Journalist, author, broadcaster
IRELAND’s prime minister Brian Cowen yesterday announced the dissolution of the Irish parliament, in what was probably the last act of his political career. The move brought to a close one of the most controversial governments in Ireland’s history and paved the way for the first general election since last year’s bailout of the economy […]
This piece on why Irish emigrants deserve to vote first appeared in the Guardian’s Comment is Free on 22/01/2011. The debate then moved to the Irish Times, where I also wrote a piece, and I appeared on Today FM’s The Last Word talking about the need for Irish emigrants to be allowed to vote on […]
What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday evening, Brian Cowen celebrated after defeating a motion of no confidence in his leadership tabled by foreign minister and party colleague Micheál Martin. “The party is united behind Brian Cowen as leader,” declared Fianna Fail chief whip John Curran. But barely 24 hours later, the Irish premier’s […]
Since the terrible shooting of Gabrielle Giffiords at the weekend, much attention has – rightly – been focused on the rhetoric of the Tea Party in the US, and particularly Sarah Palin. We have now seen the cross-hairs in the target, listened to Palin’s inane talk of ‘blood libel’ and – rather smugly – told […]
Last week a BBC Radio 3 scheme looking for “a new generation of public intellectuals” closed. Initiated in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the scheme aimed to unearth a new wave of public thinkers with an expressed “interest in broader cultural debate”. The competition was open to all – as long […]
Last Monday morning, as Green Party leader John Gormley sounded the coalition’s death knell at a press conference in Dublin, my mind immediately turned to one thing: the general election that will, sooner or later, take place back in Ireland. ‘Will be interesting to see how many ex-pats go home to vote. I definitely will,’ […]
Here’s my Comment is Free piece on being an Irish emigrant, which appeared on Guardian.co.uk last week. The same piece also appeared in that week’s Irish Post Mourning can be a protracted business. In the past week, after years spent oscillating between low-level anger and outright denial, I finally graduated to acceptance: having left Ireland […]
“There is no reason why Ireland should trigger an IMF or EU-type bailout”, Irish Minister of State for Europe, Dick Roche, told the Today program on BBC Radio 4 this morning. But despite such government protestations, the scale of Ireland’s sovereign debt crisis is such that it seems only a matter of when, not if, […]
When Mick Fealty calls asking for a favour it’s hard to say no. Not because he leans on you (which he doesn’t) but because you know that if he’s involved it’s going to be something vibrant, challenging and original. And that’s exactly what the Edinburgh Political Innovation camp on Saturday was. Billed as an ‘unconference’ […]
Journalists are supposed to stay well away from Politics (and the capital ‘P’ is no typo). The fourth estate’s putative duty is to ask awkward questions, to speak truth to power, to avoid political biases, etc. etc…. But what happens when a cynical hack wakes up one morning and realises that the government he lives […]