Nov
18
I spent Tuesday at Hacks & Hackers Hack. Organised by Scraperwiki, and sponsored by the Guardian Open Platform, NUJ Dublin Freelance Branch and Innovation Dublin, HH&H was a one day exercise uniting Hacks (journalists) and Hackers (computer coders) to extract …
Aug
23
So I’ve got some unleavened bread here. To some people, it’s just a piece of flour, mixed with water and heated. And to some people, it’s the body of a god, sacred beyond imagining. Plain unraised bread, made without yeast …
Jul
13
In May 2008, retired High Court president Freddie Morris recommended that a Committee be set up to “formulate and recommend the policy to be implemented in respect of investigative interviewing by the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána on an ongoing …
Feb
04
Sixteen months ago, I wrote a story. It was a nice little story, with some good quotes from the main player. I sold it to a provincial paper. I posted the story on my website. Thanks to the vagaries of …
Jan
05
Following contact earlier today from the Slovakian authorities with the Airport Police at Dublin Airport, members of the Garda Síochána recovered a small quantity of explosive material from the luggage of a passenger who had flown into Dublin from that …
Jul
27
‘The common law offences of defamatory libel, seditious libel and obscene libel are abolished.’ That’s the entirety of section 35 of the Defamation Act 2009, signed into law by the president, Mary McAleese, last Thursday. The next two sections are …
Jul
23
A nascent campaign to repeal the constitutional provision on blasphemy has received support from an unexpected source: the Anglican Bishop of Cork. Atheist Ireland, a group established ‘to build a rational, ethical and secular society free from superstition and supernaturalism’ …
Jul
10
This week, watching as the Dáil debates on the Criminal Justice and Defamation bills were guillotined, I found myself considering what to do. Writing to my TDs didn’t help. Only one of them replied, and he voted for the bill …
Jul
06
It’s going to be an interesting week in Dáil Éireann. Desperate not to cut back on their holiday time,the government has opted instead to cut debating time, and plans to guillotine several bills into law by Friday. Among the highlights: …
Jun
22
There’s a constitutional amendment scheduled for October, to change our minds about the Lisbon treaty. This is an ideal opportunity for Dermot Ahern. He feels he must make blasphemy a crime, otherwise the people will go through the ‘costly and …