Why This Blog?

Two recent events gave rise to the creation of this weblog. One was an article by Damian Thompson, a short time ago, in which he lamented the stubborn left-liberalism of the Irish media, saying that the Irish Times, in particular, "makes the Guardian look like the bulletin of the Prayer Book Society." The second was the news that a German rower, Nadja Drygalla, had been sent home from the Olympic Games in London because her boyfriend was a member of a far-right party.

Both stories make for depressing reading. In the case of Miss Drygalla, we have the spectacle of someone being punished and vilified, not for deeds, but for opinons. Not even her own opinions, but those of someone she was dating. It was an outrageous intrusion by the state in the private lives of two citizens, and a chilling example of how intolerable politically incorrect opinions are to our ruling classes. In the case of Damian Thompson's article, we have some of the sillier left-liberal utterances of the Irish media being scrutinized by an unsympathetic English observer. Reading it, I wanted to throw my hands up and shout: "We're not all like that!"

Hence my desire to finally speak up. In creating this blog, I wanted to create an alternative Irish voice to the liberal pieties that so depressed Mr Thompson. I wanted to do this, not just to make the likes of him feel better about this country, but strike a voice of protest against the kind of bullying political correctness that cut short Nadja Drygalla's stay at the Olympics. Since the Second World War, the idea that someone can be punished by civil authorities for the political views of a lover has been the stuff of dystopian fiction in the West, not real life. The Drygalla affair marks a change in that. It is in the hope of offering another voice against that stifling political correctness that I have rejoined the blogosphere. Time will tell how well I have succeeded.