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| Belfast from a window in the Winchester ward - oil on panel - 24”x24” |
⏩Geordie Morrow is a Belfast artist.
⏩Geordie Morrow is a Belfast artist.
FOwen O'Shea 🔖will see his book on Austin Stack launched in Dublin next week.
Unchanged And Unchangeable: Austin Stack And The Irish Revolution
Venue: Chapters Bookstore, Parnell Street, Dublin
Date: 12-November-2026
Time: 1900
Guest Speaker: David McCullough
Inside Sinn Féin, But None the Wiser
In a lifetime of reading, only two books have seriously tempted me to give up halfway through. The first was Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The second was Siobhán Fenton's account of her time working for Sinn Féin. In both cases, I suspect my expectations had rather more to do with my disappointment than the books themselves.
I bought Fenton's book when it was first released but deliberately put off reading it. I had a holiday coming up and wanted to take my time with it, rather than rush through something I had been looking forward to.
When I finally settled into my seat for a three-hour flight, I opened it with genuine interest. Having spent twenty years in the Republican Movement, I wanted to know whether Sinn Féin had changed much since I left. Had the party changed internally, or had it simply learned to present itself differently? A book written by someone who had worked inside its communications operation seemed a good place to look for answers.
What followed was a long account of the everyday business of political communications. Fenton goes into unremarkable detail about her time working for Sinn Féin. We learn about Mary Lou McDonald's clothes and lipstick, the décor of buildings, press cycles, polling and the arrangements surrounding political announcements. At one point, she even tells us what the choir was wearing at the lighting of the Dáil Christmas tree.
Much of the book is taken up with policy announcements on housing, childcare and other issues, along with detailed explanations of how Sinn Féin tested public opinion and managed the media reaction. We are taken through the mechanics of polling, market testing and press management, often at considerable length.
Fenton also spends a surprising amount of time explaining why she went to work for Sinn Féin. I can understand why a journalist might feel the need to explain that decision. But having done so once, there seems little reason to keep returning to it. I had no particular interest in judging her career choices. I wanted to know about Sinn Féin.
There are also occasions when Fenton repeats Sinn Féin's account of its own history without questioning it. This is particularly noticeable in how the party presents its relationship with the IRA, the peace process and its move into constitutional politics, as though these were all part of a carefully worked-out strategy rather than a series of decisions shaped by changing political circumstances. Sinn Féin has spent years putting its own interpretation on that history. I had hoped Fenton might test some of those claims rather than take them at face value.
Working inside an organisation does not necessarily mean understanding it. Sometimes it simply means becoming familiar with how it wants to be understood. A journalist writing about Sinn Féin should be prepared to question that.
It is not until chapters fourteen and fifteen that the book begins to tell us something about the Sinn Féin I had hoped to read about.
With a general election approaching, the party was struggling to hold together two different groups of voters. There were its traditional working-class supporters, many of whom had stayed loyal through difficult years, and a newer, more middle-class electorate attracted by the prospect of political change.
Sinn Féin was trying to ride two horses, and neither appeared particularly happy with the direction of travel.
At the same time, the party leadership seemed to be losing touch with its grassroots. Mary Lou McDonald appeared increasingly removed from the problems developing around her, while those running the party were busy with polling, public relations and the prospect of entering government.
Here, finally, was something worth reading.
How had a party that once prided itself on knowing its supporters become so distant from them? Had the pursuit of middle-class votes changed Sinn Féin itself? Or had the leadership simply become so used to telling people what they wanted to hear that it had stopped listening to what they were saying?
For years, Sinn Féin had presented itself as the alternative to the political establishment. It was the party that would do things differently. Yet the closer it appeared to get to government, the harder it became for some voters to see what made it different from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
The party that promised to change the system was now working hard to show that it could manage the system.
These were the questions I wanted Fenton to unpack. Unfortunately, much of what she tells us about the internal disagreements comes through unnamed sources and vague references. We are given glimpses of what was happening but little opportunity to understand why.
And just as the book begins to get interesting, we are back to press releases, polling and the daily work of political communications.
Perhaps I expected too much. Fenton worked in political communications, and it is reasonable that she should write about what she knows. There is value in understanding how a modern political party manages its public image. But the public image is not the organisation.
