Mary Harney is right. Although she has political responsibility for Tallaght Hospital, a minister can't be expected to personally ensure that every letter is opened and every X-ray is inspected by the appropriate doctor. She's right about that and nothing... Similar posts

There was a time when a gig as a dissenting newspaper columnist was relatively easy. Charlie Haughey, for instance, was a joy to write about. He lied and thieved with barely an effort to keep the smirk off his face. The obsequious party faithful bowed and grovelled, delighted that such a great leader had consented to pick their pockets. Back then, the gig for a dissenting newspaper columnist involved remembering what Charlie said a few months earlier, taking it out of the files and laying it down beside what he was saying now -- and bingo, watch the penny drop. Wake up, suckers, the guy's a chancer.... Similar posts

WOW, that was some big story of the week, wasn't it? You know what I'm talking about? Low standards in high places, and all that. (A reader has just emailed to say: "You mean the Willie O'Dea resignation, don't you?". Eh, no... Similar posts

THE week started with a bang — and it had nothing to do with George Lee. It involved the far more significant figure of Steven Seelig. However, we can usually rely on our political chums and their media cheerleaders to miss the point, so the whole week was all George, George, George. Good old Mr Seelig vanished down the memory... Similar posts

EVERYONE was against it. Left wingers, right wingers, Fine Gael, Labour and even a lot of Fianna Fail TDs. In fact, some Fianna Failers seemed apoplectic about the unfairness of it all. And yet, the Government is getting away with it. How? And why on earth did they insist on doing something so obviously... Similar posts

International Thriller Writers are hosting an article of mine that takes a look at three excellent Dublin-set novels; Winterland by Alan Glynn, All the Dead Voices by Declan Hughes and Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan. Click here to read it.Also, there's a great interview with Ian Sansom on the Arts Extra Listen Again thingy from Friday. I recommend listening to Ian Sansom any time you can. Having attended some of his creative writing workshops I rate him very highly as a writer, a reader and a literary guru. Plus, the conversation swings around to JD Salinger at the end...And, finally, I found out from his Facebook page that Colin Bateman's short film Jumpers is available to download on iTunes, he's thinking about writing a new Dan Starkey novel and the University of Ulster is... Similar posts

Here's an exclusive: the Soapbox Special Investigation Unit has managed to acquire a copy of the final report of the commission of investigation into the banking collapse. You might quibble that the bank inquiry has yet to begin its work -- oh, don't be so negative. Cutting-edge journalists never allow a technicality to get in the way of a good... Similar posts

SO, THERE I was, standing in the kitchen, when this billionaire property developer came on the radio. He sounded almost as befuddled as I felt -- but, then, we were both in danger of being overwhelmed by our respective... Similar posts

Miriam O'Callaghan made a weak joke on Prime Time on Thursday. It was weak because to get it you had to remember the last big snow-in, back in 1982. A politician called Michael O'Leary was then put in charge of dealing with the chaos, and he was briefly known as the 'Minister for... Similar posts

Last week I mentioned that I’d asked as many Irish crime writers as I know to vote on their favourite novel(s) of the year, in 1-2-3 order, with each first preference getting 10 points, second getting five points, and third preference getting one point. The results are as follows: THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville (32)THE LOVERS by John Connolly (21)DARK TIMES IN THE CITY by Gene Kerrigan (17)WINTERLAND by Alan Glynn (15) ALL THE DEAD VOICES by Declan Hughes (15)FIFTY GRAND by Adrian McKinty (11)   Personally, I think all six are terrific novels, and I’m not just woofing: I think that any country, regardless of its size, should be proud of producing six novels of that quality (in any genre or none) in a given year. The bar has been well and truly raised, and it augurs well for... Similar posts

For all my recent piffling about quitting as a writer, it was still something of a shock to see my picture in yesterday’s Sunday Times’ Culture section (Irish edition) with the caption ‘ex-novelist Burke’. Mind you, as my lovely wife pointed out, at least I’ll be able to show it to the grandkids to prove that I’m not some senile old fool when I wibble on about the halcyon days when I used to be a writer.   I write theatre reviews for the Irish Culture section most weeks, and very enjoyable work it is too. The editor of the Culture section was kind enough to get in touch last week to say that he’d read the post on the blog about my quitting the writing game, and wondering if I’d be interested in turning it into an article. I didn’t want to write a me-me-me piece,... Similar posts

A trumpet parp there, please, maestro …   Last week (or maybe the week before) I posted about the inaugural but rather less than prestigious ‘Crime Always Pays’ Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award, which was, above all else, designed to remind people of how many excellent Irish crime novels were published in 2009. If memory serves (although more often than not, it stands and waits), the post involved detailing a forthcoming shortlist and what were in retrospect horribly complicated voting procedures. By which I mean, of course, that the voting would have been fairly straightforward, but the collating and counting would have been unnecessarily time-consuming for yours truly.   Anyway, to cut a long story short, I cheated, and went with a system akin to that of the... Similar posts

There was an interesting piece on Irish crime fiction from Fintan O’Toole (right) in yesterday’s Irish Times, in which he referenced Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan and Alan Glynn as exemplars of ‘the nearest thing we have to a realist literature adequate to capturing the nature of contemporary society …’. The gist runneth thusly: “It is striking that the most successful Irish crime writer, John Connolly, who began his career just a decade ago, felt it necessary to set his books in the US and to insert himself directly into the American detective tradition. Connolly presumably decided that Ireland, even in the Celtic Tiger years, was not the place for crime fiction. Yet it is equally striking that in the last few years, Irish-set crime writing has not merely begun to blossom but... Similar posts