Opinion Columnists

Brendan O’Connor

I don't compare well to who I was yesterday 

'Compare yourself to who you were yesterday." This is one of Jordan Peterson's commandments. It is in fact Rule Four of his 12 Rules of Life, and they are, indeed, modern day commandments.

Martin is the only leader who can be trusted on Sinn Fein 

Eoghan Harris For the past six months I regularly predicted a Fine Gael-Sinn Fein coalition - and will prove that claim further on.

Can we afford not to support our carers? 

Catherine Cox Carers don't want our praise or pity. They don't want to be patronised or indeed canonised. They are not saints. They are ordinary people who are struggling to care for their loved ones without the supports they so desperately need. Carers are angry at a system which exploits, and sometimes abuses, their family...

Naomi is the role model women need 

Sophie Donaldson Although she never really went away, it feels as though Naomi Campbell is having a comeback. Late last year, she was appointed as a contributing editor at British Vogue. Her first piece for the magazine was not a frothy accessories special, but a one-to-one with mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, discussing institutionalised racism,...

Sinn Fein likes to divide and conquer 

Brian Hayes Without free speech democratic politics is a sham. The freedom to speak out and say what you want is the real litmus test as to whether a society, or indeed a political party, is actually democratic and free.

High property prices ripping the heart out of our city 

Donal Lynch Just behind the building where I live in the city centre, on the fault line between what you might call dirty old town and the tech hub, a new development opened recently. The luxury apartments in it...

This Man's Life: Imelda was the sweetest thing for her runaway love Brian Bell 

Barry Egan This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognise discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. My mother...

Prudence comes out to play 

Brendan O'Connor The mother has a great phrase for former wild men who give up the drink. "Oh, he got sense," she will say witheringly, and strangely disapprovingly. Of course the whole country has got sense now.

North's political structure is not set in stone 

Dan O'Brien The Good Friday Agreement, signed 20 years ago last week, was a remarkable achievement in many ways. The many people who worked so hard on it fully deserve the recognition they have received over the past week.

Leo's less like Bertie, more like Zuckerberg 

Brendan O'Connor There was a fascinating story about Leo Varadkar in the Indo last Tuesday that kind of went under the radar. So Leo is doing some market research among his party members. He wants to understand them better, and see how they feel about things. They are, he tells them, "the heart and soul of our party, and, as someone who...

How to solve the housing crisis 

Colm McCarthy Despite the sharp increase in prices and rents these last few years, housing remains affordable in most parts of the country. Most Irish people with a steady job can afford to rent accommodation and can at least aspire to home ownership.

'Irish kids today haven't experienced war and parents are wealthier. But do we really... 

Joy Orpen When Alex Koster (45) ventures out into the wider world, she sees children who, through no fault of their own, are becoming obsessed with materialism, social media and technology. She is also...

I don't compare well to who I was yesterday 

'Compare yourself to who you were yesterday." This is one of Jordan Peterson's commandments. It is in fact Rule Four of his 12 Rules of Life, and they are, indeed, modern day commandments.

Ian O'Doherty: Later working hours for night owls? Let me sleep on it 

Ian O'Doherty Well, that's it, I'm toast. Kaput. Finito. I could keel over at any moment. And if you're part of the estimated 15pc of the Irish population who suffers from insomnia, you're in trouble as well.

An outbreak of measles? What year is it? 

Ian O'Doherty Did you get vaccinated against the flu? Did you know that if you did get the jab, you were more likely to contract the far more deadly Aussie flu, while those who didn't bother getting the vaccination only succumbed to the more common or garden variety?

Mary Kenny: If Meghan Markle wants to promote feminism, why is she quitting her job? 

Mary Kenny I always thought that one of the regrettable aspects of Grace of Monaco's life was that she quit her profession after marriage. Admittedly, women did, usually, resign their jobs on marrying...

