Journalist, Commentator and Blogger
It’s beautiful when it happens, seeing a seed develop out of the dark soil to become a beautiful flower. It’s the same with truth. Sometimes it too lies hidden in soil, waiting for the time and the conditions to bloom into something beautiful. That time and those conditions have surely arrived for the families of …
Continue reading “Ballymurphy: The massacre that foreshadowed Bloody Sunday”
I was taken aback somewhat by a phrase in an article entitled Scottish Six news programme plans are dead, Whitehall insiders confirm in the newspaper Herald Scotland. According to the paper’s UK Political Editor, Michael Settle, these so-called insiders “referred to the draft BBC charter stressing how the corporation must “contribute to the social cohesion …
I like quizzes. My field of knowledge might not be very deep but it is quite wide. I know things others amongst of my peers aren’t remotely interested in which earns me looks of admiration during University Challenge or at the pub quizzes I used to go to. The Scór is a competition run by …
There is something special about Scottish singing. A few weeks back I was in Crumlin Road Jail for a concert – no, it was nothing like Folsom Prison Blues as it featured Kathleeen MacInnes and Manran. At one point Kathleen was joined by Sineag MacIntyre and I was totally transported to na hEileannan Siar …
Continue reading “The Campbells of Greepe at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann”
Ever thought of combining a holiday to Brittany with a day’s Gaelic Games? That opportunity will come up on June 15th when the local GAA club at St. Brieuc hosts the French Gaelic Football Finals, with 20 clubs from all over France and the Channel Islands taking part on on Saturday, June the 15th. (Saint-Brieuc is named …
“I burned all along the Lough, (Neagh) within four miles of Dungannon and killed one hundred people, sparing none of what quality, age or sex soever, besides many burned to death; we kill man, woman and child; horse, beast and whatsoever we find.” These are the words of one Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron of Chichester …
Amazon sent me an e-mail today suggesting some books I might like to buy. Top of the list was Downfall: How Rangers FC Self-Destructed by Phil MacGiolla Bháin, the story of the meltdown of the biggest club in Scottish soccer. It would indeed be a book I would be interested in buying. The story of the …
People are really enjoying the Richard Dawkins quote about the National Trust’s decision to include some creationist piffle at the Giant’s Causeway interpretative centre, as quoted in the Belfast Telegraph. “The National Trust should not have given any consideration whatsoever to the intellectual baboons of young Earth creationism,” said Dawkins. The natural habitat for these …
I got the following invite this morning. It’s not quite an Irish Spring but who knows where it might lead … At 11:00am precisely, on the 10th July at the Davenport Hotel, Central Dublin – a little bit of Irish History will be made – be there! It’s not everyday of the week that our …
Suffragette City – how Belfast feminists won the vote A century ago, a passionate crowd packed the Ulster Hall to hear the leader of the Suffragette Movement, Emmeline Pankhurst demand votes for women. This year, on March 2, leading feminist author Dr Margaret Ward will return to the same venue to deliver a lunchtime lecture on …
