ALTHOUGH it is not immediately obvious to me why the Irish Congress of Trade Unions should take up a position on the war in Iraq, I am glad that ICTU’s general secretary, David Begg, has done so.

SOME of the people who marched for peace last Saturday were probably relaxing in front of their televisions when RTÉ screened The Trials of Henry Kissinger on Sunday night.

AMONG the many bizarre moments in Michael Jackson's interview with Martin Bashir, broadcast on TV3 on Monday night, was the pop star's claim that the mother of his third child, Prince Michael II, 'can't handle' contact with her child.

THERE are eerie comparisons to be made between the planeloads of American soldiers passing through Shannon airport at the moment and the steady trickle of asylum seekers in and out of our country.

By Ronan Mullen

ALL politics is local, they say. And for me, the farmers’ protest of 2003 will always be about my mother breaking four ribs in the cause of Irish agriculture.

“To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war,” Winston Churchill once said, and last week’s meeting between victims of child sexual abuse and Cardinal Desmond Connell proved the point yet again.

The Ronan Mullen Column

THIS year, instead of going to see A Christmas Carol at the Gate Theatre, I took my seasonal dose of Dickens by visiting Mountjoy men’s prison.

IF Charlie McCreevy wants to save us all money — now that we’re back in the land of cutbacks — he could do worse than take the advice of one Ulster Unionist Party official who believes investment in the family is the way to keep society intact, while saving the taxpayer a fortune into the bargain.