosen and who chooses them, even when it’s Ronan Lyons. By J Vivian Cooke.
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Soldier G was the ‘partner’ of Soldier F. Both soldiers served with Support Company of 1 Para. Soldier F’s real name is David Cleary. Soldier G was Ronald Alan Cook. Cook was a private in 1 Para at the time of Bloody Sunday. His military number was 24180769. He was probably 21 at the time. […]
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After an unedifying week marked by an unrelenting stream of propaganda following the unexpected deferral of the Cabinet decision, yesterday’s poll in the Sunday Independent shows that the plurality of respondents (excluding ‘uncertains’), 45 per cent, believe there will be religious interference in the new hospital. Predictably, the role of offshore intermediaries, Stembridge Ltd and […]
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The article which featured Anderton was about John Stalker and a number of other honourable English police officers and soldiers who had tried to do the right thing in Ireland. The relevant section read as follows: The late John Stalker, the former Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, investigated the RUC’s shoot to kill programme […]
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Number 17 Gilford Park , Sandymount, in Dublin 4 is one semi-detached half of a structure adjoining number 15 which is in registered in the ownership of a Mr Anthony Duffy. The sale of No 17 went through in the second half of 2021 for €960,000 . It was sold to Caroline Barron and her […]
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NAMA In 2009 I was one of four Sinn Féin TDs in the Dáil when NAMA was set up. Ireland’s ‘bad bank’ was characterised then and since, by some, as the scam of the century because it would bailout billionaire developers while at the same time many ordinary people would get evicted from their homes. […]
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About ten years ago I attended a poetry reading, at a location I will not disclose here, in a vast hotel conference room. One of the poets was a nearly great poet, the other not so much. One was wearing a tweed jacket, or at least my memory chooses to dress them in tweed; the […]
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In 2018, the New York Times named ‘An Octoroon’ by the American playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins the second-best play since ‘Angels in America’ (putting first for some reason the excruciating ‘Topdog/Underdog’) – but despite this, the play is scintillating and worth seeing. It is complicated to summarise, but essentially, Jacobs-Jenkins reworks a Nineteenth-Century play called […]
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The Religious Sisters of Charity have now transferred the assets held by them in St Vincent’s Healrhcare Group to a Catholic holding company which was set up by offshore specialists with links to the Panama Papers. The British Virgin Islands have just made the news with the arrest of their Premier in Miami […]
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The campaign for the truth about the infamous McGurk’s bar bombing has uncovered the existence of a covert intrigue hatched by the British Army’s counter-insurgency (i.e., dirty tricks) guru, Brigadier Frank Kitson, and the RUC, to conceal the truth about the UVF’s bomb attack massacre at McGurk’s bar fifty years ago. Kitson and the RUC […]
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• An Bord Pleanála’s manifest ethical weakness in perspective • The planning appeals board, An Bord Pleanála, has been brought into disrepute by its deputy chairperson’s property deals, by his criminal failed declarations of property interests and mishandled conflicts of interests, and by his receiverships. He must go. System of Planning Appeals […]
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By Eddie Hobbs What is Putin’s big Disruption Strategy? To find out I’ve been engaging with geopolitical experts. I don’t dwell here upon the effectiveness of the mounting responses to Putin’s aggression. He faces a coalition of overlapping opponents: the EU, UK, NATO, USA – many countries and multinational corporations. The military strategy of […]
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Lawbreaking, some misconceptions and the fundamentals of the original Garda complaint
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Rory O’Sullivan watched Bridgerton Season 2 yet wonders why anyone would bother. A period-piece represents the past and by representing dominates it. In general, the past survives only mythologically, as a collection of loose figures and attitudes in the present. In a period-piece, the prevailing attitude imbues these figures with itself and alters the past […]
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In Spring, when I was born, Ireland was full of daffodils: in the city in window-boxes and the front-gardens of houses, apartment-buildings, and on the stony small ridges beside footpaths as well as here and there in forests and uncultivated fields. I have always identified strongly with the daffodil. I have never said so […]
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By David Burke. This article was first published on 2 July 2021. It is republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lord Widgery’s infamous report which defamed the victims of Bloody Sunday and exculpated those who murdered them. 1. Brigadier Frank Kitson subverts the law. Brigadier Frank Kitson of the British Army […]
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Everywhere Salvatore of Lucan’s art combines a rigorous and searching honesty about all the most characteristic aspects of a single place, time and self with the intense feeling of a world which is not that place and time – even his name: as much serious as joking, as much old as completely new. […]
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6 Ormond Quay Upper Dublin 7 D07H324 The Secretary An Bord Pleanála 64 Marlborough St Dublin 1 D01 V902 14 April 2022. By email only to bord@pleanala.ie, communications@pleanala.ie Re: the imperative of An Bord Pleanála pursuing a criminal complaint under Sections 147-149 and 156-157 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (the “Act”) against […]
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Dolphin Square VIP sex abuse. Dolphin Square was opened in London’s Pimlico in 1936. It soon became a magnet for all sorts of scandal and intrigue: espionage, political, sexual, not to mention mysterious deaths. ‘Scandal at Dolphin Square’ provides a riveting account of the lives of a rolling maul of fascinating and complex characters. As […]
