Jude Collins

JUDE COLLINS: Alleged porkies in the Dáil are really nothing new

HERE'S a starter for ten: What’s the link between the late Jack Profumo MP and the present Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD? Maybe none that immediately strikes you.

JUDE COLLINS: Is the search for something better nearing its end?

BECAUSE you’re reading this newspaper and this column, it’s a reasonably safe bet that you, like me, would welcome the day when, from Coleraine to Cork and Newport to Newry, the border in Ireland was permanently removed.

JUDE COLLINS: Is Dáil opposition anger a case of sour grapes or good politics?

IS it sour grapes?

JUDE COLLINS: Do good fences really make good neighbours?

ON Friday past I awoke to apparent disaster. The fence between me and my next-door neighbour at the back had been blown down. It’s a wooden affair, which had always seemed upright and immovable. Now it lay flat on the grass.

JUDE COLLINS: Trump has many failings – and in that he's hardly unique

THIS week the world holds its breath. That’s because this week saw the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the US. We are heading into uncharted waters, pundits warn. Who knows what Trump will do?

JUDE COLLINS: A shocking record gets even worse

LATE at night on May 22 1997, the 61-year-old chairman of Bellaghy GAA club was locking up the clubhouse. It was after 11pm and Sean Brown’s son had gone home just five minutes earlier. A group of men emerged from the darkness, seized the 61-year-old, and after a struggle bundled him into the back of his red Sierra car. Then with one of the murderers’ cars in front and another behind, they drove to Randalstown, passing Toomebridge police station. There they shot Brown six times and set fire to his car. No-one has yet been charged with this murder.

JUDE COLLINS: New Year cheer may well be in short supply

LOOK out! There’s a New Year coming fast!

JUDE COLLINS: Christmas was lies as well as mince pies

FOR many of us, Christmas brings out the worst. There’s that bloated, half-asleep state you get into because you’ve had a turkey portion that was too big but you shoved it down your neck just the same.

JUDE COLLINS: New York shooting doesn't presage a popular uprising

A LONG time ago, when asked about violence, Bernadette Devlin used to speak of the less-frequently mentioned violence inflicted on people’s lives by the state: discriminating in jobs, in housing, making sure the ‘right’ people were elected with carefully calibrated constituency boundaries. For the most part, people weren’t persuaded. The violence of petrol bombs and bullets seemed like real violence, while pointing to the impoverishment of people’s lives didn’t seem a justifiable counter-weight.

JUDE COLLINS: Micheál and Simon and their various Sinn Féin stories

WELL, that’s that, then. Sinn Féin may be the second biggest party in the South,but that doesn’t mean they’ll get to play with the Big Boys in government. Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have made it clear they will not serve in a coalition that includes Sinn Féin.

JUDE COLLINS: Electoral apathy needs to be tackled head-on

THE South’s election was notable for several reasons, not least that straws in the wind were just that – straws.

JUDE COLLINS: It's always worth checking if the good guys are really what they say they are

THE US has been good to the Irish people. From the huddled masses arriving on coffin ships in the nineteenth century, to support of the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, to giant companies like Apple and Google helping the South of Ireland to accumulate unprecedented wealth, the US has been a massive support to Ireland.

JUDE COLLINS: Democracies are often run by those who reject democracy

CHURCHILL wasn’t the first to have the thought, but it’s his phrasing of it that’s best known: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time...”

JUDE COLLINS: Pollsters succeed only in spreading uncertainty

THERE are things we don’t like to think about, much less talk about. Maybe that’s what happened to a lot of commentators during the recent US Presidential election. They really really didn’t want Donald Trump to win, and they had this weird notion that if you didn’t think or talk about a Trump victory, it wouldn’t happen. All the commentators and pollsters and wise guys kept telling us that this election was so tight, if you listened you’d hear it creak.

JUDE COLLINS: Two elections down, one to go

I'VE long had a suspicion that politics is a dull game. Having to cope with constituents who want you to fix something over which you have no control. All those committees, all those yawn-inducing Assembly/Dáil sessions where representatives posture and preen and congratulate themselves and their leader

NIFL Premiership: Cliftonville face several cup finals in bid to secure top-half finish

Boxing: Nottingham holds no fear for Cacace as May 10 fight with Wood confirmed

NIFL Premiership: Reds lose ground in race for top six

Allianz Hurling League: Antrim's away woes continue with Offaly defeat

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Trump told us who he was and we didn't believe him

SQUINTER: Battle lines are drawn in the war of the football pitch paint

GERRY ADAMS: Simon Harris is stating the bleedin' obvious

DÚLRA: Our Aaron’s hooked on a new natural high

Jude Collins

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