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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. It 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. What was […]
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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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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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Fianna Failing
Only 25% think the Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, Mr Martin, is the most influential politician in government. By Conor Lenihan. The latest opinion poll, this time from the Irish Mail on Sunday, posits more bad news for Fianna Fáil and its somewhat beleaguered leader Micheál Martin. Fianna Fáil’s opinion-poll rating continues to languish around the 15% level […]
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By David Burke. 1. The counter-insurgency gurus. During the period 1970-72 Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank Kitson served as Brigadier of 39 Brigade in Belfast. It is arguable that he caused more damage to relations between the British government and the Nationalist community than any other individual in the British Army. There are many stories […]
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Taoiseach, Tánaiste, multiple Ministers, civil service, Garda, official inquiries and EU complicit in wrecking the life of one of Ireland’s leading business representatives. How a former CEO of ISME has been shafted by the State because of two key sensitivities in Irish politics: the relationship between the Social Partners (unions and employers) and government, of which […]
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Bridal Shower
A recent protest, perhaps the world’s smallest that was improperly touted by the media as spontaneous, featured more wedding organisers than brides By Jed Lonstein Recently a story appeared in all the major media outlets in Ireland. It was a protest without precedent. There were no marker-scrawled placards or grim-faced anoraks, no barriers or batons. […]
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By David Burke. 1. Where was the ‘EFGH’ Unit of Support Company of 1 Para during the Ballymurphy Massacre? Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of internment. It began on 9 August 1971. By the 11th, ten people had been murdered by paratroopers in Ballymurphy. Earlier this year, the coroner who […]
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Tired of Zappone, Varadkar and Martin
As the summer turns to rain it’s time for some fresh faces. By Conor Lenihan. In the light of the botched Zappone Envoy appointment the Covid lockdown guidelines are again under the microscope.When is a Lockdown guideline not really a line of any sort?Clearly when former Taoiseach and current Tánaiste Leo Varadkar is in attendance […]
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Former Minister getting plum diplomatic gig inflames leadership issues in two main government parties. By Conor Lenihan. The appointment of Katherine Zappone as an Irish diplomatic envoy has already let loose a lot of free speech – not all of it complimentary. The question is: at a very challenging time for the state do we […]
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By David Burke. Brigadier Frank Kitson, who is still alive, ran 39 Airportable Brigade area, i.e. Belfast, as if he was a mob boss with the city his patch. He let the paratroopers under his command run riot in that domain. Some of the more decent and honourable British army officers were aghast at their […]
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By David Burke. 1. 50-year Concerted Cover-up. The British government’s determination to absolve all British soldiers involved in killings during the Troubles means that there are now precious few opportunities to get to the bottom of what really happened during the Ballymurphy massacre and on Bloody Sunday. The Bloody Sunday cover-up went into high […]
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By Deirdre Younge Kingsberry case The High Court in Belfast granted permission in early July for the family of a former member of the UDA, William Kingsberry – shot dead in 1991, to sue Libya for supplying the assault rifle used by the IRA unit that killed him. New approach The Kingsberry case, which is […]
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Nor is Israel based on the rule of law By Sami Abou Shehadeh In an opinion piece published on the 24 June in the Jerusalem Post , a right-wing Israeli newspaper, the Irish ambassador to Israel, Kyle O’Sullivan, claimed that Israel is a country based “on the rule of law, on democracy, and on respect for […]
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By Deirdre Younge. Tom Oliver, a farmer from Riverstown, on the Cooley peninsula, was kidnapped, interrogated and murdered by the IRA in July 1991. They alleged he was a Garda informant. The murder by the IRA’s punishment squad didn’t only cause devastation for his family but split the tight-knit community in which he lived. […]
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By David Burke. 1. “No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species”. In the last week, Colum Eastwood MP, the Leader of the SDLP, named ‘Soldier F’, in the House of Commons, under privilege. ‘Soldier F’ had faced murder charges for his actions on Bloody […]
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Detective Sergeant who made protected disclosure about under-regulated phone-tracing and then served time for harassment of DPP official, claims multiple breaches of her human rights and “systemic institutional failure”, in complaint recently rejected by European Court of Human Rights
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By Joseph de Burca. Michael Wolff has published two highly critical books of Donald Trump. Despite this, the former president granted Wolff an interview which has helped inform his latest book ‘Landslide’. In the book, Trump fulminates and groans about perceived slights and betrayals. He is particularly critical of the 1,000 or so lawyers he […]
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By David Burke. Internment – arrest and detention without trial – was introduced by the Stormont Government of Northern Ireland in August 1971. Hundreds of Nationalists were rounded up and detained. Members of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando were not targeted for arrest. The swoops were carried out by British troops including the […]
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The problem isn’t Google and Facebook it’s the fact that 25-year-olds find newspapers boring
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Monitor and improve climate, biodiversity and equality. Leave Government if targets are not reached every quarter
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Conflict of Interest in Meath
Aisling Dempsey voted for dezonings that will increase value of lands owned by the company she works for
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By David Burke. UPDATE: Please also see the following story where Soldier F is named as David James Cleary: Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of […]
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Shane Kennedy and his home, a former British naval minesweeper,
‘The Portisham’, prove resistant to legal battles -
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Wellington Poots
Poots aims to save his party, but on
environmental policy he’s agricultural -
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Supply, and Student Housing
By Niamh Alexander. Despite expectations due to the pandemic, the cost of student accommodation in Dublin has remained steady – and costly. Two semesters in the cheapest campus accommodation in UCD will set you back just over €8,000, with the most expensive coming in at almost €14,500, per annum. Sky-high costs can have the effect […]
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How is Conor so wrong? By Michael Smith
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Fourth-division calibre on second-division salaries. By J Vivian Cooke
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The Top Level Appointments Committee (TLAC) long since succumbed to groupthink. By J Vivian Cooke
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By David Burke.
