Vestry /ˈvɛstri/ Noun a room or building attached to a church, used as an office and for changing into ceremonial vestments. a real estate investment trust (REIT), incorporated in the Republic of Ireland. There comes a moment when you discover a person the trajectory of whose business affairs appears to embody the rotten nature of … Read more
Are the Eurocrats and their allies most delusional about the topics they profess to find most urgent? Or are they just setting out to delude the rest of us? This was Ursula Von Der Leyen speaking at the 9th Brussels Conference on Syria, on Saint Patrick’s Day last: The agreement between the central authorities and … Read more
In a turbulent period in European history, and beyond, we are delighted to draw on the sage input of the former Irish ambassador to Russia, poet Philip McDonagh, who also worked for a long period on the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. He explores the possibilities for a lasting, inclusive peace … Read more
In his last great novel The Plot Against America (2004) Philp Roth posited plausible circumstances where President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the great social democrat, could be dislodged by the proto-fascist Charles Lindbergh. Sadly, a failure to understand history bedevils our time. We have sleepwalked into a similar scenario after the last U.S. Presidential election. Now … Read more
Beirut, Mar Elias, 26 November, 7pm. Despite the cold wave that hit the city this week (8 degrees Celsius is equivalent to 0 in the Mediterranean), my mother and sister left all the windows and doors open, to prevent the worst. They are – as I type – sitting in my sister’s room in the … Read more
Media coverage of the war currently unfolding in Lebanon describe Hezbollah as an “Iranian-backed” group, and frame the conflict as one between them and Israel. In this reading, little attention is given to Lebanon beyond Hezbollah, nor that Hezbollah, for all its links to Iran, is first and foremost a Lebanese group embedded in Lebanon’s … Read more
There still exists – even today – a yearning, a nostalgia for European solidarity, a solidarity of European culture. Regrettably, solidarity itself no longer exists, except in hearts, in consciences, in the minds of a few great men at the heart of each nation. European consciousness – or what one might call a ‘cultural European … Read more
In light of recent developments, not least, the announcement of Michael McGrath as the next EU Commissioner, it is timely to look again at the infernal plight of workers of conscience – those noble people who blow the whistle on wrongdoing, and who strive to keep a corroded system from descending further into the abyss. … Read more
In December the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) published a comparatively critical review of the government’s Budget 2024. Criticisms of ‘bad budgeting’ arose from the ‘lack of transparency,’ and the use of ‘fiscal gimmickry.’ IFAC defined the latter as ‘creative accounting techniques’ used to make the numbers ‘look more favourable than they are.’ The Irish … Read more
What is a ‘real country’? For the Irish, living as we do on a divided island, the question doesn’t have to be facetious. As a negative example, to try to land on a positive answer, Northern Ireland comes to mind. Wherever that congenitally deformed statelet ends up, its passage through the twentieth century will form … Read more