Pol O'Muiri
Glenn’s tale that should touch us all
They say that the victors write the history. However, I doubt that I will ever
read anything by the DUP's born again Ulster-Scotch poets or Sinn Féin's
radical scribes and Pharisees that will ever match writer Glenn Patterson's
Once Upon A Hill: Love in Troubled Times (Bloomsbury).
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Inside Pol O'Muiri
How Vladimir has really Put boot into US
Monday, 6 October 2008
There have been many moments in local politics when we have all been watching
the news or reading the paper and found our jaws dropping while we utter:
“Did he just say what I think he just said?”
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Getting older? I’ve got some crosswords about all that
Monday, 29 September 2008
There are many ways by which men mark the march of time. There is the obvious
one of choosing cars. The youthful sporty hatchback is changed for a people
carrier as children appear.
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Slow-down as Shinners set the work pace
Monday, 22 September 2008
All hail Sinn Fein and their new tactic — the Shinner Slow-down. It is the
most wondrous thing ever invented — it lets you get paid for doing a job
that you don't do. Stop Fein ministers are not letting the Executive meet
because they don't like the speed at which policing is being devolved (to
the unionist Alliance Party if Stop Fein had their way).
Comments: 6
Why I feel so sorry for poor old Mr Brown
Monday, 15 September 2008
It is strange how your view of politicians change. Everything bad that has
happened in the last while — rising fuel and food prices and, yes, even the
bad weather — are all the fault of Gordon Brown.
Comment: 1
Pol O Muiri: Why Cromwell’s chequered life is well worth a read
Monday, 8 September 2008
I doubt that TCD historian, Micheál Ó Siochrú, and former television presenter
and Conservative MP, Gyles Brandreth (he of the funny jumpers) would think
that they had much in common.
Comments: 6
Pól Ó Muirí: Going back to school teaches us all patience
Monday, 1 September 2008
In January people join gyms; in September they enrol in night classes. Yes, it
is that time of year when you decide to challenge the brain and go to that
evening class. The impetus varies.
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Pol O Muiri: Why our city’s secret rivers should be on tourist trail
Monday, 25 August 2008
Whether or not the Clowney river overflowing its banks was responsible for the
flooding of the Westlink is a question the engineers will be chewing over
for a while to come.
Comment: 1
Pol O Muiri: Is the march southward really such a bad thing?
Monday, 18 August 2008
Northern cities are ‘beyond revival’ and residents should head south. Needless
to say, it is the sort of headline that would get the attention of anyone in
Northern Ireland. After all, we live in northern climes and not everyone
wants to move south.
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Why McCain needs a song to answer America’s call
Monday, 11 August 2008
The Americans like to think that they have the most sophisticated electoral
process.
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Pól Ó Muirí: Get on your marks for the Ulster Olympics
Monday, 4 August 2008
This column is happy to bring you an exclusive scoop. The Office of First and
Deputy First Minister have agreed to enter an Alternative Ulster Olympic
Team. Under a secret clause in the St Andrew’s Agreement, both the DUP and
Sinn Féin agreed that, should things get really hairy up in the Big House,
they would activate a ‘bread and circus’ clause that was made popular by a
certain Emperor Nero.
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Why my salad days have had their chips
Monday, 28 July 2008
Television continues to come down with cookery programmes. It is the cheapest
of light entertainment with cooks — sorry chefs — performing miracles with a
handful of ingredients.
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How Dublin airport hell drives us all to Donegal
Monday, 14 July 2008
Are you flying abroad for a break? If you are, I hope you have better luck
than the poor passengers stranded in the chaos of Dublin airport. There is
no doubt that a foreign holiday this time of year is a very attractive
option. The lure of some guaranteed sun is hard to dismiss and the
opportunity to eat chicken and chips in Santa Ponsa seems so much more
exciting and exotic than eating chicken and chips in Newcastle, Co Down.
