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![]() Tom KellyThe Irish News |
A new year is usually a time of hope. Personally, I struggle with it as it’s an annual reminder of a great hurt in my life. Nearly 50 years on and...
Christmas is now done and dusted. All the stress, the preparation, the expense, the food and drink, makes one wonder: is it all worth it? Of...
Dear readers, from my house to yours, Nollaig shona daoibh go léir! Just two sleeps until Christmas. So today I’ll give the local politicos a...
To paraphrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The unionists doth protest too much, methinks.” Where’s the confident, assured and all embracing...
An unsettled UK Labour government, France in disarray, Palestine abandoned, Ukraine in retreat and the US spiralling towards dictatorship, as...
The people have spoken. Well, those who bothered to vote have spoken. The trajectory of the election results point to Micheál Martin becoming...
Voters in the Republic will soon be electing members to the 34th Dáil Éireann. The first Dáil was formed in the era of my grandparents, so it’s...
FORMER Irish cabinet minister Eoghan Murphy was elected as a Fine Gael councillor in 2009 for Pembroke Rathmines at the age of 27. Within two...
Donald Trump has staged a remarkable political comeback. He targeted his supporters with simple messaging about the economy and immigration. He...
Last week someone within the oxymoronic loyalist ‘political research’ organisation better known as the UPRG posted a Halloween message with the...
In less than 48 hours the Labour administration faces its greatest challenge – the 2024/25 budget. The public reaction may determine the future of...
“Houston, we have a problem.” To say Sinn Féin is struggling with presentation would be a gross understatement. They appear to have a serious...
The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) is a farce. It always has been. It’s a bunch of (mainly old) men desperately clinging on to maintain a...
The late Mary O’Rourke, former Fianna Fáil minister, once refused to be minister for women’s affairs as she didn’t want to be pigeon-holed in a...
Victor Hugo, the French writer and politician, once said: “He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC)...
Currently this writer is sitting in the Pullman Hotel in Liverpool watching hundreds of contractors, Labour party staff and volunteers put the...
Even by the low standards of the so-called Troubles, the 1989 loyalist paramilitary murder of solicitor Pat Finucane in front of his wife and young...
Dean Swift visiting Newry talked about the “proud people”. I am from such stock. But reading in both the Newry Reporter and The Irish News about...
A couple of weeks ago, my column was about longevity and leadership. On the day it was published Doug Beattie announced his resignation as leader...
I used to work with a man called James B King. He was a larger than life figure and held the post of President Clinton’s director of the Office of...
It’s easy to sometimes manipulate figures to suit a particular narrative. Commentators do it (Mea culpa). Modern leaders of political parties must...
“Fine words butter no parsnips” goes the saying. And so it was with the recall of the Assembly. There were lots of eloquent words, moral...
Alice Dasilva Aguilar aged 9. Elsie Dot Stancombe aged 7. Bebe King aged 6. Remember their names. Children whose lives were mercilessly cut short by...
At the time of writing, Newry is festooned in orange and white. Clanrye, the county river which divides Down from Armagh has been breached....
The assassination attempt on former President Trump was wholly wrong. The intentions of the would-be assassin remain, as yet, unknown. What’s known...
There’s a lot of guff at the moment about taking the parliamentary oath at Westminster. The decision to participate in the swearing in ceremony is...