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a few hundred pages of hard books – or else a few minutes with the sculptures of Giacometti Theorists try to understand the world as if unfolding in a giant process with certain rules, whereas for artists the point is to observe it as a spectacle of which any thoughts and representations are just […]
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In poetry the nearest figure to Patrick Kavanagh is Charles Baudelaire. Both were often destitute. Both found a verse that was above all music, not aspiring to music, like Walter Pater said of every art-form, but music itself made of words and because of it more profound. For both men the heart […]
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The debate in Ireland about joining NATO, or some sort of an EU military arrangement, is now on the political agenda like never before. Pro-neutrality advocates argue that the country is sleep walking into a military alignment of one sort or another with Western military powers. They point to the fact that US air force […]
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One of Greek tragedy’s foremost concerns is the contemplation of polarities. In a part of Sophocles’s Antigone, Ismene tells her sister, “You have a warm heart for cold things”, In ancient Greek culture, warm things are alive, cold ones dead; but for Antigone, now, the fire of her life and self has its source in […]
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The Media’s treatment of the lies: an epic scandal ignored. It was March 1998. The RTE journalist Geraldine Harney informed me that I was to be dismissed by the ISME directors Peter Faulkner and Eoghan Hynes. She was doing the decent thing. Nevertheless, it was a preposterous suggestion and I told her so. However, in […]
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In a whitewashed barn decked out with Ulster flags, Union Jacks and pictures of the Queen, their leader in charge of this meeting sat at an old table. He pressed a button on a tape recorder. A voice boomed out: I address you as the commander in chief of the organisation, Silent Defenders. Author Ciarán […]
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After an inexplicable delay of five years, the public apology recommended in the final report of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry will finally be made by the Northern Ireland Assembly (on 11 March). The announcement of the apology has been received with little enthusiasm by some of the abuse victims who say that they will […]
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From Village Magazine Mar-APR 2022
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Putin: Village Idiot March 2022
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The author of this article, Des Dalton, was a member of Republican Sinn Féin for over thirty years, serving as President from 2009-2018. […]
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Léirmheastóir – Cormac Ó Dúlacháin Is Abhcóide Sinsir é Cormac Ó Dúlacháin. Tá MA i Scríobh & Cumarsáid na Gaeilge bainte amach aige le deireanas ó UCD. Tá sé ina Cathaoirleach ar an sain-chumann nua dlí, Cumann Barra na Gaeilge, a saolaíodh i mbliana. Tá éacht déanta ag an abhcóide Dáithí Mac Cárthaigh agus […]
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Ukraine
Ukraine: Ireland to Russia’s UK Fragile, vibrant, modern Ukraine is being overrun by 190,000 Russian troops, driven by an autocrat frustrated at the loss of its one-time sphere. By Michael Smith. Ukraine Ukraine may have been a backwater until recently but it is the second biggest country in Europe (after Russia of […]
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When Stephen Spielberg was making ‘Schindler’s List, in the early 1990s, he invited some of the Holocaust survivors who had been saved from the gas chambers by Oscar Schindler onto his movie set. The guests mingled with the actors and crew during a break. Amid all the lights, the electrical wires criss-crossing the set, the […]
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The musician Feargal McCann has followed the saga revolving around the mass murderer David Cleary. McCann’s father Joe, was shot by paratroopers in 1972, only ten weeks after Bloody Sunday. Cleary, better known as ‘Soldier F’, was one of those responsible for the Bloody Sunday massacre of innocent unarmed civilians. Cleary shot Patrick Doherty while […]
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Deputy Peadar Tóibín, leader of Aontú, referred to Soldier F by his real name, David James Cleary, in Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, yesterday (9 February). Cleary was a cruel, cynical and clinical killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock on Bloody Sunday while he was on the ground crawling away from him. The bullet […]
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By Tony Lowes. Ireland has joined 9 other member states in torpedoing proposed transparency in pesticides-use Regulations which would require farmers to use micro-data transmission to report annual farm-level data on pesticide use. There are currently no precise data showing which pesticides are used for food production in the Member States and where, when […]
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This brings me to the appalling and unilateral decision by the British Government to bring forward legislation to prohibit future prosecutions of military veterans and ex-paramilitaries for crimes related to the Troubles and to impose a statute of limitations on Troubles-era prosecutions. Deputy Sean Haughey tonight denounced the activities of General Sir Frank Kitson in […]
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“We cannot even get guarantees there will not be religious iconography on the walls” – Deputy Duncan Smith on Government plans for the new maternity hospital. Deputy Catherine Connolly has challenged the the Taoiseach to give a commitment on the planned maternity hospital “that reflects the will of the Dail”. Speaking in the Dáil in January, she […]
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1. Kitson and Wilford claimed to have no interest in Derry yet …. 1 Para, the regiment responsible for the Bloody Sunday massacre, was based at Palace Barracks, Hollywood, near Belfast City. If we are to believe Colonel Derek Wilford, the commander of 1 Para, and his superior Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank Kitson, neither […]
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By David Burke. The Irish Government has condemned – and continues to condemn – the proposed legislation by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in London to enact legislation to put an end to legacy cases arising out of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Irish government has become part of a chorus of condemnation of the proposed […]
