WHEN high court judge, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, opened the Parnell Summer School, in Wicklow, yesterday, he suggested our Constitution should be amended to allow the appointment of more judges, so that cases might be more quickly dealt with.

IT is a moot point whether President Donald Trump understands that his refusal to explicitly condemn the role of white supremacists in weekend clashes in Charlottesville could be seen as a tacit expression of, to borrow a phrase from another never-ending racial conflict, his parity of esteem for the conflicting causes.

IT seems an entirely appropriate conjunction; a neat fit in the way these things sometimes fall. Just as more than a century of American hegemony is being challenged, the death knell of the internal combustion engine is ringing ever louder.

EVER since Queen Victoria, with her consort Albert, Prince Alfred, Princess Alice, and Princess Helena in tow, visited Killarney in 1861, tourism has been an important part of our economy, especially where alternatives are limited.

“BUILD it and they will come” may not always be reliable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs but “rebuild it and they might come” has proven a winning formula for the National Gallery of Ireland. 

“We Come On The Ship They Call The Mayflower

EVEN if the figures released by the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO) recorded that the number of people on trolleys in hospitals last month was down 6% on the 2016 figure, the top-line figure, a record 57,674, is another expression of the dysfunction in our public life.

THE report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), that shows that almost one in five people enduring homelessness have a job, is an indictment of our dog-eat-dog work environment and the excesses of the property market.

IT would, perhaps, be too optimistic to suppose that President Donald Trump has ever perused the famous treatise on war written by the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu.

In the end, justice was swift and certain as Thomas Martens and his daughter Molly were convicted of the second degree murder of Irishman Jason Corbett.