Journalist, author, broadcaster
The discovery of an error in an academic economics paper – even one authored by a pair of Harvard dons – is hardly most people’s idea of a headline grabbing news story. But that’s exactly what happened, in April, when a professor at the University of Michigan and an undergraduate student published data that revealed […]
On Monday, September 19, 1977, Lykes Corporation of New Orleans announced that, by the end of the week, it would close Campbell Works, the largest mill in the blue collar Ohio city of Youngstown. That day, which became known locally as ‘Black Monday’, was the latest in a long line of body blows for a […]
Most days after school, Sean Garcais and his friends ride their BMX bikes in North Kelvin Meadow, a patch of scrub land in the west end of Glasgow. They build ramps, try new tricks. Sean and his friends are like 15- or 16-year-olds anywhere else in the world, but with one difference: Next year they will all have […]
If a week is a long time in politics, then two months can feel like an eternity. That has certainly been the case for Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek. Ms. Bratusek, the country’s first female premier and the telegenic leader of Pozitivna Slovenija (Positive Slovenia), only took office in late March. But she has spent […]
Ljubljana, Slovenia – In Slovenia, few traits are as highly prized as gospodariti, literally the ability to manage finances prudently. Gospodariti was often cited to explain Slovenia’s emergence as an industrial motor of Marshal Tito’s Yugoslav system during the Cold War. As Yugoslavia collapsed in bloody fratricide,gospodariti again came to the rescue, helping a newly independent nation of just two million […]
On 15 August 1998, a car filled with a 500 pounds of fertiliser explosive was left outside S.D. Kells’ clothes shop in Lower Market Street in Omagh. At ten past three on a busy Saturday the bomb detonated. Around 220 people were injured and 29 killed in the blast, the heaviest death toll of any […]
I wrote a long piece on Scotland’s independence referendum, with a particular focus on the Irish community in Scotland, for the Sunday Business Post. Here it is: Standing on the banks of the River Clyde, at the Broomielaw in Glasgow, on a warm summer’s day it is hard to believe that this was once one […]
Later this month, world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron will meet in the picturesque surroundings of the Lough Erne hotel in Fermanagh. Northern Irish politicians are hoping that the G8 summit will encourage tourism in the region, but many local campaigners believe that Fermanagh’s fabled natural beauty could be destroyed by plans for […]
The amount of vacant land in Belfast city centre is equivalent to the size of 265 football pitches, according to the Forum for Alternative Belfast. If this space was used efficiently, at least 50,000 more people could live within 20 minutes walk of central Belfast without the need for high-rise buildings or the destruction of […]
Unstated – an edited collection on the theme of Scottish independence – has already caused what Scots would call a stramash. The uproar began in December, just days before the volume was published, when excerpts of Alasdair Gray’s contribution, ‘Settlers and Colonists’, appeared in the Scottish press. Gray contended that since the 1970s, English men and […]