Blog

O Jerusalem                    Word on the Week                     14th October 2023. Once again the attention of the world is centred on Israel.  The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu – mortified by intelligence lapses – has seized the opportunity to threaten the Hamas terrorists with extinction.   Their breaching of Israel’s Southern boundary occurred all too easily and the […]

Personal Pronouns                    Word on the Week          7th October 2023. Perhaps one of my most satisfactory joys of leaving childhood was to put behind me what I learned about pronouns.    In some ways I was glad I was not a Frenchman with their attributing either masculine or feminine gender to words.   One less thing to remember! […]

MV Matthew                     Word on the Week                     30th September 2023. The ship, under its new name, ‘Matthew’ sailed into Irish waters this week.   It had come from the Dutch island of Aruba in the South Caribbean as the MV Honmon to Willemstad in the Dutch protectorate of Curaçao on August 18th from where it sailed to […]

Stardust Fire                    Word on the Week                     23rd September 2023. It was St Valentine’s night, February 14th 1981 and the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, was packed to capacity.   A fire broke out which was to claim the lives of 48 young people and injure over 200.   It was tragic.    Such was the scale of […]

Rugby                               Word on the Week                     16th September 2023. In case there is someone who doesn’t know, the Rugby World Cup has got under way.   This is a world-wide event with Ireland lining out against Tonga tonight.   All games are being played in French Stadiums.    These are located in various cities culminating in the final in […]

Back to School                 Word on the Week                     9th September 2023. Here comes the sun – schools must have resumed!    What cruel fate has decreed that the resumption of schools and colleges would be marked by gloriously sunny weather!    It does not always occur – it just seems like it does! School or college was once […]

The Swallow          Word on the Week          2nd September 2023. In my daily pre breakfast excursions with Tess the Pugaleer we have been accompanied by the melodic twitter of the swallows who are massing on the other side of the hawthorn hedge.  The latter has been allowed to grow an extra two feet as part of […]

Triathlon Tragedy                 Word on the Week            26th August 2023. The recent drowning of two participants who were competing in the triathlon in the sea off Youghal brought a sombre note to the event.  The Ironman competition, as the name suggests, requires extremes of physical fitness in those who compete.   It is a mixture […]

The 100,000 welcomes which Ireland is so famous for has suffered some reductions to its number in recent days!   It was brought to light when an elderly American tourist was randomly beaten up in Dublin city centre, receiving some life changing injuries. This was followed by three teenage boys being hospitalised after an incident in […]