Ireland is now one of the PIIGS of Europe. Along with Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, Ireland is in danger of defaulting on its borrowings, we are told.
Together, these embattled countries have been dubbed the PIIGS of Europe. Their economic woes have presented an enormous challenge to the Eurozone up to last week when the [...]

Recent comments from the NSW Police Commissioner about Ned Kelly remind us of the lack of consensus about Australia’s history.
Andrew Scipione opined that the bushranger – a beloved and romantic figure to so many – was an inappropriate folk hero for this country.
He made the comments in the context of the current series of Underbelly [...]

On May 6, voters will head to the polls across Britain and Northern Ireland to elect a new government in Westminster. But many British citizens living in Australia, including thousands of expats from Northern Ireland, will also participate in the poll.
The British system of allowing its citizens overseas to vote is both straightforward and fair, [...]

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, offered some political lollipops to the Irish community on St Patrick’s Eve as a means of securing the Irish vote for Labor in this year’s federal election.
“Option one,” he said, “was making the new national anthem It’s A Long Way To Tipperary. Option two – replacing the AFL, and rugby [...]

A report by the prominent Irish real-estate website myhome.ie found that there had been a threefold increase in the number of ‘sale agreed’ second-hand residential properties in January 2010, compared with the same month last year.
At the same time, the primary barometer of Irish real estate prices – the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index – [...]

The NSW GAA is facing a crisis, scrambling to secure a ground on which to play the 2010 season, now just weeks away.
The organisation’s traditional ground, Princes Park in Auburn, is almost certain to be re-allocated to another sport by the local council.
The leadership of the NSW GAA has painted this as a sleight on [...]

Ambivalence and the absence of sensible debate about Australia’s constitutional future is now threatening the apparent inevitability of this country becoming a republic.
There is now a real danger that the lack of political will and serious debate could derail the cutting of constitutional ties with the British monarchy and installing an Australian as head of [...]

Ireland is once again being forced to confront another sickening chapter in its recent history.
A report by a specially appointed commission into the Catholic Diocese of Dublin details widespread abuse of children by paedophile priests. The crimes were, in may cases, then covered up by the Catholic hierarchy and routinely ignored by the police.
How can [...]

Irish-Australian sporting clashes in recent years have been undermined by acrimony.
The International Rules series has been white-anted by fundamentalists on both sides, by Australian ambivalence on the one hand and by Irish hysteria on the other.
The affection with which the Wallabies were once welcomed to Ireland – so evident during the 1991 Rugby World Cup [...]

The opinion polls are telling us that the Rudd government is vulnerable on the issue of asylum seekers.
The Prime Minister’s mantra of “tough on people smugglers, humane on asylum seekers” does not appear to be cutting through with voters.
Newspoll, published in the conservative, Murdoch-owned daily The Australian, asked voters whether the government’s approach was working. [...]