No majority North or South for an undefined Irish unity
Steve Baker, a British minister of state for Northern Ireland and a former chairman of the Tory euro-sceptic European Research Group, suggested that it might have been better if the Good Friday Agreement had provided that there would be no change in the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom unless a […]
Israel’s retribution on people of Gaza is exactly what Hamas planned
The atrocious Hamas massacre and hostage -taking in Israel was intended to have the exact outcome which is now unfolding before our eyes. Their evil calculus was, and is, that Israel would unleash a mighty retribution on the entire people and territory of the Gaza strip. What else could they have expected and hoped for? […]
Ireland must now shout out loud against total war in Gaza
The premeditated, evil barbarity unleashed on hundreds of innocent human beings by Hamas, a terrorist organisation, can never be justified or excused. Nor can the belief systems that conceived of the massacres and put them into effect. By any standard, they are heinous crimes against humanity and can only be viewed as such. The question that […]
Aggressive protesting is not a one-way street
Liberty to exercise the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and without arms is guaranteed by the State in Ireland subject to public order and morality. However, Article 40.6 of the Constitution authorises laws to prevent or control meetings “which are determined in accordance with law to be calculated to cause a breach of the peace or […]
Dublin’s dereliction problem needs a totally different approach
There has been a lot of commentary in these pages and elsewhere in relation to urban dereliction in Dublin, and the piecemeal and inadequate response to the consequences. To put one matter out of the way immediately, there is no – absolutely no – constitutional issue based on a property rights argument in tackling dereliction, underutilisation, or […]
Lenin is an odious icon for Irish human rights activists
I was intrigued to see posters featuring Vladimir Lenin and red flags featuring the hammer and sickle in evidence at a recent counterdemonstration in support of transgender rights at Merrion Square. This counterdemonstration apparently aimed to drown out by noise a demonstration organised by a group called Let Women Speak, which featured a controversial UK feminist anti-transgender […]