Journalist, author, broadcaster
The proportion of Catholics in Northern Ireland has increased in the last decade, according to census figures released yesterday. The census shows that 48.36 per cent of the resident population are either Protestant or brought up Protestant, while over 45 per cent are Catholic or raised Catholic. The census, which was held in March 2011, […]
That security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland during the Troubles has long been common knowledge, but David Cameron was right yesterday when he described the levels of state collusion uncovered by Sir Desmond de Silva QC as ‘shocking’. De Silva found that the men who murdered solicitor Pat Finucane at his home […]
The weeks leading up to Christmas are normally a bumper time for the Mourne Seafood Bar in Belfast. One of the most popular restaurants in the city, empty tables at the Mourne are usually a collector’s item at weekends during the festive period. But not last Saturday. As protestors with Union Jack scarves across their […]
The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London by James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello. These are straitened times for BP. The oil giant faces a slew of civil and criminal suits arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. In October, Azerbaijan’s autocratic president Ilham Aliyev chastised the company for its failure to meet production targets […]
Earlier this month, Providence Resources announced that an oil field at Barryroe, off the coast of Cork, is expected to yield 280 million barrels. The company’s CEO, Tony O’Reilly Jr, the son of the media mogul, told the Today programme that this was ‘very good news for Providence shareholders and the Irish economy’. The first part of […]
IRELAND’S devastated economy received a boost yesterday with the announcement that an offshore field at Barryroe, 30 miles off the coast of County Cork, could yield up to 280 million barrels of oil. Providence Resources, an Irish and UK company that has been drilling at six locations off the coast of Ireland, said Barryroe will […]
Noelle McHale bought her “dream home” in a new estate in Ireland’s midlands in 2006 for €175,000 (£142,000 today). But her dream has turned to nightmare with her semi-detached worth only a fraction of that price, and the unfinished estate it sits in considered dangerously unsafe because of toxic gases. “If you light a match […]
As is the case with unhappy families, every corrupt state is corrupt in its own way: in Ireland, an entrenched, localized “parish pump” political system; weak regulation; devout deference to authority; and a predisposition to denigrate whistleblowers as “informers” all contributed to widespread malpractice in public office. Consequently, Irish corruption, as Elaine A. Byrne writes, “operated within a […]
A recent match between Switzerland and Albania included players whose home nation is not yet recognised by FIFA With less than a quarter of an hour to go in Switzerland’s recent World Cup qualifier against Albania in Lucerne, Granit Xhaka was presented with a glorious chance to put the home side 3-0 up. With the […]
Mother Teresa Boulevard is a street pregnant with symbolism. At one end of the wide, pedestrianized thoroughfare that runs through the centre of Pristina, an imposing statue of Albanian hero Skanderbeg stands in the shadow of Kosovo’s parliament building. A couple of hundred metres south sits the Communist-era Grand Hotel. When war broke out in […]