I have just finished representing a client in a murder case and have plenty to reflect on about guilt and innocence. This is a two-part excursus for Cassandra Voices dealing first with why certain people are found guilty of crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project, with which I was involved over many years, … Read more
SYRIZA’s rise to power in 2015 created shock waves around the world. The international Left celebrated a victory that seemed unfathomable a few years earlier. Its electoral triumph gained even more attention than it otherwise would have, because the stakes surrounding it were exceptionally high. The Coalition of the Radical Left, as is the meaning … Read more
His blue look was on the ground, as though it held the reason for the last five minutes. She took him all in. The hair was wavy on top and cropped tight at the sides, sprinkled grey. He looked down at her on the step. Are you ok? My hero? she ventured. From her seat … Read more
I’m the youngest of five, and I grew up in a home surrounded by musicians and artists. My parents and siblings all participated in art or music in some form and shared circles with those of similar interests, with our home setting the stage as the hangout spot to what were in my eyes some … Read more
There is a poem by Mary Ruefle called „Provenance“. It ends with with the following words: „So I have gone up to the little room in my face, I am making something out of a jar of freckles and a jar of glue I hated childhood I hate adulthood And I love being alive. This … Read more
Year of The Restless at the kitchen table, year of our Lord twenty twenty-four, year my words marched backward into my mouth and forward only when forgotten, year of the idiotic Stanley tumbler, year of the subtle but far reaching machinations of neo-Marxism depending on who you ask, year of our lady of fuck around … Read more
TEL AVIV – SEPTEMBER – 2023 Noah Artowski, by now a six-year veteran of the Israeli Defence Forces, looked out towards the azure, glimmering sea. He imagined it melting like water colour into the blueness of the sky. He stood on the balcony of his aunt Sarah’s apartment in Tel Aviv, where she lived alone … Read more
Listen to the second half of this podcast on Patreon. Jim Sheridan condemns the Irish government for handing over the file on the Sophie Toscan du Plantier case to the French authorities, wondering whether we are ‘still an independent country.’ He argues that this should never have been done ‘over the head of the Director … Read more
My formative years were spent growing up on a pretty amazing cul-de-sac called Verbena Grove in the north Dublin suburb of Bayside, a 1960s/1970s sprawl of low-rise semis that borders the coast road between the city centre and Howth Head. My Dad, Mick O’Brien was a schoolteacher and is one of Ireland’s leading uilleann pipers. … Read more
The first Cassandra Voices Podcast, hosted by Luke Sheahan, features a long form interview with the veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn. Patrick’s father Claud, a leading British Communist member and journalist fought in the Spanish Civil War and eventually settled in Ireland. Patrick says of his father: He used to say the big battalion commanders want … Read more