What form would or could Irish unity take?
The idea that people who favour a united Ireland should say nothing on the subject is ludicrous. There simply can’t be an important area of social, political and economic controversy on which there is some form of omerta. But vacuous and ill thought out rhetoric about a united Ireland is more or less useless in […]
True extent of new powers sought by gardaí a cause for concern
An Garda Síochána has asked the Government to draw up and have the Oireachtas enact a Bill to extend its members’ powers to require any person whose premises are searched under warrant to provide them with pin number access or decryption keys to any IT device they may come across in the course of their […]
Pedestrianising streets is easy part of change
The recent opinion piece by Richard Herriott on urban planning (Irish Times, Monday June 7th ) makes a compelling case for a radical rethink of how we plan and build our cities. He argues that SDH tower blocks are not the answer to our housing crisis and that comprehensive redevelopment of inner suburbs is […]
Tulsa racial pogrom resonates 100 years later
While we remember events 100 years ago which led to an independent Irish state, and while we are preparing to commemorate the disastrous civil war which followed, it is worthwhile to remember events which took place 100 years ago this week in Oklahoma in the United States. What is now known as the Tulsa massacre […]
Respect for truth is being hacked to pieces
I am reading the recently published Surviving Katyn by Jane Rogoyska, a riveting account of the lead up to and aftermath of the liquidation by Josef Stalin and Lavrenti Beria of 22,000 Polish officers captured by the Soviet Union in the 1939 carve-up of Poland with the Nazis. As is well known, some of their […]
Time to re-open our democracy
Now that building sites are reopened and retail is returning to normal, the question arises as to how our democratic institutions have performed and will perform in the wake of the pandemic. Assuming that the Indian variant does not derail reopening our social and economic lives, we must examine how our democracy has functioned during […]