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Editorial. By Michael Smith The most widely supported form of equality is equality of opportunity. Even Margaret Thatcher believed in it. But it has more of the qualities of “freedom” than of “equality”. Village has always tended to support a vision of equality that contemplates equality of outcome/condition – distributing ‘goods’/resources in inverse proportion to […]
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State Interventionism
Leo Varadkar, the Fine Gael Leader, is still touting the 1980s rhetoric of low taxes and impoverished public services. For me, the State is a force for good.
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Eoghan Goal
In the end Harris destroyed himself
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By Joseph de Burca. 1. A faction within the British Army tries to expose a child abuse network. During the summer of 1973 Captain Colin Wallace, a PSYOPS [psychological operations] officer with the British Army, tried to expose the existence of a child abuse network in Northern Ireland. He had the support of a string […]
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UPDATE: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is the new leader of the DUP. One of his mentors was James Molyneaux MP. Donaldson succeeded him as MP for Lagan Valley after Molyneaux retired in 1997. On 19 December 2019 Village exposed Molyneaux’s involvement with the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. On his website Donaldson has stated that: “My involvement […]
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By Deirdre Younge. In April 2000 Jeffrey Donaldson, the new leader of the DUP, stood up in the House of Commons and made the heinous allegation on live television that former Special Branch sergeant in Dundalk Garda Station, Owen Corrigan, had colluded in the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, Commander H Division, and Superintendent […]
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The late Enoch Powell was a racist and a violent paedophile with deranged views about the intelligence of women. He was also a mentor to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson who is about to become the leader of the DUP. Donaldson acted as his election agent, 1982-84. Another of Donaldson’s mentors was the paedophile James Molyneaux. (See […]
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By Dónal Lavery Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP is now the new, or rather “old”, ‘shining light’ of Ulster Unionism, as part of what seems a “coronation” after an “abdication” by Edwin Poots MLA. Both are socially conservative and oppose some LGBTQ issues, both are staunch Orangemen, but both do differ in ways that can be […]
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Bog Standards
Invis Energy and An Bord Pleanála caused a bogslide in Donegal
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Even when it appointed a proper environment correspondent, George Lee, it diverted him to Covid-duties
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A menace in the District Court
Village names a retired judge who pursued a woman who appeared before him in family law proceedings
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Bad policies lead to bad results
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The Blueshirt who has inherited the most distinguished legal pedigree but lies about his background, worked for Big Tobacco and as a Commercial Lawyer, and broke electoral law
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Irish Times reviews of RTE Radio 1 are as dull as the reviewees
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Judges appointing Judges
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By Sean Brennan. I have just read the article in the Sunday Independent [20 June] concerning whether RTE contacted Des O’Malley first while the station was producing the GunPlot series. It is the second article which the Sunday Independent has produced about the issue. The earlier one – written by Des O’Malley – appeared on […]
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The Irish Times promoted the Official IRA’s version of the Arms Crisis
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By Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW LLP, Belfast* [i] In the last six months victims of violent abuse in Ireland have been ‘granted’ apologies. First, the Irish Taoiseach apologized to the victims and survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes. Writing in The Independent on 14 January 2021 Emer O’Toole noted: “On Wednesday, the […]
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Vilification Once More
Des O’Malley, the Minister for Justice in 1970, continues to ignore the hard questions about the Arms Crisis. Instead, he persists in smearing anyone who dares to disagree with him. Some of his latest slurs question the integrity of those in RTÉ responsible for the ‘GunPlot’ series. It is now time to stop throwing the […]
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Conservation Politics
Reviewing the history and likely future of the National Parks and Wildlife Service as Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan announces a major review
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Paddy Power without Responsibility
Lockdown boom for Online Gambling poses dangers of invitations to lodge ever more money and sneakily changed stakes
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By Dónal Lavery. I have been working on a book-in-progress about the issue of the Kincora Boys Home scandal involving undisclosed sexual abuse and exploitation. Part of that exploitation included victims being sent to live in the US at the behest of powerful abusers with salient influence. A Northern Protestant, Richard Kerr, was taken into […]
