The Slugger Awards

With less than a week until Irish international football’s latest tournament story begins to be written, Damian Dempsey’s Rocky Road to Poland has been well played out as the excitement and sense of anticipation continues to build.  The 73 years young Italian manager, Giovanni Trapattoni, will become the oldest ever manager of a European Champion […]

Another chance to predict the future; the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, Euro 2012, is almost upon us. The tournament will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine and the first match kicks off this Friday 8th June 2012. Local interest here will focus on the Republic of Ireland, England, Poland and Portugal but not unfortunately [...]

Whilst Willie Frazer recently (somewhat erroneously) raised the matter of National flags in schools, it would appear that unionist politicians are at loggerheads in Moneymore over the appearance of an Irish Tricolour as part of a floral arrangement in a protestant church in the town. DUP MLA Ian McCrea has attacked his local UUP rival, [...]

As The Observer’s Alex Clark notes This coming 16 June, Radio 4 will be a wall-to-wall Joycefest, kicking off at 9am and running until midnight: a new, five-and-a-half hour dramatisation of Ulysses, narrated by Stephen Rea and starring Henry Goodman, Niamh Cusack and Andrew Scott, will be punctuated by broadcasts by Mark Lawson in Dublin [...]

I bicycled along the harbour shore in Titanic Quarter today in an unseasonably cold breeze. As always, my eyes were drawn to the ships at dock on the other side of the harbour. These ugly brutes, these unsung workhorses of the maritime world, are the capillaries through which a huge proportion of international trade flows. [...]

Slowly, almost painfully so, the health reforms are beginning to be revealed. The Compton Review stated that each of the Health and Social Care Trusts was to bring forward proposals for hospital services by June 2012. It is slightly unclear if that was to be the start or the end of this month: however, rumours [...]

Is a class based politics emerging? Jason O’Mahony seems to think so. Complaints that it was the middle class and rural voters wot one it against the poorer classes is part of a limiting contempt that some sections of Irish politics have for the people who always broker political power in the Irish state. - [...]