Category: Reflections
“Each fights for the Fatherland” : Pádraig Pearse
The following is a 1915 article by Pádraig Pearse reflecting on the significance of the outbreak of hostilities on the Continent, syndicated in light of today's events. When we are old (those of us who live to be old) we...
How WB Yeats Got CUCKED – A Pick Up Artist’s Analysis
“We against whom you have done this thing are no petty people” – W. B. Yeats Introduction Intra-nationalist squabbles and petty disputes are an idiosyncratic fixation of mine: Othmar Spann’s distaste for Carl Schmitt; the mutual animosity betwixt the Blueshirts...
Bloody Sunday: Why Mere Civil Rights Were Never Enough
“I yearn for hammerblows on clinkered planks, the uncompromised report of driven thole-pins, to know there is one among us who never swerved from all his instincts told him was right action, who stood his ground in the indicative, whose...
Euro Snap Shot: How Corporations Abuse Irish Residency
The Euro Stoxx 50 index gives us a snapshot of how EU denominated stocks are performing. As they also indicate where institutional investors with Euro denominated liabilities should hold their offsetting assets, they play pivotal roles in the management of...
Is Female Anxiety Being Weaponised in Ireland?
Friction between the genders is a barren pursuit. At an instinctual level I can never trust a man with a psychological loathing of the opposite sex beyond an understandable level of lived cynicism. Perhaps it's the white knight in me...
(Not So) New To The Parish – #3 Father Ted, Or How The Snake Eats The Tail
I grew up watching British comedies, and I still watch many of them, with the likes of Bottom, I’m Alan Partridge and The League Of Gentlemen being particular favourites. Seeing Father Ted of course stuck out like a sore thumb....
Fitzcarraldo: The Triumph of Gaelic Autism
“Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown? Hey, white boy, you chasin' our women around?” – The Velvet Underground, ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’ A film whose production process was mired with difficulty — owing to the technical problem of...
RTÉ’s Holy Show: Has the Church Dropped the Ball on Evangelisation?
A caller to a Catholic apologetics show recently asked for some advice on how to evangelise his dear old mother who had somewhat of a checkered attitude to religion, particularly Catholicism. The apologists reply came back swiftly and without reservation....
An Irish Progressive Rethinks the Borg
It’s hard to believe, in the current year of 2021 CE, that Star Trek: The Next Generation was once seen as the cutting edge of progressivism. It’s true that it introduced a ship’s counsellor to the show, not to mention...
(Not So) New To The Parish – #1 Celtic Tigers and Millennial Woes
This is part of a series of articles in which I intend to look at various aspects of Irish cultural and social life through the eyes of a foreign onlooker. It is intended to be a cultural autobiography of sorts,...