Features

Tinsel treats and tired turkeys: A viewing guide for the Festive Season

Oh, the weather outside is frightful and the fire is so delightful - so why not stay indoors this Christmas and watch telly? Yes, as any true TV buff will know, 'tis the season for the box.. We in An Phoblacht live for this time of year, when we can take a well-earned break from the front line and put our feet up, with nothing but a few drinks, turkey sandwiches, and a wide-screen television to keep us company.

Cracking Christmas reads

As we hurtle headlong into the season of conspicuous overconsumption and overworked livers, former Irish Democrat editor DAVID GRANVILLE delves into his library shelves and consults a few friends to come up with a list recent titles and radical classics to inform, educate, inspire and, at times, even amuse, whatever the season.

The 5th Column

Billy Bell's clanger THE GOODWILL CARD sent out by the Ulster Unionist Mayor of Lisburn, Billy Bell, will have nationalist and Alliance councillors laughing their Christmas socks off. Bill Bell has dispatched a cheesy, full-colour Christmas card with his tartan-clad extended family sprawled all over but, heck, it's Christmas and you can't blame the kids for what Granddad does to embarrass them.

Photo: The Bell family Christmas card

Derrig Renounces Santa & all his works

Despite popular demand, we have, once again, let Derrig back into print at what should be a time of year for peace and harmony among men and women. Regular readers will know that An Phoblacht's resident Glaswegian doesn't do that sort of stuff. So here he is again on his annual anti-Crimbo rant. You should probably turn the page now, but his therapist said that writing this stuff actually helps.

Photo: A Yezidi sweeps out the entrance to the tomb of Sheik Adi at Lalish - male Mrs Doyle doing the needful

Dubliner hitting the right notes

Irish singer/songwriter Damien Dempsey is not new on the music scene. A few years ago, the 27-year-old from Dublin's northside had a hit with Dublin Town, which featured on his debut album, They don't teach this shit in school. Since then, he has become one of the best emerging songwriters in the country. People have been calling him 'the new Christy Moore', primarily because of his passionate and socially and politically aware lyrics, and Moore himself has been keen to promote Dempsey's talent.

Photo: Damien Dempsey at Lisdoonvarna

Ritual battles - Tales from the Christmas trenches

Pagan, puritan, politically correct, religious, Christian, commercialist consumerist... what sort of Christmas are you planning this year? With the festive season already kicked off in offices, schools and homes around the island, ROBBIE SMYTH navigates the competing claims for the true spirit of Christmas.

Countdown to success

You might think that, flushed with the success of the Assembly elections, Sinn Féin is now taking it easy. You are probably imagining that the party's various election candidates are now, like the rest of us, only concerned with what's going to be filling their Christmas stockings. You'd be wrong.

Photo: David Cullinane

How well do you remember what happened in 2003?

Most of these events have been covered in An Phoblacht's pages over the past year. As an antidote to the British queen's speech, strain the brain to see how far you get with what happened in the real world.

Answers to Christmas Quiz

Answers to this year's Christmas Quiz

BOOK REVIEW - Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World

By Mark Curtis, Vintage Books (London, 2003) Price £7.99/€12 War is a continuation of politics by other means, the Prussian military strategist Von Clausewitz once famously said. The Peace Process here would suggest that the maxim also works in reverse, that politics is the continuation of war by other means.

An Spideog

There's a lot more to the wee robin than the odd Christmas card, reports AN DRAOI RUA Deirtear go bhfuil beagnach gach duine i ngrá leis an spideog agus nach ndéanfadh duine ar bith dochar di ar ór na cruinne. Ní bhaintear leis na healaí mar gheall ar Clann Lir ach is cosúil go bhfuil ceangal ar leith ag an spideog orainn nach ligeann dúinn baint léi ach oiread.

Photo: Spideog

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