Evolution by natural election is the ‘greatest idea ever’ — a view which has been well set out by Julian Huxley (1961, 1964) and which I share. It is, In my view, the greatest idea as it provides a key concept to make sense of us and our world. In its essence it is simple, … Read more
Irish Times health correspondent Paul Cullens reported on February 13, 2023 that a disturbing 1,300 patients had ‘died over the winter as a result of delays in hospital admission from emergency departments, according to an analysis of Health Service Executive data.’ This followed a longer article by Cullen the previous Saturday exploring what is driving … Read more
In 1841 the population of county Leitrim stood at 155,297. By 1901, however, it had fallen to 69,343, dropping further to 41,209 by 1951, before reaching a nadir of just 25,057 in 1996. The 2022 census records a population of 35,087 – a significant increase, but still a staggering 77% reduction on the 1841 figure. … Read more
Jonathan O’Brien of City Kayaking says they began taking litter out of the River Liffey ten years ago. In that time he’s seen a change in the river. City Kayaking was launched in order to offer people access to water activities in Dublin, but in the beginning there was a lot of what we used … Read more
The Stone Age didn’t come to an end because they ran out of stones. Similarly, we should be building an economy where we ‘use’ resources rather than ‘use them up’. The human species must change its profligate ways, and radically reduce the level of extraction required to fuel our needs and desires. The economy is … Read more
’From my experience of my patients on the front line since March 2020, I estimate that between 1% and 10% of the Irish population have suffered from a serious traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal ideation as a direct result of the government instigated media propaganda and lockdown, which works out at between 48 000 … Read more
In October 2018, I wrote an article for the Irish Medical Times entitled: ‘Acid Test-are hallucinogens finally shaking off their taboo?’ The impetus came from reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change your Mind (New York, 2018), Michael A.Lee’s Acid Dreams The Complete Social History of LSD: the CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond (New York, 1985) … Read more
Standing outside a Dublin hostelry in the drizzle, I fell into conversation with an Ulsterman who arrived with impeccable republican-socialist credentials. I assumed, this would make him sympathetic to the recently vanquished Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. I breezily opined that the long-serving MP for Islington had been the first post-War Labour leader to challenge a … Read more
Foremost among Utopian absurdities, we had the false promise of ZeroCovid. This continues to inflict untold damage on millions of lives and livelihoods that have been lost along the mystical path to salvation. Although the ZeroCovid leaders identified themselves with logic and rationality, the fanciful idea of every country excluding an influenza-like virus appears to … Read more
‘Harold Evans used to say that an investigation only really began to count once the readers – and even the journalists – were bored with it’ Alan Rusbridger: who broke the news? In New York city on Easter Sunday 1929, in a premeditated move, a group of women brought the annual parade to a halt … Read more