Rosita Sweetman The afternoon of Christmas Eve, just as it’s beginning to get dark, Mum opens the black oak sideboard in the hall. We crowd around, the little ones shoving and pushing. Frantic to see the treasures inside. The whole house already smells of Christmas – the ham simmered overnight in its blanket of floury paste, now … Read more
So White Supremacist, U.S. Senator, Lindsay Graham, visiting Israel last week, called for nuclear Armageddon to be unleashed on Gaza. Apart from blatant attempts to curry favour with the genocidal regime in Israel, and his Far Right base back in the USA, Senator Graham must (one presumes) be aware that in January, only three months … Read more
These are extraordinary times. Last month serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein, had his 23-year sentence squashed; a Channel 4 documentary aired new sexual misconduct claims against Kevin Spacey, and Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are feted at the Venice Film Festival. ‘Hiding in plain sight’ – and having ruthless lawyers – still seem to work … Read more
So, it’s Thursday night in Dublin, I’ve found some Poitin, and am thinking of Shane MacGowan. How very sad it is that he’s gone. ‘A Rainy Night in Soho’ playing on the radio. I had a funny connection with Shane. His wife Victoria gave me a photo of her and Shane for an auction, to … Read more
So, Israel. Is it a good thing? Was it a justifiable demand for a ‘homeland’ by a horribly persecuted people? Is it a land grab, dressed up in religious and ethnic cod history? Is it a cynical manipulation of a dream by U.K. colonial, later U.S. imperial, self-interests? Or could it have been what Jewish … Read more
Such sad news. Another member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement is gone. Not just any member, but Dr. Moira Woods, one of the three founders. She was something else. By the time us younger ones were venting our rage outside Dáil Éireann in blue jeans and curly hair, thinking we were the bee’s knees, … Read more
In the wake of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s extraordinary gaffe in Washington the day before Paddy’s Day, I‘ve been thinking about Monica Lewinsky, the intern he so crassly referred to in his ‘off the cuff’ remark. So who was Monica Lewinsky? What went on between herself and Bill Clinton, then the most powerful man in the … Read more
Forcing indigenous peoples off ancestral lands to create so-called Gardens of Eden, pasture for grazing, or massive dams, is nothing new. It forms the basis of many colonial and neo-colonial projects. Recall the clearance of hundreds of thousands of small Irish farmers friom the1840s. Or the formation of the national parks of America, led by … Read more
Even after six days listening to the outpourings of grief, shock, and rage, about the kidnap and horrific murder of Sarah Everard in London; of how her life was scrubbed out, a beautiful young woman reduced to ‘human remains’ in a builder’s bag identifiable only by her dental records; even after story upon story hit … Read more
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Blase Pascal While researching my new book Feminism Backwards (Mercier Press, Cork, 2020) long held worries about the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland, particularly its role in relation to women, really snapped into focus for me. At … Read more