Ireland

Thursday

Alex Massie

The Battle for Threadneedle Street

I thought it obvious that Mark Carney’s trip to Scotland yesterday was a bad day for Alex Salmond and the Scottish nationalists. Sure, the governor of the Bank of England said, a currency union between Scotland the the rump UK could happen and be made to work but it would be fraught with difficulty and sacrifice too. Do you really want to do that? How lucky do you feel? Carney, being a Canadian and therefore a man crippled by politeness, did not add “punk”. In response the SNP were reduced to pushing a meaningless poll which found 70% of Britons favouring a currency union after independence. That is, 70% of

Friday

Lewis Jones

Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading

Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled herself on Morticia Addams, and where a lesser celebrity memoirist would go on to say that she eventually played Morticia in a film of The Addams Family, Huston is generous enough not to labour the point. Instead of the usual ghosted drivel, she offers — as she does in her acting — a quirky charm and a reckless honesty. Her story is an interesting one, and is generally well written, sometimes even beautifully so. Her father was the great film director John Huston. Her mother ‘Ricki’, an ex-ballerina and his

Wednesday

Melanie McDonagh

Immigration is about culture as well as politics

Must say, I felt a bit defensive when I looked at the tables of origin for immigrants to Britain for the decades to 2011, helpfully set out in  The Daily Mail. The real gist of the thing was the numbers – an increase from just under 2 million in the decade to 1951 to 7.5 million in the decade to 2011. But what was riveting was the immigrants’ countries of origin. For most of the time, the Irish led the field, with about half a million a year arriving in the course of each decade, give or take 100,000. In the last decade though, we were knocked right off our

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Irish are fearful of Scottish independence

In Dublin, where I am writing this, people are watching the Scottish referendum campaign more closely than in London. Despite the polls, they almost expect a Yes vote, but most do not want one. People fear that Yes would weaken the UK and therefore make it a less useful ally for Ireland in the EU. They also think that an independent Scotland might overtake Ireland as a cute little place for foreign investors who like the combination of kilts, bagpipes and general Celtic carry-on with tax breaks and commercial access to the Anglosphere. Finally, they worry that Scottish independence would reopen the Irish question. At present, the Republic enjoys the

Saturday

Martin Vander Weyer

Luck of the Irish? Ireland’s recovery is down to common sense and graft

My man in Dublin calls with joy in his voice to tell me ‘the Troika’ — the combined powers of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF — have signed off Ireland as fit to leave their bailout programme and return to economic self-determination. This is a remarkable turnaround in just three years since I visited the Irish capital in the midst of rescue talks — to find a nation in shock, staring at an €85 billion emergency loan facility that equated to €20,000 per citizen, a collapsing banking system and a landscape scarred by delusional, never-to-be-finished property developments. In the special Irish way, almost everyone I spoke

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Ireland’s back, and luck had nothing to do with it

My man in Dublin calls with joy in his voice to tell me ‘the Troika’ — the combined powers of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF — have signed off Ireland as fit to leave their bailout programme and return to economic self-determination. This is a remarkable turnaround in just three years since I visited the Irish capital in the midst of rescue talks — to find a nation in shock, staring at an €85 billion emergency loan facility that equated to €20,000 per citizen, a collapsing banking system and a landscape scarred by delusional, never-to-be-finished property developments. In the special Irish way, almost everyone I spoke to

Tuesday

Alex Massie

When 50,000 Irishmen gathered to commemorate the First World War

As I wrote last week, I had not thought commemorating the centenary of the First World War need be a matter of controversy. But one of the reasons why it is worth doing – and worth doing properly and on a large scale – is that the First World War is complicated. Consider the photograph at the top of this post. It was taken on Armistice Day in 1924. In Dublin. Yes, Dublin. The Union Flag is flown. The National Anthem – ie, God Save the King – is sung. A Celtic Cross is erected on College Green prior to its transportation to France where it would serve as a

