Diarmaid Ferriter

4 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Ryanair’s leadership team are fond of lashing out statistics while brandishing the airline’s carbon footprint virtue. During a recent RTÉ interview, the airline’s chief financial officer Neil Sorahan proudly declared that in the year to the end of March, Ryanair flew 200 million passengers, the first time a European airline has achieved that figure. The company also saw revenue rise to almost €14 billion.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

A visitor from England at Lough Owel in Mullingar expressed surprise to me recently that locals were swimming in the lake. She could not understand how they would take such a risk. I assured her they had no reason to worry; the most recent rating for Lough Owel from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classed its water quality as excellent.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Britain, we are often told, likes to put aside its differences in coming together to commemorate its war sacrifices and victories. This was evident last week during the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day. Narratives honed around such commemorations gloss over fragility and uncertainty as the ghost and words of British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill are invoked to emphasise a uniquely resilient British spirit.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Last week, the deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, issued one of the now regular chilling briefings on behalf of his fascist administration: “Universities are on notice”. US president Donald Trump and his team are determined to destroy academic freedom in the US, as they are so many other freedoms. They have Harvard University in their sights and have already witnessed Columbia University cave in to their demands in order for $400 million in federal funding to be restored.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Diarmaid Ferriter

Mary MacSwiney Author: Leeann LaneISBN-13: 9781739086381Publisher: UCD PressGuideline Price: €30In September 1922, amid the Irish Civil War, Sinn Féin leader Éamon de Valera bared his soul to his confidante, the Cork Sinn Féin TD Mary MacSwiney. He told her he was struggling because “Reason rather than faith has been my master ... I have felt for some time that this doctrine of mine ill fitted me to be leader of the republican party”.