In recounting the circumstances of her departure from the party, Fenton appears to have discovered something many of us learned long ago. Sinn Féin has a habit of eating its own. You are useful for as long as you are useful, and when that usefulness ends, you can quickly find yourself on the outside looking in. In this respect, I have some sympathy for her. Whatever my criticisms of the book, I recognise something familiar in her experience. Indeed, it is perhaps the one insight the book offers that suggests the movement has changed very little in the twenty years since I left.
I spent twenty years in the Republican Movement before leaving. I wanted to know whether Sinn Féin had changed since I left. Was it much the same organisation, only with better suits and a more professional press office?
Having finally finished the book, which took rather more determination than I had expected, I still don't know.
Siobhán Fenton, 2026. Ourselves Alone: Sinn Féin Behind Closed Doors. ISBN-13:978-1844887095. Publisher - Sandycove.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
The Irish state media, RTE, reported that the prominent academic Tom Felle had faked his academic credentials. He has no doctorate and yet was employed by Galway University as a senior lecturer and was lauded as an expert on Fake News. You really couldn’t make it up. Well, Felle could and he seems to be quite the expert on faking it.
We have yet another scandal about low standards in high academic places. Lots of people have been exposed either faking their qualifications or plagiarising. Manaj Kumar faked his PhD from Cambridge and was exposed in 2015.[1] More recently, the chair of the King’s Foundation, Dame Ann Limb, admitted that she never completed her PhD at Liverpool, which was listed on her CV as having been awarded in 1978, nor does she have an M.A. from the Institute of Linguists, because it does not award M.A.’s. She proffered the defence that she had received honorary doctorates from other institutions and that was really why she used the title Dr.[2] Of course honorary doctorates are part of the official academic fake awards. Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and other entertainers have honorary doctorates.[3] Felle is now another one to fake his academic record and get away with it. At the time of writing he was still listed as a senior lecturer on Galway University’s staff list[4] and elsewhere on the site as an Associate Professor, though this may change.
Felle is a chancer and a well-placed and respected one, at that. He has made submissions to the Irish government, worked with the UN and ironically, he has published articles on disinformation. He has been part of the Russians and Chinese are coming rubbish that is so prevalent in the media. He, like many academics marches in step with the EU position on the war in Ukraine and in celebrating an agreement between his university and Ukraine stated that “Democracy relies on informed citizens and a resilient media system.”[5] Just not too informed, it would seem. Felle is as transparent as Ukraine’s accounting practices for EU largesse. He has however, done some good work on actual fake news spread by the Right on migration. That work has now been undermined. It is best to leave the chancer stew in it and not lend any credence to him as his work can now only undermine causes. Though I expect the usual suspects to defend him, as they are part of the system that allows grifters like Felle to climb up the greasy pole, stepping on hard working people who deserve a step up but get passed over for conmen like him.
The other thing that stands out is the lengths RTE had to go to in order to check that he didn’t have a PhD from City St George’s. They filed a Freedom of Information request. The university refused to confirm or deny he had a PhD at all, citing spurious data protection concerns. Felle however, had claimed his PhD was by prior publication which means he presented a shorter thesis along with previous journal articles etc. It is still a PhD, though not the most common route. So RTE asked the university how many such prior publication PhDs had been awarded in the period Felle claimed to have obtained his. Bizarrely, they claimed they didn’t have that information on record. RTE appealed the decision and was eventually told that no such PhDs had been awarded for the period concerned. This is bizarre as the university library has, as is common, online catalogues which include theses by students. I checked them and there are some journal articles by Felle in them, including a submission to the Irish government, but no PhD.
That the university would go to such lengths to protect a chancer is remarkable and tells us a lot about academia. In the debate around Jason Arday, some on the Left who were ensconced in the upper echelons of academia defended Cambridge and Liverpool John Moore’s and demanded we take the universities at their word. That is a foolish exercise.
Political issues now arise around Felle’s work on disinformation and no doubt some on the Right will raise it whenever the Left and NGOs cite his work on racist fake news. In that he has done a great disservice to migrants. It would be best if he kept quiet, but he probably won’t. If your ego is that big to lie about a PhD, you will probably tough it out. The Left should have no truck with this chancer, he will only undermine anti-racist work. His Russians are coming nonsense should also be ignored, though I suspect there are those on the Left who will continue to cite him and if not him, the likes of him.
