Articles
The Burkean Journal Interviews Maria Steen of the No Campaign
Maria Steen is at the forefront of the pro-life campaign in Ireland, and she is urging a No vote in the upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment tomorrow on May 25th. She is a spokeswoman for the Iona institute and mother of four. Steen has featured on national...
read moreThe Fourth Estate and a Fifth Column
Looking through some of the online coverage of the launch of Fine Gael’s Vote Yes campaign, one exchange on Twitter was particularly interesting. Hugh O’Connell, Political Correspondent for The Sunday Business Post, was obviously impressed by the written...
read moreThe Silent History of State-Sponsored Abortion
In light of the upcoming referendum on the eighth amendment, a discussion that is sorely lacking is that on the origin of abortion and its history abroad. Surely before making a momentous legal decision that will forever change the societal fabric and constitution of...
read moreWithout the 8th Amendment, Disabled People Will Be Targeted
The debate over the 8th Amendment has featured much discussion about the issue of disability and abortion. While some advocates of abortion say that repeal will not lead to abortion on disability grounds, others within the Together for Yes camp are openly calling for...
read moreA Doctored Solution
Photo: “The Rock of Cashel [...]” by RX-Guru is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Around the turn of the 12th century, Muirchertach Ua Briain, grandson of Brian Boru, had plans to become High King of Ireland. He couldn’t risk the Rock of Cashel, the traditional seat of...
read moreWhen They Go Low, We Go High
The Minister for Health Simon Harris is a man on a mission. With the health service crumbling on his watch, he needs to divert the public’s attention away from his record, and so he’s focusing all his energies on the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment. Harris has...
read moreExamining Europe’s Recent Elections
The past month or so saw three major elections and many fascinating political events that came hand in hand with them. On the other side of the continent Vladimir Putin’s Russia-first mandate is stronger than ever following the presidential election there. Closer to...
read moreOn Belfast, Fintan O’Toole, and Male Honour
(Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding) The recent rape trial in Belfast, media coverage of texts and WhatsApp messages from those involved and the acquittal of all four defendants gave rise to a true national conversation, much of which was played out in the media. Away...
read moreSexual Morality and the New Generation
2018 so far has seen an explosion of awareness and discussion surrounding sexual misconduct and the wider context of sexual attitudes in our culture. Social media campaigns such as #MeToo and #IBelieveHer have highlighted society’s inability to mix “modern...
read moreAn Illegal, Dangerous and Pointless Attack
In the early hours of the morning on the 14th of April 2018 Syria came under attack yet again, this time from a combined strike by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Not only was this attack completely illegal under international law, it was also a...
read moreNazi Pugs and Free Speech in Modern Britain
Communists and Nazis Have No Sense of Humour In 1965 Milan Kundera wrote a dark satirical novel titled The Joke. The early portion of the book is set in 1950’s Czechoslovakia, which at the time was ruled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) after a coup...
read moreThe Shape of Water’s Vulgar Relationship
The 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture was given to The Shape of Water. This film did not only skilfully prove our elders right by denominating what is vulgar as being related to the vulgus (the throng), it also contributed to enhance what tyrannical masses have...
read moreSenator Noone’s Tweet of Fame
Editorial Note: This article was originally published in the Burkean Journal on the 3rd of April but it was lost when we were fixing our website in the last couple of days. Everyone deserves their 15 minutes of fame. Some are even lucky enough to really achieve it....
read moreBurke’s Economy of Truth in the Abortion Debate and Beyond
In an age when truth is so delicate and oftentimes manipulated, there should be a greater desire for conservative institutions to treat it with respect and for the public to look for it with responsibility. Walking out from Trinity College one evening this week, I...
read moreTowards an Irish Aliyah? Irish Diaspora Policy for the 21st Century
“The Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage”- Bunreacht na hÉireann It is a common cliché that Ireland if it is to be anything must be more global in its outlook. Gone must...
read moreWhy Russia’s Election Matters
Many Western pundits these days like to ask the question: do Russia’s elections actually matter? After all, the incumbent Vladimir Putin is virtually guaranteed to win. The short answer to this question is yes. However short answers are boring, and they never properly...
read moreWhat is BDS really about?
With international reports linking SJP chapters in the USA with terrorism, and BDS in the UK with violence and antisemitism, what are we really being asked to vote on? Trinity College students want to be on the right side of history. Told about oppression and...
read more“Seasons End” Art Exhibition: More than Bizarre Curtains?