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Buckingham Palace went to extraordinary lengths to cover-up the involvement of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, in the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking scandal. The Royal was supplied with a 17-year-old-girl, Virginia Roberts (Giuffre), who was commanded to have sex with him three times, once in London. Palace officials threatened to blackball ABC, an […]
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June 2021 Village Magazine
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Introduction. The 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre falls next month. The official position of the British Government is based on the 2010 report of Lord Saville of Newdigate, i.e., that a group of paratroopers engaged in the massacre of thirteen innocent people in Derry with a fourteenth dying later, for no reason. Unfortunately, […]
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By Ciaran MacAirt. Family campaigners on legacy cases in the north of Ireland learn not to be precious about media coverage, especially when the British state is involved in the murders and subsequent cover-ups. On any other occasion, there are many reasons why a media outlet will not cover a story. In the fast-moving […]
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Harry Kernoff, The Little Genius.
By David Burke. The Liffey Press has just republished Kevin O’Connor’s 2012 gem, ‘Harry Kernoff, The Little Genius’, the only full-length biography of the painter. The original edition became impossible to acquire years ago. The reprint is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of Kernoff’s pictures, made possible by years of detective work on the part of […]
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The big day. The sun shone, marquees fluttered, caterers bustled. Everybody who was anybody was there, ‘old boys’, former nurses, family friends. The No 1 Army band heralded the arrival of the Archbishop of Dublin; His G33race was followed five minutes later by the Tánaiste and Mrs Childers. The Archbishop said Mass for some 1200 […]
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Saturday the 4th of December was the 50th anniversary of the infamous bombing of McGurk’s bar in Belfast by the UVF. 15 people were killed in the massacre. The bomb reduced the building to rubble. The attack was the most devastating atrocity suffered by Belfast since the bombing of the city during the Second World […]
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(November 2020, Village magazine)
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Saturday 4 December is the 50th anniversary of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre which, in 1971, was the greatest loss of civilian life in any single murderous attack in Ireland since the Nazi Blitz in 1941. 15 civilians including two children perished in the atrocity when Loyalist extremists planted a no-warning bomb in the hallway of McGurk’s […]
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Ghislaine Maxwell goes on trial in NY tomorrow. She was a key figure in a paedophile network that serviced Royalty, most notably Prince Andrew. She was the right hand of Jeffrey Epstein who was the key player in the modern iteration of a well-established vice ring which overlapped with other similar groups and rippled across […]
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‘M’ is not the only person living rough in Carrick. She is the one who has had courage enough to take on the bureaucrats, media silence and the onset of savage weather. By Councillor Des Guckian I’m a (very) Independent Councillor for the Carrick-on-Shannon Electoral area. I have refused to join the large coalition that […]
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Councillors and the CEO are in a standoff as to whether the legal advice needs to be fully independent or if it can be delivered via the Law Agent who normally reports to the CEO. As with O’Devaney Gardens, in Oscar Traynor Road Councillors appear to have allowed leeway the CEO to rewrite the Councillors’ […]
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By Joseph de Burca. The BBC is resisting an attempt by Buckingham Palace to neutralise a documentary about a press-briefing war between princes William and Harry. It is entitled ‘The Princes and the Press’ and is scheduled for presentation by Amol Rajan on BBC2 on Monday night at 9 pm. It will be the first […]
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By Caroline Hurley. This Sunday 21 November, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) is spearheading another grinding Dublin city rally with tractors and machinery, one of a series to spotlight inadequate funding, and lack of government engagement with farmers’ leaders about changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. Farmers are a diverse bunch though, not […]
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By Sean Byrne. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century ships entering and leaving Dublin port frequently stuck on sand banks at the entrance to the port and had to wait until a high tide floated them in or out. To solve this problem, the Great South Wall and the North Bull Wall were […]
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By David Burke, author of ‘Kitson’s Irish War: Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland’. 1. Kitson’s Private Army. Lance Corporal David Cleary was a member of the elite Support Company of the 1st Parachute Regiment which was commanded by Colonel Derek Wilford. Wilford reported upwards to Brigadier Frank Kitson. All were assigned to 39 […]
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By Deirdre Younge. On 8 October last Judge Mark Horner in the High Court in Belfast gave the reasoned judgment behind his decision of 21 July that there should be a new Human Rights compliant investigation into the catastrophic bombing of Omagh on 15 August 1998. He suggested that preferably there should also be one […]
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Kitson’s first overseas assignment was to Germany in 1946 with the rank of second lieutenant. He remained there for seven years. He found plenty of sport to occupy his spare time such as racing horses in Rhine Army competitions, trout fishing and ‘many wonderful opportunities for shooting … and by shooting I don’t mean plugging […]
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RTÉ’s Prime Time missed point that remedial works will merely shift the problem. By Tony Lowes.