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

If you think the House of Lords is bad for democracy, try the Irish senate

Waves of apathy, a tsunami of indifference, engulfed Ireland for today’s constitutional referendums. When I was over there last week, I was more interested in the thing than anyone I met; the turnout in some places was one in ten – miles lower than in high-octane votes, like the ones affecting the EU. The main issue is the government’s proposal to do away with the upper house, the Seanad, or Senate, which reached its zenith of interest and relevance when WB Yeats was a member (his views on contraception and divorce make notable reading) and has failed ever since to capture the remotest public affection. If you think the House

Tuesday

J P O'Malley

Interview with a poet: Richard Murphy, an old Spectator hand

Richard Murphy was born in County Mayo in Ireland in 1927. He spent part of his childhood in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where his father was the last British mayor of Colombo. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools in Ireland and England, eventually winning a scholarship to Oxford. In 1959 Murphy moved to Inishbofin, an island off the coast of Connemara in County Galway. He settled there for twenty years, writing poems inspired by tragic tales from the local fishing community. These include ‘The Cleggan Disaster’, ‘The Last Galway Hooker’, ‘Pat Cloherty’s Version of The Maisie’ and ‘Sailing to an Island’. The latter describes a dangerous boating

Monday

Christopher Fletcher

A Little Something: remembering Seamus Heaney

‘So.’ So begins Seamus Heaney’s translation of ‘Beowulf’. I know it didn’t come easy to him. The morning after he had been awarded the Whitbread Prize for the work I found myself having breakfast at the Savoy with him and his wife Marie. I’d asked some time before whether I could borrow some of the manuscript pages for a literary exhibition at the British Library. I was a curator there at that time and for a special limited edition of his book had helped get a facsimile image from the original thousand year old manuscript, next to which I now wanted to show his drafts. He tossed an envelope across

Tuesday

J P O'Malley

Roddy Doyle: I’m a middle class person commenting on working class life

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He first came to prominence with his debut novel The Commitments, which he self-published in Ireland in 1987. The book was then published in the UK in 1988 by William Heinemann. The two books which followed, The Snapper (1990) and The Van (1991), completed his Barrytown Trilogy. All three books were subsequently made into extremely successful films. In 1993 Doyle won the Booker Prize for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. The book was praised for Doyle’s ability to write convincingly in the idiom of his main protagonist, Paddy Clarke: a ten-year-old boy residing in Dublin in the 1960s. Doyle’s popularity

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Ulster’s Orangemen show that Britain can do internecine vindictiveness too

This all looks terribly good fun, don’t you think? Spectacular towers which will make wonderful bonfires: it must have taken them ages. My only caveat is that they are all in Northern Ireland. Is there no enterprising alliance over here which might do something similar to celebrate the glorious military success of King William of Orange? One looks in despair at the Church of England, which would almost certainly cavil at such a celebration – but perhaps some of our more Presbyterian churches might set something up? It is important to remember at a time when there’s all this nastiness going on between the Sonny and Cher Muslims (“I got

Friday

Alex Massie

Another Horror Story from Zombie Ireland

Here’s a snapshot of life in 21st century Ireland: Vincent Campbell sold a house and 4.75 acres of land outside Limerick City for a nifty three million euros in 2005. He’s just bought the same property back for 215,000 euros. Meanwhile, the Irish Independent has been having a good week. The paper has revealed how Anglo Irish Bank*, amidst stiff competition perhaps the worst bank in europe, knowingly stiffed the Irish taxpayer for billions by playing the Irish Central Bank like a salmon. As the Indo reported, taped conversations between senior Anglo executives reveal a fresh part of the true story behind the collapse of a bank that went a long way

Thursday

James Walton

The Spinning Heart, by Donal Ryan – review

Despite being so short, The Spinning Heart certainly can’t be accused of lacking ambition. Over the course of its 150-odd pages, Donal Ryan’s first novel introduces us to no fewer than 21 narrators living in or around the same small town in the west of Ireland. One by one, they reflect on their lives, past and present. Between them, though, they also tell us the story of a local kidnap and then of a local murder. This plot element is handled with considerable deftness — the various clues, perspectives, overlaps and contradictions duly coalescing into a single, comprehensible account. Yet, in the end, it only ever seems a handy framework