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Come again
THE STONE WAS MOVED AND DOMINIC CRAWLED OUT By Christopher Stanley So, we have this sort of completely insane situation in which part of the building was saying, ‘are we going to bomb Iraq?’, part of the building was arguing about whether or not we’re going to do quarantine or not do quarantine, the prime […]
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“Trust me, I’m a Doctor”
A closer look at the ‘Celebrity Psychiatrist’ closely linked to Kincora Boys Home and British Intelligence
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By Andrew Lownie. In 2015 I started researching my biography ‘The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves’. Little did I know then that six years later it would have locked me into a marathon legal battle with the Government and Southampton University. My quest was to find out what had happened to the personal diaries of […]
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A review of ‘The Irish Diaspora – Tales of Emigration, Exile and Imperialism’ by Turtle Bunbury
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The British Government purchased Mountbatten’s archive for the benefit of historians (allegedly) but has locked it away. It may include details about his links to paedophile networks including the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring.
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By David Burke. Brigadier (later General) Frank Edward Kitson is alive and well and living in Devon. He is the individual responsible for the Ballymurphy massacre. He was the Brigadier of 39 Brigade – that is to say he was the officer in charge of all British soldiers in Belfast during the Ballymurphy massacre. His […]
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The Past: as real as the Present.
Ballymurphy, the UK government’s proposals to deal with legacy issues, and the dogs on the streets. By Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant. Statute of Limitations In London today (11 May 2021), the British government set out its legislative agenda by way of the Queen’s Speech to the House of Lords. Unexpectedly, the British government remains intent […]
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By David Burke. The denial of justice for political gain. Next week will see the release of the long-awaited inquest report into the Ballymurphy massacre during which British soldiers killed and wounded a large number of unarmed civilians in Belfast. The atrocity took place after the introduction of internment in August of 1971. Adding insult […]
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Marxism and the Poet
How I grew to see that without broad Marxism the arts and its unserious, networked and commodified lit-libs are for sale. An extract from the essay ‘Being a Marxist Poet in the Twenty-First Century’ by Kevin Higgins. More than a quarter of a century ago a man-child called Kevin retired from politics as he turned […]
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The tide swells for Nationalists
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By Sean Brennan. The documentary titled ‘Gun Plot’ which was shown on RTE 1 last night was fascinating television. The RTE production team should be commended for this brilliant documentary on a very important and significant political and legal event which occurred 50 years ago but has not been properly addressed by the media up […]
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By Joseph de Burca. 1. Moloney and Kinchin-White When the Kincora Boys’ Home child abuse scandal first broke, Ed Moloney was one of a number of journalists who reported details about it in the press. Now, Moloney and James Kinchin-White have teamed up to shine a light on the role of the RUC in the […]
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By Professor Barry McMullin, Dr Andrew Jackson and Professor John Sweeney The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021 published by the Government in March 2021 is a very considerable improvement over the preliminary draft released in October 2020. The revised Bill benefited greatly from the pre-legislative scrutiny process of the Joint Oireachtas […]
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How failure to regulate for ethics created a climate where a PR man could deride transparency. By Vanessa Foran. I want to take you back a few months to a mad little incident that keeps coming back to me. “You are almost too transparent and informative”. This is what PR man and registered lobbyist, Conor Dempsey, […]
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By Sean Brennan The purpose of this article is to examine Des O’ Malley’s Role in the events which are commonly known as The Arms Crisis and The Arms Trials 1970. The Arms Crisis erupted during the early hours of 6 May 1970, when a press release issued by the Government Information Service announced that […]
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Dance more, drink less
Let’s not conflate our pent-up fantasies of dancing until dawn, with more alcohol sales. By Eunan McKinney. The ‘2020 Programme for Government – Our Shared Future’, committed to the urgent establishment of a taskforce that would promote vibrant and sustainable night-time culture and economy. This 2019 initiative began its formal work in July 2020 under […]
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By Joseph de Burca. Christine Keeler was the woman at the centre of the Profumo scandal. As a teenager, she slept with Captain Eugene Ivanov, a Russian naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy in London, while also having a relationship with the much older John Profumo, the high-flying Conservative MP who was Secretary of State […]
