While the first civil partnership ceremonies in the UK, which took place today in Belfast of all places, are to be welcomed as a reasonably sane and compassionate acknowledgement of reality, it raises the question of what effect this legal innovation will have on the island of Ireland as a whole. According to Slugger O’Toole, […]
Gavin’s Blog suggests that a website should be established to keep track of Michael McDowell’s actions. Yet given the spate of revelations about his past, it is arguable that there’s enough material to fuel a site chronicling the doings, past and present, of Frank Connolly. For example, The Sunday Independent (seen in some quarters as […]
In a piece excoriating know-nothing celebs preaching about the solutions to Africa’s problems, Paul Theroux takes aim at Bono: THERE are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can’t think of one at the moment. I have a suggestion: what […]
An interview with AA Gill that appeared in Thursday�s Guardian took what might be called a revisionist approach to its subject. That�s to say that the interviewer tried to persuade the reader that the Sunday Times� journalist and critic is not quite the jerk one would assume him to be.Actually, I have to admit that […]
News comes to me of an article in the Irish Times (Dec 8th) about the plight of Poles in Ireland. It seems that many of the estimated 120,000 emigrants have been lured there by unrealistically optimistic stories about Ireland in the Polish media. (These stories started before Poland’s referendum on joining the EU, when Ireland […]
On the subject of observing and being observed, I must mention the long, grim gander I took at myself in the bathroom mirror this morning. Usually these days I do not dally before my reflection any longer than is necessary. There was a time when I quite liked what I saw in the looking-glass, but […]
The cosy world of the Irish blogosphere seems all aflutter (see here, here, and here, for example) over the actions of Irish Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, who seems to have a gift for pouring Tabasco sauce over the stigmata of right-thinking Ireland. McDowell appears to have basically scuppered the recently established Centre for Public […]
Several weeks (months?) ago, I claimed that David McWilliams was consistently one of the best columnists working in the Irish print arena. Well, now he�s starting to grate a bit. Perhaps it�s a function of his heightened profile recently as he frantically plugs his new book (�The Pope�s Children�) in the run-up to Christmas. His […]
The view from Gdańsk is not pretty. As Pinter accepts his Nobel prize, Poland slips further into the absurd and the vulgar. Here is a random selection, from memory, so apologies for any small inaccuracies: Charges of defamation against a journalist were, after lengthy consideration and great tax-payer funded expense, finally dropped. The charges were […]