People

Every time I walk past a tiny house on Railway Road in Dalkey, it amazes me that my immigrant grandmother gave birth to six children there in the 1920s and 1930s. As is typical for many Irish people, our family history is one of upward social mobility in a generation or two. My dad left…

Last Saturday night in Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, the local team, Hajduk, hosted the brilliant Barcelona. The omens weren’t good. Earlier that day, storm clouds had swept across the Adriatic from Italy and more rain fell more heavily than any of our seasoned Irish company had ever seen. Not only torrential rain,…

IF anything sums up what went wrong with Ireland, it is the saga of Superquinn. On the positive side, if anything shows how we can get out of this mess, it is also the receivership of one of Ireland’s best-known brands. Before looking at the receivership and the implications for the rest of the country,…

David Mc Williams watching Obama’s speech in Fallons in the Coombe on Monday afternoon. Photograph by Gabe Murphy. THE lad beside me in the queue for Obama had driven down all the way from Donegal. We joined the queue at 2pm, just at the back of Christchurch. The very same scarf seller who was flogging…

One of the funniest afternoons I’ve had in years was going on the lash with Wayne Rooney’s granny a few years back in Croxteth, Liverpool. Croxteth is almost all Irish. These are the Liverpool Irish — the Irish of Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison — the people whose people first lived in Scottie…

Last week was a great week. I have employed a few people and intend to employ a few more every month if things go according to plan. Ireland is full of good people who just need the proverbial ‘start’. There is always a great sense of excitement setting up a new venture, rolling up the…

When you leave this country for a few days, you get the distinct impression that we are stuck in a time warp. We aren’t moving on. This is the feeling I got over the weekend in London. On the eve of the Royal Wedding, the British capital captures the very essence of modernity or globalisation…

“Faced with the choice between changing our mind and proving the there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.” This wonderful quotation from the brilliant economist JK Galbraith sums up where most of the Irish establishment is with respect to the biggest question facing the electorate. The only question…

Once we create a system that allows the person to start again, we facilitate the return of hope. On Monday night I went for a pint with an old friend who was distressed. His wife had just lost her job and that meant there was now no way they could pay the mortgage. There wasn’t…

What is the link between Friday night snogs at a disco, grandfathers talking about cold pigs in winter to grandsons, immigrant children coming up with their own IT ideas, iPods and teenagers standing too close to the speakers at a Green Day concert? Why, the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, of course! These everyday…