What is art? Some art is used to evoke a sense of aesthetic pleasure in the viewer, whilst other pieces are created to do almost the exact opposite, perhaps to show them another side of the world. The exhibition Seasons End: More Than Suitcases at the Douglas Hyde...
read moreCrimes Against the Commuter: Troubled Trains and Befuddled Buses
Photo Credit: Ciaran Cooney - eiretrains.com Effective public transport – something that all of us, irrespective of our ideological positions, should be able to agree that every modern country needs. Public transport is absolutely integral to the daily running of this...
read moreWhen does Life Begin?
When does life begin is probably the most fundamental question in the abortion debate. The pro-life side occasionally assumes that people know the answer to this, and the pro-choice side often seems to ignore the question entirely. Yet it is the single most important...
read moreA Proposal for a Course on National Studies
What with the “Beast from the East”, the upcoming abortion referendum and the ongoing crises in health and housing, you’ve most likely missed a double celebration of the Irish language that’s languishing at the bottom of the media’s priority list. “Seachtain na...
read moreReviving the Irish Revival
Many years ago, I tried to read Clive Barker’s gargantuan fantasy novel Weaveworld, which centres around a magical world hidden in a carpet. I didn't make it even half-way through its six hundred pages, and I only have a very dim recollection of what I read. But one...
read moreIreland and the Coming Post-Liberal Order
Cemented by solid gains made by Eurosceptic and ultranationalists parties this March, Italy now joins a list of nations breaking ranks from the American led liberal order pervasive across the continent since the fall of the Berlin Wall. With an emphasis on market...
read moreThe Perilous White Male Rhetoric
The students’ union in Trinity has a new president, one Shane De Rís. He apparently doesn’t like me (or indeed himself) very much. “I want this to be the last time four white male candidates stand upon this stage. I will refocus the SU to make sure it represents all...
read moreLetter to the Editor. Re: ‘UCD’s Gender Neutral Toilets’
Sir, – I’ve been watching the growth of your publication online for many months now; the transformation of an arguably well-meant (if poorly executed) conservative voice on campus to a shouty mouthpiece for disgruntled individuals who appear convinced that good...
read moreDCU’s Referendum: A Case for Irish Reunification
From today until the 9th of March, Dublin City University students will be asked to vote on whether or not they want their Students Union to support Irish reunification. The campaign is being run by 'DCU4Unity' and has cross-party support from the DCU branches of Ógra...
read moreThe Socialist Case For Being Pro-Life
If nothing else, conservatives and libertarians can admire the sincere socialist belief in improving the material conditions of the working class. Whilst we may show a preference towards private ownership as well as a justified apprehension towards state control over...
read moreMartians and Venusians: A Reasoning for Gender Differences
Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit. From The Fall of Man by Hendrik Goltzius (National Art Gallery Washington DC) This article aims to bring into question the fundamental assumption of modern feminist theory. Namely the assumption that gender inequality arises from...
read moreBook Review: Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan is a book that I’ve meant to read for a long time, and I finally got around to it last year. My main interest in Brendan Behan is as an icon of Irishness, and as a figure in Irish social and cultural history. Irish republicanism,...
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UCD’s Gender-Neutral Toilets
Just recently University College Dublin announced that they are planning to re-designate 170 toilets as gender neutral and construct new transgender changing facilities. Supposedly this move is part of a new university policy to provide a welcoming campus for...
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The National Party: An Essential Alternative?
Justin Barrett. (National Party) In November of 2016 a group of endeavouring Irish nationalists announced the formation of a new political party, the National Party. Founded in order to combat what they perceive to be the dangerous trajectory upon which the nation...
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The National Party: A Waste of Potential?
Justin Barrett and James Reynolds in Sligo. (National Party's website) Founded in 2016 by Justin Barrett, famous for his role in the pro-life organization Youth Defence and his campaigning against the Treaty of Nice in 2002, as well as James Reynolds, affectionately...
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University of Limerick’s SU Mandate: Death of Democracy on Irish campuses
On Wednesday, February 21st, the University of Limerick Students’ Union voted to campaign for the repeal of the 8th Amendment. The union’s official paper, An Focal, reported that a total of 256 UL students turned out to vote on whether their union would campaign to...
read morePutting the Irexit Conference into Perspective
Back in 2009, Irish voters were going to the polls in the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum. Ireland had voted no to this treaty in 2008 but as was the case with the Nice referendum, the authorities of the European Union did not accept 'no' for an answer. A...
read moreIreland’s Nuclear Future? An Assessment
The embryonic Irish nuclear industry met its demise on the Wexford shoreline over the political furore surrounding attempts made by the Irish government to construct a total of four nuclear power plants to meet the country’s burgeoning energy needs. A brainchild of...