Comment - The 'Grand Inquisitor' faced 10 hours of questions - about his own questions 

John Downing This was a dramatic case of role reversal. John McGuinness was renowned over the years 2011-2016 as the 'Grand Inquisitor' chairing the taxpayers' watchdog Public Accounts Committee, assertively...

John Downing: Rival stories of 'headers' and horses at tribunal 

John Downing John McGuinness said he expected to talk to the Garda commissioner inside the hotel.

As it is, so shall it be and there's a reason why 

It's getting so I dread turning on the radio or the television. The horror stories are multiplying.

Leo is losing the plot on both abortion and Brexit 

Eoghan Harris As I want to write about both the flagging Repeal the Eighth and the Brexit campaigns I will ration my rage about alleged breaches of data in INM while waiting for a fuller picture from the High Court...

It is possible - just about - to survive the steep learning curve of the teachers' Easter Via... 

Mary O'Rourke I watched on TV last week in news snippets the progress of Richard Bruton TD, Minister for Education, as he went from Killarney (INTO congress) to Cork (ASTI) and on to Wexford (TUI). They call...

Macron has luck - but he chooses his friends and enemies with care 

Ruth Dudley Edwards As the international swooning over the young, vigorous and cool French President Emmanuel Macron continues almost unabated, a dissident voice has piped up that will play well for this (so far)...

At the Masters the Good Ol' Boys still linger... 

Declan Lynch If you're watching the last round of the Masters this evening, you will be seeing many spectacular and beautiful things. You will be seeing feats of skill that are all but superhuman, being executed by men who are sublimely gifted, on a track that is beyond compare.

Yes, we've recovered but they could blow it again 

Colm McCarthy Five straight years of economic recovery and the slow restoration of financial stability cannot forestall the inevitable query: "They are not going to blow it again, are they?"

Why Government must stand up to powerful insider lobbyists 

Dan O'Brien If the Government paid millions of euro more than it should have to a construction company for a piece of infrastructure, questions would rightly be asked about its use of taxpayers' money. If it...

Farrell family fly to New York to support Colin 

Barry Egan They don't call them The Air Miles Family for nothing. The Farrell clan will be flying in from everywhere next month to New York.

Does anyone really need a general election right now? 

Brendan O'Connor The tectonic plates are shifting. Forces we barely understand are starting to act. As if in concert they started popping up right across the papers last week. It seems we are being softened up and...

Always count your change - it pays dividends 

John Masterson How well do most of us know ourselves? Probably not very well. We do not usually observe ourselves in a very structured way.

'I remember wishing I had been a bit kinder to my mother around that time' - Blathnaid Ni... 

Donal Lynch They say bad news comes in threes, and so it was for Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh and her sister Siobhan.

Brendan O'Connor: I'm running for President 

Brendan O'Connor Obviously many of you have been suspicious about my intentions since I stopped doing my Saturday night chat show a few years ago. Since then it has been difficult for me to appear in public at all without the media pestering me, always with the same question: "Did you give up your Saturday night chat show because you are...

Mary Kenny: Play on! An 85-year-old family piano has a story of its own to tell 

Mary Kenny Some decades ago - back in the 1930s - my mother acquired an upright piano which pleased her very much. It had, she told me, belonged to the Archbishop of Dublin Dr John Charles McQuaid...

Driverless cars put us on the road to ruin 

Ian O'Doherty Well, it was nice while it lasted. I am, of course, talking about the Anthropocene Period, when humans ruled the roost.

Ian O'Doherty: Consent may be sexy but surely enthusiasm is sexier? 

Ian O'Doherty If we have learned one thing from the fallout from the Belfast rape trial - and that's a rather large 'if' - then it must surely be that the sexes still struggle to communicate with each other.

Twisting the question skews the reply of repeal or retain 

Ivan Yates John Bruton was once in hot water as Taoiseach for not answering about a passing Dáil controversy. His subsequent riposte, "I wasn't asked the right question", didn't save him from his critics.

