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Diarmaid Ferriter

Diarmaid Ferriter

The Irish Times

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Biden’s legacy will be tarnished by his vanity and stubbornness

17.01.2025 10

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Forget pandering to Independent TDs, these are the issues the new government needs to deal with

10.01.2025 10

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Sobering reality for Sinn Féin is that many voters don’t share its focus on unity

As prime minister of Northern Ireland a century ago, James Craig made effective use of a pithy slogan to encapsulate the unionist mission of 1925:...

03.01.2025 20

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

It’s time Dublin had a statue to unconventional, complex Maud Gonne MacBride

Maud Gonne MacBride, the committed republican, agitator and campaigner, was particularly disturbed by the plight of the poor during the difficult...

27.12.2024 4

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

During this hard men era, Ireland would do well to remember Seán MacBride’s words

A measure of the bleakness of the current international situation regarding human rights is that the messages enunciated by Seán MacBride on being...

20.12.2024 5

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Do not, on any account, forget the importance of the perfect Christmas hairstyling

There is a debate going on in my house about the environmental ethics of a fake versus a real Christmas tree. Multiple websites have been consulted...

13.12.2024 6

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Is it time for Opposition parties to come together under the banner ‘Put them out’?

The slogan “Put them out” gained considerable momentum in early 1948 after 16 years of Fianna Fáil in power. As historian John A Murphy put it,...

06.12.2024 3

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Diarmaid Ferriter: Simon Harris’s much vaunted ‘new energy’ was squeezed out of an old bottle

The general election campaign demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to match the exceptional endurance of our democratic culture with maturity...

30.11.2024 4

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Cillian Murphy’s view of Ireland in the 1980s as ‘the dark ages’ misses the point

One option for those seeking refuge from the general election campaign was the cinema for the film adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novella Small...

29.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Contrast between Trump’s cruelty and McCain’s dignity shows how far America has fallen

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008 was not only notable for the historic breakthrough it represented...

31.10.2024 2

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Few would have thought a play about the fraught Belfast Agreement talks could be so gripping

When civil servants in the Anglo-Irish division of the Department of Foreign Affairs were preparing taoiseach Bertie Ahern for a meeting with...

25.10.2024 2

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Sinn Féin’s difficulties should not make Fine Gael complacent

Some 100 years ago this month the Irish Free State’s minister for justice, Kevin O’Higgins, addressed the Irish Society at Oxford University....

18.10.2024 3

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

The curtain is coming down on Ireland’s soft power in the US

In January 2020, Joe Biden, then seeking the Democratic nomination for the US presidency, dismissed a request from BBC correspondent Nick Bryant in...

11.10.2024 3

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

The electoral cycle decides the budget, while the fiscal advisory council is ignored

In June 1954, TK Whitaker, then assistant secretary at the Department of Finance, wrote a note to outgoing Minister for Finance Seán MacEntee:...

04.10.2024 3

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Forelock-tugging to Trump in Doonbeg showed how far Ireland will bend for US dollars

In 2014 Donald Trump was welcomed to Ireland with a red carpet at Shannon Airport. What had the charlatan, blowhard clown done to merit such a...

13.09.2024 5

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

Nell McCafferty lived outside society’s norms and she never stopped challenging them

Nell McCafferty was part of a remarkable generation of women journalists who felt compelled to upend expectations. The changing political...

23.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter

When the Annie Murphy revelations came out, people wore Eamonn Casey T-shirts. How little we knew

Oh, how we laughed in the summer of 1992. The T-shirt vendors made hay while the Bishop Eamonn Casey revelations shone. “Wear a condom just in...

26.07.2024 5

The Irish Times

Diarmaid Ferriter