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The Conservative’s Guide to Trinity’s 2018 SU Elections
For over a week now, the excitement has been building up. First you had the hoards of students waving flyers in your face every time you walked through the Arts Block or the Hamilton Building. Then came the profile picture frames of your friends on Facebook endorsing...
read moreThe Neo-European Empire: Why Louis Hoffman’s Analysis of the EU Falls Short
It’s funny how times change. At the dawn of the 20th century, Europe was the hub of a number of different global empires, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Britain, all of which were vying for the control of the world’s lands. Now, at the dawn of the 21st century,...
read moreIreland’s Questionable Attitude towards Israel and their Embassy
The recent news that Israel is considering closing its embassy in Ireland as part of an overall reduction in its diplomatic footprint is disappointing, but understandable. Should the decision to close the embassy be made, we will be the only country in Western Europe...
read moreThe Escalating War over Freedom of Speech on Campuses
Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” - George Washington In February, 2016, American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of...
read moreThe Death and Rebirth of the Russian Economy
In the years before its collapse, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had an underdeveloped and horrifically mismanaged economy. The Russian Federation inherited the vast majority of this mess in 1991. With the collapse of the USSR, many well-to-do figures within...
read moreThe Irish Media: All the Pro-Choice advocacy that’s fit to print
‘75% of doctors support 12-week access,’ the most prominent headline on the front page of yesterday’s Irish Examiner read. The story was written by the Examiner’s well-known Political Editor Daniel McConnell along with their Political Correspondent Fiachra Ó...
read moreJudging 80’s Ireland
The long overdue apology by an Garda Síochána issued last month to Joanne Hayes, whose life was blighted forever by the almost forgotten “Kerry Babies” scandal, has triggered a thoroughly risible campaign to re-write recent Irish history. The media coverage was almost...
read moreThe Farage Visit, a Step for Trinity in the Right Direction
Photo used with Permission from Tigran Simonian Last Friday, Nigel Farage (possibly the most controversial man in politics not currently living in the White House) spoke to the Hist regarding Brexit and Anglo-Irish relations. The talk and subsequent interactions with...
read moreA Case against Ethnic Nationalism and Irexit
Irexit: the new attempt of the pseudo-intellectuals to create anarchy, promote ethnic-nationalism, and enact reactionary revisionism. Despite the fact that Ireland remains one of the most pro-European states within the Union, there is no doubt that the Irexit...
read moreThe Burkean Journal interviews the Pioneer of Brexit, Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage, the man who was at the centre of one the world’s most important political movements of the last decades, had just arrived in Dublin a couple of hours ago. He had come to Ireland to speak at a conference on the following day entitled “Irexit: Freedom to...
read moreMr. Martin’s Unprincipled Politics
The last few weeks have been difficult ones for many of Fianna Fáil’s representatives, members and supporters. It would long since have been clear to them that their party leader was not going to faithfully represent their expressed views in the national debate...
read moreThe Curious Case of the Canadian Psychologist
One day I requested Jordan B. Peterson’s first book, Maps of Meaning, from the university library stacks. I already had an electronic copy and watched the whole lecture course, so the hassle was probably a waste of time, but I still had this strange impulse to...
read moreWhy Ireland leans to the Left
One of the greatest pleasures for a student of politics is to encounter an informed citizen from a nation whose political system you have studied, and to discuss with them the situation there. Answers to the mysteries of Irish politics, however, can be hard to provide...
read moreW.B. Yeats: Irish Revolutionary Conservative
“I do not appeal to the professional classes, who, in Ireland, at least, appear at no time to have thought of the affairs of their country till they first feared for their emoluments – nor do I appeal to the shoddy society of 'West Britonism' – but to those young men...
read moreA New Year, but not a New Trump
James Bradshaw analyses Trump's first year in office and points out some possible scenarios that we might experience during his second year as president of the United States. It’s been just a year since Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the...
read moreA Conservative Approach to Climate Change
Therese Friis questions the common policies and current energy sources used to combat climate change while arguing for another way to look after our environment. Global warming and changes in the environment are a threat that affects anyone who finds themselves...
read moreBook Review: The Strange Death of Europe
“Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide. Whether the European people choose to go along with this is naturally, another matter.” Thus begins Douglas Murray’s recent and controversial bestseller: The Strange Death of...
