All posts by Dr Declan Hayes

Stakeknife: The Spy Who Made Modern Ireland

Freddie Scappaticci, Stakeknife was, according to the book’s blurb, “the British spy who played a leading role in the British intelligence war against the Provisional IRA.” Stakeknife, along with John Joe McGee, another British plant, infamously ran the IRA’s Nutting...

/ 02/10/2023

Thoughts on Surviving the Battles of Pearse Street

The night of Friday 12th May saw me in Pearse Street and Saturday saw me outside the Custom House, then back to Pearse Street, before returning home via James Joyce’s old stomping grounds of Finn’s Hotel and Trinity’s forbidding walls....

/ 23/05/2023

Aodhán Ó Riordáin’s Latest Own Goal

Labour Party fat cat Aodhán Ó Riordáin is back to his old Harry Maguire ways. Whereas Maguire is roundly mocked for being the biggest threat to Manchester United's defence, Ó Riordáin is fixated on totally divorcing Ivana Bacik's Labour Party...

/ 31/01/2023

Leo The Loin Hearted Returns: A Taste of What Is To Come

Christmas has come early for Leo Varadkar who, having recently got his rocks off in a Dublin gay disco, has returned as Taoiseach, as chief of the Irish and, more particularly, of anyone else who rocks up in our green...

/ 18/12/2022

Review: Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle

Mary Lou McDonald’s claim that Shane Ross’ biography is a screed that she could have rubbished during her summer holidays is one of her many claims that do not stack up. Ross’ biography is a solid piece of work evidenced,...

/ 15/12/2022

Review: The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

Andrew Doyle’s The New Puritans: How The Religion of Social Justice Captured The Western World begins and ends with America’s Salem Witch Trials. In between, he has twelve chapters, each of whose titles has a religious connotation and all of...

/ 07/12/2022

Rose Dugdale: The Life of an Irish 68er

Seán O'Driscoll's riveting account of British aristocrat Rose Dugdale's topsy turvy life resembles a Monty Python thriller. Here is a niece of Oswald Mosley, a member of Britain's ruling elite, who had once prostrated herself in front of their Queen,...

/ 01/12/2022

East Wall: Dublin Working Class Turns Against Asylum Racket

Men, women and children from East Wall, Ballybough and North Strand gathered in their hundreds to protest outside the nearby Old ESB offices on East Wall Road today, which has been transformed, literally overnight, into a military style barracks for...

/ 19/11/2022

USI Waste Student Time on Asylum Crusade

Judging by this recent RTE report, USI’s recent housing protest was impressive in terms of quantity, if not quality. As the crowds that gathered at Trinity’s Dining Hall Steps, where they were addressed by student union leaders and senior academics,...

/ 26/10/2022

Mná na h-Éireann: Hidden Politics and Irish Sport

The women footballers of Ireland celebrating making the 2023 World Cup Finals has drawn flak all of us could have done without. Just as the Limerick hurlers sang Seán South of Garryowen, so also did these women stir a hornet's...

/ 17/10/2022