Colm Ó Broin

If you don’t believe there’s prejudice in Ireland against the Irish language and Irish speakers consider that people working in the national media have…

@Iskesullas Is there evidence that the carbon tax works?

This aspect of the fuel blockades gets very little attention. Big agri-business is harnessing (far) right populist politics to oppose any measures to reduce sectoral emissions - dressing an industry agenda in the clothes of 'spontaneous grassroots' protest thejournal.ie/readme/carbon-…

@WalshFreedom @havivrettiggur Oh so Israel would support a Palestinian State if it was peaceful? LOL to that. BTW if Palestinians are so dangerous why did Israel put 800,000 men, women & children living among them? Why did settlements increase when there was peace eg between Oslo and the 2nd Intifada?

Every single word of this by @havivrettiggur.👇

@_PeterRyan We base our economy on FDI because the establishment doesn't believe Irish people are capable of building successful exporting companies - am I wrong? 😅

I want you to think about the below passages of what South Korea did post-colonization and what Ireland did post-colonization. Do we see a difference?

@SineadOS1 I'd imagine a lot of the protestors have voted for Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael, parties who have refused over decades to develop proper infrastructure eg public transport or the public health system. You get what you vote for.

The protests in Ireland are not about just fuel! They are about the distance between Ireland on this graph and every other modern and developed economy. Ireland is second wealthiest but gets waaaaay less than any other country for that wealth. By a golden mile. That visual gap in this graph? That’s what people are protesting. It’s a lack of infrastructure and the everyday enshittification of services, the economy, and the additional difficulty of trying to live, relative to peers in any other country. It also highlights why people don’t get uniformly listened to! - because there is no government architecture to engage meaningfully across this huge gap. That gap is a three hour drive to work in traffic, a 14 month wait for an MRI, buses that don’t arrive, trains that don’t exist, schools that have no places for your kids, houses that are unaffordable, pubs that close before midnight, €12 sandwiches, expensive fuel. People feel this gap, even if they can’t explain it precisely. And that builds into resentment, and ultimately protest. Fuel just happened to be the next thing that could be pointed to, today.

@elikowaz The Prime Minister of Israel says the West Bank and Gaza are part of Israel, which means there are 5 million people in Israel with no citizenship or voting rights i.e. apartheid.

This is not a serious understanding of history. Apartheid South Africa had a formal legal architecture of racial separation — pass laws, bantustans, codified by race. Israel has Arab citizens, Arab judges, Arab members of Knesset. Even the West Bank is a military occupation — a different legal and moral category.

@AngrybirdsGaM Why would you say Irish is dead when you know that's not true?

No, indeed bilinguals can of course learn the Irish language, that was never the reason they usually automatically get exemptions. It's just nobody wants to be forced to learn an otherwise dead language, if it wasnt for the west of Ireland still running Irish only schools

@langfocus England has 85% of the UK's population, it has always and will always control the UK and put its interests above those of the other parts.

It's interesting how the name "England" became so widely used to refer to the UK, and "Holland" became so widely used to refer to the Netherlands. But people from the UK and the Netherlands will probably correct you!

@RBPundit There are five million Arabs in Israel who don't have citizenship and who can't vote in Israeli elections. FYI here's a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a map of Israel.

Actually, it's pretty easy to prove Israel isn't an apartheid state. Israeli Arabs are full citizens who can own property, vote, and hold public office. That literally is impossible in an actual apartheid state. You IGNORANT FUCK.

I would be v. grateful for any RT because we are getting ZERO COVERAGE IN UK despite going straight in at #1 in the ⁦@IrishTimes⁩! What’s a writer to do? A dizzying, thrilling ride through 14,526 years of Irish history | Irish Independent independent.ie/entertainment/…

@williamcrawley The British Lions became the British & Irish Lions so why not the British & Irish Isles?

Someone is criticizing my use of the phrase “these islands” in reference to the UK and Ireland. They think I should say “British Isles”. Others think I should say “Britain and Ireland”. I’m open to “Atlantic Archipelago — poetic, but I doubt it would work on-air. Thoughts?

@danobrien20 Maybe it's because we consider Palestinians to be human beings who shouldn't be murdered, starved and ethnically cleansed.

It is conventional wisdom in Ireland that support for the Palestinian cause is a result of a history of colonisation. There is good reason to question that. *India was colonised until 1948 and has the second biggest Muslim population in the world but is pro-Israel. *European countries colonised by the USSR until 1989 are not noted for their pro-Palestinian positions. *Spain, the most Pro-Palestinian country in Europe along with Ireland, is one of history's great colonisers. FWIW, my explanation is the left-dominated political discourse in Ireland. The Palestinian cause has become the great cause for justice for the western left. As all Irish political parties lean left (see recent posts on academic evidence), they have adopted this cause with passion. Noteworthy that the current Spanish government is the most left wing in Europe.

@dleighton91 Why did he mention it - do you think she's unaware Northern Ireland is part of the UK?

What exactly did Gregory get wrong, Colum? She is the President of ROI, and she was speaking in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Feel free to point out the factual error. Geography usually helps.

@fiannafailparty @NormaFoleyTD1 An mbeidh ionaid lán-Ghaeilge ar fáil?

In Fianna Fáil we are committed to delivering more childcare places and making childcare more affordable for families right across Ireland. Minister @NormaFoleyTD1 has announced a new €135 million State-led early learning and childcare programme, a groundbreaking initiative.

@owenjonesjourno @ZackPolanski should reject the claim that Labour actually oppose antisemitism. Antisemitism is racism against Jewish people so given Labour are horrific racists who support genocide there is no way they oppose racism against Jewish people on moral grounds.

Starmer plans to attack the only Jewish party leader over antisemitism. He wants to attack Zack Polanski for challenging Britain's role as lapdog to Donald Trump. What does this tell us? Labour is very rattled - and they absolutely should be.

Seo alt faoi @KNEECAPCEOL a scríobh mé le haghaidh @SeachtainNuacht independent.ie/seachtain/is-l…

Excellent. Irish history as it really is!

@robert_lyman @Telegraph The King of...(checks note)....England, arrived two years after Strongbow and declared himself Lord of Ireland. BTW the English Crown had been looking to invade Ireland since at least 1155 - when they got the Pope's blessing to do so.

History… Letters today in @Telegraph

@JimAllister The UK can scrap the Irish Sea border any time it wants, all it has to do is be willing to have a trade war with the EU, surprisingly the 60 million people in England aren't willing to do that for the sake of a minority of Northern Ireland's population.

How ironic and hypocritical to hear the EU, and indeed HMG, talk about the centrality of ‘territorial integrity’ in international law when it comes to Greenland, considering how the EU conspired to trash the territorial integrity of the UK by insisting on a partitioning Irish Sea border and EU rule in NI. I support respect for the territorial integrity of Greenland, but insist such must be restored to the UK by the EU giving up its territorial grab of our territory.

@ProfSteveKeen The only "ideology" they have is that the rich should get richer, they fit their economic theories around that central principle. They're glorified spokespeople for the billionaire class.

1/ The US economy isn't weakening. It's collapsing from the inside out. And the proof is everywhere. The average American is buried under $15,000 in personal debt while the nation races toward $38 trillion. But nobody wants to talk about the real problem: our economists have no idea what they're doing. #Economics

@higginsdavidw @SimonHarrisTD No specifics of course on what he's going to actually do - but that's been the MO of late, blame migrants for Fine Gael's failings rather than set out in detail how he will change migration policies

It's 10.30pm on a Friday night, but over on the stack place, Tánaiste @SimonHarrisTD has just posted a firm piece on migration reform. Sensible points throughout. 🔗 Below