Jude Collins

JUDE COLLINS: Steen would have brought something new to Presidential race

AND they’re off. The nightmare notion that Áras an Uachtaráin might be inhabited for the next seven years by Conor McGregor, Michael Flatley or Dustin the Turkey has vanished. A note of last-minute excitement was injected as Maria Steen struggled to get on the ballot paper. When she failed she claimed she was blocked. She wasn’t – she simply didn’t get the necessary twenty nominees.

JUDE COLLINS: A gold-encrusted presidency is not what the Irish people want

MY mother raised eight children and sang as she did so. The songs were of all kinds, but one line from a rebel song stays with me: "And we’ll crown de Valera King of Ireland." Whoever wrote those lyrics had a muddled notion of republicanism.

JUDE COLLINS: This uniquely chaotic time is not so uniquely chaotic after all

THE shooting dead of Charlie Kirk was a cruel and violent act. It was also puzzling – or rather the reactions to it were puzzling.

JUDE COLLINS: Chaos and confusion on both sides of the water

SO the British Labour Party have dumped Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister. Few people enjoy sudden demotion, and I’m sure Angela is still feeling a bit bruised, and not just in terms of public image or ego. Her salary, which was around £160,000 a year, will now be slashed to a measly £94,000 a year as a regular MP.

JUDE COLLINS: Connolly currently dividing and not uniting the Irish left

THERE'S a war going on in the South of Ireland. Not between counties or families but between political parties. It’s presidential campaigning time.

JUDE COLLINS: Testing times for our education system

THAT sighing sound you hear is not a late-summer breeze, or a parent relaxing as finally, finally their cherished children head back to school. It’s the sound of thousands of GCSE, Leaving Certificate and A-Level students the length and breadth of Ireland gasping their relief that, for better or worse, their life-defining exam torture has finally ended.

JUDE COLLINS: Unity referendum – one brick at a time

IN recent weeks I’ve been interviewing a number of well-known people about how they see the prospect of a border poll and what obstacles lie between us and Irish unity.

JUDE COLLINS: Will Mary Lou run?

During the Féile, Mary Lou McDonald sat down for an interview with Andrée Murphy, another Rathgar girl.

JUDE COLLINS: Danny's irresistible voices – living and dead

DON'T be fooled by the title of Danny Morrison’s new book, 'All The Dead Voices'. It’s a quotation from Samuel Beckett and, yes, you do hear the voices of those who have died, but it’s also a book of twenty-five parts, each bursting with life in its many forms.

JUDE COLLINS: Our lives are lived in the watchful eye of intrusive cameras

DO the names Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot mean anything to you? Maybe not. But they will if I say they were that couple caught on camera at a Coldplay concert as they were hugging each other. And when they realised the TV camera was showing a giant close-up of them, they quickly parted and looked very guilty. They were married, but not to each other, so a bad moment for both.

JUDE COLLINS: Is that MAGA hat made out of tinfoil?

ARE you a conspiracy theorist or a credulous cretin?

JUDE COLLINS: Is it fair to compare the KKK to the LOL?

THE Orange Order, you’ll have noticed, had its main but by no means only spasm of marching last Saturday. It’s an organisation that attracts many opinions, but one thing most of us would agree on this year: the thick-headedness of releasing toxins into the air from that bonfire in South Belfast was a defiant act of spectacular self-harm.

JUDE COLLINS: Stop the world – the Orangemen want to get off

AS we keep being reminded, we live in a quivering world. In the US, President Donald Trump is on a mission to make life as comfortable as possible for billionaires and as brutal as possible for the poor. Universities are fearful funds will be withheld, politicians fear opposing Trump as he might wipe out their political futures, and student protestors risk a visit from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) , which could end with their being hooded, bundled into a jeep and deported to some ghastly South American prison. In Ukraine, tens of thousands of young Ukrainian and American lives are ending on an endless battlefield. In Gaza, the body count of innocent, terrified people is almost too big to think about.

JUDE COLLINS: Trump's attack on basic freedoms is gathering pace

IF you watched TV news over the past week, you’ll have seen and heard President Trump lose his rag with Israel and Iran. Or at least President Trump pretending to lose his rag. ““We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing”. This was in the wake of both countries breaking the ceasefire he had encouraged.

JUDE COLLINS: Leo's intervention a game-changer for New Ireland project

SOME years ago, Mary Lou McDonald was asked what single word came to mind when she thought of the Fine Gael leader, Leo Varadkar. Mary Lou paused for a second and then said “Smarmy.”

Senior Championship Round-Up: Johnnies, Rossa and Lámh's with important wins but St Gall's falter late on

Soccer: Cliftonville kickstart their season with victory over Glenavon

Gaelic Games: Pearse's survive spirited Éire Óg rally to clinch top spot

Gaelic Games: Antrim announce new GAA Operations Manager

Sectarian chanting by Dublin fans prompts three BBCNI on-air apologies

WE SAY: An English lesson in symbols

SQUINTER: Flag fever takes hold in Blighty

JUDE COLLINS: Testing times for our education system

Jude Collins

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