Blog

Although my mother was given a due date of 24th April 1967, I did not arrive into the world until almost a full month later on the 16th...

Myself and Jim O’Callaghan went canvassing for the SDLP in Enniskillen on Saturday ahead of this week’s elections to the Northern Ireland...

The famous banner read, ‘Angela Merkel thinks we’re at work’. The year was 2012 and a few Irish football fans sardonically noted that...

In 2004, a few days before that year’s local elections, I was canvassing outside Lansdowne Road as fans streamed in to see Ireland play...

I spoke in the European Parliament last week on Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean and the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

We had magnificent weather in Deansgrange cemetery for the annual Sean Lemass commemoration. He and his wife Kathleen are buried under a...

Lebanon was designed by God with miles of sandy beaches, snow-capped mountains, fertile valleys and the most beautiful people in the...

As Sir Humphrey Appleby commented drily to ‘his’ Minister in the brilliant BBC TV series, “the ship of State is the only one that leaks...

On the 2nd February 1922, James Joyce’s Ulysses was published in Paris by Shakespeare & Co. It was promptly banned in many places,...

I read somewhere this week, “two bad winters and we get Hitler”. Someone was trying to predict the damage the energy crisis will do to...

Ireland fights with all other Member States for influence across the EU institutions. The European Parliament is no different. Last week,...

I spent most of last week in Baghdad as an election observer. We were billeted in the famous Al Rasheed Hotel in what is still referred...

The first meeting of the EU UK Parliamentary Assembly took place last week. It was in danger of being a very boring couple of days but...

This is an article on sausage making or more precisely on how EU laws and reports are made. The Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck noted...

As an MEP I have not been in Brussels since October and have been over five times in total. The return of staff to Brussels in early...

Much has been written in recent days about Eamon de Valera’s decision to offer his condolences on behalf of the State to the German...

The only thing that Charles Haughey and Margaret Thatcher agreed on over the decade that they were in power was that the European...

A Green Week is when there is no parliamentary business in Brussels and MEPs can use the time to spend in their constituencies or...

I met a few of my Irish colleagues in the European Parliament last week as we had what is called a plenary session. This is the monthly...

On Sunday evening, two separate fires broke out in the Samos Refugee camp. There are more than 100 people without even the most basic...

Next April will mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. It seems like yesterday that Tony Blair felt the “hand of...

As David Gillick said, Europe came to Dublin last weekend and what an amazing occasion it was. Thousands of men and women from around...

Chancellor Merkel may be in the waning days of her extraordinary tenure but she has lost none of her influence. Surefooted on COVID, she...

There are 705 Members of the European Parliament, down from 751 since the UK left earlier this year. Most people would be hard-pressed to...