John Downing: Like in 2011, the presidential 'phoney war' starts early 

John Downing It has the makings of a great election ... but, then again, it might not happen until 2025.

Thalia makes a House call 

Barry Egan Going out is the new staying in is the new going out. Last Saturday night in Lillie's nightclub in Dublin town, Ireland's Got Talent had its wrap party.

Red alert? Well maybe pale pink to my mind 

John Masterson Despite having travelled more than most people I am not a good traveller. I am packed days ahead and grumpy for about 48 hours. Once on the plane I have the gift of sleeping like a baby, a gift that has been absent the previous night or two. That is when things go well which is usually the case these days. Planes depart on time...

Time for the resurrection and the light 

Brendan O'Connor I recognise it could be a false dawn, and that you could be reading this snowed in somewhere, as the grandchild of the beast lashes us with more snow, but I definitely noted the arrival of spring last weekend.

TDs within Martin's own party represent the greatest threat 

Philip Ryan Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin's reshuffle has done nothing to quell dissent among disillusioned backbenchers who feel isolated by the party's senior ranks.

Eilis O'Hanlon: There is a moral, as well as a legal dimension to cases of alleged rape 

Eilis O'Hanlon Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government, apart from all the others.

Brendan O'Connor: We must teach young men to call out bad behaviour 

Brendan O'Connor At what point, you wonder, did people decide they needed to see the picture of the alleged victim. What was it? Could they not conjure the images of the various versions of events properly...

Gene Kerrigan: Sorry, but that decision was made in 1983 

Gene Kerrigan Most people who have reservations about repealing the Eighth Amendment recognise abortion as an issue of conscience. They recognise that others, people as serious and thoughtful as they...

Martin's reshuffle a final roll of dice 

Jody Corcoran Now that Leo Varadkar's spin unit is to be no more, Fianna Fail's problems are at an end, right? That is the logic which follows the heavy concentration of political firepower on the unit since its ill-considered conception.

Absolutism on Border risks hardest of Brexits - and last laugh for Rees-Mogg 

Dan O'Brien In exactly one year from now there may be no flights between Ireland and Britain. As the 21st anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, the Border on this island could be in...

Moral courage needed to face the past and save the future 

Eoghan Harris Moral courage is rare. Gerard Murphy must know his new book on the death of Michael Collins* risked return fire from academic nationalists but he still forged ahead.

'For me, it was about murdering a foetus - now I've gone full circle' 

Maeve Sheehan Thirty-five years ago, 14 women gathered together on the plinth of Leinster House to celebrate their election as TDs in a political world dominated by men. They arrived there via different paths: some...

Lack of new homes sees prices rocket across the board 

Ronan Lyons The figures in this latest Daft.ie Sales Report are unlikely to surprise many who have an interest in the housing market. Comparing prices in the first three months of 2018 with those in the final three...

Judge not, Shane Ross, that ye be not judged 

Declan Lynch In life, we often find situations in which an otherwise excellent career is overshadowed by one major transgression. In politics, Shane Ross is demonstrating it can work the other way round, with one excellent idea being overshadowed by the accumulated weight of all the transgressions.

Running the parallel Irelands 

Brendan O'Connor Did you have a drink last Friday? In a pub? Was it amazing? Did you set the alarm to go to an early house? Just to savour the novelty of a pint on the most illicit of days? Did you feel set free? In a new Ireland? Did you feel we had finally thrown off the shackles of the Church?

If Leo cares then homelessness is now a middle-class concern 

Donal Lynch It felt strange to hear Leo Varadkar, that unabashed champion of the middle class, take what sounded like such a strong stance on homelessness last week. What an unsexy, un-Instagrammable,...

Claims of 'independent Irish intelligence assessment' of Russia are just nonsense 

Gene Kerrigan Was it Vladimir Putin, a man with a thuggish history, who gave orders that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia be dosed with a horrific nerve agent?