Séighin Ó Ceallaigh

  Falling asleep in the middle of an international climate conference, representing a country with a lot to do when it comes to tackling emissions, may not have been the worst part of ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden’s week. It was a name that gained traction during the 2020 Presidential Election, discrediting him as an old man who wouldn’t be up to the job. It was a tactic successfully used by former president Trump in 2016, when he accused Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton of not having the ‘stamina’ to be President of the United States. Though he used personalised attacks unsuccessfully in 2020, this one seems to be somewhat true of Sleepy Joe, who dozed off with his arms crossed mid-conference; and let’s not forget falling up the stairs along with his numerous ‘gaffs’. But it the nightmare for Sleepy Joe was not falling asleep, but what happened in a pretty blue state, close to his homestate of Delaware (it’s no longer Pennsylvania since he won the election). In a state where he d...

  BOOK REVIEW : ANIMAL FARM   There is no doubt that George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm will divide opinions depending on what side of the political spectrum that you stand on, and your understanding of late imperial and early soviet Russian history. I tried to put the historical reflection to the back of my mind while reading this book, and as a historian it was rather difficult. Some of the analogies were downright wrong, many were open to interpretation, and some were fair. What I gathered about the author from this read was that he was a diehard Trotskyist, eulogising the assassinated liberal-left ideologist in the form of Snowball the pig, and Communist leader Vladimir Lenin in the form of Major the pig; while vilifying Josef Stalin in his depiction as tyrant pig Napoleon. While the pigs represent Soviet leadership, the dogs represent the Soviet Army and Police, and the other animals the general workers of the USSR. I would argue that more time is spent vilify...

  By the time you are reading this, it is likely that California Governor Gavin Newsom will either have survived a recall election, or will have been removed as Governor. But the timing of the election, the same day as Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney faces what is almost certain to be an unsuccessful motion of no confidence, and it begs the question, ‘Should Ireland have a recall process?’ For those unaware of the process, following incompetence or scandal (Governor Newsom was caught breaking his own COVID rules, sound familiar?), the minimum of 12% of the California electorate signed a petition to hold a recall election, which is composed of two parts. Firstly will Newsom stay or go, which requires 50% approval (he was elected with 62% of the vote), and if the electorate choose for him to go, then Part II of the ballot will come into effect, who will replace him? A motion of no confidence usually requires the government of the day to turn against one of their ow...

Former Taoiseach, and current Tánaiste and leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, was spotted this weekend attending a festival in England, all while such festivals in Ireland are outlawed under the Martin-Varadkar administration. It is a serious case of 'do as I say, not as I do', as while the Tánaiste was taking a break (which he is entitled to), Electric Picnic was forbidden from going ahead here in Ireland. Like a teenager seeing how far they can push their parent's boundaries, Leo for some time has been seeing how far he can push his luck with the electorate, and an inept Fianna Fáil. We had #LeoTheLeak, which led to a criminal investigation, #LeoTheLiar when the changing version of his recollection of events appeared to be changing by the day, and most recently #Merriongate, where he attended a large gathering with still unknown characters from the Irish political circles. Now he is pushing those boundaries again, and will likely face no consequences for his d...

This week Fianna Fáil Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien launched the Government's new housing strategy, entitled 'Housing For All'. Though the name is quite deceiving, as it does not in fact plan for 'Housing For All'. In what feels like the 1,237th housing document released since Fine Gael took office in 2011, and ten years later are still in power, it once again lacks ambition, and puts more focus on subsidising landlords and investment funds, rather than deliver family homes. It seems like just yesterday that former Housing Minsters Jan O'Sullivan, Alan Kelly, and Eoghan Murphy, were massaging figures to give the illusion that homes were being delivered, when in fact landlords were given an incentive to drive up rents through schemes such as the Housing Assistance Payment, HAP. This scheme was used to divert the figures of people awaiting public homes, making it appear that there were less people in need of permanent housing than there actually...

My first book review, and may as well start with the last book that I finished reading, The Road  by Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy sort of made headlines recently, popping up on Twitter using a blue-tick profile, but it turns out that Twitter wrongly assigned the verification symbol. (I'll admit I thought he was dead too, turns out he's just very old) This is the only novel by McCarthy that I've read, purely because I loved the film. I also enjoyed the film version of No Country For Old Men , so that may get added to my 'To Read' list, which always seems to be growing. I may seem a little full of it by kind of dumping on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, but I'm going to dump a little anyway. The story was great, even better than the movie, but it was the writing style that drove me crazy. Lack of punctuation, no chapter definition, and most of all, no quotation marks. I would find myself half way through a sentence before realising that it was one of the ...

Yes you read that correctly, Rambo III was originally "dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan." It has since been updated to be dedicated to the people of Afghanistan, for obvious reasons. In the film, Rambo joins forces with the Mujahideen to rescue his former commander from the Soviet Army, though there is no mention of the overthrowing of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's government. Though the film contains fictional characters, one must wonder if any of the rebel fighters were based on the young Saudi Arabian millionaire, prominent Mujahideen fighter, and founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden. The film was released in 1988, the same year when the then 30 year old Bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda and became its leader, a direct result of US Support. The film is a must watch, not for entertainment value, but for the sheer propaganda values throughout. It was in the 1980s when Sylvester Stallone released his first Anti-Soviet propaganda fi...