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Patrick Smyth

Patrick Smyth

The Irish Times

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Mercosur will not be the cataclysm for Irish farmers they predict

Any illusions I might have had about the waning influence of Irish farming were quickly disabused when I arrived in Brussels in the mid-1990s to...

04.01.2025 3

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

Giorgia Meloni masquerades as the ‘acceptable’ face of the far right, but nobody should be fooled

It was a meeting of minds, kindred souls, timed to perfection for Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Celebrating together the magnificent...

28.12.2024 10

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

EU needs to be less ‘polite’ in resisting Russian attempts to sway elections

The unprecedented decision by Romania’s constitutional court last week to annul the first-round victory of far-right firebrand Călin Georgescu...

14.12.2024 3

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

How the US ‘broke Congo’ is vividly retold in a pacy new documentary

The three-month transition between a US president’s election and inauguration is a time of great uncertainty, a time when the legacy on which...

23.11.2024 3

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

Japan’s reliable, stable democracy has been shaken by snap election gamble

Prime minister Shigeru Ishiba is clearly not a student of form. Had he but looked to the UK or France, or indeed Portugal, in this international...

02.11.2024 2

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

Is Trump a fascist? Kamala Harris is among a growing number who say yes

I confess I was surprised when an old friend, who had spent time in the US as a senior diplomat closely observing Donald Trump, described the then...

27.10.2024 2

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

UK has grudgingly closed a long chapter in its inglorious history of African colonial conquest

It is no longer an empire on which the sun never sets. Not that, following decades of decolonisation, it is still much of an empire anyway. But...

12.10.2024 1

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

A definition of Swiss neutrality remains elusive, but at least the debate has begun

It was a ferocious battle, hand-to-hand fighting, in which some 20,000 died, a decisive defeat for the Swiss Confederacy by the French and...

21.09.2024 4

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

Venezuelans vote with their feet as optimism evaporates

Elections were not working, so Venezuelans were voting with their feet. In advance of the July 28th election, 11 years in to Nicolas Maduro’s rule,...

31.08.2024 1

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth

Plan to make billionaires pay more tax is gaining support globally

Gabriel Zucman, the scourge of billionaires, is making waves. The Parisian economist, director of think tank the European Tax Observatory,...

10.08.2024 2

The Irish Times

Patrick Smyth