Are We Having Fun Yet…?

Are We Having Fun Yet…?   This article appears in Chicago’s ‘Irish American News’ for December, 2016.   I wrote this straight after the Trump win.  When I suggested that within a couple of months he would be absorbed into ‘business-as-usual’, I really hadn’t expected...

Closing Time

I wrote the following in a letter to a friend back in August.  Farewell, Mr. Cohen; thank you for the words…   With all the Doom & Gloom (sounds like a firm of Undertakers), it was nice this week to come across this…somewhat sad, somewhat lovely…little item. And I...

Memories of Europe… Before the Flood

This article appears in Chicago’s ‘Irish American News’ for November, 2016.   If there even was such an outlandish idea as having a ‘gap year’ back in the 70s, then I had never heard of it.  It just wasn’t something that you did back then. All I knew was that I had...

Straight Outta Mayo: Kenny Finds his Mojo

Straight Outta Mayo: Kenny Finds his Mojo     This was written a couple of weeks back.  I don’t think that anything has really changed, apart from Mr. Martin clarifying the clarifications on the U-turn that’s not one. I am amused, though, at Sinn Féin’s Louise...

Entitlements…and Enlightenments

This piece appears in Chicago’s ‘Irish American News’ for September, 2016.   I want to stay away from negative news this month, so let me get my disappointment with Senator Billy Lawless out of the way.  Notice I say ‘disappointment’, not ‘surprise’.  Once a person...