Opinion
Banshees and boyos… and male friendship
THE FACT OF THE MATTER PAUL HOPKINS In the multi-award nominated film The Banshees of Inisherin – the Oscars are this Sunday night – the central thesis of Martin McDonagh’s wonderful piece of cinema comes in the early exchange between the two main characters when Colm (Brendan Gleeson) abruptly ends his lifelong friendship with Pádraic …
Girl Auction
BY NED EGAN Part 7 “I’ve explained to you that if father finds us out, he’ll have me locked up until he can get that Paudhaun swine married to me. If that happens, we’re both done for. Then who’d help you? And who would you have to give cheek to then – smart little Missy? …
The Great Kilkenny Floods
By John Fitzgerald PART FOUR The 1947 flooding of the Black Abbey, where the water reached to a staggering fifteen feet, prompted an act of clerical heroism. When Dr. Gaffney O.P. saw to his horror that the water was about to reach the level of the High Altar, he cried aloud from the boat in …
An evening whooping it up with the Berbers
FURTHERMORE By Gerry Moran On Avenue Hassan 11 a small, bald, beady-eyed man approaches my wife and I. “Where you from? Where you from?” We ignore him. “Francais? German?” he persists. “No,” we say, walking quickly on. “English. You English?” “No,” we reply more vehemently as we Irish do when mistaken for being British. “Actually …
Five ways to cut back on high energy costs
BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR Believe it or not wholesale gas prices are falling but there’s no guarantee that energy bills will drop soon for households. Businesses are to get an average of 10% reduction on their electricity bills and an average of 15% on gas from March. In a previous column I gave an …
Natural remedies for a good night sleep
BY CLAIR WHITTY Sleep problems is a question I often get asked about at the shop. My personal favourite remedy to help you get a decent night’s sleep is A.Vogel Dormeasan. It’s a herbal tincture containing valerian and hops. Valerian is traditionally used for muscle tension, pain, and to aid relaxation. Hops is traditionally used …
Why that invisible Border shouldn’t divide us
AS I SEE IT MARIANNE HERON If and when the Protocol gets patched up we should surely be able to breathe a sigh of relief and hope that things will return to normal in the North and that Geoffrey Donaldson and the DUP will agree to return to Stormont and do what they were elected to …
Alt-right shift commands we not be complacent
THE FACT OF THE MATTER PAUL HOPKINS When prominent far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson (40) recently arrived in Ireland to ‘observe’ a refugee solidarity rally, a spokesperson told me that Gardai were maintaining a “watching brief” on him. Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, said he had been drawn to Ireland by anti-immigration protests and praised …
The Great Kilkenny Floods
By John Fitzgerald PART THREE Gus Carey remembered the terrible Sunday evening when his world was turned upside down by the flood. He was a child in 1947…scampering about the house, daydreaming about famous hurlers, when he became aware of the watery Blitzkrieg that the skies had launched on Kilkenny. He wondered why his parents …
Girl Auction
BY NED EGAN Part 6 Now the two girls sit in their chilly bedroom. Molly is planning a departure – a permanent one. The pussycat, MeeMee, has to come along: the single-minded small sister Babsie has negotiated that. But “no more livestock, and total obedience” is the price she has had to pay. But she’d …
