Author, Blogger, Journalist & Writer
This piece is a response to those who had said “show us the evidence” when I had stated earlier that Rangers were unique in British football in that they were, for some reason, unable or unwilling to sign a player from the Republic of Ireland .
This reality of an RoI free team at Ibrox could be seen over many years.
In comparison the ubiquity of RoI players in all other clubs in Britain is striking.
When President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 the news took 11 days to reach London.
The people of London read about it the President’s death in their newspapers.
When JFK was shot in 1963 a satellite link ensured that BBC centre in London knew within half an hour.
I watched the newsflash on our black and white TV.
It was in the day when a newsflash meant something momentous.
Now there is revolution in the air in Tehran.
It was only a few evenings ago that I was compelled, reluctantly, to re-consider the Famine Song issue.
RTE were re-showing their brilliant “Where was your family in the Famine?”
http://www.rte.ie/tv/wherewasyourfamily/
The programme uses three Irish TV celebrities to trace their family history in the Famine period.
Most of the programme I found fascinating and very well done.
Historians may conclude, with the clarity of hindsight, that the unfolding events in Iran this week maybe the first Internet revolution.
If you have been of a mind to follow what is happening in the aftermath of the Iranian election you will be using you tube and, increasingly, Twitter.
Recently the Republic of Ireland U19 squad played against Sweden. Ireland won 2-1. This, hopefully, is another good crop of young Irish players that can break into the top level within a few years. Last year the same squad, in the main, comprised the RoI U17 squad. In March 2008 the U17 lads played against Finland at Kilkenny. What was different about this fixture was that there was a scout from Rangers present. My sources in the FAI thought that the Ibrox scout was watching RoI players, but he may also have been checking out a Finnish lad. That was …
My recent blog on the D-Day commemoration brought an “observation” which was too abusive to allow onto the site. It was a difficult logic to follow, but the “writer” believed that somehow I was somehow heartbroken that the Third Reich had been defeated. No, me neither. This “missive” also repeated the hoary myths about Irish Free State collaboration with the Nazis during what is called here “the Emergency.” The allegation of U-Boat re-fuelling was stated by, a probably drunk, Winston Churchill in the House of Commons after VE Day. . What Churchill must have known was that the Royal Air …
Probably the twenty year old me would have approved of the treatment of Nick Griffin today in London. The newly elected MEP was speaking to the media outside Westminster. Griffin was elected on as the world remembered the freedom fighters of D-Day. With the defeat of the Third Reich Western Europe could reinstate the democratic governance and, slowly, come together into what is today the EU. Griffin’s politics I find abhorrent, but he was elected. On this island ,in the South and the North, elected members of Sinn Fein were non-persons in the media. Unionists would deal with them in …
The current Republic of Ireland players in the SPL are as follows: Celtic – Flood, McGeady, O’Dea Dundee Utd- Sean Dillon, Jon Daly Falkirk – Patrick Cregg Hamilton – James McCarthy, David Elebert Hearts – Paul Mulrooney (under 19s), Denis McLaughlin (on loan at Dumbarton) Hibs – David Van Zanten, Alan O’Brien, Kurtis Byrne Inverness – Adam Rooney, Richie Foran, Andy McNulty (on loan at Elgin City) Kilmarnock – Connor Sammon Motherwell – Cillian Sheridan (on loan from Celtic), Jim O’Brien St Mirren – Billy Mehmet Of course Rangers have no players from the Republic of Ireland. Given the racist behaviour …
It seems one of the iron laws of coalition politics that the minor party gets eaten up. Fianna fail’s last coalition partner the Progressive Democrats actually ceased to exist as a party after two terms in with the Soldiers of Destiny. The PDs did, of course, come from the FF gene pool. Once established as a vehicle for the O’Malley clan they got themselves religion. Thatcherite economic religion. As with all dominant parties the strength of Fianna Fail is that they don’t actually stand for anything other than being in power. It was a case of the tail wagging the …
It was hard not to feel for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown with his toe curling Freudian slip at the D-Day commemoration. His reference to “Obama beach” was sadly emblematic of the way in which the UK’s role in the liberation of Europe has been written out of the celluloid historical record. From being disappeared by Hollywood from the naval intelligence war that cracked the enigma codes to the D-Day landings. Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” manages one mention of the British contribution to the biggest amphibious landing in history. It is one line of script that has Tom Hanks …