read moreFeelings Versus Freedom: The New Censorship
In response to the comments raised by the Minister for the Diaspora and International Development regarding John Waters' speech at the University of Notre Dame, Hugh Treacy takes to task the ever-increasing "feelings based" censorship. John Waters has been through...
read moreThe Amnesty International Case and the Irish Media Duplicity
Amnesty International has said it will not obey an instruction by the State’s ethics watchdog to return a donation from billionaire George Soros to fund its campaign to overturn Ireland’s abortion ban. The Standards in Public Office commission (SIPO) has instructed...
read moreBook Review: A Conflict of Visions
“It would be good to be able to say that we should dispense with visions entirely, and deal only with reality. But that may be the most utopian vision of all. Reality is far too complex to be comprehended by any given mind.” - Thomas Sowell A Conflict of Visions,...
read morePart II: One Country, Two Works of Art, and the Great Chasm between them
After his visit to Mexico, James Bradshaw discusses the country's most iconic works of art and points out the great ideological and philosophical chasm between them. The article is divided in two parts and in this second one, James Bradshaw goes deep into the history...
read moreThe Case for the Opt-Out Option
Donnchadh Curran argues that while leaving the Students' Union may not be necessarily a good thing, students should still have the chance to do so. A petition has been launched in Trinity, as many reading this will be aware, for a referendum which would enable...
read moreOne Country, Two Works of Art, and the Great Chasm between them
After his visit to Mexico, James Bradshaw discusses the country's most iconic works of art and points out the great ideological and philosophical chasm between them. The article is divided in two parts and in this first one, James focuses primarily on Diego Rivera's...
read moreA Fresh Farce from the Trinity Administration
Earlier today an email was circulated throughout Trinity College. It announced that the board of the university had “approved a proposal from the Equality Committee that the title given to first- and second-year undergraduate students be changed from “Freshman” to the...
read moreThe Forgotten Refugees
He watched his children drown; his wife was eaten alive by sharks. This is not from the script of some Hollywood horror story. This is the story of how the Lazos, a family of Cuban refugees, met their end in the waters of the Caribbean. Their only crime was attempting...
read moreIsrael, an Irrational Hatred.
The last number of years have seen the Middle East descend into violence, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Syria and a humanitarian crisis in Yemen. In Africa, Boko Haram has terrorised northern Nigeria with massacres and mass kidnapping...
read moreWe deserve a better CSC
Several weeks ago, the Central Societies Committee (CSC) voted against a motion calling for Dublin University Gender Equality Society (DUGES) to change their name to Dublin University Feminist Society, warning that such a change could “imperil” the future of the...
read moreConservatives Should Care About the Decline of the Centre Left
In covering international affairs over the past year the Irish mainstream media has almost exclusively focused on the fallout from the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s three ring circus in Washington. You could be forgiven for thinking there was little else...
read moreTrump: A Herald of the New Conservatism
Donald Trump has been the elected President of the United States for a year. As inconceivable as it seemed to his opponents before his election, it is a fact. Their difficulty in coping with it is entirely their problem. What we as European conservatives should be...
read moreEdmund Burke’s Conservative Case for Free Markets
“Of all things, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it.” —Edmund Burke It’s hardly a secret that free markets have fallen out of favor among conservatives...
read moreIrish Media Duplicity and the Halawa Case
DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this article is only to clearly lay out the facts surrounding the Halawa case and to criticise its coverage by the Irish media. Every important piece of information I have stated is numbered and these refer to sources which may be found at...
read moreHalloween: A Bastion of Conservatism in a Modern Ireland
Halloween: Depending on who you ask, it can be described as anything from another commercial holiday, created for the purpose of lining the pockets of a variety of companies, to the day Satan walks the earth, cursing sinners and playing the most hardcore of death...
read moreFree speech, BDS and the Israel Exception
In February this year Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) shut down a speech by the Israeli ambassador organised by the Society for International Affairs (SOFIA). In September, members of SJP who also belong to Trinity People before Profit again demonstrated...
read moreA Halloween Fright in the Abortion Debate
Halloween has descended once more. I sit here at my desk and watch the usual rituals unfold. The same tired old horror movies are rolled out. Somewhat questionable costumes are donned, offending the left with their purported racism and offending the right with their...
read moreState Funding of Newspapers is Fascism
Micheál Martin likes to think of himself as an ideas man. Most of his are bad, many are terrible, but his latest plot to bring the dying print media under state control represents a new low for him, and a giant leap along the road to serfdom. Fianna Fáil’s...
read moreFree Speech has a Cost
A phrase that seems to be growing increasingly popular amongst the regressive left these days is ‘free speech has a cost’, usually followed by a horrendously bastardised version of Karl Popper’s thoughts on the paradox of tolerance, or a link to that bloody XKCD...
