In George Orwell’s 1939 novel Coming Up For Air, at the beginning of chapter 4, issue is taken with substandard food products, which do not taste like the product promoted and, indeed, taste like something else: At this moment I bit into one of my frankfurters, and—Christ! I can’t honestly say that I’d expected the … Read more
Like most of us, I spent the past week in a state of deep reflection over our collective national fate. Like some of us, I mourned. The American political sphere seems to have reached an anti-zenith, one culminating in some dystopian rhetorical Babel tower built and sustained by hatred. What have I seen in my … Read more
Recently walking into a garage to pay for diesel, I scanned the news stand, as is my habit, to see if I had missed any of the day’s events. Something did catch my eye, and surprised me. A county Louth paper, the Drogheda Independent, had a headline about the Lourdes Hospital’s, disgraced surgeon Michael Shine. … 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
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
This piece is not intended to provoke. It is more a look at the way people’s minds are shaped, how people think, and how that is articulated towards others. I realized something was ‘ratten’ in the state of ‘Norn Ireland’ when I was about four. My half-brother of about six or so and I were … Read more
Long ago I read a wry assertion that local government in Ireland is ‘central government locally organised’. The writer lamented that local authorities, especially county councils, have limited financial and other powers to provide local services and depend heavily on the financial largesse of central funds allocated by different government departments. It is different in … Read more
I’m a filmmaker and Kerry based farmer, currently on a residency at the Fire Station Artists’ Studios in the heart of the city for the next two years. I’m very familiar with Dublin, and it’s fair to say it’s my second home since I came to Ireland in 1981. I will also be heading to … Read more
As we witness the barbaric bombing of Gaza by Israel, and as the deaths and horrific injuries of civilian men, women and children rise exponentially, it is necessary to ask: who (apart from the Israeli government) is behind this murderous campaign? Over decades the United States has liked to portray itself as an honest broker … Read more
And so, the omertà as to the RTÉ personnel getting ‘freebie’ cars has finally broken. It’s no coincidence that this was the only outlet probing this matter five years ago. We knew the topic was highly unlikely to be picked up by media reliant on revenue streams from advertising cars. We also knew that covering … Read more