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By Joseph de Burca 1. Getting away with murder. Sir Patrick Walker was in charge of MI5 when the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane was assassinated by MI5 agents. Those agents were handled by the RUC Special Branch on behalf of MI5. They included Tommy Lyttle, Brian Nelson, William Stobie and Ken Barret. The assassination, which […]
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Climate Finance Weak
Climate Finance Week is worthy but can’t mask the fact Irish Finance needs to stop promoting high carbon emitters By John Vivian Cooke In “The Sun Also Rises”, Ernest Hemingway notes that there are two ways to go bankrupt: “gradually, then suddenly”. It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that, for all the earnest […]
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By Joseph de Burca. Prince Andrew is hardly in a sweat after the publication of the report on Lord Greville Janner by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Janner was a paedophile who abused boys and girls. IICSA has confirmed what has been known for decades, namely that witness statements taken by […]
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Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast.[i] THE LEGACY OF THE CONFLICT: UPDATE ON THE MODEST PROPOSALS Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast.[i] Earlier this year Village published my comment THE LEGACY OF THE CONFLICT: MR LEWIS’S MODEST PROPOSAL – Village Magazine. This comment concerned the following: “On 14 […]
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By Colin Wallace. 1. Memories of Brigadier Frank Kitson. David Burke’s fascinating new book on Frank Kitson includes a comprehensive analysis of what has become known around the world as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Reading it has stirred a lot of memories of the time I spent at Army HQ in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. As […]
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By Joseph de Burca. Introduction to Village’s online pamphlet on the Colin Wallace Affair. The Tory Government of Boris Johnson is routinely accused of deceiving the House of Commons. Many British commentators behave as if this is a new low in their democratic history. Yet, there is nothing unusual about the situation. […]
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By David Burke. Andrew Lownie will be known to many Village readers for the depth of his research into the life of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, especially the former’s abuse of boys in the Republic of Ireland. During his research into Mountbatten, Lownie tried, and failed, to gain access to Garda logs […]
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By Deirdre Younge. Introduction. Freddie Scappaticci became an agent for British Army intelligence in 1978. A member of the IRA in Belfast he worked his way up the IRA hierarchy, eventually becoming second in command of the ‘Internal Security Unit”, known as the feared “nutting squad”. He joined the British Army’s newly-formed Force Research […]
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By Ed Moloney. The document reproduced above is the opening five-paragraph extract of a four-page, forty-paragraph Ulster Defence Association (UDA) intelligence report, or ‘memo’ as it is titled, describing the genesis of the corrupt relationship that developed in the late 1970s between the Official IRA and some leading members of the UDA. Since both groups […]
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Philanderer Phil’s will.
Prince Philip’s testament will be locked away for 90 years. What is the British Royal Family hiding? By Joseph de Burca. Prince Philip’s will is to be locked away in a safe controlled by the Family Division of Britain’s High Court. The justification for this is to preserve the ‘dignity’ of Queen Elizabeth. The odds […]
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By David Burke. Marian Brown, a 17-year old teenager, was shot dead in Belfast in June of 1972. For nearly half a century the British Government has denied that she was killed by British soldiers. Her family campaigned for the truth for five decades with the aid of researchers and lawyers. Armed with new information […]
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Come out of there, Katherine Zappone.
Freedom of Expression had a lucky escape. By Vanessa Foran. Katherine Zappone, once upon a time, was packaged as a hero to liberals, a wrapper she was very eager to envelop herself in as she set out to make such a name for herself that she hoovered in a Taoiseach’s pick for the Seanad. There she […]
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Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast[1] In 1729, Jonathan Swift published his Juvenalian satirical essay “A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Publick”. As readers of Village know Swift’s essay suggests that the impoverished […]
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