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Tom Collins

Tom Collins

The Irish News

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We got the pope we needed at the time we needed it

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The Irish News

Tom Collins

Spotlight on ‘race science’ professor long overdue

18.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Time to stop the rot and give Derry the university it needs and deserves

10.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

UU award cannot disguise its neglect of north-west

It would be churlish not to applaud Ulster University which has been named ‘University of the Year’ by the Times Higher Education magazine. So...

04.12.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Joe Biden on wrong side of history again over Netanyahu support

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,...

27.11.2024 20

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Trump represents a clear threat to Ukraine’s freedom

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...

19.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Trump win brings end to the American Dream

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...

12.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

If Trump wins, the United States as we know it is lost

Two things are certain about today’s general election in the United States: if Kamala Harris loses, she will concede gracefully; if Donald Trump...

05.11.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Tech oligarchs are making a mockery of the news

29.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

America on a precipice as election day looms

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....

22.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

We need to have a grown-up debate about assisted dying

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...

16.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Claire Hanna and the lightbulb moment for the SDLP

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...

08.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Unshackled Netanyahu playing Biden for a fool

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...

01.10.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

All-Ireland solutions needed for neglected Derry to realise potential

Comedy can often reveal unspeakable truths. There’s an exchange in Derry Girls where Orla asks: “Will we need our passports, Gerry?” “For...

24.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Hilary Benn joins long list of useless UK overlords

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...

18.09.2024 30

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Translink needs to mind its language

10.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Claire Hanna must help make us ‘a nation once again’

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...

03.09.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Vote Labour, get Tory

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...

27.08.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Allies must not turn their back as Ukraine brings war to Putin

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...

20.08.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Biden must act now to stop Netanyahu’s war

If ever you are seeking an example of the inadequacies of proportional representation, you need only look at Israel where a fragmented parliament has...

13.08.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

The fight against fascism starts with social media

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...

07.08.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Revenge of the ‘childless cat ladies’ is overdue

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...

30.07.2024 9

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Bullet-defying Trump and the world’s ‘push the button’ moment

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...

24.07.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Labour’s election victory disguises forces that will destroy the union

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,...

16.07.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

The only oath of loyalty should be to the people

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...

10.07.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Whatever the General Election result, we are hitched to a sinking ship

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...

02.07.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody cranks up volume on call for arts funding

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...

25.06.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

When the law is on the side of killers

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....

19.06.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Let’s vote with our feet and walk away from the UK

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...

12.06.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Putin deploying boredom to win his war in Ukraine

There is an inevitable trajectory with big news stories. They go from dominating the headlines to oblivion – sometimes at a frighteningly quick...

04.06.2024 30

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Oath to king creates a parliament of flunkies

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...

28.05.2024 20

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Would you trust the world to a ‘baby with a toupee’?

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...

21.05.2024 40

The Irish News

Tom Collins

New impetus for action on university in Derry

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...

07.05.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Yousaf’s demise carries warning for cause of Irish unity

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...

01.05.2024 20

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Damned for all time: Bloody Sunday killers will go down in infamy

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...

25.04.2024 20

The Irish News

Tom Collins

The Old Testament God has failed in the Middle East

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...

16.04.2024 8

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Whatever the cost, Ireland reunited will always trump an Ireland divided

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...

10.04.2024 6

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Assisted dying should become a human right

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...

02.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Magee university task force is classic case of kicking can down road

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...

26.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

I had high hopes for Joe Biden, but hope and history has failed to rhyme

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...

20.03.2024 9

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Failing coalition putting prospect of Irish unity in jeopardy

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...

12.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Now it’s time to give Derry its university

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...

05.03.2024 30

The Irish News

Tom Collins

BBC’s failures in Northern Ireland laid bare by its own veterans

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...

28.02.2024 70

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Mr Givan: Cut the PR hype and begin reform of education system

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...

20.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Biden needs to step aside for candidate who can take on Trump and win

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...

13.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Is Stormont up to the job? Hope spring eternal

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...

06.02.2024 20

The Irish News

Tom Collins

US stands condemned over vile judicial murder

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...

30.01.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

The DUP is a busted flush

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...

23.01.2024 30

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Use of injustice to hold on to power is endemic in the British state

John Hume was often accused of having a ‘single transferable speech’ which he deployed every time he was near a microphone. Like all...

16.01.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

Democracy on the ropes in US election

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...

10.01.2024 10

The Irish News

Tom Collins

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