Book Review: Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. Cambridge & London: MIT Press. 2003
Žižek & Milbank,  The Monstrosity of Christ. Cambridge & London : MIT Press. 2009
Leibnitz famously posed the fundamental ontological question when he said we have a right to ask why there is something rather than nothing [...]

As the West pummels and pounds yet another country, this time Libya, purportedly to rescue its people, it is worth revisiting (albeit briefly) the concept of ‘just war’, which has led to concepts such as humanitarian intervention.
The rise of christianity
When the Roman Emperor Constantius died in York on the 25th July 306, his troops declared [...]

MINUTES TO A MASSACRE
Setting:
Meeting Room, South Dublin County Council
Cast:
SEO
45 public servants

SEO: So the horses are counted and double-counted?

45 public servants: Yes Boss.
SEO: And there are 19 horses by each of the counts?
45 public servants: Yes Boss.
SEO: And you’ve got someone in charge of overseeing not giving notice to the owners?
45 public servants: Yes Boss.

These New Years of Lean
The Elders could still recall the days
when stone ground to dust
was added to pottage
and porridge
to make them more filling.
Limestone was preferable
to granite
not only because it was softer
but better tasting.
Sandstone
both yellow and red
was sprinkled on for colour.
Things never got bad enough
to use bathstone
but slate was popular on Fool’s Day
served to others.
Beach sand [...]

What a thing for a country to do to people - to take away who they are.” (Peter Sheridan, playwright, 2005)
In 2004 the author and academic Helena Sheehan wrote that for the first five years of RTE’s flagship soap opera, Glenroe, nobody worked for a wage. She also noted that in its other soap, Fair [...]

CONVERSATION BETWEEN A GARDA SERGEANT AND THE EVER-RUNNING CAMERA
Come down down outta that tree
come down outta that tree
ya gobshite
ya banshee
or we”ll bomb ya
Get off the road
ya hippy scum
Get off the fucking road
the road is for tractors
and tanks
and hummers
or anything with oil in it
but you’ve no fucking oil in ya have ya?
so get off the road
GET [...]

Book Review: Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now - Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything, by David Sirota (New York, Ballantine Books $25)

We had a unusually cold spell in the west of Ireland in January 1984 with snow remaining on the ground for a week or [...]

Play Poland - Irish-Polish Film Project is a unique festival platform for Irish-Polish filmmakers,
students and cinema lovers that will take place in Dublin in July 2011. It is a part of the biggest
Polish film festival in Europe, being run between May and September 2011.
This festival offers a creative mix of films, workshops and cinema posters. [...]

Creature of habit that I am, this month means a getaway to somewhere hot and sunny. The heat is for my better half’s arthritis, the sun is for my ageing flesh. It also means an opportunity for some light reading that can’t be done on the train for fear of ostracism. I can still remember [...]

To mark the centenary of the first International Women’s Day, the Communist Party of Ireland launched a booklet entitled “The Equality Delusion” to help develop the debate that is needed on equality and to challenge the notion that the equality agenda is something distinct and separate from class politics in Ireland today.
The deepening economic [...]