Apologies to all three regular readers of CAP for the rather hysterical headline, but with Ireland on the brink of making blasphemy illegal, I thought I’d get my retaliation in first. Quoth the Irish Times: Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.”  “Blasphemous matter” is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such... Similar posts

I can’t recall the time I had last re-read a book, excluding the likes of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (which I like a lot) and -for shame- a horrible, garish volume on Tractors and Trucks replete with strokable engine grills and caterpillar tracks, the latter an instance of what happens when you allow a 17-month old boy to exercise his own taste in matters of literature. But I am doing so at the minute with On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, which I first read earlier this week, I am embarrassed to admit. I have read a fair few books over the last 15 years or so, but not so many in which you constantly experience the sensation of your tiny mind expanding with each sentence. And Mill has lots of compelling and relevant things to say on the contemporary hot potato of... Similar posts

It is shameful that so many nationalist radicals affect a concern for the de Valera constitution of 1937 simply because of the presence of articles 2 and 3 which reiterated that Ireland's territorial integrity extended to all thirty-two counties. Now that's gone, there's even less reason to profess allegiance to the constitution.The 1937 Constitution represented a perversion of the hopes of the revolutionary hopes of those who followed Connolly and who stood up for Irish freedom and socialism. Indeed, the verbalised territorial claim belied the fact that the publication of the constitution effectively admitted defeat to the partitionist agenda and concretised the southern reactionary state born of partition. The constitution also ensconced the dominant role and authority of the Catholic... Similar posts