What now for the university? Its courses and initiatives on journalism and disinformation are tainted, to say the least. A man who faked it till he made it was a key player in it all. It deserves to be ignored as well. I am not sure where Felle stands legally. He got a job that is funded by the public purse by falsifying the record. He should be charged, the state should be reimbursed and he should not be let anywhere near the education sector ever again. And hard questions need to be asked of academia.
References
[1] BBC (01/12/2015) Cardiff college head revealed as PhD fake.
[2] BBC (21/12/2025) King’s Foundation chair and nominee peer admits misleading doctorate claim. Amy Walker.
[3] People (18/09/2024) 18 Celebrities Who Have Received Honorary Doctorate Degrees (Including Taylor Swift, Céline Dion and More!). Skyler Caruso and James Mercadante.
[4] See
[5] University of Galway (02/12/2025) University of Galway partners with Government of Ukraine to strengthen democracy and media education.
[1] BBC (01/12/2015) Cardiff college head revealed as PhD fake.
[2] BBC (21/12/2025) King’s Foundation chair and nominee peer admits misleading doctorate claim. Amy Walker.
[3] People (18/09/2024) 18 Celebrities Who Have Received Honorary Doctorate Degrees (Including Taylor Swift, Céline Dion and More!). Skyler Caruso and James Mercadante.
[4] See
[5] University of Galway (02/12/2025) University of Galway partners with Government of Ukraine to strengthen democracy and media education.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
Under normal conditions, wastewater treatment plants can process these flows provided the combined volume remains within the plant's treatment capacity.
Many treatment plants connected to combined sewer systems are equipped with retention basins designed to temporarily store excess rainfall. Once the rain subsides, the stored water is gradually released for treatment.
However, during prolonged or intense rainfall events, or periods of rapid snowmelt, these systems can quickly become overwhelmed. When both treatment plant capacity and retention basin storage are exceeded, overflow structures discharge a mixture of untreated sewage and stormwater directly into nearby rivers, estuaries, lakes, or coastal waters.
The environmental and public health consequences can be severe. Sewage-contaminated waters may contain harmful bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants, affecting water quality, marine ecosystems, bathing waters, and beach sand. Such contamination can render recreational waters unsafe for public use.
In a recent video, a respected Professor of Microbiology expressed serious concerns that beaches affected by sewage contamination may not always be tested before being declared safe for continued public use. If accurate, this raises significant questions about public health protection and whether beach users could unknowingly be exposed to contaminated water and sand.
Modern sewer infrastructure avoids many of these problems by separating wastewater and stormwater into different pipe networks. Wastewater from homes and industries is directed to treatment plants, while surface water runoff is conveyed separately to rivers, lakes, or the sea. By preventing large volumes of rainfall from entering treatment systems, separate sewer networks significantly reduce the risk of sewage overflows during extreme weather events.
Key Point: Combined sewer overflows are not treatment failures caused by negligence; they are a predictable consequence of ageing infrastructure that lacks the capacity to handle increasingly intense rainfall events. The result is that untreated sewage can be discharged directly into the environment precisely when water quality is already under pressure.
Lady's Bay Waste Water Treatment Plant in Buncrana is a perfect example of this fundamental underlying design fault which has destroyed the town's most important asset.
This important issue should be front and centre for discussion of any proposal to locate a WWTP inside the environs of Lough Foyle when Irish Water and Donegal Co Cl return to Moville in the near future.
This quote (from loser She-Hulk actor Tatiana Maslany) sums up the sheer contempt that a lot of people working in creative arts today have towards their respective mediums, seeing them as platforms for espousing their politics without any thought about creating something everlasting, beautiful or compelling.
It’s all about relevancy these days and the notion of things being "relevant/irrelevant" (boke) fucks me off. To simply dismiss something because it’s not in fashion/doesn’t line up with the current school of thought/isn’t commercially viable is not just the act of a dunderhead, it’s a confession that those doing the dismissal cannot process anything for themselves and need explicit approval from others to enjoy art.
This attitude has been evident for the last 25 years but it’s only since the mid-2010's where politics really began to equal relevancy. Be it climate change, Trump, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Gaza, if artists weren’t in line with the prevailing narrative (or worse, didn’t comment on politics at all) then they were in trouble.