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Pól Ó Muirí: Look Peter, we could be sitting on a gold mine
Monday, 7 July 2008
There's gold in them hills. The words 'Monaghan' and 'gold mine' don't
usually appear together often. Surprising then to find that prospectors have
actually found an untapped gold mine in Monaghan and, if the price of gold
remains high, it will be well worth excavating.
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Pól Ó Muirí: How a long traffic jam can take the edge off a win
Monday, 23 June 2008
Summer time and the living is not easy due to the rising cost of petrol and
food stuffs. Still, summer does bring its joys, none more so than Gaelic
football and the Ulster Senior Football Championship.
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Pól Ó Muirí: Should Seamus be new Poet Laureate?
Monday, 16 June 2008
Ructions across the water in Britain where the post of Poet Laureate is soon
to be vacant. This poetry post involves writing poems in praise of the royal
family and marking special royal occasions.
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Pól Ó Muirí: Better red than dead, despite all of the jibes
Monday, 9 June 2008
Being a redhead is the sort of thing from which one cannot escape. The
evidence that one is a redhead is there for all to see. Thankfully, the
school nicknames of "ginger," "snap" and "Duracell"
have faded and I am all right now.
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Pól Ó Muirí: An a-Maze-ing power fix for the Assembly
Monday, 2 June 2008
The price of petrol, electricity, groceries continue to rise and, hell, they
are even going to charge us for water soon. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's
reaction to the rise of oil has been to put nuclear power back on the agenda
as a real alternative to dependence on oil.
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Pól Ó Muirí: How Army could help break down the barriers
Monday, 19 May 2008
Ranger 1640 of the 2 Royal Irish raised an interesting conundrum in last
week's letters page to this newspaper. Writing about his regiment, which is
currently deployed in Afghanistan, the ranger suggested that the troops
should be given a parade when they come home to Belfast. He signed his
letter with the regimental motto: Faugh-A-Ballagh which is from the Irish
'fág an bealach' — clear the way.
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Why plane museum is an idea that could take off
Monday, 28 April 2008
I was in a toy shop recently buying a present for a birthday when I saw the
most wonderful model of a Short's Sunderland. (Nerd? You don't know the half
of it!) Models are not what they used to be. Male readers of a certain age
may remember the Airfix models of old which demanded nimble figures, time
and a little prayer to complete.
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Why Peter is going to invade the south again
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
In a surprise move over the weekend, the parties in the Assembly held an
emergency debate and decided to declare war on the Republic. Announcing the
move, the new DUP leader and First Minister in waiting, Peter Robinson said
that warfare was forced on the Executive by the Republic's refusal to stop
interfering in the affairs of Northern Ireland.
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Breaking News
- 13:51 Italian police continue search for missing Irish woman
- 13:22 Survey finds high satisfaction with garda performance
- 13:19 DUP man attacks SF during Stormont debate
- 12:53 Hamilton claims Massa collision was deliberate
- 12:45 Galway hurlers deny taking vote on Loughnane
- 12:44 New Meath manager to be appointed tonight
- 11:32 Obama leading by 10 points in latest US poll
- 11:26 Britain announces £37bn bailout for three banks
- 09:27 Thai PM refuses to resign after street clashes
- 09:23 Stock markets rally after latest govt interventions
- 18:30 France, Portugal and Norway guarantee deposits
Top stories from Sunday, 12.10.08
Most popular
Read
- Discovery of the decade? Injection 'could cure Alzheimer's in minutes'
- Wife of footballer killed in car crash
- Sacked teacher moves in with teenage former pupil
- IRA funds worth up to €200m put at risk in United States new
- Eoghan stuns X-Factor judges with John Lennon hit
- Monkey works as waiter in Japanese restaurant
- City mourning after girl aged two knocked down and killed
- Family beat smoker to death
- The unseen goal that changed Theo Walcott 's world
- The sacked sir and his gymslip lover
Emailed
- Eamonn McCann: What if Mormons are right and Catholics and Protestants wrong?
- Discovery of the decade? Injection 'could cure Alzheimer's in minutes'
- IRA funds worth up to €200m put at risk in United States new
- No one marked Van out for a future star
- QE2 steams into Belfast on farewell tour
- Sarah Palin is a joke, says Rushdie
- QE2 in Belfast
- Monkey works as waiter in Japanese restaurant
- Bosses mimic behaviour of monkeys
- Pirates target Nintendo DS
Commented
- Eamonn McCann: What if Mormons are right and Catholics and Protestants wrong?
- Sarah Palin is a joke, says Rushdie
- Why it is time for the GAA to start playing on a wider field
- ‘Pay cut’ as teachers refuse to teach bully
- Fury over "Punch Neil Lennon" game
- Why haven’t the arguments of these atheists really evolved?
- A despicable Rose-tinted view of IRA
- IRA funds worth up to €200m put at risk in United States new
- Strike after pupil attacks teacher new
- Eoghan stuns X-Factor judges with John Lennon hit
Columnist Comments
• Robert Fisk: 'Collateral damage' or targeted killing, the effect is much the same
All kinds of horrors flop on to my Beirut doormat. There's the mobile phone bill, a slew of blood-soaked local Lebanese newspapers – "Saleh Aridi's blood consolidates [Druze] reconciliation", was among the goriest of the past few days – and then there are files from the dark memory lane through which all Middle East history has to pass.
• Steven Beacom: We must still build team around Healy
One point from six. That’s Northern Ireland’s tally in the World Cup qualifying campaign so far. Not too healthy, is it?
• Ed Curran: The travesty of Toulouse
Patrick Bamford was just another face in the crowd packed into Belfast's Ravenhill rugby ground on Saturday for the European Heineken Cup match. He was much more than that 21 months ago at another game in the south-west France city of Toulouse.
• Pol O Muiri: Glenn’s tale that should touch us all
They say that the victors write the history. However, I doubt that I will ever read anything by the DUP's born again Ulster-Scotch poets or Sinn Féin's radical scribes and Pharisees that will ever match writer Glenn Patterson's Once Upon A Hill: Love in Troubled Times (Bloomsbury).
• Hamish McRae: So will anything shift the economic gloom?
It is a classic financial crash. Another week of mayhem in the markets, another week of despair among bankers, another week of rising concern for the rest of us. The world's monetary powers sought to reassert their authority last week by cutting interest rates, while individual governments, in particular our own one, continued to unwrap national rescue packages. Their aim was to restore confidence – and they failed.
• Laurence White: Will we have any cash left after world market crash?
The financial turmoil currently gripping the world is of such a magnitude that it is over-shadowing what until a couple of months ago was the biggest story in town — the race for the White House. Now Barack Obama and John McCain find themselves a side-show.
• Eamonn MCann: Was it fair to jail Shahra Marsh but let greedy bankers go free?
Nobody is immune from this banking crisis. Not Shahra Marsh. Not Mother Teresa.
Odd Box
- Monkey works as waiter
- Ban for viewing sci-fi film while driving truck
- Man punches shark to save pet dog
- Politician and pilot spot UFO in Meath
- Dog rescues owner by calling police
- Police use Taser on nude man walking his dog
- Burglar attacks with sausage and spices
- Man with 86 wives vows to marry more
- Outback mayor urges 'ugly' women to move
- Spanish monarch replaced by Homer Simpson
- Pooh blocks drains in Ballymoney
- Britain's smallest burglar: It's a tall man's world
- Couple fined over 'sex games' at war memorial
- Nevada brothel entices visitors with free petrol
Financial Crisis
Is the UK already in a recession?
Castration for Sex Offenders
Should the UK follow Poland's lead and force sex offenders to be chemically castrated?
Cancer treatment
Should cancer drugs be free for all patients?
Next US president?
Who do you think is likely to become the next president of the United States?
Who do you think is likely to become the next president of the United States?
| John McCain |
|
| Barack Obama |
|
| It won't make a difference |
|
| I'm still holding out for Ron Paul |
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