Ireland
Cheap shots and uncosted bribes are drowning out vision, wisdom and optimism
The interesting thing about Labour’s pledge to abolish non-dom tax status — a squib designed to trap Tories into expressing…
Put the water cannons on standby and your money on a swift Grexit
‘Will Greece exit the eurozone in 2015?’ Paddy Power was pricing ‘yes’ at 3-to-1 on Tuesday, with 5-to-2 on another…
Friends reunited
New venue. New enticement. In the undercroft of a vast but disregarded Bloomsbury church nestles the Museum of Comedy. The…
Galway
The Go Galway bus from Dublin sounds an unlikely pleasure, but it is both comfortable and punctual. There is free…
Kilkenny Notebook
‘What is a Minsky moment, anyway?’ asks Gerry Stembridge, an Irish satirist. ‘I’ve been reading about them in the papers…
In time of Troubles
‘The Anglo-Irish, their tribe, are dying. . . . They will go without a struggle, unlamented,’ Christopher Bland, 76, declares…
I’m celebrating Glasgow’s Games as my forecast comes true at last
‘Perhaps I should shift my prediction to 23 July 2014,’ I wrote in April 2012. ‘That’s the opening of the…
A lovable failure
Sebastian Barry’s new novel opens with a bang, as a German torpedo hits a supply ship bound for the Gold…
The moral of Royal Mail: markets are capricious and bankers aren’t worth their fees
Vince Cable and Michael Fallon, ministers responsible for the Royal Mail sell-off, have been summoned for another select committee grilling…
In Fleet Street’s fast lane
In her early days on Fleet Street, Mary Kenny, as she herself admits, was cast as ‘the wild Irish girl’,…
An actor’s notebook
It was one of those weeks. On Monday, I was in four countries: I woke up at crack of dawn…
Blazing saddles
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
The real luck of the Irish is that they recognised the folly of the boom
My man in Dublin calls with joy in his voice to tell me ‘the Troika’ — the combined powers of…
