|
Mary Kelly__The Irish News |
The first casualty of war is truth, according to Aeschylus, father of Greek tragedy. And nowhere is that more evident than the Israeli war on Gaza....
The news that Westminster is to debate a proposed bill to enable assisted dying in England and Wales will come as a relief to many people, while being...
FLYING is never an enjoyable prospect these days, but some airlines seem to enjoy making the experience so much worse, by requiring cabin baggage to...
Back in the eighties, Pat Finucane was the sort of solicitor you hoped would be around at the Belfast magistrates’ court when you had turned up late...
Sometimes it takes an outsider’s view to make you look at something familiar with fresh eyes. Last week, we hosted a group of journalists from...
The journalist and broadcaster Michael Crick has had a swipe at the BBC, accusing it of losing its impartiality in its coverage of Kamala Harris and...
It‘s nice that DUP MLA Edwin Poots has recognised his wee country is changing. Maybe he just needed to get off the farm in Lagan Valley and move...
One of the perils of journalism is a tendency to see the negative side of life a little too often. It came to mind many years ago when I saw the new...
Well, wasn’t that a sight to behold in Belfast city centre on Saturday afternoon when racists proudly waved the Irish flag alongside their bigoted...
Is there anything more depressing than hearing someone who works in education argue passionately that there is “no community benefit” in a planned...
So finally Joe got the message that he couldn’t run for another term as President. Better late than never? Maybe it’s already too late. The...
If President Biden’s campaign looked in real danger last week, the bullets fired at Donald Trump at the weekend have probably finished it. Within...
Why have just one Portillo moment when you can have a half-dozen? This was the general election that brought an embarrassment of riches. Locally, it...
When the despicable Enniskillen bomb attack was carried out by the IRA in 1987, killing 12 people – among them a student nurse, Marie Wilson, and a...
I don’t pretend to know enough about politics across the border to know why exactly Sinn Féin had such a disappointing result in the local...
A week’s break in a lovely house in the Spanish Alpujarras mountains made the general election feel wonderfully remote. The trouble is that I felt...
“Delay, dysfunction and dereliction of duty.” Was there ever a more devastating critique of how government functions in this place than the words...
It’s probably strange, and possibly even a bit tasteless, to say you enjoyed someone’s funeral. But that was the widespread sentiment among...
We all watch so many cop dramas on the box that we probably fancy ourselves to have some detective skills. But you surely didn’t need to be Sherlock...
It is hard to understand the mentality of people who are so offended by the sight of Irish translations on street signs that they go home and get a...
It was 40 years ago – a lifetime, and yet almost every detail is still crystal clear. April 12 1984. The phone in the hall at my parents’ home was...
The Palestinian man was searching through the rubble of what had been his home, finding the remnants of a US food parcel dropped from the sky in a...
It was a Good Friday like no other. I first got word via texts from my two London-based kids asking if the “rumours about Jeffrey Donaldson facing...
It’s never a good look to get a job when you’re the only candidate. Maybe Simon Harris is happy he didn’t face a contest to be taoiseach, but...
Every so often, something comes to the public ‘s attention that is so manifestly unfair that it calls to the heavens for justice. The treatment of...
No-one should hold their breath waiting for an apology from the British government for the appalling crimes of the agent Freddie Scappaticci. This is...
I’m not sure what’s been happening to Sir Jeffrey. First he stood on platforms with Jimbo Allister et al, shouting about British sovereignty and...
Is there any chance that Sir Keir Starmer will relax a bit now that he’s had two by-election victories – and would have had a hat-trick this...
There surely comes a time in everyone’s working life when you feel like you’ve had enough of the daily grind and enthusiasm becomes harder to...
Two years late, and with a fed-up populace doing its best to give it a fair wind, the Northern Ireland Assembly finally cranked into being on...
So who knew that Sir Jeffrey was capable of displaying such raw emotion in that passion-filled speech at Westminster? His voice rising to a trembling...
The strikes last week made some people cast their minds back to the Ulster Workers’ Council strike. But there were really no similarities. Last...
It’s hard not to wonder if geopolitics has any moral compass when the US and UK launch a retaliatory attack on Yemeni rebels in defence of...
When you’ve spent a lifetime in the news industry, it is sobering when you realise that the most important stories, no matter how many headlines...
It’s a new year, so let’s start thinking positive thoughts. 2024 should be the year that one of the most corrupt and useless British governments...
It takes time to realise that Northern Ireland is not the centre of the universe. But all those years of being in the headlines, having visits by US...
THE horror of the images from Gaza, shown nightly on tv news, is almost to much too bear.
THE horror of the images from Gaza, shown nightly on tv news, is almost to much too bear.
IT’S beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
IT’S beginning to look a lot like Christmas.