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Callely is a symbol of all that is wrong in Irish public life

THERE was a visible lift in the public morale from the sunlit scenes at the annual Michael Collins commemoration at Beal na mBlath in Cork where the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan invoked the spirit of Michael Collins, a rival in the same office facing the same challenge of rescuing the country from utter ruin, to help bridge the fraternal gap the Civil War had opened in the Irish psyche.  more >

It’s the taxpayer who is being stress tested in banking scams

I have long since come to the opinion that while Fianna Fáil may pay mealy-mouthed tribute to the “intelligence” of the Irish electorate, it immediately qualifies any such admiration by the depth of political punditry it utilises to disguise the real extent of the measure with which it hopes to gain public support.  more >

Too thick to know when beaten and too scared to drop Anglo

WHEN you read – as I did last week – that total State funding provided to Anglo Irish bank is now poised to top €24 billion, while at the same time the HSE is notifying elderly clients that it cannot afford to give them any longer than one hour of paid home help I begin to wonder what the country has come to.  more >

Lesser fiddles breed larger ones and so ad infinitum…

As a disgruntled voter being denied his rights by the brazen insolence in office of that beaten CowenLenihan docket, I am wondering if the savings I have left after another slash and burn budget will be used to pay besieged grafter Senator Ivor Callely a compliment.  more >

Memoir of a last man standing

I READ that the new traffic system around the two bridges over the Moy at Ballina is presenting problems to cathedral church goers who are reported to be praying for more pedestrian crossings and slower drivers.  more >

Are they living on the same planet as the rest of us?

A cascade of change in recent weeks have led me to question if there is anything left in Irish society of what used to be called ‘the settled community’?  more >

A banjo accompaniment to the strangest Ballina procession

THREE decades after the actual event, a retired reporter from the Western People recalled the events of Friday, January 14,1921, when the normal schedule of preparing for the weekly printing of the paper on the giant Goss Rotary press was interrupted to report the arrival of a detachment of the ‘Auxies’ to supplement the Crown forces of occupation who had taken over the Moy Hotel as their headquarters.  more >

‘Cowengate’ – the scandals of rogue banks and FF tribalism

IF THERE was an official system of giving awards for false or misleading information (there is an unofficial dishonours list in the spinning league but only acknowledged in smoke-filled party rooms) the last week would have seen bankers and Cabinet ministers in neck and neck pursuit of dishonourable political status.  more >

Politics goes to the dogs again as jobbery rules Dáil agenda

PROPORTIONAL representation was given a new political interpretation in the Dáil last week when national concerns on the continuing job losses from the collapse of economic stability and doubts about the country’s ability to meet the massive borrowings involved in the controversial Nama strategy for recovery were pushed aside to debate minor items of animal health and welfare given priority in the national programme for government negotiated in the Fianna Fáil-Green coalition.  more >

Traffic stopper puts it all down to Love Jesus bumper sticker

BY 2050 they expect cancer to be cured and Jesus to be back, and the same percentage of four out of 10 Americans expect to see a single worldwide currency evolve from the intricate convolutions of to-day's money markets that are struggling to escape from the aftermath of the 2008 fiscal collapses.  more >

When bad things can happen to good people

THE 11 minute and 17 second statement from the new British Prime Minister David Cameron, which was transmitted from the House of Commons to a packed Guildhall Square in Derry on a sunny Tuesday, was a vindication of the 38 years of peaceful and democratic pressure to have the innocence of the 14 people killed by British paratroopers in Derry and the wounding of many more on that Bloody Sunday of infamy finally established in the 5,000 pages of the Saville inquiry and in the forthright apology from Prime Minister David Cameron (“On behalf of our country I am deeply sorry”).  more >

Go, Biffo, go – with apologies to Harvey Norman…

THE country isn’t half as concerned about who succeeds the late Gerry Ryan in RTE as who will succeed Brian Cowen as Taoiseach after last week’s close-ups of the worst week ever in political exposure of a bullying Fianna Fáil leader and his punched docket party who should be headed for the wastebasket of Irish politics but aren’t because we haven’t the confidence or talent to kick the ward healers and place men out of the way of talent and genuine vocation.  more >

Nama yet another example of limitations on our ‘liberty’

SOONER or later the pent-up fury of the Irish electorate will be unleashed over the sustained exploitation of hard won independence by factions motivated by maintaining power rather than promoting equality of opportunity, by projecting a concept of entitlement as a prelude to one of ultimate privilege in the framing of laws and protective mechanisms designed to conceal rather than reveal.  more >

Burning effigy and smashed windows in Ballina bank riots

RAIDING Irregulars parted local banks with about £20,000 in cash on the day Ballina was seized during the murderous Civil War but they were civilised enough to leave IOUs behind them, and the amounts involved were but a pittance compared to Nama plans to rip off this and future generations.  more >

Remembering John to all his friends around Ballina

EIGHTY-SEVEN years ago or so this Civil War letter of John Gallagher, Ballina, was written when he was a Republican prisoner in the Detention Barracks set up in Claremorris and it comes from the file on John Gallagher which no longer exists.  more >

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