Free Republic

Gardaí had to be called to remove controversial priest Fr Seán Sheehy and a group of protesters from the constituency office of Education Minister Norma Foley at a recent rally in Tralee. The online video shows the priest, who denounced homosexuality during a sermon in a Kerry church in November 2022, and a group of around 20 people part of a rally against sex education in schools. The group initially gathered outside the Tralee office before eventually going inside to confront the staff. One member of staff said she was assured that a peaceful protest would be held outside the...

THEY came. They stormed. They wandered. On screen, a ragged line of polyester-clad insurgents sauntering through the vestibule of the Capitol, the red ropes on brass stands confirming their status of visitor or tourist to the home of their government. At the cordon, they seemed to lose their anarchic zeal, lining up between the ropes, raising their phones to record the moment of their arrival, literal and metaphoric. An incongruous sight. Shock came with the signal shaman in bared teeth, chest, furs, horns; the ‘freedom-fighter’ advertising Camp Auschwitz; rebels in assorted MAGA gear designed by fear, embroidered by hate, the...

about a whole lot more than Donald Trump, or Joe Biden. The election has been classed as a contest between old decency and raw, rumbustious America First rhetoric. The characters of both men have been instilled in their campaigns. One, contradictory, argumentative and bristling with brash confidence. The other, plodding pragmatic and relentlessly reliable. Trump, the maverick outsider last time out, now has to stand on a record which can be scrutinised no matter how many rinses it gets in the spin-cycle. Biden too has a long shadow going back over decades. He has been in the environs of Democratic...