It’s not sustainable, and this timely book from Alexandra Wilson offers us common sense on the topic.
Describing the current landscape, she paints a bleak picture:
We read of curators castigating the very art works they have been charged with looking after for historic sins. We hear of arts festivals being boycotted, either for platforming speakers/ artists of whom other speakers/artists disapprove of, or for taking money from sponsors whose investments are deemed to have failed a strict purity test...artistic spaces have become political battlegrounds, with theatres, concert halls and galleries now the go-to forum for protests about everything from distant war to climate change. What is going on?
Underpinning a now widespread insistence that the arts must constantly attend to politics is the notion that ‘everything is political’. This is an idea with its roots in academic theory, which has entered the mainstream conversation over the last decade. It is voiced not only by outspoken people with a drum to bang on social media or by journalists touting for clicks but also, in some cases, by the very people who run our arts institutions, as the arts find themselves at a strange intersection between managerial bureaucracy and progressive activism. There is no coordinated campaign, yet it is a way of thinking that has taken grip extremely widely in a short space of time.
Throughout the book, Wilson tackles issues related to a self-loathing arts sector that cannot argue for its existence, condescending approaches to the ordinary person, classic works being used as a springboard for the latest fashionable cause and a defence of art for art’s sake.
It’s a worthy topic and Wilson does a fine job in demonstrating how officials perpetuate the idea that art is an elitist hobby in order to try and make it more appealing to the masses by dumbing it down. It’s a genuinely maddening cycle of self-perpetuation. Crucially, she never makes a claim that all art must be devoted to the rehabilitation of the soul but that there should be room for both.
Although not the definitive take on the subject, it’s still a passionate polemic that should be used as a conversation starter when it comes to these issues.
Alexandra Wilson, 2026, Culture Vultures: When Activism Meets the Arts. Polity Books. ISBN: 978-1509571956
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
We had a ghost - a monk with a badly cut tonsure. My colleague and I never saw him, but we repeatedly had the first tourist arriving in (and there is only one way in, past us) coming back and asking "who is the old monk with the cut on his head at the end of the slype?"
The first two times my colleague and I panicked, thinking that we had accidentally locked someone in the previous night, and rushed down there to find there was nobody there - and there is only one way in and out.
It always happened on Tuesday mornings around 10am. I took down details of the tourists in case it was some hoax being perpetrated, with a hotel telling tourists to claim they saw a ghost. The tourists were unrelated, staying in different locations, and often were in the country at different times. They all described him identically.
My work colleague and I never saw him but we noticed that on Tuesday morning the place would be unearthly cold. It was in the middle of a heat wave but we would have to put on our jackets and gloves. Then the cold would suddenly disappear.
The place was cold anyway. We had to wear winter clothes working there, then change to summer clothes to go outside to get something to eat. But this man, about five foot three, with a tonsure and a cut on it, was continually seen by tourists, always in the one spot where a blocked up door was. He'd be looking at the posters explaining the history of the building.
I was fascinated that tourists from the US, Canada, the UK, all across Europe and Asia all saw the man. It was always the first tourist on Tuesday morning who saw him. They all described the same man, and all thought he was a visitor. As I said there was only one entrance. We were sitting there. We knew for a fact the tourist who saw him was the first person in.
We presumed he was a monk who lived and died there and probably was buried there. The two of us there weren't unnerved by him. We never saw him ourselves and presumed he was just someone who lived there and kept coming back to visit a place. The spot he was seen standing in was a blocked up corridors. Monks had been buried a few feet away. The old abbey was demolished centuries ago but the chapter house survived in the middle of industrial buildings and was used as a grain silo. A hole had been cut in the roof to pour in the grain. The hole has since been concreted over.
The chapter house features in Irish history. It was the place where the Lord Deputy and privy council met, and into which Silken Thomas stormed to challenge the Lord Deputy when he wrongly thought his father, Gearóig Óg FitzGerald had been executed by Henry VIII. My work colleague and I used to say "can we not have the ghost of Silken Thomas or a Lord Deputy, rather than just an unknown small monk with a badly cut tonsure?"
Anthony McIntyre ⚽There was little appetite for this final home match of the season.
