Jude Collins

JUDE COLLINS: Micheál and Keir are equally gormless – but who's better?

Poor Micheál . Poor Keir.

JUDE COLLINS: Iran deserves our thanks for teaching some people a lesson

Will the Israelis ever escape the label of genocide enthusiasts? Probably not, but that won’t worry them. Most of us like to have a reputation that allows others to think kindly of us, but Israelis have a thick skin .They also has an appetite for blood that would match any vampire.

JUDE COLLINS: Trump has grabbed a tiger by the tail in Iran

It was a neck-and-neck race to recover the airman shot down by Iran in Iran. The Americans won the race, much to their relief. Had the Iranians found him first, he would have been put on display as someone several thousand miles from his home, part of the attacking American forces intent on conquering a country that has faced attack and division for decades. Today Trump’s boast is that they’ll be beaten“back into the Stone Ages”

JUDE COLLINS: At long last the language tide is turning

I was speaking to someone recently and their take on our local politicians was “All they’re concerned with is Irish signs.” I tend at times like these to walk away, in case I hit somebody or worse, get hit.

JUDE COLLINS: Gavin and Gregory's seismic hopes turned to dust in London

I don’t know if they took in a show while they were there, but Gavin Robinson and Gregory Campbell made something of a show of themselves in London last week: they were there in connection with Gerry Adams’s trial for being a leader of the IRA. “It would be seismic” Gavin Robinson told reporters, if Gerry were convicted. In a way Gavin was doing the Charlie Haughey thing. You remember how in 1987 Charlie hurried to be by the side of the triumphant Stephen Roche when he won the Tour de France. There was one vital difference: Charlie only went abroad when Stephen had safely passed the finishing line; Gavin reached a state of premature ecstasy, only to find himself undone when the case collapsed.

JUDE COLLINS: The madness of King Donald

One of the many confusing Middle East events in recent weeks has been the way Iran attacked Arab countries in the region. Why so ? Doesn’t it have enough enemies, with the US blowing to pieces their Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Alikhameni, as well as Iran’s army chief of staff, its defence minister, the Revolutionary Guard commander and a senior national security adviser? By all the normal rules, that should have reduced Iran to its knees, clutching a white flag and begging the US to stop.

JUDE COLLINS: Unity debate needs to focus on the practical, not the possible

In the 1960s , John Hume declared : “The civil rights movement in the United States was about the same thing [as the Irish Civil Rights movement], about equality of treatment for all sections of the people, and that is precisely what our movement was about.”

JUDE COLLINS: Exploding the myth of King Charles hard work for his subjects

NOW that they’ve extracted the rotten apple named Andrew out of the royal family barrel and dumped it in the royal waste bin, we can all rest easy. King Charles says: "My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all."

JUDE COLLINS: Positive polls are useful only up to a point

I CAME across a newspaper article where the writer had an unusual take on border poll opinion surveys. According to the article, this kind of thing just deepened division. If the opinion poll figures favoured my view it’d give heart to me and people with similar thinking. But if the opinion poll showed my side was on the slide, it’d deepen division, encourage the digging in of heels, and cause uneasiness or worse. What was needed, the writer said, were opinion polls which encouraged collaboration and reconciliation.

JUDE COLLINS: We should have appreciated Peter more when we had him

UP until a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have heard a bad word said against Peter Mandelson. Okay, there might have been the odd one, but for the most part he was seen as being on the right side in most matters. Many credited him with opening the door of 10 Downing Street for Tony Blair.

JUDE COLLINS: Those difficult conversations can tell us so much

YOU'VE probably heard about Gregory Campbell’s chin-wag with Catherine Connolly when she visited Derry last weekend. “You’re in our country,” Gregory explained to Ireland’s President. “Tonight I’m going to your country.”

JUDE COLLINS: The US turning guns on its own is nothing new

RECENT events in Minneapolis are casting a giant cloud over the US. There are several reasons for this sense of gloom: Trump and Venezuela; Trump and Greenland; Trump and Iran; Trump and Palestine. But above all, Trump and Minneapolis.

JUDE COLLINS: Why no war of words over armoured vehicles?

BACK in the day when Catholics still went to Confession, the story was told of Mickey who visited his local church to ask and receive forgiveness. When he returned home his wife Maggie, a woman concerned with her husband’s eternal welfare, asked him if he had told all his sins.

JUDE COLLINS: Fleadh will be the biggest indicator yet of the scale of Belfast changes

NEW Year finds Casement Park in West Belfast mouldering and unused. Euro 2028 will not visit it as was promised. But not all is gloom.

JUDE COLLINS: What exactly is the point of the UUP?

SO Mike Nesbitt is going to retire as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). At one point I was on nodding terms with Mike when he worked in the BBC, and he struck me at the time as a modest, highly intelligent guy. Whether he’s remained that way I don’t know – sometimes life makes a person a narrower, more intense version of themselves, sometimes it expands them, opens them to new things, not necessarily good things. For instance, some of you may remember Conor Cruise O’Brien, who started as a Labour Party candidate in Dublin and ended up a sad unionist in the North.

Soccer: Reds enjoy back-to-back wins after victory at Ports

Gaelic Games: Lámh Dhearg host Senior Awards night at Beechlawns

CELTIC STORIES: German pints and derby drama in what may be a season-defining week for the Hoops

Soccer: Cliftonville earn huge win over title chasing Linfield

Trócaire condemns acts of war in the Middle East

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: DUP: Why the hell didn’t the Chucks come with us?

SQUINTER: I'm back in Dougie’s good books

DÚLRA: Five-star peregrines look down on us from above

Jude Collins

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