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Kathy Sheridan

Kathy Sheridan

The Irish Times

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Angry flea circus buzzing around ‘woke’ Helen McEntee goes beyond the usual political sniping

In fairness to James Browne, Fianna Fáil’s Minister of State at the Department of Justice, he did not say that his boss, Helen McEntee, had been...

yesterday 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

‘Your body. My choice.’ A phrase that chills women to the bone

The legitimate agitation about the direction of young men and boys found its apotheosis in the hours after Donald Trump’s re-election. In a segment...

13.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

I am nauseously optimistic about the chances of a Kamala Harris victory

This column is being written early on Tuesday, hours before the US polls open, but I am “nauseously optimistic” about Kamala Harris, as Democrat...

05.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Donald Trump’s apparent misfires are part of a sinister strategy

It’s just a few weeks since a young professional at a noisy party tried to explain why a huge swathe of Americans will vote for Donald Trump. Had I...

30.10.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Heather Humphreys defies old line about all political lives ending in failure

Vox pops rarely produce anything useful, which is hardly surprising. They mainly entail a young reporter dashing around a street or two not far from...

23.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Don’t write off Gráinne Seoige. The original celebrity candidate was Jack Lynch

Celebrity candidates are back in the news, raising the old question of what precisely constitutes such a creature. Handy shorthand for anyone who’s...

16.10.2024 20

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Child benefit works as intended - and not just by buying votes for politicians

There is always an echo. Twenty-two years ago on a comically relaxed election canvass in a north Kildare housing estate, a laughing young mother came...

09.10.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Leo Varadkar could learn something from Jimmy Carter about how to retire

Very soon – probably around November 15th – hordes of stir-crazy politicians will be barrelling out of Leinster House like store cattle liberated...

02.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

US media must stop ‘sanewashing’ Trump’s deranged speeches

The term sanewashing has entered the terminology of the US presidential race, and not before time. A portmanteau of “sane” and “whitewashing”,...

11.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Dry your eyes Oasis fans, there’s no such thing as a gig emergency

It’s poignant to watch middle-aged Oasis fans railing about greedy ticket pricing when raging Swifties turned a Ticketmaster website debacle a...

04.09.2024 20

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Netanyahu has distracted the world’s attention from countless other warmongering thugs

Among the many tragedies of Gaza is how it has consumed the bandwidth of activists and protesters in the West. In many ways they’ve done their job,...

28.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Donald Trump doesn’t know how to compete against Kamala Harris

A reliable way of staying relevant is to rail at something or someone a lot of other people admire. A jibe at Simon Harris’s phenomenal energy or...

21.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Post-Olympics comedown can leave athletes feeling exhausted, empty and aimless

The most boring interviews in recent times have involved tennis legend and renowned gentleman Roger Federer. He talks about the primacy of shot...

14.08.2024 7

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Laws on wearing masks are just one of the difficult balancing acts to come

If the politics of public face-masking was fraught in pandemic times, watch what happens next. Back then the “freedom” boys swaggered through...

07.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Was the Olympics ceremony backlash more about the drag artists than the Last Supper?

Back in 2012 an Irish friend volunteering at the London Olympics rang after witnessing the opening ceremony rehearsal. Watch it, he said, there’s...

31.07.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

US politicians are now realising that rhetoric can inspire violence

Saturday’s shooting was not “un-American”. Gun violence and mass killing followed by thoughts and prayers and Republican resistance to gun...

17.07.2024 8

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

It’s as if we’re seeing Kamala Harris for the first time

President Joe Biden’s brain has been dissected and found wanting. Million-dollar fundraisers are trying to talk big Democrat donors off the ledge....

10.07.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Defence Forces personnel must be held to higher standards and scrutiny than any other servants of the State

Some will recognise the feeling. That visceral punch when a member of the organisation becomes a public scandal and suddenly the whole body is under...

03.07.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Tories’ Project Fear is last, desperate act of a party about to plunge off a cliff

The Westminster elections are only a week away and the Tory party is battling the odds with all the grace of Wile E Coyote running off a cliff,...

26.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Nina Carberry’s vanishing act is a sign of casual disregard for European Parliament

Nina Carberry pulled off one of the great vanishing acts of the European Parliament campaign though voters who missed her on her super-stealth canvass...

19.06.2024 40

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

I ranked among that much derided category of people who spoil their vote

Grappling with the ridiculous 27-candidate, 73cm-long Midlands-North-West ballot paper, this voter decided on some instant gratification. A firm 27...

12.06.2024 9

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

The chasing and jostling of Simon Harris blurred the line between protest and harassment

Relish the scenes from the Taoiseach’s visit to Mayo. Watch a woman leap into his body space and wield a phone camera inches from his face. See him...

05.06.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

The normalisation of hate-speech in Ireland is almost complete

What far right? You can’t mean in Ireland? You mean the people who’ve been asking for a bit of common sense on immigration? Some who reach beyond...

