News Opinion

WINE O’CLOCK: A taste of Italy at bargain prices

By Kilkenny Now 17th May 2019 0

WE eat a lot of Italian food in Ireland. Well, sort of. We eat a lot of pasta and pizza, which is hardly the same thing. That goes for restaurants too. Only China provides us with more ethnic restaurants than Italy, but a lot of so-called Italian restaurants do little more than heat up frozen […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Why England should take a lesson from its football clubs

By Kilkenny Now 15th May 2019 0

FOR the first time, four clubs from the same country will contest the finals of soccer’s two big European tournaments. The success of these Premier League sides has the English media singing Land of Hope and Glory. “Who needs a European super league?” scoffed The Mirror. “We have one already!” The Daily Express said the […]

Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: ‘Abandon this broadband plan before it bankrupts us all’

By Kilkenny Now 8th May 2019 Post a comment

IF you choose to live in the centre of a city there are some problems you will have to contend with. It will be noisy, possibly by night as well as day. If you own a car, you will have trouble parking. You will trip over tourists every time you leave the house. And when […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Decline and fall of a newspaper empire

By Kilkenny Now 1st May 2019 0

THE announcement that Independent News and Media is to be sold to a foreign company created little stir beyond the business pages of the surviving newspapers. None of those papers deemed it the main story of the day and it led no bulletin on radio or television. Twenty years ago – ten, even – there […]

News Opinion

WINE O’CLOCK: Exiles who bottled the taste of Ireland

By Kilkenny Now 26th April 2019 0

FOR a country with no real wine industry of its own, Ireland has contributed a lot to wine production around the world. Much of this is down to a group of wine merchants who fled the country after 1690, following the defeat of the Jacobite cause at the battles of the Boyne and Aughrim. The […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Why it’s hard to beat a good election poster

By Kilkenny Now 24th April 2019 0

GIVEN that we are facing into European and local government elections, plus two referendums on the divorce laws, the phony war has been pretty dull. A couple of cautious canvassers called and I spotted a few early-bird posters from candidates who got around the legal start-date by advertising a public meeting on one issue or […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: Fix the date for Easter and leave the churches to their rambles

By Kilkenny Now 17th April 2019 Post a comment

SO here comes Easter, meandering from March to May like a drunk who can’t find his way home. Late again, I see. I had a vague idea that the dates for this movable feast had something to do with the Jewish Passover and rashly decided to check it out a bit further. I have now […]

News Opinion

MICHAEL WOLSEY: ‘When Britain finally leaves we should shut the EU door and change the locks’

By Kilkenny Now 13th April 2019 0

I WAS in Manchester on the day Theresa May first announced she had secured a deal with the European Union. I recalled the visit this week when the British prime minister reluctantly accepted the offer of a further six months to get that withdrawal agreement through parliament. I had been visiting Irish friends who are […]

News Opinion

WINE O’CLOCK: There’s more to this one than a fat, fancy bottle

By Kilkenny Now 12th April 2019 0

BACK in the Seventies, no trendy home was without a Chianti bottle. Some people even drank the wine, but the key thing was the rotund bottle, known as a fiasco (flask), in which candles could be burned, the accumulated wax giving them an even chubbier shape. Ruffino Chianti was the best known label bottled in […]

News Opinion

KATHLEEN FUNCHION: Dawn of a new era for people with autism and their families

By Kilkenny Now 6th April 2019 0

IT’S been a very good week for those of us who have campaigned for far greater supports for those living with autism. But, far more importantly, the passing of Sinn Fein’s Autism Empowerment motion this week on World Autism Awareness Day marks a significant milestone that will lay the groundwork for a new era of […]