I admit to having been rather irritated by Queen’s professor Colin Harvey’s recent complaints about being under threat, since I think he has a tendency to take himself unduly seriously, to see criticism as abuse and to flinch from the hurly burly that goes with...
In the spirit of kindness engendered by all the wonderful stories of the late, great Queen Elizabeth, I’m sorry for – rather than angry with – those whose inhumane response to the death of a woman mourned worldwide for her life-long exceptional contribution to...
I don’t like being labelled, but after covering Northern Ireland as a journalist for almost 30 years, I can now formally announce I am no longer a political agnostic: I am a unionist. Being from a Dublin Catholic mostly-soft-nationalist background and living in...
Every time I hear the sanctimonious voice of Peter Hain — that one-time rebel and enthusiast for Irish unity who in 2015 swapped his Commons seat for a peerage — I struggle to understand why the media think him an expert on legacy issues. Published: 18 May 2021 There...
On Friday Twitter explained why it had permanently suspended a Twitter account in the name of Barbara Pym that had been founded and run by the Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris and friends. Published: 11 May 2021 “Using technology and human review in...
I finished last week’s column about the account of Martin McGuinness’s life just published by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) with: Published: 26 January 2021 “Despite all their lies and intimidation, McGuinness’s followers cannot stop true history...
I get fed up sometimes reading and writing about Sinn Féin/IRA. Published: 12 January 2021 But while violent republicanism is still a threat to peace and happiness of the people of the island of Ireland, most of the media let such terrorists get away – sometimes...
Well, the tweet from editor Alistair Bushe last Wednesday saying I was joining the News Letter certainly got the Shinnerbots excited. Published: 29 September 2020 For those of you who ignore social media, these are the armies of Sinn Fein supporters who assemble on...
Michelle O’Neill was abused online but it’s tame compared to what I receive, writes Ruth Dudley Edwards Published: 20 July 2020 Three Sinn Fein communications in the last few days intrigued me. What was Francie Molloy, the MP for Mid Ulster, up to when he...
A new breed of ‘offence archaeologists’ waging war on anyone holding dissenting views, says Ruth Dudley Edwards Published: 15 June 2020 What sort of decrepit rock did you climb from under you absolutely hideous harridan?” tweeted one of my critics last week. “You’re...