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Conservatism and the LGBT Movement
Paddy Manning, Douglas Murray, Milo Yiannopoulos and Peter Thiel. On Thursday 26 October, Aleyde Mangnan spoke at a debate in Trinity College Dublin entitled ‘This House Believes Conservatism is incompatible with the LGBT movement’. This article presents some of the...
read moreThe Built-In Revolution in Free Markets
Indy100, the Independent’s sort of sideshow for the less literate, was delighted with Ryanair’s woes last month. “Theresa May hails the free market hours after Ryanair cancels flights of 400,000 people,” it crowed, the implication obviously being that if the free...
read moreChe’s Irish Postage Stamp and the New, Improved, Postcolonial White Folk’s Burden
"Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child." – Rudyard Kipling, “The White...
read moreIf Education is to be Valuable, it Cannot be Free
Last week, the Union of Students in Ireland brought thousands of students out of their classrooms and onto the streets to demand that the Government increase third-level funding. Many students are under very severe pressure as a result of the existing student...
read moreBless You, Trinity PBP, for Keeping Us Safe From Dangerous Thoughts
This is an open letter of gratitude to the two People Before Profit comrades and the one pair of scissors that bravely strode out into Dublin city on the 26th of September and cut down the posters promoting a talk from rape survivors who chose to give birth to their...
read moreA Letter to “Victimised” Conservatives
It is clear to most that there is a definite bias within academia and the media against all heterodox beliefs, including, but not limited to, conservatism. As time has progressed, the voices on both sides of the debate have become increasingly more polarised, the...
read moreConsidering Cosgrave
Discreet as he was about politics in later years, the record of the late Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and the platforms on which he stood, speak volumes for him. Indeed, his personal conduct and the values to which he fiercely held, could well be a template for a modern...
read moreThe Myth of Angela Merkel’s Germany
In May, Angela Merkel declared that Germany could no longer rely on Germany’s strongest traditional allies - the United States and the United Kingdom. Instead, she confidently asserted that the destiny of the European continent was “in our own hands.” (The irony that...
read moreHuman-Animal Hybrids and The Value of Conservative Caution
“Repugnance is not an argument. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it. Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.” -Dr Leon Kass. Former Chairman of the US...
read moreWomen in Surgery, Humans in Surgery.
Last year, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland set up a working group on Gender Diversity in Surgery. Professor John Hyland, president of RCSI, took to The Irish Times last week to give us an update. In an opinion piece titled We need more female consultant...
read moreIs there Hope for Renua as Ireland’s New Conservative Party?
It was a crisp Saturday morning in January 2014 when I joined almost 1,500 concerned citizens in the RDS for a “Monster Rally” organised by the Reform Alliance. The alliance was formed four months earlier by five former Fine Gael TDs; Lucinda Creighton, Terence...
read moreSo You’ve Decided to Become Conservative…
Actually, you probably haven't. If there is one thing the left-wing consensus may have a point about, it's the fundamental nature of inter-group debate in the modern world; a realisation of the Hobbesian nightmare, played out on battlefields from Facebook to your...
read moreThe Modern Irish Identity that We Want?
There's a strange moment in childhood on this Island where you must learn that you are Irish. I knew it in my own life and got to witness its cycle again in my sister fifteen years younger. "Is Ireland in America?" she asked me, what a bloody question. She in her own...
read moreSocialism has failed, long live Socialism
As the collapse of Venezuela continues, the anguished cries of its people are not half as unbearable as the silence of international apologists for a failed ideology, Michael D. Higgins among them. We can expect much more ill-conduct should our political establishment...
read moreKatherine Zappone and the Cult of Youth
Last week, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, made the following comment: “Young voices must be the loudest in deciding our future.” As partial truths go, surely that is up there with the worst of them. Not only is it an egregiously...
read moreAn Unjust Law and Ascough’s Dilemma
You wanna know what you need to make a basic 12-gauge shotgun? It’s pretty basic stuff. You need a metal tube, 18.5mm wide, and a screw will suffice as a firing pin. For further information go to YouTube and search for the word “slamfire”. I’m sorry to have done this...
read moreTo Turn Back From the Rubicon
Recent years have been a time of great upheaval for the Irish people. The greatest change has been that the cultural and political differences that once revolved around religious and national affiliations have now been realigned along the conservative/liberal fault...
read moreRead this Cartoon and Shut Up, Idiot.
