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Tom CollinsThe Irish News |
It would be churlish not to applaud Ulster University which has been named ‘University of the Year’ by the Times Higher Education magazine. So...
Once again Joe Biden is on the wrong side of history. His continued support for Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the imponderables of modern times. Yes,...
To some extent it has become the forgotten war. Russia’s outrageous attack on Ukraine almost three years ago dominated the headlines for the first...
It was midnight and the polls on the east coast of the United States were about to close. By then I’d had enough of the idle chatter that passes...
Two things are certain about today’s general election in the United States: if Kamala Harris loses, she will concede gracefully; if Donald Trump...
In any normal society there would be no doubt about the outcome of the tussle for the United States presidency between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump....
When I Googled ‘assisted dying’, a link to the Samaritans was top of the list of websites presented to me by the computer algorithm. “Help is...
You are about to hear a ‘dad joke’. How many folk musicians does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: Five. One to change the bulb, and four to...
The empty seats said it all. When Benjamin Netanyahu turned up to address the world at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, many...
Comedy can often reveal unspeakable truths. There’s an exchange in Derry Girls where Orla asks: “Will we need our passports, Gerry?” “For...
Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s pretty clear now that the British government has little or no interest in Northern Ireland; never has, never...
Mike Nesbitt must be wondering what he has done to deserve his fate, condemned once more to take on the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party. He...
There is a reason why the line ‘Vote Labour, get Tory’ resonates. It’s true. One of the frustrations of British politics is the Labour Party’s...
Sometimes a line of poetry shocks you out of your complacency. A Ukrainian friend, with family living still in the war zone, recently gave me a book...
If ever you are seeking an example of the inadequacies of proportional representation, you need only look at Israel where a fragmented parliament has...
This is a sentence I could have written today: “Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces...
What a week it’s been for Kamala Harris, propelled towards the US presidency by Joe Biden’s decision to accept the inevitable and withdraw from...
It’s known as ‘the button scene’. At the climax of the misogynistic comedy How to Murder Your Wife, Jack Lemon’s character draws a button in...
While the loyal sons of Ulster were setting fire to their sectarian pyres on Thursday, Scots were celebrating the 750th birthday of Robert the Bruce,...
Today MPs will gather in Westminster for the beginning of a new parliament. Let’s hope the cleaners have taken the opportunity to fumigate the...
Like it or not, and I suspect that for the overwhelming majority of you it’s ‘not’, we are hitched to the sinking ship of state known as the...
You know it’s going to fall on deaf ears. For as long as I can remember people have been pointing out the importance of art and culture and the need...
Imagine an eight-year-old splashing about in a public park. Maybe you were that child once, or the child is your son or daughter, your grandchild....
Let this be the last time the people of Northern Ireland have to vote in a British general election. As the hapless campaign has unfolded, it has...
There is an inevitable trajectory with big news stories. They go from dominating the headlines to oblivion – sometimes at a frighteningly quick...
Other than a few hopefuls currently peering down from lamp posts, I don’t imagine many readers will have July 9 circled in their diaries, unless...
Today the prosecution and defence in Donald Trump’s criminal trial are due to begin their summing up. As you might expect, it’s been an unedifying...
I have never been much of a fan of holy relics, and the mumbo-jumbo end of Catholicism didn’t much appeal to the Victorian convert John Henry Newman...
Timing is everything in politics, and when Humza Yousaf became leader of the SNP last year the party was already in freefall. Without a personal...
We were sitting in English class the day after it happened. Our teacher had just introduced us to the poetry of Seamus Heaney. Even for a group of...
It’s not difficult to find culprits for what is happening in the Middle East, for so long a plaything of powerful empires intent on putting their...
There is already the whiff of failure about the new taoiseach – and this is his first day in office. Simon Harris is one of those oleaginous...
Anyone who has sat at the bedside of a loved one who is dying – and that is an experience most of us will have gone through – will understand how...
One of the problems with politics is that politicians often think only in the short term. Their income is dependant on re-election, and their vision...
By now the caravan has moved on. St Patrick’s Day is dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in his grave. Thank goodness. I have always been sceptical...
Given the enormous shift in social attitudes, it takes some doing to lose two referendum votes on an issue most people agree with. But in this...
When I told my teachers I was going to the New University of Ulster to study a new-fangled degree in media studies, I was told I shouldn’t go. “No...
For an indication of Sir Paul Fox’s standing, look no further than the list of those awarded a fellowship by the British Academy of Film and...
The economy is struggling, but there’s one sector which is thriving by making silk purses out of sows’ ears. Annually, hundreds of millions are...
In any normal society, Joe Biden would be taking a well-earned rest after a life of public service, and Donald Trump would be in jail. But the United...
Times have certainly changed. We have known since 2022 that Sinn Féin had secured the first minister’s post, but Saturday’s events at Stormont...
Sometimes you just have to stop reading. Part way through an article on the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, I had to push the back button on my...
Are you excited about the prospect of a return to a power-sharing executive at Stormont? No, me neither. The DUP is a busted flush. It has nothing to...
John Hume was often accused of having a ‘single transferable speech’ which he deployed every time he was near a microphone. Like all...
The former owner of the Londonderry Arms Hotel in Carnlough put it well. “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms...