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Hearing the Other Voice from the Grave: Why Should we Listen to David Ervine’s Stories?
Ed Moloney’s Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland has received considerable attention in the press and in the public realm since its publication earlier this year. Although the book relates the experiences of the Provisional IRA’s Brendan Hughes and the PUP/UVF’s David Ervine, much of the discussion has focused on Hughes’ stories [...] read our review » -
Help me with the West Wing: Essential viewing or Party Political Broadcast?
Having somehow managed to avoid watching a single episode of the widely praised West Wing TV series I was delighted to discover the entire Box set in my Christmas stocking – and with enough spare time over the holidays to give it a good lash. But with 10 episodes of the first series under my [...] read our review »
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Of the Old North and other Vanished Kingdoms..
I’m currently trawling through Norman Davies’s fabulous new tome – “Vanished Kingdoms” – Five stars in the (London) Telegraph’s review from Ben Wilson: All the nations that have ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand,” writes Norman Davies. “The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human [...] read our review »
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 6 May 2011 at 10:08 am
Oracle
The SDLP long term future looks as bleak as an unfinished apartment complex on Dublin’s Quayside.
They try hard to be pragmatic and inclusive and indeed go out of their way to observe the Political version of the Marquis of Queensbury rules in the squabble for the nationalist hearts and minds with Sinn Fein.
“What they comprehensively fail to understand no matter how simply it is explained to them, or how often it’s explained to them, or for that matter how graphically it’s described to them is that they are in a” monster bitch-fight” and they just don’t have the ballax for a bitch-fight, especially one to the death!”
“Only fools cowards and evil people believe in God”
No, the good people believe in God. The fools, cowards and evil people pretend to believe in God. That’s the confusion. You’re just not able to tell the difference between the good and the evil people.
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 7:10 pm
Nun
“Who created the men’s ability to kill one another ? You would say God.”
Yes, with the firm indication that heaven is more fun. Your argument seems to be to keep killing them until you win, implying that heaven is less fun.
Faith goes a long way [that is, beyond learned stupidity].
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 5:54 pm
Nun
“To the contrary, it would have been an acceptance of barbarism, a statement of toleration for murder and sadism, a passive thumbs up to genocidal, expansionist tyrants.”
You have no sense of irony at all. The above is exactly what it became.
A situation like Saddam isn’t there to validate violent intervention. It’s to prove that it didn’t work. If people want change then they have to assert a principle that can be rewarded, like Jesuit tyrannicide.
How far will God go to push that rule? I refer you to the 9 million men who died during WWI.
What was Hitler all about? Suffice to say that a British goverment met with him for peace talks before the war. Would anybody care to save 30 million people by sacrificing their life? Not a British thing to do.
Instead they got a little bit of validation for their perfection of the Irish, lost their empire and their money in the battle to beat a tyrant. In other words, they became indebted to the USA, and the Irish effectively won.
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 4:25 pm
Oracle
“Peaceful protest only works if the subject for protest is easily embarrassed like commercial companies other that that it achieves nothing….. it changes nothing”
In the context of God the rules are that if you use violence against an oppressor who uses violence, there is no incentive for God to make a point. What point would God make by rewarding the oppressed in that context. No, the point is that in the eyes of God, the strong have a right to assert their domination. To assert otherwise is to say that there is no law and that violence will be the norm.
That’s why all change in Ireland, from O’Connell to Parnell, to Hume came from non-violence. God was asserting the rules.
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Comment on Midlife crisis man
on 5 May 2011 at 12:07 am
Jesuit self awareness, if I do say so myself.
JO’C
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Comment on One last hustings (#bele11) in case you can’t sleep …
on 4 May 2011 at 11:07 pm
good luck to all our sdlp candidates
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Comment on Sinn Fein’s one stop election shop…
on 4 May 2011 at 11:01 pm
the last shall be first and the first shall be last, or something like that
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 9:16 pm
“I am completely humbled by the experience of meeting Our Lady yet again, an experience I write about below. I understand that every sentence is meaningful in this cosmic interaction. The last time we met was on Apparition Hill in Medjugorje in August 2009 where a lady with six children, the number of child visionaries involved in the first encounter with Our Lady in June 1981, led me up and down the hill, meaning that she was with me during my whole journey through life.
“I submit two testimonies of the encounter during the royal wedding last Friday, the first on the night of the encounter which proved too soon to completely evaluate the meaning, and the second completed on the night after the encounter to clarify the meaning of the message, a very comprehensive message. The second testimony comes first.”
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 9:13 pm
Mark
At this stage fishing is permitted if you have a question.
I could refer you to the 1986 revelation that is the only constant that accurately defined “history” since. In other words, we’re ready now.
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 8:51 pm
Mark
“useful” – no-one uses me, unlike Sinn Fein, you’ll see.
I see I still make you nervous.
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