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
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
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
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