Monday

David Blackburn

Fathers, sons and the beauty of a “borrowed” book

I spent the weekend in Dublin; consequently, I am suffering from what Apthorpe would have called ‘Bechuana tummy’. For the uninitiated, Apthorpe is the premier fool in Men at Arms, the first book in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy. I was reading it in bed last night and was wryly amused by this joke, which hangs over two chapters: ‘The two lame men climbed into the car and returned to Kut-al-Amara in alcoholic gloom.  Chapter 7 Next day Apthorpe had a touch of Bechuana tummy, but he rose none the less.’ I return to Men at Arms often, but never without reason. I did so this time because Father’s Day fell

Thursday

Camilla Swift

Never accept meat from strangers

Never accept meat from strangers. That seems to be the lesson of the horsemeat scandal – at least for the ex-commercial director of Freeza Meats. In September 2012, an Environment Health Officer arrived to inspect their meat stores. Discovering a large block of meat in one of their freezers, the officer decided to quarantine it. When the meat was tested for equine DNA, the meat was discovered to be 80% horse. And thus the mysterious case of the frozen horsemeat began. James Fairbairn, the commercial director at the time, appeared in front of the Efra select committee yesterday in a bid to explain things. In August, so his story goes, a

Thursday

Peter Oborne

Will Boston still fund the Real IRA?

One of the first world statesmen to send a message of sympathy to Boston after last week’s outrage was Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein. ‘Just watching news of the explosion in Boston,’ he tweeted, ‘Sympathy with people of that fine city.’ Mr Adams has every reason to think fondly of Boston. Throughout the troubles, while he sat on the IRA war council, Boston was one of the major American centres which he (through Noraid) could rely on for support and funding. Bostonian money would have been used to help pay for the IRA attack on Margaret Thatcher’s democratically elected government in Brighton, the grotesque Birmingham pub bombings that left

Tuesday

Fleur Macdonald

The Gamal by Ciarán Collins – review

My editor told me to read this book and write this review. Six hundred words, he said. Just like the psychiatrist Dr. Quinn instructed Charlie, the protagonist of said book, to write one thousand words a day. Therapy apparently. The big reveal is exactly why Charlie needs therapy. The suspense is meant to keep you reading. Charlie is known locally in the village of Ballyronan, Cork where he lives as a ‘gamal’ (‘a bit of God help us’). In medical speak that’s ODD. Oppositional Defiant Disorder. In practical terms it means he can’t resist reminding us how little he wants to be writing what we’re reading and what a waste

Thursday

Charles Moore

After the Brighton bomb

It is worth pointing out yet again that Mrs Thatcher really was very brave last Friday. It would have been no disgrace to her if, once she had realised how narrow had been her escape, she had felt weak and — as did a few of the Tory wives in the Grand Hotel — had sat down and cried. There would have been nothing cowardly in cancelling what remained of the Conference in honour of the dead and injured. But the fact that she did neither of these things and the way that she conducted herself that day confirms that she has an extraordinary amount of that particular kind of

Friday

J P O'Malley

Interview with a writer: Kevin Maher

Kevin Maher’s debut novel The Fields is set in the suburban streets of south Dublin in 1984. The story is narrated by Jim Finnegan: an innocent 13-year-old boy who lives in a carefree world that consists of hanging out in the local park and going on nightly bike rides with his geeky friend Gary. But shortly after his fourteenth birthday, Jim’s life drastically changes when he falls in love with a beautiful 18-year-old woman, Saidhbh Donoghue. After a brief honeymoon period their relationship turns sour when the young couple are forced to take a boat to Britain to arrange for Saidhbh to have an abortion. Both Jim and Saidhbh decide