Category: Politics
Does Peadar Tóibín’s New Movement Stand a Chance?
New parties have not fared well in Ireland historically. All of the leading parties were established by 1933, and the impact of newcomers has tended to be slight and short-lasting. Contrast this with France, where the En Marche movement captured...
The Abortion Bill and Conscientious Objection
The abortion Bill presented by Minister Simon Harris is now before the Oireachtas where numerous amendments have been tabled. Some deal specifically with the issue of conscientious objection and want to offer it better protection. The Bill envisages that doctors...
Can Irish Journalism Save Itself?
With its pre-budget calls for VAT reductions on newspapers and taxpayer funded schemes, the recent NewsBrands Ireland #JournalismMatters campaign sounds more like a plaintive SOS than a viable plan for the future of the Irish newspaper industry. The scale of...
Democracy isn’t All it’s Cracked Up to Be
Professor David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society in Pamplona, Spain. He is author of Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Twitter: @davidjthunder As Europe, the United...
Houses as Cars and the State of Dublin Planning
If you want to sell a car in the European Union, your offering has to meet quite a lot of very specific standards. For example, Commission Regulation 1008/2010, a six-thousand-word epic: “… concerning type-approval requirements for windscreen wiper and washer...
Love Éire, Keep Blasphemy, Vote No – But Not For Why You Think
Ireland is changing. Ireland is changing from what used to be a nation of small, rural communities into something akin to a satellite nation of the United States and the greater anglosphere, with all the trinkets and trappings of American...
Why Didn’t the Irish Rebel? Explaining Post-Crash Inertia
The question of how the Irish elite avoided being overthrown, if not publicly hanged, in the aftermath of the Great Recession must surreptitiously linger in the minds of those in the corridors of power to this day. Despite the recent...
Simon’s Game Plan is Beyond Cynical: Make it Stop!
Simon Harris looks and acts like a man with a plan. It is not a nice plan. In fact, it is a deeply cynical plan. But the signs are that Harris’s plan is working, at least for now, and at...
Language, Spin and Irish Politics
“It seems that our public life is now to be dominated by spin and that plain speaking is elided in favour of meaningless public relations speak.” - Mr. Justice Peter Charleton In his latest report on the Disclosures Tribunal, Mr....
The Irish Presidential Election Doesn’t Matter and Distracts Us From Real Issues
A future Irish historian glancing over some of the headlines in the Autumn of 2018 would be surprised at the national fixation with the 2018 Irish Presidential Election. This fixation could have been forgiven had the race been dogged with...