Category: Politics
The Burkean’s Political Parties – Young Fine Gael
This autumn, students all over Ireland will be starting or returning to life on their college campuses, and those of a political mindset might consider joining one of the various political parties on campus. The below is my effort as...
Why Career Landlords and Fine Gael Love #TakeBackTheCity
‘TakeBackTheCity’ almost looks like controlled opposition. It is a group that pretends to be trying to challenge the likes of large property developers, but is instead cementing their positions, both in Dublin and Ireland as a whole. In fact there...
Welcome to the Metrostate
Just over one hundred years ago, Patrick Pearse famously stepped out of Dublin’s GPO to read the Proclamation to a somewhat bemused Dublin populace. Pearse’s reading of the Proclamation is generally viewed as the founding act of a new independent...
Michael D. Higgins’ Marxist Philosophical Circus
In his “King Lear,” William Shakespeare writes: “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.” I cannot think of a public figure in Ireland who exemplifies it better than our old-new presidential candidate Michael D. Higgins. He...
Ireland’s Traveller Policy: An Inherent Contradiction
The ‘National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy’ (2017 – 2021), published in June 2017 described Travellers and Roma as “among the most disadvantaged and marginalised people in Ireland”. The Report provides strong evidence for this marginalization citing for example that...
Kevin Sharkey: An Ireland-First President?
Ultimately however, Kevin Sharkey is at the mercy of mainstream politics for the time being.
Ireland’s Drug Blues: A Slow Cowardly Surrender
If ever there was a clear sign that Ireland is in serious danger of disappearing up its own contradictions it was the sight of Minister of State for health promotion Catherine Byrne holding a brightly coloured poster providing details on how to...
Mary Lou and the Neutering of Sinn Féin
For generations born before the Good Friday Agreement the name Sinn Féin engenders a certain level of well warranted disgust. As the former political wing of a paramilitary organisation Sinn Féin is unusual for a Western European democracy, and only over the...
The MacGill Controversy: A Storm in a Bubble
In the midst of the biggest housing crisis in the history of the state, the longest ever hospital waiting lists, and the potential outcomes for Ireland in the ongoing Brexit negotiations, you might think that an obscure political summer school...
Lawless Ireland: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Something is seriously wrong. The strangulation and beating of an 18-year-old teenage boy, the abduction and strangulation of a 24-year-old waitress, the savage beating and killing of a 14-year-old schoolgirl, and now the triple shooting at a Bray boxing club...