The 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which gives equal rights to the life of both the mother and her unborn child, was approved by referendum on 7 September 1983 and signed into law on 7 October 1983. In that autumn of 1983, a 15-year old schoolgirl found out she was pregnant. Her name was Ann…
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it! When I read President Trump’s tweet last week, I was shaken – just like…
The UK daily papers are full of outrage that Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) blocked proposals yesterday that would have moved Northern Ireland’s customs border to the Irish Sea. The 10 DUP MPs are currently propping up Theresa May’s minority Conservative government on a confidence and supply basis. Theresa May’s premiership could not continue…
Who knows what will be on the menu when Theresa May dines with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker today? Until after they meet, there can be no certainty about the terms that have been placed on the table. Ireland have already said that they doubt enough progress has been made over the weekend to avoid…
In Hamlet, Marcellus, an officer of the palace guard, seeing the ghost of the dead king, walking over the palace walls, observes, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’. Shakespeare would be spoiled for choice for a location for those words today – whether in Brussels, Washington, Westminster. Or indeed, at Stormont,…
Just before yesterday’s murderous and callous attack on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, my daughter had stopped there for coffee. She was preparing to say farewell to Barcelona, her home all summer since, like so many young Irish people, she had moved there in May for the summer. It was her last day. She had intended…
The old world is dying, and the new world is struggling to be born; now is the time of monsters. Gramsci The 21st century has been marked so far by uncertainty, chaos and change. From 9/11 to the execution of Osama bin Laden by US forces in 2011. To the arrogance of Donald Trump, who…
In his 1975 book about Irish nationalism the Parisian writer Maurice Goldring wrote about the void which can too easily be concealed behind the noise of battle. ‘To substitute a “spectacle” for the participation of the masses is to hide a wasteland behind gaudy coloured hoardings. The emptier the political arena becomes, the more vivid the colours…
