Home – My Side of the Matter

The real fraud is voter deterrence

May 10, 2021 by Declan Buckley

Voter Fraud isn’t a thing. Voter disenfranchisement is. And Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party wants to bring it to the UK. Of the 595 cases of alleged fraud reported to authorities following the UK 2019 General Election less than ten resulted in legal proceedings. This is clearly a negligible level of voter fraud yet Boris Johnson’s… Read more
Guerrillas in our midst

February 7, 2021 by Declan Buckley

In the opening pages of his autobiography,⁠ the former Catholic Primate of All–Ireland, Cardinal Cahal Daly, describes his earliest memory. He tells how his family home in County Antrim was burned to the ground when the IRA targeted the RIC barracks next-door. The Attack on Loughguile Barracks was one of the few operations in north… Read more
Remembering Pat Scott

January 24, 2021 by Declan Buckley

Today marks the 100th birthday of the Irish artist Patrick Scott. Pat Scott was a shy and quiet man who expressed proudly and passionately in his art. I first met him when he was already an old man, his reputation assured but his passion for living still burning. We were – among many – at… Read more
Sing When You’re Winning

October 25, 2020 by Declan Buckley

In these strange times, it’s hard to feel motivated. Plans get scuppered, so we can be forgiven for thinking that there’s no point in trying. I have battled that demon most days over the past months and, when I woke today wanting to do something creative, I wondered if I could defeat it. How will… Read more
We Tell Ourselves Stories

March 31, 2020 by Declan Buckley

In her essay I Can’t Get That Monster Out Of My Mind (included in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968), Joan Didion diagnoses a sickly 1960s Hollywood system that had “a few interesting minds at work; and a great many less interesting ones” and was producing “fewer pictures but not necessarily better pictures”. Despite Hollywood’s self-image as… Read more