So far the grotesque reality of Trump’s ambitions has exceeded all the worst predictions
Having written articles about the rise of Donald Trump over the last decade, I have learned that the grotesque reality of his politics often exceeds the imagination of most people. Consider for a moment what readers of this column would have made of an article written five years ago predicting that Trump would soon threaten […]
Rotation of senior Government ministries does not serve the Irish public
Recently a senior and experienced political activist in one of the major parties in government remarked to me that he feared that this could well turn out to be the worst partnership period for those two parties. You might think that with ideological differences no wider than a cigarette paper dividing them and a clear […]
England is mired in self-doubt and disillusionment – but Ireland can’t afford to gloat
The English Patient is a much feted film adaptation by Antony Minghella of Ondaatje’s novel of the same name. Its title, however, has a worrying contemporary resonance. All is not well with England. Its media are increasingly crowded with pessimism and self-doubt. This week the London Times published polling data suggesting that England’s younger generation, […]
Beware the phoney, flaccid consensus on events such as Storm Éowyn or Covid
It is often said that hindsight is 20:20 vision. But sometimes I wonder whether that is true. Retrospective consideration of major public issues is frequently distorted by a desire on the part of those conducting inquiries and assessments to safeguard themselves politically or to justify what they did or did not do. To take a […]
Musk-Trump effect has the capacity to destabilise Irish democracy
I imagine that many people in Ireland are quietly hoping that some of the more pessimistic forecasts of what the Trump presidency could mean for this country prove to be wrong and that somehow the old adage that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose will turn out in practice to mitigate those forecasts. […]
Ireland in the 1980s was backward, poor and stagnant. Some politicians want to bring us back there
From the beginning of January 1973, Ireland was a member state of the EEC. But for the following decade we were in the throes of despair. By the mid-1980s, Ireland was being crippled by political violence, mass emigration, mass unemployment, political paralysis and a sense of hopelessness. Sometimes it is worthwhile recalling the failed structure of the Irish economy […]