Jude Collins

JUDE COLLINS: Exploding the myth of King Charles hard work for his subjects

NOW that they’ve extracted the rotten apple named Andrew out of the royal family barrel and dumped it in the royal waste bin, we can all rest easy. King Charles says: "My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all."

JUDE COLLINS: Positive polls are useful only up to a point

I CAME across a newspaper article where the writer had an unusual take on border poll opinion surveys. According to the article, this kind of thing just deepened division. If the opinion poll figures favoured my view it’d give heart to me and people with similar thinking. But if the opinion poll showed my side was on the slide, it’d deepen division, encourage the digging in of heels, and cause uneasiness or worse. What was needed, the writer said, were opinion polls which encouraged collaboration and reconciliation.

JUDE COLLINS: We should have appreciated Peter more when we had him

UP until a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have heard a bad word said against Peter Mandelson. Okay, there might have been the odd one, but for the most part he was seen as being on the right side in most matters. Many credited him with opening the door of 10 Downing Street for Tony Blair.

JUDE COLLINS: Those difficult conversations can tell us so much

YOU'VE probably heard about Gregory Campbell’s chin-wag with Catherine Connolly when she visited Derry last weekend. “You’re in our country,” Gregory explained to Ireland’s President. “Tonight I’m going to your country.”

JUDE COLLINS: The US turning guns on its own is nothing new

RECENT events in Minneapolis are casting a giant cloud over the US. There are several reasons for this sense of gloom: Trump and Venezuela; Trump and Greenland; Trump and Iran; Trump and Palestine. But above all, Trump and Minneapolis.

JUDE COLLINS: Why no war of words over armoured vehicles?

BACK in the day when Catholics still went to Confession, the story was told of Mickey who visited his local church to ask and receive forgiveness. When he returned home his wife Maggie, a woman concerned with her husband’s eternal welfare, asked him if he had told all his sins.

JUDE COLLINS: Fleadh will be the biggest indicator yet of the scale of Belfast changes

NEW Year finds Casement Park in West Belfast mouldering and unused. Euro 2028 will not visit it as was promised. But not all is gloom.

JUDE COLLINS: What exactly is the point of the UUP?

SO Mike Nesbitt is going to retire as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). At one point I was on nodding terms with Mike when he worked in the BBC, and he struck me at the time as a modest, highly intelligent guy. Whether he’s remained that way I don’t know – sometimes life makes a person a narrower, more intense version of themselves, sometimes it expands them, opens them to new things, not necessarily good things. For instance, some of you may remember Conor Cruise O’Brien, who started as a Labour Party candidate in Dublin and ended up a sad unionist in the North.

JUDE COLLINS: Brazen Trump is at least being honest

YOU have to hand it to President Trump. Where other presidents have exercised power in the world discreetly, he grabs a bullhorn and boasts of the US’s capacity to do what it likes in the world.

JUDE COLLINS: How will the New Year compare to the one about to pass?

HERE we are, hung like a drunk in a hammock between Christmas and New Year. If you head down to the shopping centre, you’ll meet lost souls like yourself, half-crazy to get clear of the suffocating warmth of family life. Maybe Chris Rea knew a thing or two with his ‘Driving home for Christmas’: it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

JUDE COLLINS: More white lies than white Christmases in years gone by

AS a child, I found Christmas an occasion of sin. The catechism was totally clear: "No reason or motive can excuse a lie." But in my early years at the Christian Brothers school in Omagh, I lied and lied again.

JUDE COLLINS: Ireland marches along as the drumbeat of war grows louder

YOU'LL probably have noticed that the South of Ireland is busy pouring money into defence. That’s because journalists like Stephen Collins have posed the question ‘Would Ireland be able to defend Shannon if the Russians decided to invade?’ Stephen answers this question with a resounding 'No!'

JUDE COLLINS: Let's keep resisting the temptation to scold the sulky child

TEACHING is a hard job. Yes, they get great holidays, but coping with 20-plus children at the same time is no walk in the park. And as any teacher will tell you, there are few more frustrating things than dealing with a sulking child.

JUDE COLLINS: Tánaiste builds a false comparison on US and Irish construction funding

A WEEK ago the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, stood up in the Dáil during a debate on – what else? – housing. He used the occasion to criticise Sinn Féin for receiving financial contributions from the US through its US fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn Fein. In all, Sinn Féin raised €366,000, the bulk of that said to come from builders and construction companies in the US. Simon took a seriously dim view of that.

JUDE COLLINS: Under-pressure Givan gets a lucky and Godly break

I WONDER if Education Minister Paul Givan takes two showers a day? He looks so fresh and aromatic, with that scrubbed Christian look you find on the faces of people who want to know if you’ve found Jesus yet.

Soccer: Reds enjoy back-to-back wins after victory at Ports

Gaelic Games: Lámh Dhearg host Senior Awards night at Beechlawns

CELTIC STORIES: German pints and derby drama in what may be a season-defining week for the Hoops

Soccer: Cliftonville earn huge win over title chasing Linfield

Trócaire condemns acts of war in the Middle East

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: DUP: Why the hell didn’t the Chucks come with us?

SQUINTER: I'm back in Dougie’s good books

DÚLRA: Five-star peregrines look down on us from above

Jude Collins

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