By Bill O’Donnell Three Penny Opera, Irish Style -- For some in Ireland the New England type of fierce winter weather in recent weeks has been the topic of fireside conversation from Sligo to Kildare. Yet nothing beats a good old-fashioned scandal and the Green Isle currently has three beauts that have dominated --overwhelmed would be more accurate – the national news cycle. Read more
Boston-Aided Foyleside Centre Thrives -- Opened 15 years ago in the city of Derry, it was a super shopping complex that initially drew criticism from many in the North when construction began. They said it was too large, too tempting a target for the paramilitaries, the glass atrium facade would never withstand IRA attack, and on and on. But it was built, a stunning 400,000 square feet of retail shops that defied the odds and might never have come to fruition if it hadn't been for critical links established in the 1980s between Boston and Derry. Read more
This new year, 2010, will be the 12th anniversary of the start of the Saville Inquiry into the January 1972 massacre, Bloody Sunday, when 13 unarmed Derry citizens were shot to death by British paratroopers on the streets where they lived. A fourteenth would die later of his wounds. No one has ever been charged, no one has been adjudged guilty, and the fact that it has taken a dozen years - with the end not yet in sight - to try to clean up his Lordship Widgery's disgraceful whitewash should be an acute embarrassment to the British legal establishment. Read more
The college was founded 130 years ago and over the years has nurtured young male students, many of whom have made their mark in Ireland and beyond. In 1947 a new and revolutionary education law was introduced that allowed for the first time students from working class families to attend grammar schools in Northern Ireland.
A new documentary that will be aired on September 21 tells the story of eight of those former St. Columb's college boys who took advantage of the 1947 law and went on to distinguished careers. Read more
The families of the 29 victims of the horrific Omagh bombing eleven years ago this month have won a judgment against the men implicated in the senseless atrocity. The award of $2.5 million will likely be no easier to collect than the civil damages award against O.J. Simpson, but it indicates the level of commitment of the families. Read more
After months of delays and outright resistance to pleas from the British government, two of the more notorious loyalist paramilitary groups have finally begun decommissioning their weapons. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) have been threatened with a variety of sanctions by London but many members of the outlawed groups pointed to the resurgent threat and attacks by breakaway republicans as a rationale for holding on to their arms. That impasse has apparently been resolved, or at least eased. Read more
Yes, the sky is definitely about to come crashing down on Ireland and the US corporations that operate on the isle if President Obama's proposed tax changes go into effect. At least that's the entrenched belief of the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of unfettered capitalism and loosely regulated financial transactions and accountability. Read more