29.05.2024 20

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Beware of simplistic appeals to ‘common sense’ on issue of immigration

Even his sourest critics would have found little to quibble about in the thrust of the Taoiseach Simon Harris’s speech at the National Famine...

22.05.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

If you’re shocked to learn that conspiracy theories are gaining traction, you’re in a bubble

The decoding of the referendum results got a fresh rush of energy with the publication of the Electoral Commission’s exit survey. If you believed...

15.05.2024 60

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Not-quite-Independents are emerging as the new political force

In case you imagined that we have only a handful of political parties, well, the news is we have 29. Yep, 29. All legally registered with the...

24.04.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Politics attracts some idiots and narcissists - but most are still driven by a desire to do good

When a Vietnamese property tycoon was sentenced to death last week for one of the biggest corruption cases in history, Paddy Cosgrave – currently...

17.04.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Whose needs would a Progressive Democrats 2.0 serve?

The growing demand for a proper right-wing party or “return to traditional values”, like whiplash, is hard to pin down. “Enough is enough”...

10.04.2024 8

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

I split my house with my daughter, without government help. Stop shaming ‘empty nesters’

It’s Easter, a time when our thoughts inevitably turn to Connolly and Pearse and the current state of the kip they died for. They would be amazed...

03.04.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

If politicians like Varadkar and Ardern are burnt out, it’s a sign of the corrosive nature of politics

There was no mystery in the Opposition’s barking response to Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation last week. He had opened up an appalling vista where...

27.03.2024 40

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Where were the Men for Mothers brigade when there was cleaning and caring to be done?

This is your regular reminder that functioning human brains are capable of accommodating several ideas at the same time. Yes, the referendums were...

13.03.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Spare me the so-called ‘true patriots’ who preach about freedom

There are always those who preach about “freedom”, but only their own. This week three years ago, at the height of Covid, some of them paraded...

06.03.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Catherine Martin mistook a gotcha moment for a meaningful political move

Nothing better illustrates the futility of chasing policy by Twitter/Telegram than the Irish Times/Ipsos B&A Snapshot polls. Check out the moving bar...

28.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

‘Male, pale and stale’ might be a trite old cliche, but there’s a reason why it has stuck in politics

Maria Walsh was responding to a journalist’s question when she took a swipe at Fianna Fáil’s three confirmed European candidates as “male, pale...

21.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Trump’s flaming chainsaw circus act is back. And so is the media gravy train

Way back in 2016 TV network chiefs knew the destruction they were wreaking with their 24/7 razzle-dazzle Trump coverage. “It may not be good for...

14.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Michelle O’Neill looks to the future, while Joe Brolly seems stuck in the past

Michelle O’Neill’s walk into history via Stormont’s imposing staircase presented an image of ownership and intent, expressed outwardly with a...

07.02.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

We can thank Brexit for one thing: it’s a lesson in how to spot opportunists, liars and zealots

Coming up to eight years since the Brexit referendum, four to the day since Brexit proper was celebrated with Big Ben bongs and a countdown clock...

31.01.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Has the world forgotten what it means to elect a fascist?

Big questions are being asked about democracy. Around two billion people – about half the world’s adult population – will have a chance to vote...

24.01.2024 20

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Why are Americans worried about Joe Biden’s age and not Trump’s?

Chances of an 82-year-old Joe Biden making it through a second term? They veer from commentator Niall O’Dowd’s super-optimistic assessment in a...

17.01.2024 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Demonisation of single, migrant men has bounced from far-right into the mainstream

“It’s the man in your bed, not the man under your bed you should be worried about,” the former State pathologist Marie Cassidy said when asked...

10.01.2024 20

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

This year let’s banish ‘following your gut’, ‘centrist dads’ and entertaining politics

You will find no new year resolutions here. Make plans and God laughs. But 2024 will be an election year in many places including Ireland so, in some...

03.01.2024 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

From Gaza to Afghanistan to the Criminal Courts of Justice, this was a bleak year for women

Two years on, we still do not know why Jozef Puska opted to turn the advantages he had been given in life to the destruction of a beautiful, joyful...

27.12.2023 8

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Scorching irony of a politician declaring ‘the inn is full’ at Christmas

“The inn is full,” said Cllr Noel Thomas, after the arsonists’ handiwork on a refugee shelter in Rosscahill while carefully not defending it....

20.12.2023 10

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Anger is everywhere. We need more imaginative forms of justice

A young woman who cycles to work in Dublin describes the daily challenge when the cycleway turns left at a bridge but she has to keep straight ahead...

13.12.2023 30

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

A world preoccupied by a burning Palestine suits Putin’s purpose

It is impossible to sit in company without the suffering, defenceless children of Gaza fading in and out of the conversation. A relentless news cycle...

06.12.2023 7

The Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

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