Without a doubt, the most endearing thing about the modern progressive left is the way it thinks that it is the first movement in history to think things that most of us learn from childhood. This is complemented by its almost universal view that the world’s problems...
read moreAustralian Referendum: An Inside Perspective
As I write my first article for this journal, I’m watching the ferries meander around Sydney’s Circular Quay and considering how a loose-lipped drag queen ended up prompting my latest visit down under. In early 2014, Rory O’Neill (aka Panti Bliss) laid into members of...
read moreAre You Liberal or are You Kind of Liberal?
‘I’m a believer of free speech.’ ‘I don’t judge.’ ‘People should be allowed to express their opinions freely...’ This is the current soundtrack to today’s society. It’s quite a beautiful tune, truth be told. To survive the marathon that often characterises our daily...
read moreWhen Even Sports Become Political
If you were hoping to relax and enjoy a nice game of football, beer in hand, chanting the national anthem with your homies to get away from the over-politicised world we now live in, think again. That old flame was reignited with President Trump's comment about NFL...
read moreIran – not ISIS – Must be the West’s Priority in the Middle East
In late June the ancient Grand al-Nuri Mosque, an enormous 850 year old landmark in the center of Mosul, was blown to pieces by the Islamic State. The fiery demise of this priceless historical treasure did not come as a shock to those who are accustomed to the terror...
read morePBP’s Disgraceful Action
It is more than clear that we here at The Burkean Journal have our ideological differences with Trinity’s People Before Profit, as we do with many other students’ societies and communities around the college. We do not dispute PBP’s right to self-expression which they...
read more“Abundistan”: The Perception of Infinite Resources.
Everything, except perhaps human ignorance, is finite. A telling aphorism for sure, but in the matter of economics and governance, ignorance of finite means to meet our ends is the cause of many bad outcomes. Modern politics in the post war era, marked as it is by...
read moreMinister Zappone’s Position of “Not Dictating” Represents a Threat to Civil Society
On Thursday, 31 August, representatives of the Catholic Church in Ireland, including Archbishop Eamon Martin, and the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, met with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and other senior members of Cabinet. The meeting was part of the “structured...
read moreFrom the Editors: Welcome to the Burkean Journal
It is a great pleasure for us to be writing this first editorial of the Burkean Journal and to welcome you all to this project which is no longer just an idea, but a reality. And though we cannot say that with the magazine’s launch we’ll be starting a revolution...
read moreElectability Lost, Principle Regained
The recent controversy surrounding Tory grandee Jacob Rees-Mogg was illustrative of the difficulties which the issue of abortion presents to pro-life people who wish to advance politically, but it also pointed to how such figures can re-assert moral principles which...
read moreA Letter to Western Europeans from Poland
Dear Europeans, Do not be fooled by the ideology of this new utopian neo-socialism highly promoted by the EU which in our opinion, it's pure robbery. It is a product of an old ideology built on violence and thus intolerant of any discussion. For centuries, most state...
read moreAgain… A University is not a Safe Space
In a recent debate at the Oxford Union, Peter Tatchell spoke in support of the motion "A University Should Not Be a Safe Space". The gay rights rights campaigner justified his rejection of such a policy by claiming that it would allow a self selected group of people...
read morePromoting Economic Freedom in Ireland: Challenges and Opportunities
When it comes to economics, we are regularly told by voices on the political left that, since the foundation of the state, Ireland has been dominated by two right-wing political parties and that it is high time that the country’s left unite to put them out of power....
read moreBeing a Populist in an Age of Elite Disdain
The ideology of the elites is now actively opposed to the ideology of the masses. The word populism is now most commonly seen wielded as a cudgel to beat down those people who express views that think to set foot outside the rigidly structured and contained debate...
read moreWe Need a Genuine Abortion Debate in Ireland
Pardon the pun, but I could write this entire article about the misconceptions circling the abortion debate in Ireland right now. Tune in to the mainstream media for even the shortest time and you’ll get the impression that every last women in Ireland is begging our...
read moreReclaiming the History of Irish Catholicism
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, 1984 Every so often, a story about Ireland appears in the international media which makes reference to Ireland’s transformation from a conservative Catholic...
read moreThe Little Mermaid is already feminist
The author Louise O’Neill is to release what is being described as a ‘feminist retelling’ of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. “Fairy tales have a dubious record when it comes to representations of women,” Lauren Fortune, editorial director for the...
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