Occasional Scribbles

The United Kingdom left the European Union last night at 23.00 GMT, which was midnight in Brussels. In the majority of EU countries it was m...

On this day, December 31, 1961 at 7pm RTÉ came on air, broadcasting from the Kippure transmitter on the Dublin Wicklow border. The first col...

It's now standard English to refer to moving the deckchairs on the Titanic as a way of explaining the purposelessness or uselessness in ...

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column. Michael Commane It’s easy to criticise the State and bur...

  “Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom.”   ―  Rosa Luxemburg Luxemburg was born in 1871 in Zamośc. The family were Polish Jews...

The Russian Federation announced yesterday that George Blake had died. He was 98 and living outside Moscow. To the West he was a traitor. In...

At Christmas Mass in the cathedral in Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki   asked for  forgiveness. He was referring to matters concerning ...

This is David Quinn on Twitter on December 22. Where is the evidence that justifies moving worship online again from December 26? Not even E...

A poem for Christmas Day                         God's Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like s...

Kerry were victorious in the Munster minor football championship at the LIT Gaelic Grounds on Tuesday evening when they beat Clare 2-14 to 1...

At a Cabinet meeting yesterday Government made a decision that people may not leave their county after Saturday, December 26. Is it possible...

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column. Michael Commane Of course it is a cliche to say the worl...

In the time of Covid - 19 all decisions are fluid and open to change at short notice. It is a difficult time for governments. It is a diffic...

An interesting read in The Irish Times yesterday. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/so-long-trump-show-now-what-else-is-on-1.4...

Bicycles are everywhere. There has been an exponential growth in bicycle transport since last March when Covid struck. The Road Safety Autho...

The estimated value of a trove of religious art stolen by the Nazis, whose ownership was contested at the United States Supreme Court last w...

John le Carré was born David Cornwell in October 1931 and his mother Olive left the family home when he was five, leaving him with his fathe...

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan fears there will be 1,200 daily Covid-19 cases in January. Mass attendance on Christmas Day is a most ...

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column Michel Commane When John Hume died last August tributes w...

FedEx will play a pivotal role in the distribution of the Covid 19 vaccine,   BioNTech/Pfizer   . Its CEO, Frederick Smith founded the compa...

This is another of John Humphreys' interesting pieces in his 'Unthinkable' column in The Irish Times. It appeared in Thursday...

Germany is heading to a nation-wide lockdown. Yesterday 589 people died from Covid and approximately 24,000 new Covid cases were registered....

This is a lovely piece of wiring on Donald Trump. Here's an extract from the article. It’s almost as if this extraordinary triumph of gl...

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) last month criticised Ireland for the practice of imprisoning foreign nationals w...

  This is the month of December on The Irish Times calendar for this year. Look carefully at the words printed under 25, indeed, under 26 an...

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column. Michael Commane I’ve been asking myself are there people...

You mention Wilfrid Harrington in your piece in The Irish Times on Saturday. Everything you said about Wilf is true. An amazing man and a g...

Miriam Lord gets it right about Sinn Féin in her clever column yesterday in The IrishTimes She introduces the piece with this: After years b...

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today. Michael Commane Tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time of ...

GAA commentator Tomás Ó Sé speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland today about the Cavan Dublin All-Ireland semi-final at the weekend said of ...

This article was in  The Irish Times  yesterday. It makes for great reading. Hannah Arendt was born into the Jewish faith in Hannover in 190...