Writer
Jeff Kildea
Dr Jeff Kildea is an honorary professor at the University of New South Wales and author of Tearing the Fabric: Sectarianism in Australia 1910-1925.
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A road to nowhere: faith-based political parties
In recent weeks there has been talk of the prospect of a Muslim party being formed to contest the next federal election. The prime minister has responded by saying he did not want Australia to go down the road of faith-based political parties. Continue reading »
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The Belfast Good Friday Agreement – a model for Palestine?
The continuing horror in Gaza touches us all deeply, even if only vicariously. It leads us ineluctably to the question, often asked in exasperation: Is there no solution? But we’ve been here before and some point to the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement (BGFA), which ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland, as a possible model Continue reading »
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Stormont restored – Sinn Féin to appoint Northern Ireland’s first minister
Waiting for the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland (NI) has been like watching the grass grow as the paint dries on a slow boat to China. But I am pleased to report that the wait is now over, though my backyard resembles a jungle and the paint on the boat is cracking again. Continue reading »
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The Dublin riot – Ireland’s wake-up call
You might be forgiven for thinking that the images from Ireland the other week of a burning bus and of riot police came from Belfast. After all, arson is a form of public protest we tend to associate with Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland deja vu: They’re burning buses again). Yet the rioting we saw this Continue reading »
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Blast from our sectarian past
Recently a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald claimed to have solved the mystery of why Sr Liguori fled her convent in Wagga Wagga one frosty evening in July 1920. In its day the Liguori affair was one of the most sensational episodes in Australia’s sectarian history. As the Herald writer notes, ‘It seems every Continue reading »
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The Windsor framework: oven-ready fudge
More than three years after Boris Johnson got Brexit done with his ‘excellent’ and ‘oven-ready’ deal, his second successor Rishi Sunak may have actually baked it, but only after changing the recipe from cake to fudge. But is there enough fudge to go around? Continue reading »
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The never-ending Brexit story – an end perhaps?
In what many hope will be the final chapter of the seemingly never-ending Brexit story, British prime minister Rishi Sunak announced on Monday the Windsor Framework, a political agreement in principle with the European Union to resolve their differences over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), that part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement designed to avoid Continue reading »
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Who won the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly?
Most of the reporting on the outcome of the elections in May for the 90-member Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) has concentrated on Sinn Féin’s winning the highest number of seats and the highest proportion of first preference votes (FPVs). Some have called it ‘historical’ and have referred to a ‘seismic shift’ in the politics of Continue reading »
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Stalemate at Stormont – elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly
The elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, scheduled for 5 May 2022, may be the most important in the Assembly’s history. Yet, they will resolve nothing. Instead, they will set the parameters for what will happen next in this troubled land. And the prospects are not encouraging. Continue reading »
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Living with Covid: lessons from the Spanish Flu pandemic
We are all sick of Covid and the disruption it has wrought. But the pandemic will not be over until it is over. Glib slogans won’t alter that reality. Continue reading »
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Bumbling Boris’ Brexit bombast, a bitter brew for Northern Ireland
The approach of summer raises anxiety levels within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), for it heralds the beginning of the ‘marching season’, which runs each year from April to August. In the lead up to summer 2021, fallout from the Brexit debate has caused the PSNI’s anxiety levels to ratchet up to an Continue reading »
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Ending the revolutions: Easter rising and the partition of Ireland
For more than 90 years members of the Irish National Association, their friends and supporters, have assembled on Easter Sunday in front of the 1798 Monument at Waverley Cemetery to commemorate the men and women of the 1916 Easter rising in Dublin. This is an abridged version of the address given at that event on Continue reading »
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Northern Ireland deja vu: They’re burning buses again
Since Easter, our newspapers and television screens have been showing us images from Northern Ireland we thought were a thing of the past: a bus being burned, children pelting police with rocks, young men in balaclavas hurling Molotov cocktails. A few years ago we would have taken no notice. But now these images seem incongruous Continue reading »
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Uncategorised
Ireland and Brexit: Time to NIxit? – Part 2: The Economy, Stupid
In Part 1 – A Question of Identity, I examined the question of whether Brexit will hasten the reunification of Ireland from the point of view of how it has affected the identity of Northern Ireland unionism. In this part, I look at that question from the perspective of the economic consequences of Brexit. Continue reading »
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Uncategorised
Ireland and Brexit: Time to NIxit? – Part 1: A Question of Identity
Four and a half years after the United Kingdom referendum in which a majority voted in favour of leaving the European Union, the Brexit project is at last formally complete. Now we await the consequences. One question is whether Britain’s withdrawal from the EU will be the catalyst for the breakup of the UK. In Continue reading »
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Ireland and Brexit: the Good News
On Christmas eve the Brexit deal was done and the Irish breathed a sigh of relief. Even so, not all in Ireland would agree with Irish Times columnist David McWilliams assessment that the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was ‘the best news for Ireland in 100 years, couldn’t have worked out better for us!’ Continue reading »
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November 11 – ‘the other dismissal’: the expulsion of Hugh Mahon from federal parliament
This year, on November 11, marks the 45th anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam as prime minister. Yet November 11 is also the date of another dismissal – not as well known as Kerr’s coup but one which a hundred years ago ignited similar passions. It was the expulsion from the federal parliament of Continue reading »
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Susan Ryan: a daughter of St Brigid
Long after Susan’s passing, Australians, and Irish-Australians in particular, will continue to be enriched by the legacy that this daughter of St Brigid has left us.’ Continue reading »
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Like Banquo’s Ghost: Hugh Mahon and the Eden-Monaro by-election
The name Hugh Mahon has appeared in the news recently in connection with the Eden-Monaro by-election caused by the resignation of Labor’s Mike Kelly. Like Banquo’s ghost, Mahon’s appearance during a by-election for an opposition seat strikes fear into the heart of the incumbent opposition leader. For Mahon is the only opposition candidate to lose Continue reading »
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Habemus Taoiseach: Ireland has a new government at last
Last Friday evening, as white smoke wafted from the chimney above Ireland’s parliament building, Leinster House in Dublin, the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker) came out onto the steps and announced to the assembled throng in Kildare Street, ‘Habemus Taoiseach’ (We have a prime minister). Continue reading »
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The Irish Elections of 2020 – Are We There Yet?
After almost six weeks of negotiations agreement has now been reached between the leaders of Fine Gael (FG), Fianna Fáil (FF), and the Green Party (GP) to form a coalition government in Ireland. Continue reading »
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JEFF KILDEA. The Irish Elections of 2020 – still no government
Almost four months after the Irish general election on 8 February 2020 Ireland is still without a government. What’s been happening and who is running the shop during the Covid-19 crisis? Continue reading »
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JEFF KILDEA. How many Australians died of Spanish Flu? Take your pick
The advent of Covid-19 following on so closely from the centenary of Spanish influenza has led to a renewed interest in that last great pandemic. Yet, more than 100 years after the event, there is still a wide discrepancy in the estimates of how many it killed. Continue reading »
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JEFF KILDEA. Lessons to be learned from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 – Part 2
By the end of February 1919 the NSW government, by prompt and strict measures, had, in today’s parlance, ‘flattened the curve’. But the worst was still to come. Continue reading »
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JEFF KILDEA. Lessons to be learned from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 – Part 1
COVID-19 is the worst pandemic Australia has faced since the visit of the ‘Spanish Lady’ just over a century ago. What lessons can we learn from that earlier experience? Continue reading »
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JEFF KILDEA. The Irish Elections of 2020
Perhaps, after almost 100 years, the time has finally arrived when we can declare the Irish Civil War to be over. Continue reading »