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By Joseph de Burca. Richard Kerr, a survivor of child sex abuse at Williamson House and Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast, is hoping that his legal action against those responsible for failing to safeguard him as a child, will be listed for hearing later this year. He has faced innumerable delays and obstacles in getting […]
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Reconsider criteria for what constitute frontline healthcare workers. By Izzy Fox. News of “leftover” vaccines from the Beacon Hospital in south Dublin being given to teachers in St Gerard’s in Bray, the private school where the children of the CEO of the Beacon attend, and to the head of the VHI, has understandably provoked public […]
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Estates of Fear
Inept decision-makers ignore the wishes and interests of local authority tenants. By Mannix Flynn. Ireland’s Attitude to Social Housing Let’s be clear, thou gh the middle classes could not care less, tenants in our local authority estates have rights. A few years a o it was reported that localauthorities had received 10,000 complaints about anti-social behaviour in […]
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Dystopia here, now
Village magazine editorial – February-March In the 1970s boys comics imagined dystopian futures of out-of-control robots and rollerblade axe-fighting. They were a counterpoint to the humdrum reality for the warless Persil generation. 2021 has opened with dysfunctionality every bit as overwhelming as the most vivid imaginations of 50 years ago feared. We have brought a global […]
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Leo Varadkar has somehow convinced media that he’s not bound by that Act but he is – and faces an even more serious case under the Corruption Act. By Conor Lenihan. The latest twist in the Leo Varadkar leak controversy evokes yet more confusion and doubt. The fact that the Garda have now confirmed that […]
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Carers under government bus
We can’t trust our health minister to prioritise vaccination for family carers By David Nolan As a family carer, I have implored the government to classify informal carers on the vaccine rollout list. Informal carers need vaccination for continuity of care. Why should unpaid family carers providing extraordinary levels of care in the home be treated […]
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And there was a lie in the Dáil. By Michael Smith. Factual Background to Alleged Crimes WhatsApp correspondence headlined ‘Leo Always Delivers’ first published in the Village Magazine of November 2020 showed then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar transferred a confidential draft contract being negotiated between government and the Irish Medical Organisation to a friend of his, the […]
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By Michael Smith. History The Irish Times title was revived in 1859 by a 22-year-old English army officer, Major Lawrence Knox, and run as a Protestant, Nationalist newspaper, reflecting Knox’s Home Rule politics. He stood unsuccessfully for Isaac Butt’s Home Government Association. By 1873 in the ownership of the department store Arnotts it was a […]
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Educate and empower Councillors to exercise effective governance and compliance over the €5bn administered by local authorities annually; and to be public not private representatives. By Fiona McLoughlin Healy. The Report on the Role and Remuneration of Local Authority Elected Members written by Senior Counsel Sara Moorhead issued to Minister John Paul Phelan last year and recommended an increase […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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Inequality is rising in Ireland.
Important research from Unite shows Irish Times wrong on most important social issue of our time. By Suzie Mélange. In a report entitled, ‘Hungry bellies are not equal to full bellies’, to be launched on Monday 1 March, Unite Trade Union in the Republic of Ireland will provide lengthy research-based evidence of the growing inequality […]
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Out of Time
How the newspaper of reference dealt with correspondence challenging an important article it published about equality Brendan Ogle Of Unite submitted the following article to the Irish Times on 15 December 2020 Unite House Unite the Union 55/56 Middle Abbey Street Dublin 1 D01 X002 Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland Head Office 15th December 2020 On 14 […]
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State’s bad bank fails to take responsibility for another inept hit to the public purse as it improperly sells to someone connected to the original debtor, blaming IT systems. By Frank Connolly (November edition, Village) NAMA Chief Executive, Brendan McDonagh, appearing before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC), failed to deliver a credible explanation as […]
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Documents released to Village under FoI reveal false pretences behind €25,000 paid by Meath County Council to former employees of plant-hire company owed the money. By Frank Connolly Official documents obtained by Village have revealed in considerable detail the manner in which a County Meath businessman was defrauded by a former employee in 2008 and […]
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