Journalist, author, broadcaster
As small businesses struggle to find support from the banks, Peter Geoghegan suggests now is the time to look at an alternative way to finance retail firms It’s official: the UK is back in recession. On the day Rupert Murdoch was appearing in sack-cloth and ashes before the Leveson inquiry in London, the Office for […]
It doesn’t feel like a country in the grip of a lost decade, writes Peter Geoghegan, but beyond Dublin’s corporate office blocks and crowded city-centre bars lies another Ireland Last weekend more than 50,000 people – many of them Scottish rugby fans – packed into the Aviva Stadium in Dublin to watch Ireland triumph over […]
LAST Saturday, Tyrone defeated Derry in the final of the McKenna Cup at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Among the sell-out crowd was an unlikely acolyte of Ulster GAA: Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson. While right-wing unionists decried the DUP leader’s first trip to a GAA match as treachery, Robinson appeared to enjoy the […]
I spent ten days or so in Cairo at the start of this month. Here’s the first of a few articles I wrote while I was there, a news piece on the elections for the Scotsman. EGYPT’S ultra-conservative Islamist party plans to push for a stricter religious code after claiming strong gains in the first […]
From the Scotsman, July 26. In 1950, Ireland’s then minister for health, Dr Noel Browne, announced his intention to radically reform the former Free State’s ailing health service. For the first time, maternity care for all mothers and healthcare for all children up to the age of 16 would be delivered free of charge. Dr […]
In MANY respects, a lengthy legal battle over the Icelandic public’s latest rejection of a deal for Icesave is the least of the country’s worries. Finance minister Steingrímur Sigfússon was at pains to stress yesterday that the “no” vote will not affect Iceland’s application to join the EU. But the result has placed a huge […]
By Peter Geoghegan in Reykjavik Public opinion in Iceland is split over a deal to repay the British government £2.35 billion for losses incurred following the failure of online bank Icesave. Icelanders will vote on the issue in a referendum on Saturday, with opinion polls suggesting the result is too close to call. A recent […]
THE fatal attack in Omagh was deeply shocking but, in its own way, all too predictable. The chief constable of the PSNI, Matt Baggott, has spent much of the last year warning of the threat dissident republicans pose to his officers – much to the chagrin of many in Stormont, most notably Sinn Fein. Indeed, […]
IF ONLY every day was as easy for Enda Kenny, as, on a bright lunchtime in Dublin, the Fine Gael leader was elected Taoiseach. Last weekend’s ratification of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition pact paved the way for Kenny’s day in the sun, but even in victory there were signs that it will not be all […]
Ireland’s recent general election was the most dramatic in the country’s history: Fianna Fáil lost almost three-quarters of its seats, the hard Left made significant gains and Gerry Adams will now sit in the Dáil as the head of the fourth-largest party in Irish politics. But in an election of such surprises, the eventual result […]