17 July 2024

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.

22 April 2024

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 for the problem of Palestine. How plausible is that approach?

3 February 2024

Stormont restored Sinn Fin to appoint Northern Irelands 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.

9 December 2023

The Dublin riot Irelands 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: Theyre burning buses again). Yet the rioting we saw this time on our TV screens occurred not in belligerent Belfast but in docile Dublin. So, what was it all about?

15 April 2023

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 Australias sectarian history. As the Herald writer notes, It seems every newspaper in Australia was fascinated with the story.

3 March 2023

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?

28 February 2023

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 a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

7 June 2022

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 Fins 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 NI, where unionists no longer dominate. A closer look at the figures suggests a more cautious approach is required.

29 April 2022

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 Assemblys 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.

16 January 2022

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.

20 June 2021

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 PSNIs anxiety levels to ratchet up to an extent not seen for many years. And behind it all stands a Tory politician playing a dangerous political game.

19 April 2021

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 Easter Sunday 2021 by Dr Jeff Kildea, honorary professor in Irish Studies at the University of NSW.

15 April 2021

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 whats going on? Didnt the Good Friday Agreement fix the problem?

8 January 2021

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.

7 January 2021

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 Britains withdrawal from the EU will be the catalyst for the breakup of the UK. In particular, will Brexit hasten the reunification of Ireland by inducing the people of Northern Ireland to vote to leave the UK? NIxit, to coin a phrase.

29 December 2020

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, couldnt have worked out better for us! especially those who make a living in the fishing and long-distance haulage industries.

10 November 2020

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 Kerrs coup but one which a hundred years ago ignited similar passions. It was the expulsion from the federal parliament of Hugh Mahon, the Labor member for Kalgoorlie.

1 October 2020

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.'

1 July 2020

Like Banquos 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 Labors Mike Kelly. Like Banquos ghost, Mahons 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 a seat to the government at a federal by-election.

30 June 2020

Habemus Taoiseach: Ireland has a new government at last

Last Friday evening, as white smoke wafted from the chimney above Irelands 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).

22 June 2020

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 Fil (FF), and the Green Party (GP) to form a coalition government in Ireland.

31 May 2020

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. Whats been happening and who is running the shop during the Covid-19 crisis?

28 May 2020

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.

10 May 2020

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 todays parlance, flattened the curve. But the worst was still to come.

7 May 2020

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?

13 February 2020

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.