A clash, with nothing depending on the outcome - Drogheda will still have to win the play off against UCD in Tallaght Stadium this Saturday to stay in top flight soccer - we turned up nonetheless. We didn't take the car this time, or Jay, which allowed Paddy to have a few drinks. First stop, Ollies at the bottom of the steps just short of the main Dublin Road. A shot of Paddy's for me and the black stuff for him got us in the mood to make the walk across the Boyne and onto the next watering hole, the Market Bar. More Guinness for Paddy and a Jameson for me made the bar stools that little bit harder to get out of. As we sipped or slurped the clock hands crept ever slowly up to kick-off time. By the point we stepped outside the Market warmth the ref's whistle had launched proceedings. Drogs v Galway in a dead rubber fixture just didn't have the same pull as the pub but we persevered,
Paddy left his phone in the pub. I rang it hoping it was not irretrievable. The bar staff had it safely tucked away behind the bar. I suggested to Paddy that we return and grab it, but he wasn't fussed, making the very wise suggestion that it would give us an excuse to take up where we left off on our way home. We walked into the ground and despite it being packed we managed to get two seats next to each other.
Then the hip flask came out. For this occasion I had filled it with Famous Grouse, a Scotch blend not of the preferred peated variety. We shared it. Next time we don't take the car, I'll fill two flasks.
The match was about twenty minutes in when we took our seats, with the score at 0-0. We were less interested in the outcome than we were in the final appearance for the club of Ryan Brennan who at the season’s end would be hanging up his boots for the last time. By sheer chance I bumped into his partner, Stephanie, and their daughter, there to cheer their beloved on for one last game. A late substitute, his entry to the fray was met with a standing ovation. He was always a wily player who led from the front while reading the game with the eye of accumulated wisdom.
Drogs fans will always remember him fondly for captaining the side to victory in the FAI Cup final two seasons ago. Then it seemed that a corner had been turned. Six days after the Aviva victory over Derry we gathered at Tallaght to watch the Drogs, again led by Ryan Brennan, demolish Bray Wanderers to keep their place in the Premier Division. Now, the worm has turned and the sudden death battle for survival has to be fought again, this time without the wind of an FAI cup at Drogs backs.
Galway travelled to Louth safe in the knowledge that they would play Premiership soccer in 2027. Five points clear of their opponents going into the game, they knew they could not be caught. They had opened up their campaign against Drogheda back in February but suffered a defeat on their own turf. Another defeat in the their final game of the season reduced the gap to two points but it might as well have been a hundred. The maths simply made it all but impossible for the Claret and Blue. A big win over the Tribesmen had to be complemented by a huge defeat of Waterford by Shelbourne. Neither happened and the play-off grimly beckons.
The Drogs played well in a game where they didn't need to play at all. If only they would play well in the games where they need to they would not be in the precarious position of second from bottom, Sligo the only side with a worse record and destined for the drop. Despite our late arrival we were fortunate enough to see a brilliant long range strike from Brandon Kavanagh in the 35th minute. That lead was doubled in the second half with a fine lob of the keeper by Mark Doyle who had also provided Kavanagh's assist.
It was nice to see the return of Frantz Pierrot to Sullivan and Lambe, only this time turning out for a different tribe. It was even nicer to see his headed effort saved by Fynn Talley.
Game over, I walked across the aisle to bid goodbye to Stephanie and her daughter. As good fortune would have it Ryan came across the pitch to see them both. We shook hands and I wished him well. While he didn't always start in this his final season, when he did his passion and leadership on the field always meant that the Claret and Blue would not be the whipping boy for other teams looking an easy three points.
We walked home from the game, calling into the Market for a swifter and to collect Paddy's phone. He stayed consistent as he did the entire evening, apart from the hip flask, whereas I made yet another swerve, on this occasion opting for Jack Daniels.
Our last call of the night was to my local, The Pheasant. This time it was Jim Beam while Paddy stayed in his lane. We parted company, each of us upright and steady on our feet. We knew we would see each other shortly for a clash we had hoped would never materialise: this Saturday's game against UCD. We'll give the juice a miss this time, building up a thirst for the following day's cup final clash between Derry and a resurgent Waterford. That's an all day session, one we perform routinely every year. If there is a hangover at the weekend it will arrive on Sunday morning courtesy of Drogheda being relegated. I don't get hangovers, so here's hoping it is a tradition that continues.
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